The Family Bed

No, I do not practice attachment parenting....not by choice anyway.

 

 

Carlie is nearly 10 years old and still she insists on sneaking into our bed at night.   I woke up the other night and literally, Carlie was in the middle of the bed...I had a cat curled up on the pillow pressed up against my face and a dog on my legs.

I asked Carlie yesterday "Our you still going to crawl in bed with us when you are 16?  She thinks about it a minute and says "Well, I still have a long time to work that out."

Tail of Two Asses

I just had to end my weekend on an interesting note! 

John Richmond came out to the house to trim the hooves of my donkey and two goats.  Now Lizzy our donkey is tame and she's halter broke...but being a donkey she is stubborn.

We had to chase her down in a three acre pasture to get the halter on her.  Not because she was afraid of us or didn't want the halter on...but because it is fun to watch 3-4 human beings chase her around the pasture.

 

Finally 3 of us were able to get her in a corner and get a halter and rope on her.

The husband who promised to love, cherish, care for me...etc, etc....left the donkey's rope in my hand and took off. Well so did the donkey.

I couldn't let go of the rope..maybe one of those natural reflexes or something??? And she drug me around half of the donkey pen.  She considerately dragged me around a tree, thru a sticker patch and into a fence before I let go. 

I stood up spitting out a mouthful of dirt. John, to his credit, wanted to laugh but didn't. 
 
However, my dearly beloved husband about busted a gut laughing before he even asked me if I was okay!!  I don't know which of the two asses I was most angry at.

The next day I was so sore that I could hardly move and I actually had to pick a sticker out of my cheekbone with a needle!!

Professional Donkey Trainers

This post is about my donkey, but it's also about friendship.  How am I going to talk about donkeys and friendship in one post....

There are alot of people I know, alot of people I like....but there are only a few oustide of my family that I hold close to my heart as a friend.  Margie falls into that category.

Margie and I met about 12 years ago when we worked together at Williams Energy.  Niether one of us are girly, girls, we didn't have much time to spend together outside of our work day, and we were both crazy about our kids.  We were Tom Boys and Athletes.  She was the Matron of Honor at my wedding. 

One of my favorite things about Margie is that we have always had this unspoken rule that we could brag all we wanted to each other about our kids.  We would never compare our kids, never be jealous of each others kids.  We shared our kids with each other: their successes, their failures, their funny stories....and the other would listen.

The other thing about our friendship that is special is that it has survived both time and distance.  Margie and I have lived in different states for over six years now.  We've only managed to see each other in person a handful of times in those last six years.

So a few weekends ago, she got to come up here and visit.  I was excited, but I was kind of nervous too.  We hadn't seen each other in several years and both of our lives had changed alot since then.  She got out of the truck and it was like we had never been apart.

"A true friend is one who picks up right where you left off, whether it's been a week, a month, or twenty years." -Henry Miller
What did we do on our day together?  Exactly the things that have always defined our friendship.  She went to a basketball game with me and we watched my little girls play. We had lunch together at a great resteraunt. We talked and talked about our kids.  And we TRAINED MY DONKEY!!!!

It's been a long time since I've had as much fun as I did that day teaching Lizzy to lead.  Oh, and Marige.  I found one of your gloves in the bottom of the donkey's water pan the other day....in case you've been looking for it!!!

Who has the best er......arse?  Me, Margie or Lizzy?
 

Does it have The HydroPhobee?

In case you haven’t seen the movie Old Yeller, that’s what they used to call Rabies.

Yesterday
, I was the last one in the family to leave the house.  I walk out the back door headed to the mini-van, and there is a raccoon sitting in my driveway.  I stared at it and it stared back at me.  Then it slowly started walking away weaving back and forth.   

The first thing that popped into my head was “OMG it has the beginning stages of Rabies.  Which of my animals are current on their rabies shots?  Which of my kids are current on THEIR rabies shots…oh wait, kids don’t have Rabies shots.  Oh CRAP kids don’t have Rabies shots!!!”

So I’m standing there in the yard frozen with indecision.  We don’t own a firearm, for reasons we’ll discuss some other time.  Who around me has a gun and is willing to shoot?  Everybody has already left for work.  So I’m looking up the number for animal control on my phone with one eye, and keeping the other on the potentially rabid coon.  It is hard to use a Blackberry with just one eye. 

As I’m fumbling around with my phone, I see my neighbor leave his driveway.  Ohhhhhh…he is a wildlife officer out at the lake!!!  I run to the road and flag him down…which probably scared him to death.  He gets out of his truck.  He looks at it for a minute and says “Wellllll it COULD have rabies.”  NOT makin' me feel any better here Alan!!  We watch it a few more minutes and then we see that it has a broken back leg.  Still no one around with a gun to put it out of its misery.  Alan says it will probably wander off during the day.

