I'm in ALOT of holistic type groups on Facebook for both humans & animals. I prefer most of the old ways of different peoples over modern medicine (but will still pop an aspirin, Tylenol, or ibuprofen over finding some willow bark or whatever to chew in a a heartbeat). I've seldom had insurance so doctor visits were always a "bleeding or no breathing" requirement. My profile picture is of my dog Bear, who went missing April 1, 2016. His litter mate, Axle, was always runty, & had a few seizures & parvo within a few weeks of me giving them their puppy wormer. Axle's always been a little "slow" & went wherever Bear went. This was never really a problem as we live in a rural area, where houses are sometimes miles apart. We are surrounded by woods & snakes are an issue, & Bear went after any he saw. Anyway, when he went missing, Axle mourned him. He would go out to the edge of the field & do this bark/howl/cry. Over & over & over. He plastered himself to me. If I went outdoors, he went outdoors & would literally press up to me, looking up at me then out towards the fields & trees. If I went inside, he went inside. For weeks he would only eat if I showed him I was holding his bowl. My playful, entertaining himself boy stopped being himself. About 2 months later, I noticed what I found out were hot spots. Axle & Bear were the result of someone dumping a corgi/corgi mix male & later someone else dumping a husky/husky mix female that I thought I had been spade. (My adult daughter's roommate left their dog & then she in turn brought her to my house. No permission to do so=dumped). Bear looked more husky but Axle looks more collie & corgi. With his thick coat, the hot spot(s) were horrible by the time I could really tell something was wrong. For months I took him to the vet & got him shaved, a medicated bath, & medications, but as soon as we would finish up, his issues would return. I joined group after group & found out some of his issues could be flea & tick treatments so I started doing more holistic things. I changed foods. I then started doing a few things from different groups & he finally stopped itching, & having yeast issues. And then I got lazy & now we're back to square one. I lost one of my part time jobs & could no longer afford regular vet visits. So I delved deeper into holistic methods.
What does this have to do with rutabagas? Well, in one of the groups, LOTS of people were gushing about how helpful a three day rutabega cleanse was for their dogs & cats. One lady even said her dog was greatly helped with it after getting into the trash, eating a plastic bag, & becoming blocked. So I did a three day cleanse for Axle, & he did seem better. I then started feeding him a cooked diet but got lazy & money got tight so I went back to whatever dog food was on sale. And then he got worse & that's where we are now. He just finished a three day cleanse of just rutabega. Now we're on a rutabega with celery cooked in with it cleanse. I also add some cottage cheese to his bowl & a boiled egg, some sardines in water or both. I'll do this until the rutabega is all gone & then its back to a cooked diet.
To do the rutabega cleanse: Cut both ends off & peel the rutabega(s). Cut into small bite size pieces. Put in a pot with enough water to cover & boil over low heat for 3 hours until they turn this orange color. No salt, no butter. I then take a potato masher & kind of mash them. Axle eats his no problem but some people have to add unsalted butter or something for their guys. You swap the rutabega for their regular food & feed them the same amount of rutabega as their food. For 3 days you only give them the rutabega & any medications or supplements you normally give.
Before this, I had never bought a rutabega in my life. At nearly $2 a pound, getting enough for just my dogs for a 3 day cleanse got expensive fast. So I started thinking about maybe growing my own. Now, here in the south, lots of people grow turnip greens & will occasionally use turnips in their turnip greens. I don't see people buying just the turnips but they sell them so I guess they do. I've never heard anyone mention rutabega but I do notice sometimes the grocery stores have them.
Here's a stock photo showing the difference between a turnip & a rutabega. People get these confused & often think they're the same.
Here's a fact sheet from the University of Arkansas Extension:
Here are some links for pet owners just in case anyone is interested. These aren't necessarily about rutabegas specifically but are about pet health & detoxing.
https://wearethecure.org/8-sup...
https://www.chagrinfallspetcli...
https://www.naturalawakenings....
https://thenaturalpetdoctor.co...
This link answers the question "Can dogs eat rutebaga?"
https://outfitters.com/health/...
Here are a couple that talks about the health benefits for humans, including cancer:
https://www.nature-and-garden....
https://drake.com/nutrition/ru...
