roostering, doctoring

well today we have to go roostering.   everyone is always trying to give use animals since we live 25 miles from town and have ten acres.   for my birthday two of my pediatric patients gave me 6 chickens. after a few weeks two of the chickens began crowing.   now they are fighting with or main rooster "red".  they are fighting a loosing battle. the chickens-we have about 12-are the biggest loosers.   now they have three roosters as their beaus.
they are getting wore out.    this am before sunrise we have to sneak in the coop and capture the two new roosters so she can take them to their new owners at the nearby feed store. there will be feathers and dust every where as we wake them all up.  they probably will think a skunk or raccoon has broken into their home.
red will be happy now that he has no competiton.    red also was suppose to be a chicken.

today am working on my barn roof.  we have a 1200 sq ft pole barn whose roof was put up wrong.
am taking the roof off in segments so that i can reinforce it.  am adding more cross beams and replacing all the wood that the metal roof screws into.   am on my 2nd of 5 sections that i will be doing.   have converted one of the sections into a potting shed.      will start on the roof this am at 4:00 because it is so darn hot here now .

our solar panels are on our barn roof. we generate about 30% of our electricity.  we love to watch the electric meter run backwards in the day time. am reinforcing the roof as we plan to add more solar panels later.

we have rain water as our only water system. we have 30000 gallon capacity. we use 20000 for house use and 10000 for irrigation.  everything with a roof has a water tank attached to it. we are down to 10000 in our home system and 5000 in our irrigation system.   this is our 5th year to use rainwater and so far even with one of the worst droughts in 50 years we have not run out of water.
we conserve water use in the house and use native low water use plants.
once you use rain water no treated water or well water is good enough.

at work(in a 6 person family practice clinic which is part of a larger medical group) am doing mostly preschool  exams and sports physicals.  this will intensify as we get closer to school starting.   we are giving tons of immunizations now. all kindergartens have to have all of their shots.    the 7th graders also have to have tdap-the tetanus with  whooping cough shot- and the menactra-the meninngitis shot.  am trying to get the girls to get the new hpv shot.   (have just finished reading book called hela-the story of the patient that the hela cells used in research were obtained from and from which the discovery that the hpv virus causes cervical cancer)

while doing a well child exam on a 9th grader reviewed his past history after noticing a huge scar on his abdomen and chest.   he had a diaphramatic hernia where the intestines liver spleen stomach all are developing in the chest replacing the lungs. he had his left lung not develop well.  it was just a nub.  he spent weeks after birth in an intensive care unit.   he was hooked up to a heart-lung machine called echo so that his blood could get enough oxygen.   when stable enough he had surgery where they put the abdominal contents back into the abdomen and close the defect in the diaphragm.  this all worked. he had a rough first year.
his left lung developed more.
now 15 years later he is healthy-mom says he is healthiest of three children.

one of my former colleagues just had a baby with the same problem.  they are now 2 months into intensive care.  he is doing ok considering that the parents were told he probably may not survive after he was born.
sent her the story of my patient who had done well.  she found the story very reassuring and gave them more hope for the future during a time when they were not sure about his future.

organicgreen doctor