I’d really forgotten about it.  The girls had practice at 5:30pm.  In order for us to make it on time, I have to fly home and they have to be in basketball clothes ready to go.  So I pull up in the driveway and no one is in sight.  THEN I heard the screaming. Madi is running from the back five acres bawling hysterically.  Frank is right behind her with Scrappy in his arms, and the other two girls are hot on their heels.  I could not IMAGINE what was going on. 

Madi reaches me first and she says “Mom, it’s leg is broken.  Frank broke its leg.”  I see Frank running with Scrappy and all I can think is “OMG, Frank broke Scrappy’s other leg!!!!”

Frank finally catches up.  Madi is continuing “There is a raccoon back there and Frank is beating it with a stick.  And he beat it so much he broke its leg.  He’s trying to kill it.”  At the same time Frank is saying “Mom, Scrappy was attacking it and they were fighting and I couldn’t get Scrappy to stop so I only hit it with the stick once so I could get Scrappy.” Carlie adds in “I think Scrappy is bleeding.”  (Which he wasn’t.)  Inwardly I grown. “Ohhhhh…..the coon.” 

So I walk out to the field and the poor old coon is curled up in the middle of the pasture miserable.  It made me want to cry to think about shooting it, but there probably wasn’t anything that could be done for it either.

So I walk back to the new house.  There were three different groups of construction guys in the house working.  I walk into the house and say “Does anybody here have a gun in their truck?”  Boy THAT got a lot of wide eyes.  And then I think Duh!!! And explain about the raccoon.  None of them have a gun (that will admit to it anyway).

So a couple of minutes later the builder pulls in.  I say “I have a dumb question.  Do you happen to have a gun with you?”  He looks at me and says “No, I only carry a gun in my truck on Mondays.”  NO ONE is helping me here!!!  He goes “If it wasn’t something as mean as a raccoon, I’d go out there and hit it in the head with a 2x4 for you, but those things bite hard.  I look over at Frank and he says “I’ll go do it.”  Uhhh…no you won’t!!!

I left it out there in the field.  I didn’t go check on it this morning.  Hopefully it’s not still out there suffering.  I thought briefly…ever so briefly about opening up a raccoon rehabilitation center on our land.  I felt so badly for it.

Sassy's Babies



We woke up on Feb 1st to discover that our Siamese cat, Sassy, had given birth to five squirmy white kittens. They get their coloring as they get older. She gave birth to them in my nice white turkey serving platter that was stored in the bottom of a cabinet....yes I did wash it thoroughly after I moved the kittens to a nice warm box.



When they were a couple of days old, Frank called me at work. He's all frantic and he says "Mom, Mom. Guess what Sassy has done!!!" I thought OMG has she eaten a kitten or sat on one or something.

He said "She MOVED the kittens out of the box. She moved them behind the litter box all in a line!!!!" Should I put them back in the box?" I told him to leave them alone. It's not unusual for Momma cats to move their kittens. And she probably moved them because she thought we were bothering them too much.  I forget sometimes that my kids haven't been exposed to things like Momma cats and baby kittens.

Siamese cats actually have a form of Albanism. They have an enzyme that will not produce melantonin at body temperature. However in the cooler parts of the body, the fur darkens. That's why they have color on their feet, tails and ears....the cooler parts of the body. The reason they have black on their face is because the sinus/nasal cavities make the face cooler. Siamese cats in Northern climates will generally be darker than those in Southern climates. And as a cat ages he/she will also darken. This albanism gene is also what causes their eyes to be blue.



Just stamp "Sucker" on my forehead....

So my cat Duff is having trouble urinating. This can be a deadly situation, it killed one of my older cats. So I took him in Friday morning by the vet on my way to work. This is a country vet, and I notice in an outside pen a scruffy little black and white dog. There was a sign on the pen that said "Please Adopt Me". Well I have pets and kids running out my ears, so I didn't think much about it.

It turns out that I couldn't go get Duff until the next morning, Saturday. And I had to have him picked up by Noon when the vet closes. I also had to have my Sister-in-law to the airport by Noon. So I stop by at 11am to pick up my cat. The girls are in the car with me, and they are asking about the "Cute puppy". So I go in to get my cat and she's explaining the medication.

I don't know what prompted me to do it, but I asked about the little dog. And said "Oh, honey, we are going to put him down when we close at Noon."

