May

This month has been tumultuous for me.  Kind of like paddling my canoe over Niagara Falls.  Lots of roaring and wild descents and outrageous bumps.  That's why I haven't written anything since last month.

I realized yesterday that I totally missed the Ember Week.  :(

And I wonder if life is really supposed to be this hectic, so draining--if I am doing it wrong.  It feels wrong.  That's for sure.  But I can't figure out how to do it differently.  I just keep paddling furiously and reminding myself that most everyone is doing the same.  

I am enormously grateful for my paddle.  I grip it tightly, knowing that despite my trials I am supremely blessed.

A young 20-something friend told me, "At least your life is defined."  Ostensibly, because I am married and have children and know what my duties are, I am in a far better place than he, who is still single and living at home, not knowing if he will find someone to marry, etc.  This is a common concern among my young traditional Catholic men friends.  Much worry is devoted to it and rightly so.  However,  after much pondering, I have to say that although those particular questions have been answered for me, they only bring a new set of questions: Whom will my children marry?  Where will they live?  Will I be able to have regular, in-person, interaction with my children and grandchildren?  Or will they live far from me?  Will there be anyone nearby to take care of me in my old age?  Will I die with the sacraments?

And yet, I know that we should not be solicitous for tomorrow.  Behold the birds of the air...the lilies of the field...

We have the Blessed Mother, too, and her assurance, "Am I not here, who am your Mother?"

Furthermore, we know that God chose for us to be born into this time, this horrible post-Christendom time.  Knowing this I feel a grave responsibility.  Am I doing God's will?  I think He has put a lot of confidence in me to bring me into this world in the dread year 1960.

All of these uncertainties--my young friends' and mine--are symptomatic of the destruction of Catholic culture.  So I think every day about what I can do to restore it.  Is not Christ telling us, as he told St. Francis, "Restore my Church?"

Speaking of the destruction of the Church, I was astounded to learn that "Catholic" Match allows you to choose which of the Church's teachings you believe.  I guess calling the service Heretic Match wouldn't be as lucrative.

Modern Life Is So Disjointed  

I spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to navigate Western medicine for my little family.  I think that is why May has finished me off.   My little engine was already running on fumes.

My dad was hospitalized again this month, this time for a week, and his discharge paperwork included a list of about 20 doctors who saw him during that time, several of whom I am supposed to make appointments with for followup visits.  For the life of me I can't understand why nephrology and urology are two separate specialties!  How dumb is that?  For that matter, why is gastroenterology its own thing?  Why not put those three together into something halfway sensible like an "output" specialist?

After Dad was discharged I canceled two pre-existing appointments with specialists because he needed time to recover from being in the hospital.  He was so weak and disoriented from being there that he fell two times within 24 hours of coming home.  Unbeknownst to us, he spent an entire night on the bedroom floor, freezing under the ceiling fan.  After that he was really confused and thought he was on a boat.  Plus, the hospital managed to let him get another bedsore on his heel, so I needed to get him to the podiatrist to have the dead flesh cut out.

When he was in the hospital, I was making daily hour-and-a-half roundtrips to visit him while trying to keep everything going at home, including taking care of my mother and preparing for Emma's senior recital reception and graduation after-party, and the arrival of relatives for those events.  Thank goodness my sister Beverly came in from Birmingham and took over with Mom.

We got through all that only for our dog to begin a serious decline.  Poor old Cowboy!  His hips refused to keep doing their job, and almost every morning I would find him lying against the back door in his own waste because he had been unable to get up to go to the bathroom in the yard.  Eerily, it was kind of like the night my Dad spent on the bedroom floor.  When I helped Cowboy up, he could walk, but his rear legs would splay out, making him stagger like a drunk.

Finally, my husband Herb dug a hole behind the barn and took Cowboy on his last walk after we each took time to say goodbye.  I watched the old Black Lab's agonizing progress down the sidewalk and beside the barn until he turned behind it to dutifully follow Herb.  Such a sad, sad day!   It was really the end of an era.

We bought Cowboy's mom, Cocoa, and aunt, Genevieve, as newly-weaned pups for Nathaniel and Emma in 1998.  We kept one puppy from each mom:  Cowboy and Spats.  We had to put Spats down last year.  I made the mistake of trying to hold out with him and let him die naturally at home.  Emma and I ended up having to heave him into the back of the car and haul him to the vet to be put to sleep.  I have to say that dying at home at gunpoint on your own grass is the more merciful experience.

When Herb took Cowboy, Emma and I busied ourselves cooking.  I asked her to choose some music for us to listen to so that we didn't hear the gunshot.  She chose a YouTube playlist.  It was all very upbeat music to distract us from our grief.  Strangely, just as Herb returned from his death duty, Danny Boy came on, and my tears began anew.

