Nothing Says "Merry Christmas" Like a Trip to the ER

Well, That Was Fun—NOT!

Let’s back up a bit.

The day before Christmas, my back started hurting. I wasn’t doing anything heroic or even mildly athletic. I was standing at the kitchen counter peeling apples for apple crisp—hardly an extreme sport—when wham! My left lower back decided it had had enough of holiday cheer and would be checking out early.

Standing upright became a painful suggestion. Sitting or lying down helped, but being vertical was apparently optional now. This put a noticeable damper on the whole “joy to the world” thing.

That evening we went to my daughter’s house and stayed overnight, returning home Christmas Day. And when I say stayed overnight, I use the term loosely. I’m not sure how much actual sleeping happened on my part.

At home, Jim and I have officially joined the ranks of old married people with separate sleeping quarters. Let me be clear: I love Jim. What I do NOT love is how he sleeps.

His nightly routine includes full-body jumps, leg twitching, snoring, farting, and mumbling. Not even useful mumbling. Nothing you can understand and later use for blackmail. Just vague, conversational noises that strongly suggest he’s deeply engaged in negotiations with someone who does not exist.

All of this was present as we shared one bed in my daughter’s guest room. To make matters worse, Jim is not accustomed to having anyone within arm’s reach, so several times during the night he rolled over and I either got clunked in the head or discovered an elbow in my already unhappy back.

Christmas morning arrived with the back pain still intact and my sleep tank hovering somewhere near empty. That combination tends to make a person mutter “Bah, humbug” with genuine conviction.

The backache stuck around all weekend. I planned to call the doctor Monday morning, but we were hit with a nasty ice storm and probably couldn’t have gotten there anyway.

Then Monday evening things took a turn. I noticed blood in my urine. Well… that’s definitely not in the instruction manual.

So off to the ER we went, sliding carefully through the storm like sensible people who had clearly angered the universe. They did a CT scan. They tested my urine. They poked. They prodded. They looked thoughtful.

And then… nothing.

No kidney stone.
No infection.

But they did give me a shot of Toradol and a muscle relaxant. And let me just say—can I have more of that, please? It didn’t take the pain away entirely, but it was so much better that I briefly considered asking if I could just live there for a while.

Instead, they scratched their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and sent me off into the dark and stormy night with a prescription for Flexeril and instructions to call my doctor's office in the morning for a follow-up.

This morning, I did exactly as instructed. The soonest appointment I can get is ten days from now. Good thing this isn’t an emergency. 

So now I wait. Ten days. Armed with Flexeril, a heating pad, and the knowledge that my body has apparently entered its “surprise malfunction” era. I’m not a pessimist, but a lot could happen between now and then—just sayin'. I mean, entire empires have fallen faster. I’ll hang on, since I don’t have much choice, and hope the Flexeril works whatever quiet miracle it’s capable of.

If nothing else, this whole experience has reminded me of one important holiday lesson:

Christmas miracles might be real.
But apparently, timely medical appointments are not.

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©2025 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Lambing Season — Not Everyone Speaks Farm

I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday to discuss my right ankle, which has officially crossed the line from “annoying” to “needs a complete replacement.” Before that can happen, I need a CT scan so they can manufacture the correct part—which makes me feel less like a patient and more like a vintage piece of farm equipment. The kind where someone squints, sighs, and says, “Well… we’ll have to make one.”

Originally, this was all supposed to work.

If things had gone smoothly, I would have had the CT scan done in mid-November, the replacement surgery scheduled for mid-December, and enough recovery time—not perfect, but sufficient—to be back in the barn by lambing season in April. That was the plan. A reasonable plan. A farmer-approved plan.

Which is exactly why Murphy took an interest.

The problem wasn’t my orthopedic specialist. My team at Concord Ortho has been right on their game from the start—orders sent, follow-ups made, timelines explained clearly. If competence were hay bales, they’d have the barn stacked to the rafters.

Radiology, however, had other ideas.

For over a month, Concord Hospital Radiology insisted they had never received the CT order. This was after the doctor’s office resent it at least half a dozen times. Each time, the response was the same: Nope. Nothing here.

Eventually—through what I assume was divine intervention or exhaustion—Radiology received the order and an appointment was finally scheduled for mid-December. I drove all the way there, right on time, only to be informed that their machine was down and they couldn’t do the scan.

“Oh,” they said cheerfully, “you should have been called.”

That would have been useful information.

But there was no phone call.
No voicemail.
No text.
No missed call.
No carrier pigeon.
No smoke signal drifting over the parking lot.

Nothing.

At that point, Murphy wasn’t just involved—he had clearly taken over scheduling.

Because of those delays, the earliest I could now have surgery would be the end of January. And that’s too close to lambing season. Not enough recovery time. Not enough margin for error. Not enough ankle to bet the farm on.

So now the plan is to limp along until next November, get the CT scan then, and schedule surgery for next December—not because the sheep are finished with their annual reproductive rodeo (though that description still stands), but because December is when they move into their winter paddock. That’s when chores settle down, routines tighten up, and farm life begins to resemble something that could loosely be described as normal—assuming such a thing exists on a farm.