I asked her why, and she said his leg had been broken and not set and it was crippled. Someone had brought him in for shots and then called and said they didn't want him. He'd been out there a while and no one would take him.

Soooo...do you see where this is going??? I tell her not to put him to sleep he can run around my farm. No problem.

Well I left him outside for the night and he BEGGED to come in. He's a terrier and we could see his head pop up above the window in the door every few minutes. I finally let him inside. He seems to be potty trained and hasn't bothered anything in the house. He LOVES to snuggle with kids.

Oh, and let me finish the story about Duff. We picked him up at 11am, and I didn't have time to take him back home. So he had to go with us the hour ride to the airport. I didn't have a cat carrier. So I told each girl she was going to have to hold him wrapped in a towel each way. So Madi held him on the way out there, we dropped off Carrie, and Carlie held him on the way back. On the way back home, he let the cat pee fly. I guess he doesn't have a problem urinating any more. It went all over Carlie and she tried to DIE.

I'm a nut.

It's a Shoe Thang

You know you hear about these women who have shoe addictions. I have like four pairs of shoes.

Carlie has a shoe problem too. We can't keep any one her feet!!! The other night at a football game she had on a parka and flip-flops!!!

Last year during the winter, Bob took the girls to school when he noticed that Carlie got out of the car and didn't have any shoes on. He had to take her back home to get some!!!

Whenever we get ready to go somewhere, she can never find two shoes that match. She'll wear anyone's shoes if she can't find her own.

Yesterday I was in the kitchen about ready to leave for work. I look out the window and the three girls are waiting for the bus, and....drum roll....Carlie doesn't have any shoes on!!! I yell out there and ask what she's doing without any shoes. She says she can't find any so she's just going barefoot to school and she'll put on her gym shoes there.

NOT. So I made her come back in the house and find some. She sits in the driveway to put them on. When she gets up, Libby trips her....maybe on accident....maybe on purpose....depends who you ask...and she skins her elbow.

So I finally head back to the house. The dog is whinning in his kennel. He hardly does that, so I think I'd better let him out one more time to go potty. He always stays close to the house. For some unknown reason, he took off running like a bat out of hell!! He would NOT come back. He ran all the way down the side of the road to the neighbors house and then crossed the road in front of the school bus into the ditch. When I finally caught him, I beat him all the way back to the house.

So now I'm really flustered. I get in my car and get out on the highway and realize that I do not have my phone. Now my Blackberry is like an arm or a leg to me. So I go aroun the country block to go back and get it. I make a turn onto a gravel road, and the bus that the girls are on comes barreling up a hill in the MIDDLE of the road. I almost got run over by my kids' own bus. As soon as I got in the house, my phone was ringing, and it was Libby wanting to know what I was doing on a dirt road.

Ugh!!!

Carlie put on her Towanda Suit....

So the whole next day we still couldn't find Duff. He was under the trailer somewhere...we could hear him. Bob told Carlie and Libby that they needed to get under there and find him for me. Libby told Carlie that she'd pay her $5 if she'd go under there by herself. So Carlie went under there two different times but couldn't find him.

When I got home they tried one more time. Carlie got way back under the trailer. She had Libby's flip-flop to kill spiders and a knife to cut away the lining of the trailer house ('cause we thought that's where Duff was). She was crawling along when suddenly she sees the lining bounce down because Duff was walking above her head. So she used the knife and cut a hole in the lining. And she starts yelling..."I can see 'im....I can see 'im!!!" She cuts another bigger hole and starts pulling out pieces of fiberglass. Then the hole is big enough that she sticks her whole head and arms up there. She grabs him by the head and pulls him out!!!

She starts hollering and yelling. She said "That is the most extraordinary thing I've done in FIVE YEARS!!!!"

She was so excited. So I took her and Libby for a treat. They wanted to go to the convenience store. Libby just got a drink since all she did was direct and cheer. Carlie got a drink AND a snack. She picked out a giant bag of beef jerky.

I was proud of my girls. AND I got my cat back. Made up for that bad day the day before.

Attack Donkey

This is Lizzy




She's my attack donkey. She's a little over a year old. At first she wouldn't let us touch her, but I came home from work one day after she'd been with us a few days and Libby was out there brushing her. I told Libby that the donkey liked her because they are two of a kind!!!

She we have her in the pasture with the fainting goats. Bob had several high school boys helping him move our trampoline and play set from the old house. When they got to the farm to unload the stuff, Frank told them about the fainting goats.