Surely June will be better.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Of Wormwood and Black Walnut and Strange Pet Behavior

This clever dish concealed a pocket of herbs--wormwood and black walnut--by which I sought to deliver a death-dealing blow to some parasites that are plaguing our old black Lab, Cowboy.

Doesn't it look scrumptious?

It's actually layers of leftovers, topped with the spaghetti squash seeds that I had just scooped out in preparation for our own lunch.  I had a ginormous pot of bone broth simmering on the stove with lamb, chicken, and beef bones in it, and I decided to top the whole "casserole" with a ladleful of it for good measure.

The herbs are pungent, so I needed all the help I could get.

Or so I thought.

Not only did Cowboy plunge his muzzle into the medicinal meal, Stray Cat did too.  I had to keep grabbing him up to keep him out of it, as I feared the whopping dose of herbs would be dangerous for him.  However, every time I set him down, he dove back in.  What a strange kitty.  Strange dog, too.  I thought he might bite Stray Kitty's head off, but he never even growled.

After Cowboy had consumed the majority of it, I let Stray Cat down, and he proceeded to clean up, even devouring the last bit of carrot.

Our other four cats never paid the least attention to the food.   When I picked up the pan, Stray Cat batted at it with his paws, as if to pull it back down.  Crazy.

I gave the herb combination to Cowboy for three days total.  Next week he starts a once a week maintenance program of a second herb combination.  He has responded well so far.

Blessed Sani-tea

Especially in the evenings of late, we've been quietly enjoying our new tea station.  I'm sipping a cup of chamomile now.  Just pulling open the drawer gives me a glimpse of order in a world gone mad!  Hahaha!    Or maybe my mind is desperate because we've been living in such chaos for the last five months.

At any rate, between the tea drawer and the new electric kettle I procured--with automatic shutoff!--our tea drinking careers have blossomed.

I have a picture, but I won't show you, of what I did to my my mother's kettle while boiling water on the stove for tea.  I went to her living room to get something and received several texts from my husband and a phone call too.

Did I totally forget about the tea kettle boiling on the stove?  Yes, yes, I did.  By the time I discovered it, it was so scorched, I actually had to wait for it to cool before I could separate it from the burner.  So the next day I bought the one in the picture for our house.  I don't trust myself anymore.

Interestingly, an ex-library copy of My Heart Lies South that I had ordered arrived in the mail today, and it opened to the chapter on medicinal teas that Mexican ladies regularly used to successfully treat various ailments, including menopause.  My favorite one the author describes is

 toloache, a dreadful mysterious weed, which is secretly given to husbands who have strayed too far from home and fireside.  It effectually soddens them and if they are given enough of it, it causes them to sit drooling gently by the fireside forever, while Mama goes out to earn the living.

You just can't beat the early 20th century Mexicans for practicality in the handling of domestic affairs.

Fiona Aids My Missionarying Efforts

When the painter showed up on Monday, he couldn't find the paint for Emma's bathroom.  So I went out to the garage with him to see if we could locate it there.

As we were sorting through the collection of paint cans, he talked to me in Spanish, and I talked to him in English.  In between we smiled at each other, as neither one of us knew what the other one was saying.

I decided to open the garage door nearest to the paint cans so we could have more light.  My friend, Alfredo, looked at me and said, "La vaca?"

I laughed.  I do know the Spanish word for cow.

Apparently he had heard the story from Fernando, the other painter, about Fiona getting in the garage to enjoy a luncheon inside a 25-lb dog food bag, and he was concerned.

"Yes,  I told him.  I'll close it as soon as we're done."

He replied with a sentence that included "la vaca," "ocho," "rancho," and "Monterrey," complete with hand motions that depicted milking a cow.

"You milk eight cows at your ranch in Monterrey?" I asked.  "He nodded enthusiastically, smiling hugely.

"Wow!  I said.  Thinking to myself, "that's a lot of milk" and remembering the Spanish word for cheese, I asked him, "Queso?"

This provoked a long and enthusiastic response with more smiling.  I have no idea what he said, other than it was a positive response to making cheese with all that milk.

We found the right paint.  I closed the garage door, and we went back in the house.  I decided to show him my butter molds.  He was very happy to see them.  I have three wooden ones and one set of silicone molds for roses and leaves.  He told me the Spanish words for rose and leaves--rosa, la hojas--and had me repeat them three times.  It was great fun!  I got some butter out of the refrigerator and told him, "butter."

He repeated it.

Then he went away smiling to his work.

Soon the tile man, Mario, arrived.  He is the one who picked up the Cristero picture a few weeks ago. I found out that he is from Honduras.  He speaks pretty fair English, so I asked him whether Alfredo is Catholic.  Mario asked him.

