David Allen Kimsey, 2001-2012

How fast things can change.   Just a few days ago I wrote of the optimism we had in getting David some successful treatment and how well he seemed to be responding to steroids.  And now... he's gone.  Just like that.  From his obituary:

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David Kimsey, age 11, died Monday, May 28, 2012 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Funeral services will be held at 2:00 PM on Friday, June 1, 2012 at the First United Methodist Church in Clayton, New Mexico with Eric Armstrong, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Des Moines, officiating. Burial will follow in the Grenville Cemetery by Hass Funeral Directors of Clayton.

David Allen Kimsey was born on April 10, 2001 in Raton, New Mexico to Bryan Allen Kimsey and Georgia (Zentner) Kimsey. His life was full of physical challenges starting with a double hernia as an infant. Shortly thereafter, he was identified with severe anemia which remained undiagnosed in spite of the best efforts of the University of New Mexico’s Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado. He started on a steroid program in December 2011 and seemed to be responding well to such treatment. Early in the morning of May 28, however, he complained of a severe headache and fell unconscious. A LifeGuard flight to Albuquerque was of no avail and he left us in the early evening.

In spite of his frail physical condition, David was full of life. He traveled by Amtrak with his father to Washington DC where they spent several days touring the Smithsonian museum. He was proficient and safe with both guns and bows, was a good mechanic, and could drive a T-head screw. He went camping, to bluegrass festivals and to an archery shoot. He loved listening to music, especially to fiddler Natalie MacMaster whom David saw in concert a few days before he was born and then 8 days before his passing. Two years ago, David got involved with 4H and loved it, especially when he graduated to building rockets which he did all by himself. When David set out to do something, he was determined to do his best. He was a very proficient reader, was amazingly adept with his beloved iPad and was well-known for engaging conversation. His last evening with his earthly family was spent playing games with his siblings and then playing music on his new drum set with his mother and father, a moment they will cherish forever.

David will be sorely missed by all who knew him. David seemed to touch the heart of every person he met. We can only thank God and consider ourselves blessed to have been a part of his life. We trust that David is safe in the hands of his Heavenly Father, perfectly healed of his infirmities.


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I only now realize just how much I loved the kid and how big of a place in my heart he occupied.  When I look back over this blog, I realize that it really was about David.  There were some falcons here and there, ranch work at times, but in nearly every post was David.  David was not just my son, he was my great friend.  I will miss him.  Go with God, little man.  We love you.

Addendum:  I wrote this blog entry the day David died.  A few days later, I wrote this one:
Blessed Be The Name of the Lord, in which I described some of the amazing events that happened prior to and after his passing.  It remains a post to which I have come back to many times for comfort and reassurance on dark days.

May I?

May's about done and gone and it's been a busy moth... er, I mean "month"... I really do.  Month, month, moth....whatever.  The moths from last month are mostly gone now but they had a good run of 2-3 weeks in which hundreds of them got into the house every night.  In May, we got our full load of cattle in and that took some time get them all settled in and various little problems fixed. It's rained a bit in May and it looks pretty decent out there.  The last 2 weeks have been dry, but we typically don't get rain until June anyway and I'm optimistic that our current dry spell will serve mostly to kill locoweed.  Rain will come.

I'd like to discuss trucks now.  Here's my main "ranch truck", a '97 Ford F250 Super Heavy Duty 4WD:

Hard at work!

We bought this truck new in '97 and for the first 10 years, I hated the thing.  It was rough and bouncy and just a very unpleasant thing to drive.  Then in '08, when my mother and I took over the ranch, one of the first things we bought was a flat-bed for the Ford.  I tell you what.... that _totally_ transformed this truck.  It's still rough and bouncy, but not quite so much.  The main thing, though, is that the truck is 100% more useful. No more climbing over the bed to get to stuff.   I can arrange my tools and supplies all around the bed and get to them, easily.  I can even load an ATV up the side of the truck while I have trailer on the back.  It has a stout bumper hitch and built-in gooseneck.  While putting the flat-bed itself on, I had trailer brakes installed and now, finally, we have a real working ranch truck.

From the rear

We're in full Fencing Mode here

Behind the seat- more junk!

I will say one good thing about this Ford- it's been very reliable.  It has 95,000 ranch road miles on it and the only issues I've had have been a failed water pump.  We replaced the front end steering stuff several years ago and I've done brakes once.  The driver's side door internals are loose and there's a crack developing under the "truck window".  That's it.  That's really pretty impressive for a truck that gets pounded around like this one.  The CEO asked if we were ready to replace the truck, but really, it's well suited for the job now, I know it, and it's reliable so I voted to keep it awhile longer.