So these big high school boys run at the pasture to try to make the goats faint. The goats couldn't have cared less, but the scared Lizzy. She started braying and charing at them and those big old high school boys took off running!!!

The Farm In Summer

We are quickly acquiring animals on our “farm”. We now have two pygmy fainting goats, two angora rabbits, one dog, three inside cats, five outside cats, a litter of kittens outside. AND my kids are saving their money for a horse. They are currently taking horseback riding lessons and they beg incessantly.

I work on the farm with the tractor at least once a week. I’m turning into a farm girl. I have cut down trees with a chain saw by myself. And recently changed the box blade on the tractor over to the brush hog by myself. And that was NOT easy to do, certainly not alone.

And I got my first case ever of poison ivy last week. I’m trying to get in as many new experiences as possible before I turn 40 this Fall!

Ugly Cat aka Butcher Knives and Lanterns

So last week before Memaw got sick, the girls we are a baseball game with my neighbors, and Frank and Bob were not home yet. So oddly enough, I had the house to myself. I walk into the master bathroom at the end of the trailer house, and I hear an awful racket. I listen closely and it appears to be coming from UNDER the trailer house. I "follow" the sound of running and crashing and it moves from under my whirlpool bath, under the cabinet....over by the shower. When we first moved in, we'd had a disconnected floor vent under the trailer, and a cat had climbed into the floor vents and "popped" the vent out of the floor i nthe middle of the night and came into the house. So I opened the vent and looked around, but couldn't see anything.

So of course, I "had" to know what was under there. So on that end of the trailer, the trailer sits close to the ground. The only way I can see under is to remove a piece of the trailer skirt and lay flat on the ground. Under the trailer there is a liner that protects the bottom of the trailer. It's drooping down on that end, and sure enough I can see something moving around inside the liner and it looks BIG.

I decide that I have to find out what it is. I'm thinking possum, racoon, large rabid rats. So I go back into the house and come back out with a butcher knife and a lantern (cause my kids always lose every flashlight we buy). I stretch out on the ground flat on my belly, set the lantern down and use the knife to cut a hole in the lining. Whatever it was...it got realllllly still. And the WHAM, it charges towards the hole that I had cut.

Now I am lying flat on my stomach on the ground and its hard to run from that position, but I do still have the knife in my hand. About the time I'm poised to run, I see a tiny nose and whiskers peek out of the hole.

Awwwww....Momma Cat's missing kittens!!!! Then of course I had to lure them out. So I go back inside and this time I come out with a weiner!! I stretch back out on the ground and home the weiner up to the hole in the liner under the trailer. I lure two of them out. Two of the ugliest cats that I have ever seen!!! We are gonna have to get Momma Cat fixed because she makes ugly babies.

The boy kitten is black and orange brindled...and then it looks like he was slapped around a bit with a white paint brush. Poor thing. I let the kids play with them a bit when they got home then slipped them back under the trailer.

I wonder if my neighbors watch me and laugh at me!!!

Every Farm has to have ANIMALS.

These are FAINTING pygmy goats. They faint if you scare or startle them. The kids asked if they could try and make them faint when we first got them and I told them No. Well we kind of forgot about it. Then this weekend, we got the lawn mower out for the first time. And when Frank drove it by their pen they took off running and then fell over on their sides with their legs in the air. I thought Frank was going to fall off the lawn mower laughing.

This is Bill and Gruff. The bunnies are Brownie and Fluffybutt. Oh, and Momma Kitty DEFINITELY has a Baby Bump!!!

Goat Feeder?????

I am driving home from work today. I pull into the driveway and Libby is striding purposely across the yard with my good Longaberger Basket in her arms. The EXPENSIVE.....LINED....LONGABERGER basket.

And what's in this basket you might ask??? Hay for the goats!!!!

Mama Cat

This is Mama Cat. She came with the farm. We are watching her carefully...we think we see a baby bump. We are hoping for baby kitties this Spring. I told Libby I thought she was pregnant. And Libby said. How do you know? Is she in heap?

Ahhh...that's heat Libby...not heap. LOL.

Billy and Gruff

These are our newest members of the family. Billy is whiter and Gruff has more brown on him. Bo and Boots are FASCINATED. They have never seen a dog that looks like THAT.

Billy and Gruff are about six months old and they are pygmy fainting goats. They will faint if you startle them. They are so sweet and like to be hugged and brushed.

When we picked them up, I had them in the back seat of the truck. Billy was on my lap and he PEED on me abou 15 minutes from home!!! ALOT.

I can bring home the bacon...du dum da du

fry it up in a pan.....