He translated.  "He is Catholic, but he is not very religious.  He doesn't like to go to Mass very much."

"Tell him I want him to come to my church.  We have the Mass of the Cristeros!  The same one they were willing to die for, not the new one that is feminized."

Mario complied, and Alfredo smiled at me.  I ran and got a chapel veil.  I put it on and showed Alfredo.  "We wear mantillas," I told him, because I thought that idea might help convey the reverence to be found in the old Latin Mass.

His expression changed to one of emotion.

"Si?" I asked him.

He nodded and said something to Mario.

"He says he will come," Mario told me.  I grabbed an index card from my desk and wrote down the address for St. Jude's and gave him my phone number.  I asked Mario to tell him that he could text me when he got to the church, and I would introduce him to a Spanish speaker.

Later I thought with remorse what a weak plan that is, but I am entrusting this deficiency to the care of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The contractor, Alex, arrived about 4 that afternoon, and he and Mario and Alfredo worked until at least 6.  I knew they were tired and had a long drive ahead of them.  Emma had just baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies, so I offered them coffee and cookies.

They readily accepted, and I invited them to sit at the kitchen table.  I served them their coffee and cookies, and we had such a nice visit.  Afterward, as they were preparing to leave, they spotted our wooden tortilla maker on the counter.  This provoked a stir of excitement among the men.

Alex asked, "You make tortillas?" somewhat incredulously.

"Yes," I replied.

"Do you use corn or flour?" he asked.

"We used to use flour," Emma told him.  "But since I am allergic to corn and wheat gluten, now we use cassava flour."

This segued into a lengthy conversation about the book, My Heart Lies South: The Story of My Mexican Marriage, by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino.  (My favorite edition is the 1972 with epilogue.  The epilogue is well worth the hunt for this out of print edition.)  Mario said that he would like to read it.  I quickly wrote down the title and author for him.  The book is a fabulous accounting of Catholic family life and culture in 1930s Mexico.  I just ordered two more copies, that way I can give him one if he doesn't order it before I see him next.  And I've got four copies of the Cristero movie, For Greater Glory, Spanish edition, on the way from a third party seller on Amazon.  I am especially hopeful that the movie and the book will help Mario, as when I asked him, "Are you Catholic?" he told me that he goes "to the Christian church, Lakewood."

"Joel Osteen's church?" I asked him, disheartened, as this place is otherwise known by me as the headquarters of "Prosperity Gospel, Inc."

He nodded in the affirmative.

"The Catholic Church is the only one established by Jesus Christ," I told him.  Then I smiled at him and dropped it.  I figured less is more in this case.  I know that one bit of information was of utmost importance to my conversion.

So far my missionarying from home efforts seem to be going well.  It is truly enjoyable work and gives me much food for thought when I consider how it has expanded my understanding of the Catholic term, "domestic church."  I'm really grateful for this opportunity I have been given to share my faith in a way that melds so perfectly with my state in life.  Deo gratias! 

Thanks in advance for any prayers you can lend for these dear souls.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and Holy Face, pray for us!

The Big-Little, Scary-Wonderful, St. Patrick's Day Surprise

With Holy Week and all, I kind of lost track of time, but somewhere in the last two weeks I told you about getting our furniture moved back in the house from the garage, where we had been keeping it while flood repairs were being done on our house.  When we put it there, we thought it would be for a month.  It's been, um, let me see...almost five months.

Anyway, so we got the furniture put back in by a wonderful crew of guys from Three Men, only they sent four men, which was great.  That was the evening we went to see the Mary Poppins musical.  I guess it was the next night, St. Patrick's Day, that I was walking down the hallway and heard Emma squeal in her bedroom and a drawer slam shut.

I rushed into her room and found her kneeling on the floor in front of her dresser.  I asked her what happened.

"There's a baby possum in my drawer," she explained, grinning.

I did not feel any urge to join her in grinning.

"Oh, no." I said.

She slowly pulled open the drawer.

Amongst the clothes in the left rear corner, there was a ball of fur.  At first I didn't think it was real.  It reminded me of this cat toy we have.  But then I saw its nose and eyes, and my heart sank.

"He's soooo cute!  Can I keep him, Mama?" Emma implored.

"NO."

I hurried out and retrieved a cat carrier, and Emma scooped up the possum baby and cuddled him until I prompted her to cage him.  She popped him inside. I latched the door with enormous relief.

"That was too easy," I thought to myself.  "Have you checked the other drawers, Emma?"

"Yes," she replied.  "I'll look again, though."

I fought the urge to succumb to deep despair when her search revealed two more baby possums.  These two were not docile like their sibling.  They scurried away.