Two Troopers

Speaking of reliable vehicles, on the right here is a 1980 Toyota pickup that I got brand-new upon graduation from high school.  I drove it from 1980 to about 1988 when my mother took it to use as "storage" vehicle, as she was beginning work in Turkey and just needed something when she returned once a year or so.  I bought a 4WD 1980 Toyota then that had seen far better days and we also owned a Subaru Legacy that was our main driver.  This pickup sat in a barn for most of the next 10 years until we returned to the ranch.  At that time, I moved it out here.  We don't do much with it now except drive it to the mailbox, around the ranch, and that sort of thing.  It has 170,000 miles on it, the engine oil is still clear when I change it 2x a year, it starts great, and runs pretty good considering it's never had any major engine work.  It's surprisingly smooth and powerful.   Two years ago I bought a Suzuki Samurai, thinking that I'd use it for coyote hunting, hawking, and running around the ranch:

1987 Suzuki Samurai

Just too narrow!

After sinking $1500 in suspension, exhaust, fuel pump, tires, and misc I finally came to the conclusion that the Toyota blew this thing away.  The main problem with the Suzuki was that it was just too narrow.  Our ranch roads are worn by decades of Ford F250's and the 'zuki just didn't fit in the ruts.  Consequently, I had to straddle the ruts and that was just ultra-rough.  The Toyota is wide enough to almost fit in the ruts and, being a long bed, is just inherently smoother. The Suzuki has a 1300 cc engine while the Toyota has a 2200 cc engine.  The Suzuki has NO torque; the Toyota will actually pull trailers.  The Suzuki was noisy and rattling; the Toyota is surprisingly quiet.  Then I did the math.  If I drove the Suzuki 5,000 miles/year, I'd save about $300 in gas.  Any repairs, of course, would eat into that savings and with the engine developing an oil leak, I just wasn't confident in the little truck.  So, with some regrets, I sold the Suzuki and went back to driving the Toyota.

The vehicle sitting next to the Toyota is a 1999 Suburban that I bought in 2003 as our family was starting to expand.  It had a 42,000 miles when I bought it and it now has 196,000 miles.  It has not been trouble free, though.  It's gone thru 2 fuel pumps ($800 each to replace), a head gasket repair (I fixed that- it took 3 days), and, finally, the transmission ($3500).  It's still cheaper than a new vehicle, though.  On the upside, it can handle our dirt roads, gets 18-19 mpg on the highway, has a ton of room, is comfortable to drive, and can pull a house.  Having done the transmission, I think we're going to keep driving it until it drops.  At worst, I can convert it to a hawking vehicle or something.  On the whole, we've driven this Suburban longer than any vehicle we've owned.

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And now for David...David's been on steroids (prednisolone) and we've adjusted his dosage up and down to find the point at which his blood drops and rises.  We've been to Denver to investigate a bone marrow transplant.  We still don't have a solid diagnosis on his disease but the most recent development is that his and our blood has been sent to Italy to a world specialist on his suspected disease (congenital dyserythropoietic anemia, or CDA).  Because the steroids are keeping his blood up, the UNM docs wanted to try a transfusion to see if that would a) get his blood levels up even more, b) thereby reducing the size of his huge spleen.  We did that last Friday and when we checked his blood on Tues, his hemoglobin was up to an astonishing 11.2 g/dL.  Remember that it's normally 4.0 and the highest it's ever gotten with steroids is 9.0-ish.  We were really happy to see this increase and hope that it a) stays there, b) reduces the size of his spleen.

Here's an interesting story.  Early in the week we got news that the docs wanted to send our blood to Italy.  We talked about it.  That Weds in Bible study we were finishing up a multi-month study of Hebrews and the next to last verse says "Those from Italy greet you."  We liked that.

Well, that's it for this month.  See you in June.

Attack of the Moths!

Out here on the High Plains we're having a miller moth infestation.  This evidently is a migration thing in which the moths migrate from the plains to the mountains where they spend the summer (sounds like a good idea to me!) before returning back to the plains in the fall to breed.  In any case, this is one of the worst years I've seen.  We have moths _everywhere_.   I opened the truck doors yesterday evening and the rubber lining around the door was filled with moths.  Our door frames are loaded with moths.  At night there are thousands of them flying around any light that's on.  Of course, once you open the door, they fly inside.  They don't really cause any problems except for pooping on your windows and flat surfaces.  They can also get inside things like your furnace vents, ATV air filters, electrical outlets, etc and clog those up.  But they don't eat stuff or sting or bite.