Found more information & a few recipes on the Old Farmer's Almanac site:
https://www.almanac.com/plant/...
If I'm understanding the chart at the following site, it says grow 5-10 plants per person. That seems awfully low to have enough rutabagas for all year.
https://harvesttotable.com/veg...
https://morningchores.com/vege...
This is the third time I've been in Facebook jail that I realized that was what its called. Since I have a gardening group there & am in several others, this is an inconvenience but not life changing for me. Its just stupid to me what they consider going against their community standards. The first time, someone posted a conversation between them & someone they traded or sold/bought a plant from. The other person wrote GTFOMF & this person didn't know what it meant. (FYI: get the f out my face). Some people were laughing about it. I made a joke. Which got flagged.
And got flagged again when in another group people were talking about the stupid reasons for going to FB jail.
This time was for a comment I made on this thread after watching a video. The video was about a young girl with Downs Syndrome who loved unicorns. Her mom bought her headphones with unicorns on them & the girl loved them. But 3 girls started bullying her & telling her unicorns were for babies. The girl gets upset & the mom makes a post asking people to post pictures or videos with unicorn stuff. And they do. And its just a nice ending because she's popular & the 3 bullies aren't. So I made this comment & that's why I'm now "in jail" for 3 days.
I saw a YouTube video of a propagation station made from Dollar Tree items & wanted to try making my own. In the video, the base was painted white but I decided to paint it silver to match the lids on the jars. The base is one of those compartment storage things for cosmetics or whatever. The Dollar Trees around me do not carry the little jars so I have to order them or get people to look in their stores.
I spray painted the bottom, let that dry & then spray painted the top. I used 2 or 3 coats. I also sprayed a sealer on it.
I've also taken things from thrift stores & paired them with matching glassware to make a couple:
This one is heavier.
Even the glassware is heavy with this one:
I will either try to sell these or use to trade for plants I'd like to get.
The mechanic thought at first it was the thermostat so he put a new one on. Wasn't that. Then he got to looking & thought it was the water pump & radiator. Doesn't think it's the water pump but the radiator seems to have some piece missing. He also mentioned the timing chain & heads. So who knows.
I tried to start one of those GoFundMe accounts only it wasn't GoFundMe, it was the one that's Christian based. But I'm tech stupid & couldn't figure everything out😬. I have no clue if its posted or not😂. So, we just took out a loan for $2000. It was frustrating at first because the bank needed both of us but my husband doesn't go out unless its for appointments (& then I have to push him to do it). The people's vehicle we are catching rides from is nasty & disgusts me so he REALLY refuses to get in it. We use the excuse of his oxygen tanks & covid as reasons to not get him out. But the bank worked with us & I went back & forth to the bank, carrying paperwork for his signature. Since the mechanic is an hour away He had suggested using something called CashApp but the bank didn't recommend that. So I told the mechanic we couldn't get the app to load on our phones & sent a cashier's check through the mail. He got it Saturday & has ordered the parts🙌 so hopefully those will be in by the end of this week.
I don't mean to sound unappreciative or petty but I hate how these people are doing. They live with a friend because her car needed repairs, she needed a ride, & they needed a place to live. She said they have dropped her off 2 hours before she had to be at work & didn't pick her up until 5 HOURS after she got off. When I tell them I have errands to run, its going to take awhile, but if you pick me up about 10 a.m. that will give me time to do everything before you have to pick up the husband. Nope. It's 2 or 3 hours later. And then I'm rushed. Hurry up, hurry up. I get in the vehicle....& wait for her to get off her phone. I say, "Thought you were in such a hurry?" In the past, I have driven an hour to pick her up & not ask her to put gasoline in my vehicle, but every single time I get in her vehicle, "Oh no my gas light just went on" So I'll put $10 in but it is SO frustrating!!! Hopefully we won't have this to deal with too much longer.
Bare with me....this is going to be long.