One of them tried to squeeze itself under the back of the dresser, which afforded Emma the opportunity to gently poke its belly and giggle.

After a few minutes of attempting to catch them inside the dresser, one of them made a run for it, charging toward the opposite wall.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" I screamed.

The renegade possum sought shelter under Emma's bed.  After much maneuvering, we managed to chase it into Emma's closet, where she nabbed the varmint with the help of a towel.

Possum number three was flat out perturbed with us by the time Emma got a hold of him.  He grinned his horrifying grin while Emma cooed over him.

"May I keep him, Mama?"

"NO."

At last the three possums were caged, and I took the cat carrier to the back yard, placed it next to a big oak tree, and opened the door.

Returning to Emma's room, I found Emma emptying drawers.  There were possum poops in there.

Gross.

She had hoped to spend the night in her room for the first time since we had moved to Grandma's.  She decided tonight was not the night to do it, especially since we had begun to wonder...

"Where is Mama Possum?"

Emma left for Grandma's.  When I went to crawl into bed, I noticed something on the floor next to my nightstand.  Could it be...

Yes, it could.

It was a possum poop.

"Waaaaaa!" I cried, giving in to a few tears.

Poking around this large open box of stuff I still needed to unpack, I found one more poop.  I feared there were possums lurking inside that box.  I gingerly lifted a pair of my husband's folded jeans.  A third possum poop rolled out and plopped on the carpet.

I jumped on my bed.

I spent a harrowing night in fear of waking to find a possum crawling across my face or dangling by the curtains over my head.

No such thing happened, though.  I didn't hear any strange noises, nor see any more poops.  I guess Emma's three baby possums had ventured to my room at some point looking for their mama.

For the sake of my sanity, I refuse to consider any other possumbilities.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

After our long exile at my parents' house because of our house flooding, things are finally beginning to return to normal.

Recently, when I came home from the drug store, I saw a burro in the open field next door.  I told Emma about it, and she went to see if she could catch it to return it to its owner.

She provisioned herself with a bowl of dog food and proceeded to climb over our fence.  I don't know if burros go for dog food, but Fiona sure does.  I looked out just in time to see her hauling tail toward Emma.  Then I saw Emma land safely in the field with the burro.

The burro proved to be elusive, and Emma returned to our yard, dog food untouched in the bowl she carried.  I was busy doing something else by then and didn't pay attention.  The next morning Emma texted me these photos with no explanation.  (sorry about the formatting issues)

The Stalker

Closing in

Beware the bovine with a wild-eye

In Haught Pursuit!

Fiona Airborne.  Love.

Run, Emma Jo!

Needless to say, when I received the texted photos, I was a little alarmed--first because I didn't know if the chase was in progress at the time Emma sent the photos and second because I realized I had raised up a child who would take pictures when she is running for her life.

Happily, I discovered that Emma was safely in her bed and that the photos were from the day before when Emma decided to document Fiona's desperate attempt to "capture" the dog food Emma was carrying.

Just another dull episode in our boring life in the country...

Yes, Dad, I am Guilty

A series of emotional bombs exploded in my parents' kitchen the other night when my Dad discovered that I had not been giving his beloved Yorkshire Terrier his Trifexis heart worm/flea/parasite pill.  For six months.

Cherokee, Dad's little bundle of joy

It's a simple problem about which the dog, Cherokee, and I had reached an understanding.  He did not  like taking the pills, and I did not like trying to make him take them.  The only problem with our agreement was that we did not consult an interested third party, my dad.

Ignorance is bliss, right?  Apparently, not.

I mean, it's not like I didn't try.  I wrapped those Trifexis bricks in cheese.  Stuffed them in ground chicken.  Hid them in supposedly irresistibly tasty, special-for-the-purpose pill covers.  I had my son hold Cherokee while I pried his jaws of iron apart and tried to plunge the poison down his gnarly-growly throat.  Not only was I unsuccessful, he bit me.  Yeah, I call that technique the Pry, Try, & Cry.

No lie.

So as I stood guiltily facing my accuser, Dad's face turned white and seemed to expand eerily.  He threw his head back like I had delivered him a fierce blow under his chin.

"YOU JUST WANT MY DOG TO DIE!" he gasped.

The heavy scent of Eau de Drama threatened to choke me.  I briefly considered fainting.

At this point my mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided to resurrect Pee Wee, Dad's dog from his teenage years in the late 1940s.  "You didn't give Pee Wee heart worm pills, did you?" she asked, smiling smugly with her own cleverness.

Dad wasn't falling for that one, though.  He simply answered, "No," and returned his attention to me..."poor, poor pitiful me.  Lord have mercy on me."  (Just a little Linda Ronstadt moment.  It was so perfect, I couldn't pass it up.)