This doesn't look too bad

A closer look at a cluster of moths

The entire surface of my hawk house door looks like this

Inside a door frame

Out in the pasture, we've made good progress at building fences.  We've got the one worst pastures fenced back in and it looks good.  Today, we're heading for the NW corner of the ranch where snow drifted over a mesa rim and crushed the fence below.  The fence was completely rebuilt several years ago and now it's lying in pieces on the ground.  Interestingly, we got here in '96 and it wasn't until 2006 that I had my first crushed fence.  Since then, I've fixed at least one every year.  It's like once something starts, the door is open.

A new brace

And on the very up-side, we've been getting rain.  Rain is life out here.

This results in...

...this. 

We look SO MUCH better this year than we did last year at this time.  Last year, it was cold and windy. Grama grass requires warm temperatures to grow and, due to the cold spring, the grass just got a very late start.  May and June were almost completely dry and never gave the grass anything to work with.  July and onward were pretty normal, and the grass grew good but with a late start there was only so much it could do.  Anyway, here we are and we're hoping and praying for a good year so that the grass will recover.  For me, it's not so much about making money as it is just seeing green grass and trying to be a good steward of what God's given me to work with.

No real news on the Davidic front.  We haven't heard anything from Denver and he's still on steroids and still responding well to them, so we're just taking this opportunity to breathe.

I'll be starting the search for a tiercel prairie falcon next weekend!

Fence Me In!

I've been wondering what to do with this blog. When I started it, I wasn't on Facebook and it was kind of my way of keeping people updated with happenings in my life. Then I joined FB and found it easier to post little snippets there. Updating a blog is kind of a lot of work. However, I think I'll keep it going and I think what I'll do is continue to post more detailed articles than I'd write on FB. So, with that said, let me catch you up.

Spring is coming and what I'm doing now is getting ready for cattle season. For the first time ever, I'll be running cattle from two different owners on our place. Normally, we've run 1500-2000 head of cattle from the same owner. If they mixed up a little bit, no big deal- they're all going the same place in the end and so I'd just sort them out in the pens after we gathered. But this year, it'll be important to keep them where they belong. My end of the contract includes fences and water and so you can guess what I'm up to. Yup... fencing!

We really haven't done much fencing since I got here 15 years ago. It's expensive for one thing and for another I just haven't had the tools and supplies I need to get the job done. Oh, we've hired people to come in and work sections, but what I mostly need to deal with are things like this:

A shot from 2004, for crying out loud!

As you can see, there are leaning posts, sagging wire, and just generally poor fence conditions.  In addition to this, late in 2010's season, we got a gully washer of a rain that tore out large sections of fence.  When a fence crosses a water shed like a creek or even a flat drainage area (see that dip in the fence?), that's called a "water gap".  Hopefully your fence is designed to break-away in the water gap, but you still have to go put it back up.  Anyway, after that rain, I was out fixing water gaps and in the course of the day, fixed 10 of the things.  This involves wading out into the water, dragging fence wire and posts across the gap, and sticking things back together.  Exterior fences are obviously more important than interior fences and I just basically never got around to fixing the wash-outs in this interior fence.  Until now.

Along with just putting posts back up, I needed to rebuild some corners and braces.  These are the heart of a fence.  W/out them, you can't stretch wire and w/out a solid stretch, your fence is worthless.  You can build braces out of railroad ties or metal posts and there are (dis)advantages both ways.  Railroad ties are a little easier to work because there's no welding required, but you do have to wrap and tighten wire around the ties.  Posts don't require wire wrap, but they have to welded and usually cemented into the ground.  Either need to be dug or pounded into the ground and both need to go at least 3' in the ground.  Four feet is better.

I started out digging by hand:

I have a skid steer, but I don't have the auger attachment for it and I'd never used on my skid steer so I didn't even know if my hydraulics worked.  Time to borrow an auger, which I did:

Whooooo!!!!  Now we're talking!!!  Unfortunately, my skid steer developed a coolant leak, but fortunately, I was able to get 5 holes dug to get my braces in good shape for this section of wire.

After getting these done, it was time to put posts in the ground.  Again, there's a great attachment for the skid steer and again, I don't have this wonderful tool (although it is in the 2012 budget!).  So, I did 'em by hand.