The doctor gave me a corticosteroid injection to buy me some time and wanted to see me back in three months. I asked for four.

“Lambing season,” I said.

The woman at the scheduling desk stared at me like I’d just referenced a minor holiday she’d somehow missed her whole life. She had absolutely no idea what I meant.

So I explained. I have sheep. And yes, I did carefully time when I put the ram in with the ewes, which means lambing isn’t a surprise—it’s a window.

Unfortunately, that window lasts about a month.

And during that month, it is best not to plan anything. No trips. No appointments. No commitments that require being more than ten minutes from the barn. Because if I do, if I schedule a doctor’s appointment three hours away, I can guarantee that someone will go into labor just as I’m backing out of the driveway.

This is not superstition.
This is Murphy’s Law.

And I am convinced Murphy was a farmer.

Who else would arrange a torrential rainstorm precisely when you’ve got a hay field cut, dried, and ready to bale? Or schedule lambs to arrive the one morning you’re wearing clean, socially acceptable church clothes? Or injure a sheep just as you’re headed to your cousin’s wedding where you are the maid of honor and already running late?

Murphy doesn’t visit farms.
He lives there.

Now, Katahdin sheep are known for being easy birthers and good mothers, and most of the time they live up to the brochure. More often than not I walk into the barn in the morning and find two lambs tucked into a corner, dried off, well fed, and deep into a milk-coma nap while their mother is at the hay feeder pretending she didn’t just perform a miracle overnight.

But these are first-time mothers, and first-time anything comes with a learning curve. A lamb can get stuck. A ewe can look at her newborn and think, Well, that’s interesting, and walk away. Twins can arrive, and she might decide only one of them belongs to her—like an accidental buy-one-get-one she never intended to redeem.

Is that likely? No.
Is it possible? Absolutely.

So I need to be available. I need to be mobile. I need to be able to respond quickly to situations that begin with, “Well… this isn’t ideal.”

Eventually, the woman at the desk nodded.

“Oh,” she said. “So… babies.”

“Yes,” I said. “Babies who wait until you’ve made other plans.”

She smiled and scheduled my follow-up for the end of April instead of the end of March.

Which was the right call.

Because Murphy doesn’t care about calendars, medical specialists, or carefully engineered ankle replacements. He only cares whether things were supposed to work out—and whether he can prove, once again, that you should have known better.

He just waits until everything is lined up, pats you on the back, and says, “That’s cute. Now watch this.”

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©2025 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Family-Friendly Shakespearean Insults Guide

I’ve mentioned now and then that I occasionally invent—or mutter—
words I wouldn’t have said in front of my grandmother. Let me clarify that before anyone faints into their sweet tea. I don’t use profanity. I don’t like profanity. And I firmly believe the English language already gives us far more imaginative ways to add color to our vocabulary without dragging the paint bucket through the mud.

Now, I’m not judging anyone who does let fly with the four-letter fireworks. If that’s your brand of spice, have at it. Whatever keeps your boat afloat and your blood pressure regulated. I love you anyway. But for me? No thanks. I prefer my “colorful language” with a bit of creativity—and ideally a little flourish.

Some folks use the f-bomb so often it’s less of a word and more of a nervous tic. Several times in one sentence, even. At that point, it’s not vocabulary—it’s a cry for help.

That said, taking the scenic route around profanity instead of sounding like a longshoreman hasn’t always been easy. Years ago, I came this close to unleashing an expletive-laced tirade at my now ex-husband. My three kids were in the next room, and I didn’t want to taint my image as the calm, civilized parent—so in the heat of the moment I blurted out, “You, you… you sanctimonious pig!” Hey, it was the best I could come up with on short notice. But it did stop the argument cold—he looked at me like, ‘What does that even mean?’ and then just walked away. Frankly, I’m still a little proud of it.

Years later, I stumbled across a Shakespeare Insult Kit. It was a beautiful thing: three tidy columns of fantastically ridiculous words that, when combined, produced an endless parade of majestic, Elizabethan-style verbal zingers. 

The real reason I wouldn’t have said any of them in front of my grandmother wasn’t because they were rude, or crude—it’s because the poor woman wouldn’t have understood a single syllable. She’d have stopped me mid-tirade, asked what on earth I was talking about, and I’d have spent the next ten minutes explaining myself. And once you have to explain a joke—or an insult—it loses that bit of spontaneous sparkle that makes the moment worth having in the first place.

So here's a few examples to get you started. If you want the complete list, just email me (use the contact form, or PM me on FB). I'd be happy to share.

GRANDMA-APPROVED INSULTS FOR EVERYDAY USE

(Choose one item from each column to assemble your insult.)