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!" Dad snapped.

At this point, neither could I.  It seemed like a good idea at the time?  I was beginning to feel like a teenager again but not in the good way that we 50-somethings dream about.

At last Dad excused himself to his computer to blow off the rest of his steam on a game of Solitaire.  He didn't talk to me again that night.  I think it was a good thing.  Don't you?

The next day I took Cherokee back to the vet and got him some topically-applied heart worm/flea medicine.  And today I took him and got him groomed.  So I am back in Dad's good graces.

Until my next major goof-up, anyway.

Cherokee, for his part in the trouble, got extra cuddling and a dish of ice cream.

Living on Gecko Time

I don't know if it's the Year of the Gecko or what, but for the last several months, we have been blessed with a gathering of geckos every night--on my kitchen sink window and also on my mother's bathroom window.

We have grown to love them.  Every night, while I perch on the side of the garden tub, waiting for my mom to potty after I get her dressed for bed, we count the geckos on her bathroom window and wonder what they're thinking--why they favor this window and my kitchen sink window, and what they think about.

We worry that with the cooler weather, they will soon disappear.

"Don't go, geckos!" we tell them.

"They're so cute." my mother opines.

I think it's because ours are kind of chubby.  Also, there is something about the way they curl their tails, forming lower case "j's" with legs, that I find attractive--kind of reminds me of paisleys, I suppose.  I love the way they stay in one place, then suddenly all move and pause again.  Maybe it is gecko freeze tag, but I suspect it has something to do with potential prey.

Anyway, we count them eagerly each night.

"Only four!  Is it getting too cold for them?"
"Look, six tonight!"

We savor living on Gecko time, but winter is coming.

My Life on an Ant Farm

For the past month, my kitchen floor swirled with an ever-changing pattern.

Little brown ants tripped lightly across it, each one's path seemingly ruled by chaos.

My floor hosted a great battlefield, where the bodies of dead ants formed solid brown lines along the baseboards and clumps in the corners, awaiting my burial services.  They died of their own accord.  I know not why.  Every other day I swept up the dead, then tossed the contents of my dustpan lightly upon the earth at my back door, antses to antses, dust to dust.

My kitchen counters, too, sported their own contingent of wanderers.  Yesterday I had the strange but interesting experience of slicing celery on my acrylic cutting board while gazing at about 15 ants who cruised aimlessly about underneath it.  I tried to focus on enjoying this spectacle, as I am guessing that if an ant-farm cutting board were marketed by some trendy catalog, it would sell briskly, and here I had this great opportunity absolutely free, with no effort on my part.  Plus, as none ventured to crawl about on top of the cutting board, I realized I should count my blessings.

After all, I had tried ant traps, cans of ant spray, and even diatomaceous earth.  Nothing stopped them.

A week ago, worn out from my ineffectual efforts to be rid of them in time for a party we were hosting, I determined that the ants were sent to me by God and resigned myself to discerning his will in the matter.  I focused on growing in the virtues of patience and perseverance.  I figured I was on the right path when I realized that I heard the word "ants" in the second syllable of each word.

KNOW THY ENEMY

My husband did not share my perspective and yesterday announced that he "could not live this way any longer"!!!!  Throwing himself onto his Harley, he roared away to a poison shop where he described our intruders to the experts and received battle strategy and specialized chemical weapons.

He returned armed with the information that our enemy is the Tawny (Rasberry) Crazy Ant, an invasive species that deployed in the Houston area a little over ten years ago.   You have to spray prodigious amounts of poison outside along the foundation of your house and include a swath of ground about ten feet out, including the underside of any movable objects, which is where they like to build nests.  You must also spray inside.  And pray.  And do it on a regular basis.  And do your best to hold out till winter, when they mostly die off, if you have sprayed and prayed consistently and well.

Today, the ant armies appear nearly beaten.  Only a few struggle on across the tiles, but we know they are out there in the deceptively peaceful-looking yard, quietly re-grouping in their secret camps.

New Neighbor

The view from my back yard at dusk yesterday.

I still look to the east with wonder and surprise, even though it has been at least a week since I first noticed the framework of a new house rising across the hayfield from us.  It appears huge to me.  Maybe my perception will change once it is finished.  Whatever size, it is a vast improvement over the house that used to be located on that property, close to the road, where it flooded on a regular basis, partially because some former owner had built a berm all the way around the house, which actually trapped water inside rather than keeping it out.  Oddly, the first time it happened after its most recent occupant moved in, my husband hurried over there with a pump that would have prevented the house from flooding, but the man of the house refused it.  Not only did he refuse it, he never bought a pump himself and just let the house flood on a regular basis.  And he and his wife had school-age children!  I never met them, but I figure they had awful respiratory problems from mold.

