I had some good news this week. Great news in fact. I had a doctor’s appointment to get my blood results back. And my doctor was really glad to see me. It’s been a while. But he was thrilled with how I was doing. In fact he said that seeing me saved his day! And he told me to go ahead and stop taking the last of my diabetes meds. I am cured, apparently! So that’s. Pretty great. I mean, I’m not more cured than it’ll come back if I go back to my old lifestyle. But I have no plans to do that anyway. I remember when I first got diagnosed with diabetes my doctor said it could be reversed and I read up on it. But it seemed implausible. A diet so tough I didn’t think it would be at all realistic. But all the hard work this summer paid off. Tons of exercise and a limited food intake. So now I’m all healthy and in perfect physical condition. Apart from all the secondary ailments, of course. Too bad it doesn’t work retroactively. If only it could give me my eyesight back. But yeah, I’m happy with it. That’s five less pills to pop every day. And I can have my cake and eat it, without worrying about my blood sugar. I’ll try to stick with tomatoes, though.

But that was really nice. And when I posted about it on Facebook I had almost 40 people react to the post. Usually I’m lucky if I get 5. Sometimes if I post something special like my mother being in the hospital or one of my beloved goats dying then it’ll get maybe 20ish. This was a new record by far. And it’s always really nice to feel that there are people who care about me. It’s not all a waste of time! Bodil was really happy about it too when I told her on Friday.

That was a nice and sunny day. But other than that we’ve had a lot of rain. And it’s getting cold. Below 10C mostly now. I’ve had to bring out the winter coat. The new one. It’s the same as the old one, only two sizes smaller. And it’s still too big and chunky. I find that annoying. Now that I have lost all that weight I want to wear something slimmer! But it feels nice and warm. And it didn’t take long before Mia and Palle had set their first muddy hoofprints on the back. And then all is well.

All is well with the goats too. They enjoy not having a fence around the pen, I think. And the fallen leaves and branches of course. Sigrid asked me if I thought Mio might be pregnant. She IS big. But then she’s always big. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that Medium stayed too long. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he got her pregnant. I saw him try a few times. It wouldn’t be ideal of course, but we’ll see what happens. Maybe there will be some winter babies.

Sigrid also asked me if I was going to come to the annual christmas party. She said that normally she makes vegetarian food just for herself at the party, but now she could make some for me too. And I could try some of the stuff they’ll be serving in their restaurant. That would be really, really lovely. I’d love that. I don’t know if I can go, though. With the phobia and all. I said I’d think about it. I’ll try to talk myself into it. We’ll see. I hope.

Let’s go to pictures.

Mia helping to vacuum the rabbit house.

New things to play with in the pen!

I moved some of the tree chunks around. Putting them under the hayholder seemed like a good idea. The goats could jump and play on them and reach the hay.
Even Kamel defied gravity a little!

I like the angle on this. The hooves!

I like Mia.

Mia and Palle for the hay.

Sweetheart Palle.

His horns are getting big!

I can still carry him though!

And a goatlog. With Mia and Palle balancing on piles of branches and on me. And all the usual fun stuff.

And that’s all the fun for this week, folks. See you in the next one.

Often I don’t have much to write about in the blog because nothing interesting has really happened during the week. But this week something happened. Something big. A storm. A big storm.

I was kind of laughing it off on Monday as the weather reports started coming in. I thought it was just the weathermen crying wolf. You know, the reporters outside in the hailstorm screaming “DON’T GO OUT!”. But it turned out to be quite a big one, this time. Record-breaking winds in fact. And it hit the playground. Hard. It tore a big tree right up out of the ground and sent it crashing into the goat pen.

It hit the train carriage that the goats live in too, but I think, luckily, that it hit it mostly on the side. I’m not sure if it could have broken trough the old, rusty roof if it had hit dead on. But as it were it just smashed down the fence of the pen. And the goats were safe and unharmed inside. It must have been quite a scare for them, though. No one would like huge tree smashing against your house.

I had no idea how bad it had been so when I got to the playground Tuesday morning and found the passageway around the train carriage blocked by leaves and branches it was rather surreal and surprising. Before we had gone to inspect the damage Nina opened the hatch, thinking she’d let the goats into the pen. But of course the hatch was now blocked by a fallen tree. So the goats couldn’t go out. But they could eat yummy leaves through the hatch instead. Like a drive-thru window. And that was the order of the day for the goats. We let them out and they had a sizeable buffet of leaves and branches. For so long they had gone around staring longingly at that tree, dreaming of the tasty leaves. Now they could suddenly reach the leaves! So I think they quite enjoyed themselves. At least until the chainsaw men came to cut the tree to bits. They didn’t like the sound of the chainsaw at all. But they did dig happily into the pile of branches that were left behind.

I have never seen anything quite like it in all my years at the playground. It was hard not to laugh at how ridiculous it was. Since no one was hurt and all. Quite a storm.

In other news, I finally went to the doctor. I’m supposed to have my blood sugar levels tested every 3 months. But it’s been a year and a half (if not more) since I’ve been there. Oops. But the nurse still recognised me and said that my weight loss was amazing. So that was nice. She measured my blood pressure and it was fine. I had been wondering if I had some blood pressure issues because of those couple of times I almost blacked out after exercising too hard. But it was fine. And the blood sugar levels are fine too. They’re lower than last time I had them measured. And that’s despite the fact that I have stopped taking some of my diabetes meds. But I’ll be going in to see the doctor next week to talk it all over.

Other than the storm things seem to be fairly back to normal at the playground. Of course the goat pen is missing a fence now. But at least the place has been open, the goats out, people working and visiting. Which is really nice. Had a nice talk with Sigrid. Told her about the Bob tribute video so she could watch it. She told me that it was crazy how much weight I had lost. Which is what Nina said last week too. So I guess there’s a consensus about that! I still have a ways to go, but of course it’s good to hear nice things and that enough has happened that people notice it. Good stuff.

Oh and I found out that it’s normal that Mia is missing a couple of teeth. Apparently they start changing some of their teeth when they’re about a year old. I’d never heard about that before. Or seen it. But I’m glad she hasn’t had a bad knock or bad teeth or anything then. Just natural. New ones should come in soon.

Had a really nice phone call from Bodil too. She’s finally got her new computer working and was able to go on my youtube channel and watch some of my videos. That’s really nice. I could tell she was very happy about it. Complimentary. She knows how much I love the goats, and said it shows in the videos. I’m glad I can share those things with her. And others. She got to see me and her dog Sif too. Very nice.

Let’s take some pictures. From the storm aftermath.

After the branches and leaves were gathered in a bunch, the goats had their turn.

Palle at the hatch. Blocked by the tree.

The goats and the tree. Kamel making sure to pose for the shot.

Never seen anything quite like it before.

Just the right height.

Mia surveying the damage.

and then digging in.

Mio watching the chainsaw men.

Palle climbing the fallen tree.

Mia at the root.

Can you believe Kamel fits in the playhouse? I’m glad it survived the storm.

Tree leftovers for Mia and Palle.

Mio looking at the fence that isn’t there anymore.

Mio and Mia on the bunch of branches.

And the goatlog:

Starting out the day of the storm, as it was just starting to brew. Goats coming inside for cover from the rain. And then the days after the storm with all the fallout.The damage, the chainsaw men. The goats investigating. Palle climbing the fallen tree. And so on.

And that’s all for this week. See you in the next one, folks. Hopefully less dramatic.