Last week, on the way home from taking my sister to have her port flushed, my car overheated. We had looked around a bit at a couple thrift stores, a couple plant nurseries, & stopped at a drive thru (because the lobby was closed) for something to eat. So it was 7 or 8 p.m. At a few stops I had left the car running because my nephew didn't want to go in & it gave us a chance to charge our phones. I did do a lot of gunning I guess to change lanes on the interstate & a few times I was on those exits you come off of but further down its another exit, which are horrible when it's 3 lanes of vehicles rushing & changing lanes. A light came on the dashboard that said the A/C was turned off due to high engine temperature (or something similar). So I turned the A/C off as I'm looking at the dashboard & see my temperature gauge is at the hot point. So I immediately look in my mirror & change lanes until I've taken some exit. We sit there & the gauge goes down almost to where it was before our trip. So I pull back onto the road & go just a few feet & it goes back up. So I pull over onto the grassy part where a church is. We have no idea where we are, what street we're on. So we Google the name of the church & the muffler shop next door. We don't know what to do. Nothing's open, we aren't sure where we are, we aren't sure about the neighborhood we're in, & we're an hour from home & not sure how we are getting home. I call my husband but there's not much he can do, at home on oxygen & I'm in our only transportation. My sister calls another of her son's since he lived in the Shreveport/Bossier City area for several years before moving. His dad came to see if maybe I just needed coolant (I didn't) & tried to give it a look over in the dark with nothing but a flashlight & a overhead street light. After moving the car into the church's parking lot, he gave us a ride to Minden. He couldn't give us a ride all the way because he had to be up early for work the next day. So we were able to get our uncle to come get us & carry us the rest of the way home. The nephew gave us the name of a guy who works on vehicles & that's where its been for the past week. At first he thought it was the thermostat but after putting a new one in, its not that. Then he thought it was the water pump & radiator. Its not the water pump but it is the radiator. It's also something to do with the heads. It is going to cost about $2000 to fix. This is in addition to needing transmission work as the transmission is slipping really bad & does this jerking not long after you start driving it. We will be using the money we had put aside to pay someone to fix our riding & push mowers, to pay someone to bushhog our yard, to buy a weedeater, & pay our property taxes. Everything we have & it's still no where what we need. With no ride, I've given my hours to someone else so my income just took a nosedive. To say I've been depressed is an understatement. I look at the empty driveway & it's depressing. I look at the yard, with the grass as high as your thighs in some places (I'm not kidding) & it's depressing. It is also scary because I can't see if there's a snake when I go outside or I let the dogs out.
This is going up the side of the driveway.
Front door
I don't believe I've ever been so low, so depressed, so angry, so hopeless. I would have all these emotions & just start crying. Its like I didn't know how to deal with all the influx of data I was getting.
I've been reading a daily devotional written by Oswald Chambers. I haven't read it in several days so yesterday (September 25) I decided to see what it said:
Yesterday's
And today's (in case you're interested):
Each one of these had a word or two that just struck a cord in me. Made me feel a tinny tiny better. And then a man from church, one of my Facebook friends, posted a Scripture verse.
JEREMIAH 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you & not to harm you, plans to give you hope & a future.
This verse had a huge impact on me so I did what I always do - I read it again in my study Bible. I also read the verse before & after this verse so as to see the context. Here is the study Bible's explanation of that particular verse:
JEREMIAH 29:12-14
(12)Then you will call on me & come & pray to me, & I will listen to you. (13) You will seek me & find me when you seek me with all your heart. (14) I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "& will bring you back from captivity [Or, will restore your fortunes].
The study Bible's explanation for these verses was this:
The Lord would restore his people when they turned back to Him & sought Him with all their hearts. There could be no restoration without true repentance. Those who earnestly seek God anywhere & everywhere will, in time, cultivate the sacred art of meeting Him at every crossroad & of feeling His breath in every wind. Through pain & victory, each new step will help them come to know Him better.
I believe that it isn't just the hardships & experiences we have that are God's teaching tools. I believe it is also how we handle those experiences & hardships. How we act & how we react.
Nothing has really changed. The grass is still overgrown & the yard still looks terrible. The car is still in Shreveport, an hour away. We still have no idea how we are going to pay for it or how we're going to get Kenny here & there when needed. When I can go back to work my regular days. But it's like a huge burden has been lifted, & at least for now, I feel like everything's going to be ok.