My husband met the owner of the new house last year.  This man bought the property through a foreclosure auction after the flooded house became unlivable.  He wanted it because it adjoins acreage to the east that he already owns and plants row crops on.  That's a good sign.  He's attached to the land.  Not only that,  he had the old flooded house bulldozed right away.  With its overgrown yard, boarded-up windows, and collapsing garage, it had become an eyesore.   The new neighbor will be a good one.
   

The Czech Republic and Me

Photo Credit: yourHoustonNews.com

The area of southeast Texas where I live still shows signs of a Catholic Czech-settler influence.  The town a few miles to the west of me has lots of roads with Czech names--Bohemian Hall and Krenek come to mind--and Sacred Heart Catholic Church there hosts a Czech festival every fall at the county fairgrounds.  Native residents have told me about how the school cafeterias around here used to be staffed by Czech ladies, and that they routinely prepared Czech food from scratch for the students, food that was so tasty and satisfying that students remembered it fondly decades later.  I've often thought about how much fun it would be to interview some of those ladies, though I doubt any are still living.

Although I have only lived here nine years and have no direct connections to the old culture, I feel a deep respect for it and would like to learn more about it.  I guess it's like the desire an adopted child has to find out about his biological parents.  Apparently the old country also feels these ties to its Texas children.  I just read on "The Mad Monarchist" blog how the Czech Republic donated money to the town of West after its recent fertilizer plant explosion.  What a beautiful gesture.  Even though it's a different area of Texas than where I live, and I have no Czech ancestry that I am aware of, I feel the love and caring behind it and am grateful.  The fact that it was $200,000 and not 200 million makes it even more meaningful; I suppose because the smaller amount falls within a human scale that I can understand and appreciate.

A Fence Post

It's official!

The last fence post is IN, and my husband, with Emma's help, has started putting up the wire mesh fencing.  It shouldn't take more than a couple of weekends to get that done.  He has to do the east and the south sides only.  The east side is about 2300 feet I think.  The south side is much shorter.

No more breakouts through the electric fence.

I think this one will solve all our problems.  I will be so relieved.

This matter of having to tie cows grew old a while ago.  Fiona has a special knack for breaking hardware and somehow has managed to "untie" some of my very best knots.  In fact, I'm just back in from chasing her down.

She is hellbent on getting to Ferdie because we started weaning him yesterday.  To put it mildly, she is distraught.    My stomach hurts from the stress of hearing her bawling all day.  It is the most annoying sound.  The further out she stretches her neck, the more grating the sound she produces.  Thankfully, Jess the Cat came to my rescue and provided comic relief while Emma was milking this morning.  Jess is Miss Congeniality.  She hopped on Emma's back and stayed there about ten minutes, mewing contentedly.

Ferdie bawls some, but mostly he just acts depressed--with a capital D.  I wish I knew why we have not been able to do the once-a-day milking, where you separate the calf overnight, milk in the morning, then let them spend the day together.  Since the time he was born back in April, we have not been able to get more than a 1/4 inch of cream at the top of the jar.  Pitiful.  Not worth milking for.  We hope that once Ferdie has been weaned a few days, Fiona will stop holding back her cream.  She used to give two to four inches per quart.

Fortunately, there's no loss to us in all the milk he has been getting.  It has been converted to beef for our table.  I think he is a finer and healthier calf for getting to nurse this long.  After all, veal calves get nothing but milk.

Ferdie, the Milk Fiend

As you can see, Ferdie has GROWN and changed from brown to black.  Incredibly strong, he is also a notorious titty baby.  After a day of being separated from his mama, he becomes absolutely frantic to nurse.  I have given up trying to lead him in an orderly fashion when it's time to rejoin Fiona.  Maybe if I wore welding gloves, my hands could stand up to the friction he produces in the rope.  No, I just go ahead and untie him and say a prayer that no one gets in the way of his one-bull stampede.  He leaps to start, just like a racehorse out of the gate, and twists and kicks along the trail to his creamy goal.

Lord, have mercy.  He scares me.

He flies to this reunion in such extreme agitation, that he always tries to go through the chain link fence first, then finally bounds for the gate and does an epileptic milk dance before I can get it open, my own feet dancing dancing an Irish jig to avoid becoming targets of his sharp and heavy hooves.  He charges through once the latch is lifted, slamming the gate in his wake as he attacks Fiona's udder with such force that she stumbles backward.

You would think that he had been fasting in the desert instead of grazing all day.