Column A	Column B	Column C
Thou art a	fusty-muzzled	clodhopper
Get thee gone, thou	hay-snuffling	beetle-nosed knave
Listen here, thou	barn-addled	turnip-toting rascal
Mark my words, thou	thistle-brained	fence-leaping scallywag
I say, thou	muck-dabbling	chicken-startling varlet
	whey-witted	beet-brained gaffer
	goat-bothering	dung-dodging loon
	bramble-shanked	pasture-pillaging rogue
	rustic-minded	cud-chewing miscreant
	wool-gnawing	manure-minded scamp

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Why Am I Not Surprised?

There comes a point in farm life—somewhere between your first escaped goat and your fifth chicken with a death wish—when you realize you’ve stopped being surprised. And I don’t know if that means I’ve become “seasoned,” or if I’ve just finally been broken in like an old barn boot that hasn’t felt dry socks since the Bush administration.

Either way, when I walked down the driveway the other day and found a dead deer in Gus’s dog pen, my first thought wasn’t panic or shock or even, “Oh no.”

It was simply:
“Of course.”

Because when you live where I live, on the farm I live on, with the creatures I’ve been blessed—or strategically selected by the universe—to manage, there are no normal days. Only episodes.

It started with a walk down our long driveway to get the mail. Some people go to the mailbox and come back with adorable stories about cardinals and neighborly hellos. I, however, go to get the mail and come back to find a dead deer, and a dog acting like he just won The Price Is Right.

Picture it: three inches of fresh snow, crisp air, and that deep, magical hush that settles over the world after a gentle snowfall—the kind of quiet that makes you believe, just for a moment, that the day might actually behave itself. As I was shuffling through the snow I was soaking in the peace like some kind of backwoods Zen master… when the universe decided to interrupt.

There it was. A lump. A large, foreboding lump. A large, foreboding lump that wasn’t moving.

Now, a farm woman knows lumps never indicate anything good. There has never been a lump that turned out to be chocolate. Or cash. Or a neighbor returning a borrowed tool. No. Lumps mean trouble. Lumps mean work. Lumps mean God is testing your patience again because apparently you passed the last test and He wants to see what you’ll do next.

I squinted—the official old-person squint that makes you feel like a wise
elder even though all it really does is add forehead wrinkles—and thought, "Dear Lord, that lump has legs. And brown fur."

I walked closer. Still legs. Still not moving.

At this point my brain whispered, “Just turn around. Go back to the house. Pretend you didn’t see it.” But noooo. Something in me—the same farm-girl foolishness that thinks, “What’s the worst that could happen?”—pushed me onward.

And there it was. A deer. A dead deer. In Gus’s pen. Just lying there like she was waiting for someone to bring her a blanket and a cup of herbal tea.

Meanwhile, Gus greeted me with the casual innocence of a toddler sitting next to a suspiciously broken lamp. “Oh hey, Mom. Fancy seeing you. Don’t mind the, ummm… scenery.”

There was no blood in the pen. None on Gus. None on the snow. No signs of a chase, a scuffle, or a canine crime scene.

I’ve watched enough CSI episodes to know that means one of two things: 

Either she died somewhere else and this is a body dump (which is impossible, because Gus couldn’t have dragged her through the fence) or she was injured somewhere else, probably hit by a car, then ran down the driveway on pure deer adrenaline, launched herself over a four-foot fence (still incredible, but miles more plausible), stuck the landing like she was competing in the Farm Olympics, High Fence Division—took one look around and thought:

“This looks like a decent place to wrap things up.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

Gus didn't have a hair out of place. Not a speck of blood. That dog graciously waited until she was fully, officially, undeniably dead before helping himself to a polite nibble on her back legs—actually quite a few nibbles. Honestly, for a livestock guardian dog, that’s respectful dining etiquette. He probably paused to say a prayer of thanksgiving that a full-sized adult deer had dropped into his pen like manna from heaven.

At this point I’m convinced the wildlife around here had a group chat:

“Hey, dare you to die at Sandy’s place.”
“No way.”
“Bet you won’t.”
“Here, hold my antlers.”

Meanwhile, hunters in town are out there in $500 camouflage, freezing in treestands for weeks, whispering to each other like they’re on a military mission. Me? I go check the mail and find fresh venison delivered straight to my dog’s personal dining room.

Of course I took pictures (but I won't show you because this is still a family friendly blog). These days, if there’s no photo, people assume you imagined the whole thing due to dehydration or low blood sugar. And frankly, this situation had just enough absurdity that even I needed proof it wasn’t a hallucination brought on by winter chores.

So there I stood: mail in one hand, camera in the other, Gus licking his chops, deer peacefully deceased, and me wondering exactly when I crossed the threshold from “shocked” to “resigned.”

The deer is gone now. Jim dragged it out, cut it up, and put it in the freezer for dog food. Gus is extremely proud of himself. (Too proud, if you ask me.)

And my peaceful walk to the mailbox turned into an episode of CSI: Back Forty—Special Livestock Unit.

So why am I not surprised?

Probably because I live on a farm.
Probably because I’ve seen too much.
And definitely because if something bizarre, unexpected, inconvenient, or downright baffling is going to happen…

it’s going to happen here.

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©2025 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm