Posted: Jul 21, 08 5:11am

Hi, my name is Dar.

My life is weird.

They should make a reality show about life here at the Casa. No, really.

John and Kate pus 8?

Torri and Dean?

Dog The Bounty Hunter?

They got nothin' on us, man.

It isn't even that all kinds of stuff happens...it is just that the stuff that does...well...it never goes smooth.

So first, thanks for the good wishes on my recent jaw surgery. I was completely unprepared for how this thing kicked my ass.

You know, brain surgery kind of skews your perspective about this stuff. Either that or my brain has become very self absorbed.

Something happens to you...you get injured or sick. Your brain goes "Hmmm...Is this brain surgery?" If the answer is NO, it hits the ignore switch and you carry on. No worries or thoughts about what is going on with your body.

Yes my jaw infection hurt like hell. But with nearly 7 weeks of heavy antibiotics I figured the actual surgery would be no big deal.

That was true in that the procedure itself was pretty straight forward. (If I could figure out how to do it myself I would)

But my jaw did not take kindly to the process. Not at all. There were insanely painful days last week, I can tell you that.

Things have settled enough that I have forsaken the demon percocet. Although things are still very sore and the swelling flares up easily. I guess I have to realise (once again) that my superhero cape is at the cleaners, and that yes, I really do need to take it easy.

The extraction part went dry socket. Wiki that if you have not had the pleasure.

The jaw drilling part seems to have an on again off again swelling.

WTF ever.

IN other news, WE had some type of ground wind cyclonic event this weekend.

I can't call it a tornado apparently. (Even though that is what it looked and sounded like).

Environment Canada has declared such a thing "cyclonic wind event".

So, the weather changed, and it started raining very hard. No big threatening storm (like we often have here) just hard rain. I had the window open in my room as I was reading so I heard the wind pick up, heard the onset of hail, although since it was nowhere near the size of last year's event, I didn't pay too much attention (Brain: "Is it brain surgery?"). Then the winds changed abruptly and I heard a low rumble. (Brain: "wait...I remember that sound...)

*flashback*

Many years ago we took the kids to South Carolina to visit friends. A new place, all excited, we go to check out the local Target and Walmart. (At the time Walmart was something you had only in America)

Oddly enough, the store emptied fairly suddenly. We casually drove home as the skies darkened and thought the deserted streets were a local oddity.

The sound hit us first. A low rumble that got louder and louder almost faster than your mind could register the event. (Brain: "Huh?...)

(Of course that was prior to Brain Surgery so my poor brain had little to compare it with)

The car started rocking and although we never saw it, we saw debris, pulled over just as pieces of roof went flying by.

Apparently a tornado passed through, and the sound was burned into my brain.

So this sound jolted me up, I pulled the blind and saw debris. I opened my mouth to yell when I saw it. The cyclonic event. IT was in the main paddock, taller than the barn, dark and throwing stuff around. I yelled

"Tornado in the Paddocks"

and ran out, popping my head in maystone's room, but she wasn't there, and head into the kitchen where Mays and browncoat were staring out the window. longshadow was coming upstairs asking if everything was ok.

Mays said, I saw the hay from the neighbours field flying by and then there it was.

It took the alpaca pool filled with water and tossed it, as well as the hay feeder, and quick as it was there, it was gone.

The alpacas were all "WTF?"

So that was our big "Ground level cyclonic wind event"

Agenda for today:

Since our washer died (2 weeks after we got a new dryer after it died) we need to locate another. Harder than you might think when you live at the corner of no and where.

A trip to the library to iron out May's internet woes, a trip to the bank to iron out woes in general, and hopefully cleaning (as I did none of that last week). That is for this morning, in addition to the barn chores. This afternoon Suelaine (Another local alpaca breeder) is bringing over her female for breeding. Hannibal successfully bred her other female over a week ago, today he gets to entertain another one. This is our first "on site" breeding so I get to set up the pen and help supervise.

Suelaine would like to try Valentino first to see if he is at all interested, even though he is just a year old. He is so outstandingly lovely she'd like to try. If he is still too young, then she will of course use Hannibal.

This should be funny. Val thinks he is a big boy, but when push comes to shove he still runs to mama (gertie) who will still let him nurse occasionally.

SO big sex plans for this afternoon...plus whatever else the day brings.

Hope all of you have a good day.