Almost immediately upon latching on, a long cord of foamy milk and saliva mixture stretches from his greedy lips to the ground, breaking momentarily when he detaches to "butt the bag" so hard that I wince in sympathy for his mama.  He rotates through all the teats repeatedly, until he makes absolutely sure that no milk is left.  It's a long process.  That's why, on the rare occasions when I bring them together before I get Fiona back to the pen, I don't want to wait for Ferdie to nurse.

That's how I witnessed his best trick of all.

I had tied each of them to separate pecan trees near the road.  Close to dark, I untied Fiona and started leading her back home.  I decided to release Ferdie and let him follow on his own.  I knew that he would be desperate to nurse, but I resolved to give Fiona no slack.  She, however, wanted to stand still and feed her "baby".  I refused to give in; there wasn't any way that I was going to stand there for twenty minutes while Ferdie sucked his satisfaction out of Fiona.  I had other things to do.

So I started tugging her down the driveway toward the house.  I  tugged, and she dug in her hooves.  I felt like one of those pioneer horses, trying to tow a Conestoga wagon up a rocky mountain pass.  Sweat popped out on my forehead and pricked my underarms.  When Fiona managed to resist my pulling, Titty Baby dove for a teat.

As soon as I got her going again, Ferdie charged in front of Fiona and cut her off by turning his body sideways across her chest.  Once he stopped her, he plunged for her udder, a two-step play that up until then had been his best trick.

Again, I pulled hard on Fiona's rope, tightening her harness around her muzzle.  Reluctantly, she put her legs in motion.

That was when I turned and saw Ferdie's backside walking toward me.

He was walking backwards, in double-time, while nursing.

Weird, weird, weird!

It looked like a four-legged, headless body was following me.

I think it even frightened Fiona, because she started jogging.

At that moment, as the sun set, I wondered, "How did I get to this crazy place and why am I here in this carnival of animals?"

Then I just started laughing.

Chicks and Schemes Hatched

Yesterday we discovered that five chicks had hatched.  Apparently they had hatched a couple of days previously, but I never heard or saw any signs.  So one of them expired shortly after we found them.  Big lesson learned.  Go ahead and put chick food and water out when you don't know how long the eggs have been incubated.  It's good to be back in the chick business.

Emma and I are reading a lot about the financial crisis and are trying to guess what the most likely scenario will be after the collapse.   It's hard to know what to do.  I see a lot of people are emphasizing vegetable gardens.  I am not so concerned with vegetables as I am with having grassfed meat, eggs, and milk because they are densely nutritious, and the body can easily assimilate the nutrients, which is not always the case with vegetables.   Plus you need high quality protein to make neurotransmitters, and you need animal fat for satiety and to make sex hormones from cholesterol.  And after living on raw milk exclusively for ten days and feeling great, I just feel that animals are the more important food source to secure a good steady supply of.

What scenario do you envisage after the financial collapse and how are you preparing?

Sing of Mary

Since it is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary I wanted to share this video of Biebl's "Ave Maria".  It is more than the "Ave Maria", it is the Angelus at its most beautiful.   (It doesn't include the closing prayer, though.)


Emma and I have been working on learning more prayers in Latin.  Singing them makes it so much easier for me.  I just don't memorize things as easily as I used to.  I was thrilled when she found this video, because I can sing along and see the music at the same time, pray, and work on memorization.  It is the ultimate in Catholic multi-tasking.  Oh, and those who sing pray twice, so I am getting an even greater return on my efforts!

I titled this post, "Sing of Mary" which is the title of one of the first Marian hymns I learned after I converted in my 30s.  It is one of my favorites.  Here are the lyrics:


Sing of Mary

Sing of Mary, pure and lowly,
Virgin mother undefiled, 
Sing of God's own Son most holy,
Who became her little child.
Fairest child of fairest mother,
God the Lord who came to earth,
Word made flesh, our very brother,
Takes our nature by his birth.

Sing of Jesus, son of Mary,
In the home at Nazareth.
Toil and labour cannot weary 
Love enduring unto death.
Constant was the love he gave her,
Though he went forth from her side,
Forth to preach, and heal, and suffer,
Till on Calvary he died.

Glory be to God the Father;
Glory be to God the Son;
Glory be to God the Spirit;
Glory to the Three in One.
From the heart of blessed Mary,
From all saints the song ascends,
And the Church the strain reechoes
Unto earth's remotest ends.

Moon Over My Homies

I went out early one morning recently to enjoy the quiet.

Too bad there wasn't any! 
The cows mooed.
The rooster crowed.
I couldn't walk without being tripped up by chickens or dogs.