Last night Frank and I went out to the trailer to take care of the animals. Frank went into the house to water the cat, and there was no water anywhere in the trailer. I hadn't paid the rural water bill last month so I was HOPING they had shut off the water since it's been about -87 degrees....well maybe 20 something.

So I went to work this morning and called rural water...and she said "No dear, we didn't turn it off...your pipes are frozen." I called my Dad and he said I'd have to call a plumber and that I'd probably have busted pipes when they unfroze.

I called at least 7 plumbers and all were booked until Wednesday or Thursday. So I went out there myself. I removed a wedge of the trailer house skirting until I found where the water came into the trailer. Sure enough it was not wrapped like it should have been. I drug an extension cord around there and a hair dryer….shimmed under the trailer with it.

While I was out there, I had let our half grown bird dog puppies out of their pen to stretch their legs. So I got the pipe unthawed and miraculously there didn’t appear to be any leaks, and the water in the trailer came back on. Hurrah for me!!! I drove to the nearest hardware store and got fiberglass wrap to wrap the pipe up. I get back to the trailer and shimmy back underneath it.

I’m all the way under there with only my boots sticking out. I’m stretching to wrap the fiber glass around the pipe and concentrating and something grabbed my booted foot that was sticking out from under the trailer and pulled. I shrieked and promptly hit my head on the beams under the trailer. It was one of the puppies pulling on my boot. I finished the job and proudly (there was my mistake) put the skirting back up around the trailer.

The puppies had also run off with one of my gloves and I found that. I made sure I had my keys before I locked up the trailer and checked for my Blackberry…it was missing. Sure enough, I had to crawl back under the trailer to retrieve it.

Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving....

and all through the house....no one was sleeping....and I do mean NO ONE. My parents have a "designer dog" who is 3 lbs and about 6 months old. I brought our two dogs with us cause there was no one at home to let them out. Well when we arrived with dogs and kids, their little dog Bubba was like a wind up toy.

I went to sleep upstairs. There was a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and I asked Granny if I could take it down. She said she didn't care. So I went upstairs and went to sleep. A little while later Carlie sticks her head in the door and says "Mom are you in here?" and wakes me up. She climbs in bed with me. I go back to sleep and Frank sticks his head in my door and says "Mom are you in here? Which room are you in?" and wakes me up. Then a few minutes later, Bubba is in our room whining. I can't figure out what he wants, so I send Carlie downstairs with him. I get up sometime in the middle of the night....go by Frank's door and he is playing DS....take it away from him. Go down the stairs to the bathroom without turning on the light cause I know the place like the back of my hand. I get to the bottom of the stairs and flip over the baby gate that my Mom put back UP and crashed into the wall across from the bottom of the stairs. I hit my shoulder, elbow, wrist, turned my ankle and drug it on the carpet and got a carpet burn. And not one single person comes to check on me!!! So I go ...er limp... back to bed.

I sleep in the next morning and get up as say "Man that was a rough night. I fell down the stairs. Why did you put the baby gate back up?" Libby goes "Well I wish it HAD been down and all the dogs would have been upstairs with YOU." Apparently Bubba had whined and gone between my parent's bed and Libby and Madi on the fold out couch all night long. Finally at 3am, Granny got up and put him in the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs. Libby got up at 6am to go to the bathroom and didn't know he was in there and let him back out.

Meanwhile, Bob was sleeping in the back room with the door shut. He said Bo (our lab) was wanting outside every few minutes (there's a door in that room that leads outside and has a dog door)...I bet I let him outside 19 times. And then Boots (our Cocker Spaniel) went out the doggie door, but couldn't figure out how to get back in and started barking so I got up and let him in. About the time I finally got to sleep that little dog started squealing like a pig" (when Granny put him in the bathroom). Granny chimes in "Well that was the only time I got any sleep when he was in the bathroom!!!!"

I asked if anyone heard me fall down the stairs. Bob said he did, but he thought it was the resident ghost. Frank said he did but didn't think he needed to come check on me. Sheesh what a wild night. All things considered we had a great Thanksgiving.

Updates on the Farm

We have the new shed up. I actually got on the tractor and ran the brush hog. I was quite empowering. You just run over small trees and it chops them up into little pieces. I must admit I was imagining certain people as I mowed down tree after tree. I seriously love our little mini-farm. I stay out there as much as possible. The next couple of big projects are to tear down the old shed and start moving furniture from our house in town out into the new shed. Furniture that we know won't fit into the trailer.




Tractors are the bomb!!!!





Buddy and Rex. They are half Bird Dog and half Basset Hound. Carlie calls them our Bert Dogs.