Love Roller Coaster

 The past few days have been a little bit of a hectic rush to get one last load of pottery delivered to my stores before Christmas and the last couple of weeks have been a wild ride of virtually every emotion available, hence the title of this post.  Plus, it's one of my all-time favorite songs, whether by the original artists (I think the Ohio Players) or the Red Hot Chili Peppers version.
Anyway, we have all survived so far.  Well, I take that back.  Sweet little Scooter did not.  She died Wednesday night.  I did everything I could think of but it was just not enough.  I think she may have had cancer or some other internal disease because about a year ago I saw where she had passed some....erm...odd-looking things while she was on the roost one night.  Might have been "lash eggs", I have no idea, but she never laid another egg after that and she got fairly sick over the summer but I managed to doctor her through that.  Not so this time.  Some of ya'll may remember she was one of the first little chicks ever hatched here and when she was abut 10 days old one of the older hens managed to get to her, although we had them separated, and rip her head up pretty awful.  I doctored her through that too and she was a little fighter.  We didn't think she would live but she did and did great.  But, sometimes it's just their time.  I like to think she had a happy life here.  I had my hands on her when she hatched and I had my hand on her as she passed.  I hope she knew she was loved.

In much better news though, our former head rooster Mr. George, who was sold to the daughter of a feller I went through school with, won 1st place at the APA show this month!!  Way to go George!!!  I knew he was a handsome fellow and the girl who has him now just loves him.  I'm sure he has a good home and is literally the Cock of the Walk there.

I'm still struggling a little with the anxiety caused by those damn steroids but for the most part I'm doing much better.  My back is healed up and I've been able to go back to the gym for some great workouts.  I think I may also be allergic to milk because after 3 weeks of going without any milk products I'm feeling much less tired these days and less problems with headaches.  I suspect I have bad seasonal allergies too and am going to go back in a few weeks to let them test me for specific allergies.

I think that is all the latest news, good and bad.  Mostly good though.  So, I'm off to clean and decorate now.  I'll try to be back during Christmas but just in case I hope all of you out there that celebrate this season have a wonderful, happy and loving Christmas or a very happy ending to Hanukkah.  Happy Yule!  Merry Solstice and that good stuff!!