Having dug and planted 5 braces, pounded over  50 posts by hand, and re-attached several sections of fence, this fence is looking fairly decent.  It's now time to move around the North side of the ranch and work on nearly 12 miles of fence.  This is going to be my Main Job this summer.  Once we get some money back in the back and we're up on the wave and surfing, I'll get an auger and driver for the skid steer and spend most of the summer fixing and strengthening fences.  Fences and water are 80% of the job on a ranch.

The really, really good news is that we got R-A-I-N.  I drove around on Monday looking at things and thanks to warm temperatures the grass was starting to sprout and green-up.  Monday night we got nearly 1/2" of rain followed by wet snow and ice.  By Tues it was all melted and the ground was sopping wet.  Forecast calls for temps in the 70's the rest of the week and that's really going to get the grass going.  Lord willing, we'll get another rain or two in April and that will set us up.  Rain is Life out here.

Well, that oughta do us for today.  I'll try to keep this updated with new developments.

On the Davidic Front, we still don't have a solid diagnosis, but he's still responding well to steroids (prednisolone) and has not had a transfusion since Thanksgiving.  Remember, at that time, he was getting 2-4 units and just absolutely destroying the blood.  For him to not only stay stable but actually increase hemoglobin on his own (up to 8.6 g/dL) is a very, very welcome break in the storm.  This coming week we have an appointment in Denver at the Children's Hospital during which we hope to get a second evaluation and possibly come up with some leads as to his condition.  Again, I will keep the blog updated.

Blog Anniversary

It's been just over a year since I started this blog.  I did quite a bit in the beginning when David and I traveled to Washington DC and then when I was in pursuit of a peregrine falcon.  Once the relative routine of summer arrived, I tapered off and then when fall came I really settled into a groove and there just wasn't much to report.  Also in the fall I finally signed up for Facebook and found that to be an easy and convenient way to post "what's happening" updates.   However, this is a good place for me to write longer things and expound on things and no one can talk back like they can on Facebook! 

First, David- he's been on steroids since Thanksgiving.  He wasn't supposed to respond to them but guess what?  He has.  For the first time in his life  his hemoglobin has actually increased.  After a frightening series of transfusions around T-giving, he came home with a Hg of around 7.0.  A few weeks later, we tested him and he was up to 7.5.  Another couple of weeks and he was 8.5.  A little later, 9.2 g/dL.  Considering that he's lived most of his life at 4.5 g/dL, this is incredible.  And over this time, his dosage of steroids was cut, cut again, and cut some more.  This has kind of thrown all our diagnoses into turmoil.  We were supposed to go to Denver to investigate a bone marrow transfusion, but now, we don't know.  At this point, we're just thankful that's he's responded to steroids.  What this means is that he's put on some weight, is happy, and eats like you can't believe.  He's never been much of an eater, but all that's changed now.

On the ranch front, I'm getting fences ready for the upcoming season.  I have a fence that got washed away 2 years ago, 3 years ago someone hit a corner post and knocked a gate down, and 4 years ago I cut a hole in it so that cattle could pass at the windmill.   This has left 3 big holes in the fence with lots of wire on the ground. However, our cattle guy wants to separate some cattle and so, the fence must come up.  I'm untangling wire on the ground, putting many new posts in, and planting some new brace/corners posts.  I started off doing this by hand:

I have a skid steer, but I've never run anything off the auxiliary hydraulics and didn't want to rush out and buy an auger only to find that a) the auger doesn't do what I want it to do, b) my hydraulics don't work.  Turns out that a church member has just such an auger and offered to let me try it.  So, today after church we took the skid steer over and hooked up a cool looking auger.

Look out, post-holes!

We've got a storm coming tomorrow (it's actually here right now), but Tues I should be out drilling new holes.  Here's hoping it works.

Falconry-wise, I've pretty much put the prairie falcon up for the year.  I go into the mews and call her to the fist for a meal and she's responding just great to that.  I might get a couple of more flights in but duck season closed months ago and all I'll be doing is flying on pigeons.  At this time, I think I'd rather just keep her safe, let the pigeons breed, and look forward to next season. 

Speaking of next season, I hope to rebuild my pigeon loft and make 2 chambers- one for breeders and one for birds of the year that'll get flown. This way I won't have to disturb my breeding pairs during the falconry season.  Birds that survive the hawking year will get added to the breeding pool.  I hope to start next year's falconry season with 100 pigeons.  I had 65 at the start of this year and I could've used more.

The other thing I'd like to do is find a couple more prairie falcon nests and take an eyass tiercel prairie falcon.  I flew the peregrine this fall, but I want to try a prairie falcon now.  So, that's on the plate for this summer.

