Small Victories

Yay! After much sleepless nights, hand wringing, and brow furrowing, we changed the yaks halters! They were getting so tight they were digging into their noses, and making furless indentations on the back of their necks. I knew they must have been very uncomfortable, but The halters I bought were too big. We had to drill more holes in the strap and even then I wasn't sure if they would fit. We brainstormed how we should do it. Should we tie the yaks up some how? Should we build a make-shift squeeze chute? We had no idea, but we knew we couldn't traumatize poor Rocky again. 

I had an idea. Clip them up with the leads to their existing halters like we always do every morning. I thought, let's put the sweet grain they love in a bucket. Then make the nose hole on the halter really big and place it around the sides of the bucket. When they reach in the bucket for the goodies, lift up the halter and then it would be around the nose, all is left is buck the back strap. Then switch the lead's clip from the old halter to the new halter, then unbuckle the old halter and pull it out from underneath. 

And it totally worked! It was almost, dare I said it, easy. And I bet the yaks felt so much relief. Now their halter is very large and roomy. They probably wont need another one their whole lives. I can't tell you how relieved I am. Look at those pretty colors!

Now...what about hoof trimming?

Meanwhile, our dishwasher kept intermittently working. We would have to unplug it and plug it back in again and it would work. But two nights ago, on the 24th, it stopped working and I went under the sink to unplug it, and I couldn't unplug it. I tried with all my might, but I ended up ripping the whole socket from the wall instead. I noticed that the side of the dishwashers plug was melty looking and the outlet itself was blackened, the wall around the outlet was brown. I realized that it's getting so hot that it's burning, and that the plug itself is melted into the outlet. Time to call an electrician! We turned off the breaker switch just in case and left it off until the electrician could arrive. 

The next day an electrician came, he pulled out the outlet and sure enough it was getting very hot indeed. he said we were extremely lucky it didn't catch the house on fire, which was the case in a house in the nearby city not too far from here. 

A little part inside the socket was going bad and had a loose connection, they said, which made the socket draw a lot more electricity than it should have. Now it is all fixed and very safe, we are told. But I am also very relieved that it seems our spirit guides and/or angels were working overtime on this one to protect our house. I have been talking to Archangel Michael a lot lately, he's been on my mind. I feel like I can talk to him since I was told that he is one of my personal guides. Just the other day in my meditation, I thought why does an angel need a sword? Can't slash a spirit-being...makes no sense. Do I directed the question to him, hey Michael, why do you have a sword? And to my surprise I immediately received an answer. "It's a symbol," the thought-voice said "It means I can discriminate between right and wrong, even among all the gray area in the world," I was very surprised to receive such an answer and took it with a grain of salt. "I'm just making this up." I thought. But I also remembered my bit of wisdom I said years ago, "Just because you made it up doesn't mean it isn't true." The next day, my mom emailed me a chapter from a book I've never read in which a medium channeled Archangel Michael and he asked him "do you really have a sword?" Michael answered—I kid you not—"It's a symbol, a vesture that represents who I am. I help cut away falsehoods..." I just about fell off my chair. Anyway, this is all to say, maybe this was his doing to protect our house. Thinking that Archangel Michael, the one that directly opposes all of the evil armies in spiritual realm, could possibly be my personal guide made me feel embarrassed. I bet he is rolling in agony at my flimsy non-existent courage to work with some gently baby yaks. 

Also, I happened to notice, the electrician was a young guy, maybe mid 20s, and he had a tattoo on his arm that read 5-6-70 – 8-24-12; which means that the night the plug burned was the 10-year anniversary of this person's passing...coincidence? Seems like someone wanted to get this guy's attention. I was almost going to say something, but I didn't...like the lily-livered, yellow bellied, land lover that I am.