 

Except here.  Shhhhh.  Here is my broody hen, quietly, steadfastly, going about her work of starting a family in the tool shed, by the light of the moon.  She, too, had trouble finding quiet.  She started off in a wild place behind the hangar but was discovered by the dogs.  They ate her eggs.  Then she searched out this safe nursery--where she comes and goes via an open window--and started over.  Soon she will have no peace again, but she will be content just the same in doing what she was designed to do.

Tree Stuff

Nathaniel and Tucker

My dear husband took on this dead tree last weekend.  It was close to the house and shedding limbs at a frightening pace.  I stood in the air conditioning and watched him hold the chainsaw over his head to cut the tree while he balanced on a ladder.   It was really hot and humid, and I worried that he was going to get heat stroke.  

Before he ever got the chainsaw out, he had planned how he would make each cut.  Some cuts required tying the branch with a rope to pull it away from the house.  I worried a lot, as usual, but everything went according to his plan.  My nephew Tucker is staying with us until school starts later this month.  He helped Herb as needed; then when Nathaniel came home from college, he and Tucker picked up all the wood.  They work well together.  It's clear Nathaniel enjoys having a "little brother".

Sunshine wasted no time in claiming the new real estate.

Last year we didn't get any pecans because of the drought.  This year the limbs are so heavy with nuts that they are sagging under the weight.  Several have broken off.  I guess that means that we should have had them pruned last fall.  Oh, well.  Hopefully we won't be visited by any hurricanes this summer, and the rest of the branches can pretend that they are willows and bend.

I feel like this year I am getting an intimate knowledge of our trees, mostly because I have hugged so many as I tie Fiona and Ferdie to them.  I have to rotate them so that they get fresh grass. The menfolk are still putting in posts for our peripheral fence.  Maybe by the end of the month it will be finished.  It will be heavenly!

  I no longer tie Ferdie in the back yard.  We've had two too many broken PVC water pipes from his insatiable head scratching.  I tried tying him close to the back of the house one night.  I thought he couldn't cause any trouble because I made sure he couldn't reach any pipes.  When I went to bed he was asleep on the ground next  to the dogs by the back door.  They looked really cute.  I wish I had gotten a picture!  But in the morning, the memory of their cuteness faded fast as I found my potted rose bush completely unpotted with most of the leaves gone.  Not a bit of soil clung to the roots.  I think Ferdie must have grabbed it in his teeth and shaken it.  Apparently he has a consuming interest in gardening.  I soon discovered he had also pruned the top of my Satsuma tree.  Plus he peed three giant puddles on the sidewalk and pooped two times as well.  Herb reports that Ferdie can pee five minutes at a time.  I believe it after seeing the size of those puddles.  I can't keep him in the chain link fence anymore because he busted the bottom of it and now just slides out underneath within minutes of being put in there.  Luckily Fiona doesn't do that.  She just starts bellowing at the crack of dawn until I take her out.

Tonight, as I led Ferdie out in the front yard by the light of a glowing full moon, we passed by one of our Crepe Myrtles, and I realized for the first time that it was awash with luscious deep pink blossoms.  I think the moonlight made it especially pretty.  Ferdie didn't seem to notice it.  He was too busy reacquainting himself with the bird feeder post.  It's his secret friend.  He butts his head against it and leaps in the air and butts it again.  Hopefully, it will still be standing in the morning.

Paleo Argument Against Raw Milk Fails

I always thought that "cows' milk is for baby cows" was a dumb argument.  By that logic, you would have to say that egg yolks are for baby chickens!  So I was really excited to see this post by The Healthy Home Economist: Dairy Precedes the Advent of Agriculture in Human History.

We are still not drinking Fiona's milk.  She apparently is holding back when Emma milks her, so that what we get has NO cream.  Emma will think that she has milked her out, but when Fiona's calf nurses right after, he seems to get plenty.  His mommy is saving all the "hind milk" where the cream is, for him.  So we are buying raw milk still, because we can't stand skim milk.  Traditionally, it was used for fattening hogs, not for humans.  It was considered a waste product.  I guess we won't get the benefit of Fiona's last three months of milk until we butcher Ferdie.  In the meantime, we are getting a lot of enjoyment out of him.  Who knew that a bull could be so sweet?

See Ferdie Grow

My nephew Tucker Palanjian took this video with his iPhone the other day.  I thought my readers might enjoy seeing how much Ferdie has grown since I last posted pictures of him.  He is so sweet.  He loves to have his head rubbed, and he loves to pretend fight with posts, putting his head down and butting them and then dancing all around.  He cracks me up.

Well, There's a Bull on the Loose

I didn't see it happen when the water pipe from the well to the house got broken last week, but Ferdie adores scratching his head on faucets.  I had let him out to "play".  This is not what I had in mind, though.  Thankfully, my husband took off work and had it fixed in no time.