Other than this, I'm really, really hoping for a good cattle year.  Last year was rough for a lot of reasons and we're in a precarious position going into this year.  I'm sure we'll survive, but I just want to see green, healthy pastures out there.

Until next time!

Goals

I’ve been thinking about goals lately. I’m a goal-oriented person.  Generally, when I have a "big" specific thing that I want to accomplish, I'll also have intermediate goals that need to be accomplished between now and The Big Goal.  In other words, just accomplishing The Big Goal usually isn't enough.  There is a certain order or certain steps that I also want to accomplish.  I like to do this, then do that, then build up both of those, and so forth, all the way to the final goal whereupon I proclaim “Mission Accomplished!” and immediately lose interest.  Well, not always… sometimes I take the skills I’ve developed on the way and head off toward another goal.  The more of these sub-goals that I accomplish, the happier I am with the final result.

I’ve achieved a few major goal in my lifetime.  After years and years of trail riding on dirt bikes, I wanted to ride a real motocross bike on a real motocross track and make all the jumps and obstacles.  And so, in 2005, I bought a used 2001 Kawasaki KX125 and set out to accomplish this.  It took a few months, but I eventually did clear all the jumps on that bike, and it was followed shortly thereafter by a new old-stock 2004 Yamaha YZ450F.  The jumps were easy on that bike and just "clearing the obstacles" was no longer a challenge.  I sold the 450F, backed down to smaller bikes, and repeated the goal on several other bikes- a 2004 KTM 200sx, a 2005 Yamaha YZ250, and a 2005 Kawasaki KX125.  Then the tracks got too hard for my KX125 and I didn’t want to keep up.  At this point, it was Mission Accomplished and I could’ve set up a new goal (like, “finish in the top 3 at a race”), but I was getting old and fragile and so I called it good and sold my bike and gear.  But, no regrets- I rode tracks (several of them) and I cleared all the jumps.

I achieved another major goal when I took a cow elk 2 years ago. Hunting for me is not just shooting an animal.  That's part of it, for sure, but only part of it.  For a hunt to be truly successful, several intermediate stages have to happen.  I need to reload and develop my own loads.  I have to find the game myself- no guides.  I have to hunt for the animal- if there are mountains and draws and tough terrain, all the better (in moderation!).  I have to make a good shot which for me means I get closer- I do not like to take long shots.  I’m happiest when it’s 1 shot, 1 kill.  And then I pack the meat out and I prepare it.  I eat it.  If all those steps come together, it’s the perfect hunt.

The elk under the tree

Almost no blood at all!

Packing the meat out- final trip!

My first cow elk hunt was a perfect hunt.  I hunted for 2 days w/out seeing anything and then on the 3^rd day, I found the elk.  I stalked into them and made a 250 yard single-shot with my hand-loaded ammo.  At first, I couldn’t find the elk but I was confident in my shooting and in my equipment and I kept looking.  I finally found her piled up in a juniper about 600 yards away, downhill.   I packed out one load, called for help, and ended up packing most of the rest out that evening, getting back to the truck in total darkness with the aid of a GPS and my trusty daughter.  We got a little lost in the dark and after the 4th or 5th canyon, I was exhausted so I ended up climbing a tree and tying off some of the meat, carrying out what I had in my pack and leaving the cart behind.  I GPS'ed the spot and the next day, Georgia and I went back to retrieve the meat and cart.  The next day it snowed a blizzard.  That was a 100% successful and satisfying hunt.  Building on this, I want a bull elk now.  It’ll have to be no guide, public land, and economically feasible.  As far as antler size goes, I just want a 6x6- it doesn’t have to make book or anything, it just needs to be a “good” elk and by "good" that means I have to go thru all the intermediate steps I've set up for myself.

Last Thanksgiving, I went to the North American Falconer’s Meet and the idea was planted in my head that I should take a wild peregrine falcon.  I’ve never done that and the idea was intriguing.  It would involve getting the permit, finding one, rappelling, and finally training it, all worthy goals in and of themselves, but to reach the goal of the taking of a wild duck with a wild-taken peregrine was why Aldo Leopold said “all in all, falconry is the perfect hobby.”  You can read all about the search and the eventual successful taking of the peregrine in earlier parts of this blog.  As long as I was doing this, I decided to get a prairie falcon, too.  I’ve had an eyass prairie, but I didn’t rappel into the nest for it.  

