Fair warning - this is not a nice entry. It is awful.
Monday came and Jack was doing a little better. He still couldn't feel his leg, but could actually move his toes. However, on the off chance that he didn't keep improving, I got him in to see our doctor before she was off on vacation. He came home with orders to get an MRI on Thursday, though since he can't lay flat, I am not sure how that will work. He was able to walk a little better - gone was the Fred Sanford lurch and I was hopeful he would be back at work in a few days.
And then everything fell apart. Monday evening, I got in the car to go check on my in-laws. I usually walk, but I had some things that I had picked up at the store for Rubilee. As I inched down the driveway watching for the dog, I felt a bump and heard a yelp. Avery had dashed between my front and back tire and I got her. I jumped out to see how bad it was, hoping for a boken paw and hoping to not have to get the pistol. I could hear her yelping and when I rounded the back of the car, she lunged for me, latching on to my leg. Once I got free I sprinted to the house for help. She was too in pain and scared for me to examine. Jack went down and decided that she might be fixable but thought that I first had to have stitches so we went to the ER. I will skip the details at the ER, but by 1 AM, I had several stitches in my calf and we had moved Avery to the house and fairly comfortable.
Yesterday, we got Ave to the vet. We were hopeful that it would be damage that we could realistically fix, but also knew that we would likely have to put her down. X Rays revealed too much bad news and we had to say goodbye. Too make matters worse, since she only got her shots a month ago, she will have to be tested for Rabies.
I know Ave was supposed to be Bell's dog, but we all were attached. She was sweet about spreading her cuddle time out with all of us. She might have been was sweetest, most playful dog I have ever had. Obviously, I feel a tremendous amount of guilt.
Today finds us broken hearted. Helping me with Ave and taking me to the ER meant he was on his feet too much, and Jack undid the progress he had made with his leg. He spent yeaterdy in pain thanks to me. I am limping around with orders to not work out for a few weeks or be up too much to keep this cut from proofing out and not healing nicely. This spells disaster for my fitting in a dress at Tuck's wedding. In spite of the stitches, there is still bleeding and I can't get comfortable to sleep much.
I know there will be other puppies. I know my leg will heal and so will Jack's. I am thankful for the rain - it meant I didn't have to drag the hose around for an hour this morning, but rain is also just soothing to my soul. Despite the rain, I still feel a bit gray inside.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
How to Pick a Berry
Berry picking is not a task to be taken lightly.
1. Wear lots of clothes - you are sure to be hot and sweaty, but should wear boots, jeans, gloves, and the heaviest shirt possible. Not heavy as in a sweatshirt, but something that will resist snags and pokes of thorns. Put on Off unless you live in a magical land without chiggers.
2. Take a hoe - it's good for knocking spider webs away, poking around in front of you on the ground to find snakes before you step on them, and to snag vines that are just out of reach and pull them to you
3. Do not take people with you unless they are good at silence or are good conversationalists
4. Do not let small dogs who are afraid of losing sight of you go - they whine too much
5. No cell phones or iPods - this is quiet time to listen to the birds and God. Anyway, if you lose that phone in the berry patch, it may be gone forever.
6. Plan on coming home with fingers stained purple, stained so deeply that they will look dirty for a few days yet.
7. Plan on taste testing, right there in the patch, up to your eyeballs in brambles and thorns
8. When you get home, you will already be hot and dirty, so you might as well water and pick the garden before coming in.
9. Pie is in order.
1. Wear lots of clothes - you are sure to be hot and sweaty, but should wear boots, jeans, gloves, and the heaviest shirt possible. Not heavy as in a sweatshirt, but something that will resist snags and pokes of thorns. Put on Off unless you live in a magical land without chiggers.
2. Take a hoe - it's good for knocking spider webs away, poking around in front of you on the ground to find snakes before you step on them, and to snag vines that are just out of reach and pull them to you
3. Do not take people with you unless they are good at silence or are good conversationalists
4. Do not let small dogs who are afraid of losing sight of you go - they whine too much
5. No cell phones or iPods - this is quiet time to listen to the birds and God. Anyway, if you lose that phone in the berry patch, it may be gone forever.
6. Plan on coming home with fingers stained purple, stained so deeply that they will look dirty for a few days yet.
7. Plan on taste testing, right there in the patch, up to your eyeballs in brambles and thorns
8. When you get home, you will already be hot and dirty, so you might as well water and pick the garden before coming in.
9. Pie is in order.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Berry Picking in the Rain
Right after the 4th, I went berry picking on the dam of the lake and came home with perhaps two cups of blackberries. The bushes were covered in red berries and I promised my self that as soon as I came home from the Advanced Placement Summer Institute, I would go back and hope the birds and coons didn't clean out the patch while I was gone.
And then there was the AP institute. Oh. My. It has been years since I felt that stupid and uneducated. Words like "anaphora" and "synecdoche" floated glibly off teachers tongues as they discussed passage analysis while I scrambled through the dictionary on my iPad trying madly to keep up. The difference in argument and persuasion. Making a 9 rather than a 5. Style and voice. At one point we did 10 multiple choice q's over a passage. I was guessing. I was praying I got at least half of them right and that no one called on me. I actually got 8 right, but couldn't have explained to a kid why I knew they were right. They just felt that way, just instinct. It was so relieving when Jo Perriman, who has a masters, said in frustration "I can't do this." It was permission for me to struggle. I came home still totally unprepared to teach this class. I left USAO feeling confident to teach lit analysis . . . I can better handle theme and all that. I will be teaching language and comp, not lit. Not my comfort zone.
I have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get ready for this and my eye has started twitching.
I came home to a husband who couldn't even get off the couch to pee so was choosing to not drink anything. Two days before I went to AP, Jack fell and did something to his back. The first day he was stiff and sore but took some anti-inflammatories of mine. He managed to function fairly well for about 4 days. Then he ran out of the pills and locked up. I came home to a husband who couldn't function, a wild child, and a trashed house. I got him more meds and got him to the chiropractor. The doc said it could be as bad as a ruptured disc or as simple as a torn muscle and definitely a pinched nerve. He is a little better - the screaming and moaning has stopped when he moves, but his right leg and foot are numb so driving is tricky . . . Which means he can't work. He doesn't have insurance yet, though if he goes back to work, he can start that process. In the meantime, our chiropractor says a regular doc would have the same "wait and let it heal" approach. Jack goes back to the chiropractor tomorrow. I am getting worried - I really thought he would be better by now and I don't know how long his job will wait on him. In the meantime, I have asked our church body to pray for healing. He woke today with less pain and a better mood so maybe it is progress.
Can you tell I am a little stressed? Depressed? Bordering on panic? I feel like I am swamped with things I need to do here on the place before school starts - both academics and house projects. My janky hand is slowing me down, but that is a whole different problem to be addressed some other time.
Back to the berries. Tuesday morning came drizzly, cool, and gray. I pulled on my old rubber boots, the ones with the top bitten off by a former dog, grabbed my bucket and headed down the hill. I really expected the berries to be gone - it had been too long since I had been down there. The bushes were covered in berries, both red and black. I came home with only a gallon, but there were lots of red ones so I will check again in a few days. With these cool, wet days, maybe they won't have shriveled on the canes.
While I picked, Avery kept me company. It rained a little more, plastering Jack's last Navy work shirt to my back. I continued to pick. I pondered Malthusian theory from PEST class because I am reading Dante's Inferno. I thought about some poetry I had read and a David Sedaris piece I wanted to re-read. I wondered what other farmers and country folk thought about while they worked. Did they contemplate international relations with Egypt and try to remember all the words to "She Walks in Beauty"? It was beyond peaceful. There were fish splashing and frogs hopping, much to Avery's delight. The rain was misty and cool on my face. The black berry thorns were vicious. My eye didn't twitch and I didn't worry about whether or not my hand would allow me to scrub the shower. I am still convinced I belong there on the farm, all day and every day. It seems to sit well with my soul.
Today, I will putter in my wild patch of tomatoes a bit today and take Bell to the pool. I will finish mowing the yard. I will make something for the church bake sale.
There is surely a patron saint of English teachers with gimpy husbands who can lend me a hand until I can get back to the berries and some sanity.
And then there was the AP institute. Oh. My. It has been years since I felt that stupid and uneducated. Words like "anaphora" and "synecdoche" floated glibly off teachers tongues as they discussed passage analysis while I scrambled through the dictionary on my iPad trying madly to keep up. The difference in argument and persuasion. Making a 9 rather than a 5. Style and voice. At one point we did 10 multiple choice q's over a passage. I was guessing. I was praying I got at least half of them right and that no one called on me. I actually got 8 right, but couldn't have explained to a kid why I knew they were right. They just felt that way, just instinct. It was so relieving when Jo Perriman, who has a masters, said in frustration "I can't do this." It was permission for me to struggle. I came home still totally unprepared to teach this class. I left USAO feeling confident to teach lit analysis . . . I can better handle theme and all that. I will be teaching language and comp, not lit. Not my comfort zone.
I have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get ready for this and my eye has started twitching.
I came home to a husband who couldn't even get off the couch to pee so was choosing to not drink anything. Two days before I went to AP, Jack fell and did something to his back. The first day he was stiff and sore but took some anti-inflammatories of mine. He managed to function fairly well for about 4 days. Then he ran out of the pills and locked up. I came home to a husband who couldn't function, a wild child, and a trashed house. I got him more meds and got him to the chiropractor. The doc said it could be as bad as a ruptured disc or as simple as a torn muscle and definitely a pinched nerve. He is a little better - the screaming and moaning has stopped when he moves, but his right leg and foot are numb so driving is tricky . . . Which means he can't work. He doesn't have insurance yet, though if he goes back to work, he can start that process. In the meantime, our chiropractor says a regular doc would have the same "wait and let it heal" approach. Jack goes back to the chiropractor tomorrow. I am getting worried - I really thought he would be better by now and I don't know how long his job will wait on him. In the meantime, I have asked our church body to pray for healing. He woke today with less pain and a better mood so maybe it is progress.
Can you tell I am a little stressed? Depressed? Bordering on panic? I feel like I am swamped with things I need to do here on the place before school starts - both academics and house projects. My janky hand is slowing me down, but that is a whole different problem to be addressed some other time.
Back to the berries. Tuesday morning came drizzly, cool, and gray. I pulled on my old rubber boots, the ones with the top bitten off by a former dog, grabbed my bucket and headed down the hill. I really expected the berries to be gone - it had been too long since I had been down there. The bushes were covered in berries, both red and black. I came home with only a gallon, but there were lots of red ones so I will check again in a few days. With these cool, wet days, maybe they won't have shriveled on the canes.
While I picked, Avery kept me company. It rained a little more, plastering Jack's last Navy work shirt to my back. I continued to pick. I pondered Malthusian theory from PEST class because I am reading Dante's Inferno. I thought about some poetry I had read and a David Sedaris piece I wanted to re-read. I wondered what other farmers and country folk thought about while they worked. Did they contemplate international relations with Egypt and try to remember all the words to "She Walks in Beauty"? It was beyond peaceful. There were fish splashing and frogs hopping, much to Avery's delight. The rain was misty and cool on my face. The black berry thorns were vicious. My eye didn't twitch and I didn't worry about whether or not my hand would allow me to scrub the shower. I am still convinced I belong there on the farm, all day and every day. It seems to sit well with my soul.
Today, I will putter in my wild patch of tomatoes a bit today and take Bell to the pool. I will finish mowing the yard. I will make something for the church bake sale.
There is surely a patron saint of English teachers with gimpy husbands who can lend me a hand until I can get back to the berries and some sanity.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Fireworks, Friends, Grandpas, and Seizing the Day
Sometimes our children are wiser than we think. And sometimes it just makes me cry.
A week ago, friends of ours from school had invited us over for dinner and to watch the Fletcher Fireworks show from their back yard. Suzanne even invited my in-laws. Bell was excited because she loves to play with their son. I was looking forward to good company.
But then the evening began to unravel. Jack will be off next week while I get to go to an Advanced Placement Summer Institute so that I can teach my very first AP class in the fall. That means that he ended up being on multiple jobs starting yesterday and running through Friday or Saturday. No 4th of July for him. We will be lucky if he even calls home today.
Then last night when we went to check in my in-laws, Harold asked if Isabella was big enough to ride in his truck without her booster seat. When I asked why, he said he thought she might like to go with him to Cyril to watch the fireworks. He knew that we were going to Suanne's, but had forgotten. Rubilee piped up that we already had plans and he looked like a puppy someone had kicked.
When we got home, Bell and I talked about it over evening chores. She pointed out that this may be a one time opportunity to go with Grandpa. He will be 87 next month and honestly, every winter he is worse and we think it is the last. He has never felt well enough to ask her to go with him anywhere before either, but he felt well yesterday.
I pointed out that she might never go Suzanne's house on the 4th again either. Isabella agreed that it might be true and I left the decision up to her. She was really quiet. I could hear the scales in her mind weighing burgers, ice cream, her friend, and a nice show against sitting in Grandpa's truck watching a small show from the shop. Her answer: "Mom, I should spend it with Grandpa. He is my only Grandpa Harold and there really might not be a next year for this."
And with that we just hope our friends understand and forgive our rudeness of not showing up, especially after I said I would bring salsa. We hope our friends and family everywhere spend this holiday appreciating the ones they love and remembering the sacrifices made so we can live in a place where we can make the choices that matter to our hearts. Happy 4th of July from us here on the hill.
A week ago, friends of ours from school had invited us over for dinner and to watch the Fletcher Fireworks show from their back yard. Suzanne even invited my in-laws. Bell was excited because she loves to play with their son. I was looking forward to good company.
But then the evening began to unravel. Jack will be off next week while I get to go to an Advanced Placement Summer Institute so that I can teach my very first AP class in the fall. That means that he ended up being on multiple jobs starting yesterday and running through Friday or Saturday. No 4th of July for him. We will be lucky if he even calls home today.
Then last night when we went to check in my in-laws, Harold asked if Isabella was big enough to ride in his truck without her booster seat. When I asked why, he said he thought she might like to go with him to Cyril to watch the fireworks. He knew that we were going to Suanne's, but had forgotten. Rubilee piped up that we already had plans and he looked like a puppy someone had kicked.
When we got home, Bell and I talked about it over evening chores. She pointed out that this may be a one time opportunity to go with Grandpa. He will be 87 next month and honestly, every winter he is worse and we think it is the last. He has never felt well enough to ask her to go with him anywhere before either, but he felt well yesterday.
I pointed out that she might never go Suzanne's house on the 4th again either. Isabella agreed that it might be true and I left the decision up to her. She was really quiet. I could hear the scales in her mind weighing burgers, ice cream, her friend, and a nice show against sitting in Grandpa's truck watching a small show from the shop. Her answer: "Mom, I should spend it with Grandpa. He is my only Grandpa Harold and there really might not be a next year for this."
And with that we just hope our friends understand and forgive our rudeness of not showing up, especially after I said I would bring salsa. We hope our friends and family everywhere spend this holiday appreciating the ones they love and remembering the sacrifices made so we can live in a place where we can make the choices that matter to our hearts. Happy 4th of July from us here on the hill.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Sunrise
At 4:15 this morning, when the coyotes got the house menagerie stirred up into barking and whining and hissing, I decided that Misti Pryor is right. I need a vacation from vacation, but I don't think it will be happening this year. In only the first three days of this week we spent a day with grandparents, a day with friends at their pool, and yesterday was Medicine Park and the Witchtas, getting Avery spayed, and picking blackberries.
Poor Avery has a small bladder and is still in house training mode so I normally just get up with her around 5:30, but this morning when she needed at out after the coyote alarm, I thought I might just go back to sleep. First I had to remove a kitten from my bed and by the time I got settled, Jack said, "You know, my alarm is going to go off in 30 minutes." And that was the end of sleep.
I am so painfully tired that I can't think, even though I did have some coffee with the sunrise. When I first could see the lake this morning, I could tell it was another one of those mist shrouded sunrises over the water. The water is warm - last night I stood in the edge to pick berries I couldn't reach from shore, but this wonderful cool morning air makes a foggy mist hover over the water. At first, it was too dark to see the ripples of the fish and turtles or the reflection of trees, but when I finished my first cup of coffee, I grabbed my camera, bathrobe and flip flops. I started in the yard, but found my self drifting across the pasture catching the sun as it rose higher above the water, until I was at Rubilee's yard. She brought her coffee out to join me and we talked flowers and kids and animals for a bit before I drifted back to my own house to feed my tribe.
I am not sure what all today brings. The day after Huxley went to his new home, a dumped half-grown puppy showed up, emaciated and runny eyed. We must have had a neon sign flashing "vacancy - dump your pet here." We can't keep him - I have committed to having 4 cats and one dog spayed and vaccinated already this summer. Anyway, he would be another trip hazard for Rubilee. I have called and called the guy at the Elgin Animal Rescue but can't through. I am waiting to hear if a place in Carnegie can get this little guy a space with a vet. Limbo.
Today, I might drop the dog off somewhere. I might get a nap. I ought to go buy shoes with Bell and visit the grands while they are down at my folks . . . if I am awake enough to drive that far. I at least won't be cooking for a few days since Jack went back out today. Perhaps we won't go anywhere at all and I will sleep in the sun and even out this tan. Whatever the day brings, it was certainly a gorgeous start.
Poor Avery has a small bladder and is still in house training mode so I normally just get up with her around 5:30, but this morning when she needed at out after the coyote alarm, I thought I might just go back to sleep. First I had to remove a kitten from my bed and by the time I got settled, Jack said, "You know, my alarm is going to go off in 30 minutes." And that was the end of sleep.
I am so painfully tired that I can't think, even though I did have some coffee with the sunrise. When I first could see the lake this morning, I could tell it was another one of those mist shrouded sunrises over the water. The water is warm - last night I stood in the edge to pick berries I couldn't reach from shore, but this wonderful cool morning air makes a foggy mist hover over the water. At first, it was too dark to see the ripples of the fish and turtles or the reflection of trees, but when I finished my first cup of coffee, I grabbed my camera, bathrobe and flip flops. I started in the yard, but found my self drifting across the pasture catching the sun as it rose higher above the water, until I was at Rubilee's yard. She brought her coffee out to join me and we talked flowers and kids and animals for a bit before I drifted back to my own house to feed my tribe.
I am not sure what all today brings. The day after Huxley went to his new home, a dumped half-grown puppy showed up, emaciated and runny eyed. We must have had a neon sign flashing "vacancy - dump your pet here." We can't keep him - I have committed to having 4 cats and one dog spayed and vaccinated already this summer. Anyway, he would be another trip hazard for Rubilee. I have called and called the guy at the Elgin Animal Rescue but can't through. I am waiting to hear if a place in Carnegie can get this little guy a space with a vet. Limbo. Today, I might drop the dog off somewhere. I might get a nap. I ought to go buy shoes with Bell and visit the grands while they are down at my folks . . . if I am awake enough to drive that far. I at least won't be cooking for a few days since Jack went back out today. Perhaps we won't go anywhere at all and I will sleep in the sun and even out this tan. Whatever the day brings, it was certainly a gorgeous start.
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