So far, this goal is only partially met.  Both birds were flying well and taking free-flying pigeons, but with these young, inexperienced birds, I couldn’t close the deal on a duck before it got cold, the ponds froze, and the ducks left.  Then, sadly, the peregrine contracted a virus, probably thanks to stress from the eagle attack, and died.  Duck season closed, thus slamming the door in my face.  Completion of this goal will have to wait until next year, but at that time, having (hopefully!) taken my prairie falcon thru the molt, I should have an older, wiser, and more experienced prairie falcon who already knows how to fly, knows how to “wait-on”, and all that good stuff.  I’ll be raising some captive ducks this summer and I’ll “enter” her on those so that she knows what ducks are all about.  All in all, I’m confident that I’ll get this goal accomplished.  And I won’t be sitting around all summer, either- I’ll be out looking for more prairie falcon nests and I hope to take a tiercel prairie this year.  That’s my goal for this year!  That, and re-build my pigeon loft and end up with close to 100 birds by summer’s end.

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On the Davidic front, for those of you not keeping up with this on Facebook, we have some VERY good news!  David’s been on steroids for, what, two months?, as I reported last entry.  In spite of lower doses of steroids, his hemoglobin has continued to rise and he was 9.1 g/dL on his 1/25/12 test.  We were SO thankful for this!

In other news, we bought a new, used car.  We need a car.  We have a ’99 Suburban with 190,000 miles on it and 3 pickups.  We don’t have anything that gets better than 20 mpg and we need something more economical for our trips to ABQ and, soon, to Denver for David’s medical work.  Even just going to town is a 65 mi round trip.  So, after much research, and some butt-planting, we settled on a Chevrolet Malibu and ta-da… I found a good one in Santa Fe.  Long story short, we bought a 2011 Malibu LT/1LT with 19k miles on it.  On the drive home, we got 38 mpg at 75 mph!  That’s what I’m talking ‘bout!  Our mechanic checked it out and pronounced it good and so here we are!  We’re hopeful that I’ll be a good reliable car.

Winter Won!

We were waiting on winter and a few weeks ago I announced that the wait was over.  Well, that was only the opening act.  On Dec 20, we got hammered by a storm that rivaled The Big One of '06.  This storm left 8-12" of snow and was accompanied by 40-50 mph winds.  Snow blew into every building we own except the storage container.  Our hay was buried in several feet of snow, the skid steer was buried in snow, drifts reached up almost to the roof, the propane tank was buried, snow got under the roof in both the house and shop, and so on and so forth.

Here's a video taken during the storm:

I had to crawl up on the roof during the storm to knock ice off the heater vent.  That worked for awhile but around evening, the heater started short cycling.  Nothing we could do then but shut the heat off.  We only got down to 50 overnight and the next day, with the storm over and the sun shining, I climbed back up and removed the vent cap to find the pipe full of snow and ice.  I really need to figure out a way to keep this from happening again, but the only way to really test solutions is during a storm.

I try different things during each storm and this time I tried putting a horse trailer in front of the hawk house to see if it would change the swirls and keep the hawk house from filling up with snow.  It didn't work.  What happened instead was that the horse trailer got pinned in by drifts and I couldn't get it away from the hawk house.  I had backed it in, but after the storm there was a huge drift in front so I couldn't get the truck in to pull the trailer back out.  I could pull it at an angle but it was going to pivot and there was danger of the rear hitting the hawk house.  I wanted to move the trailer because it was blocking the sun and a) the falcon needs sun, b) sun helps the snow inside melt.  Long story short, I got it out although I creased the metal a little.  Oh well, I can take that panel off and straighten it up.

Inside the barn!

The hawk house and trailer

Back yard drift

Derek on drift against house

Scale house full of snow

Bryan on the roof

Fortunately, after the storm the sun came out and the temperature went up to the 50's.  There's still a lot of snow out there but a lot of it has melted (creating a muddy mess everywhere!).  Life's just always exciting here!

On The Davidic Front we have good news!  David has been responding to steroids and his blood levels have remained stable and actually increased a little bit, for the first time EVER.  He dropped to about 6.8 g/dL but at the next test was up to 7.5 and stayed there for a week.  Our doctors said to let it go 2 weeks and then test him again.  He certainly feels a lot better and his appetite has literally tripled.  Steroids, of course, are not a cure but they have bought us some time and breathing space.  The plans are still to do a bone marrow transplant.  A very few people go into remission after steroids, though, and we're hoping for something along those lines.  For now, though, we're grateful for this improvement.