As The Butter Churns

December 7th Tree Topper

 (Edward and Alexander nuzzle)

Like some sort of crazed elf I got my not-so-perfect icicle lights up the day after Thanksgiving. In turn I like to put up the Christmas tree on December 1^st to coincide with the commencement of the advent calendar. This way I can eek out every single moment of the Christmas season, but after last year’s Yuletide adventure, and our recent below freezing temperatures, I didn’t want to go out into the forest if there was even the slightest chance of it getting dark.

Luckily, the boys had early release from school today, which meant we could finally go out and get some Holiday cheer. I informed both of them to be ready to jet home after school so we could have a snack and get out there.

“After some Mac & cheese then can we go?” Nick pleaded.

“We’re starving,” Henry added. Awesomez (pronounced Awesome – EZ) and I agreed since I had a bunch of winter chores like putting a de-icer in the cow trough and moving the goat and sheep water trough to the Kubota barn where I could plug in a de-icer for them while they’re out during the day.

 (Denise, Silence my faithful companion - and a lot of ice)

 (now there's water under the Kubota barn)
  

 (cow trough)
 

 (Bruno proves one man's trash...) 

 (Nick- napping again- taking lessons from a professional- Luther- Bruno also pictured)
 

 (Henry is ready to go get a tree)
 

By the time we got back, Henry was ready to go, but Nick had slipped into a deep, deep sleep on the sofa in the family room.  And as hard as we prodded there was no budging Nick.

We couldn't wait for Nick to get up we'd lose our daylight. Henry fired up the tractor, Awesomez had Irish and I had my limb saw in hand. iWe set out with all the dogs. First we went to the pond to assess the ice. When we arrived we found the geese frolicking in the bit of water that was still liquid. Stopping to watch them for a while, Henry threw rocks out to see how thick the ice was. Surprisingly it was able to withstand some hard throws and some big rocks.

     (an Awesome-ez popsicle)
 

     (Henry lets one fly)
  (getting thick)

 (Possible tree)

 (Irish tied up in his own lead)
 

Worrying about the time, we pushed on going slowly so we could look discriminatingly at different types of conifers We checked out firs, pines, hemlocks and cedars. Rejecting many we finally settled on a possibility. A very tall tree so tall Awesomez was shocked.

“Really? That one? It won’t even fit in your house,” she implored.

“Well, you see if you look at it, you have to cut it. Right there. Otherwise it isn’t very full,” I explained pointing at the tree.

“Where did all the dogs go?” Henry worried. “You never know where Karen is, I’m going to go look for them,” he told us as he hopped off the tractor. We followed reflexively. I didn’t like him alone in the forest. It’s that one time you don’t worry that you should have. So I worry all the time.

“Karen’s the cougar,” I explained and she nodded.

“I remember.”

Henry had run a head and was returning with Vivian, Luther and Bruno by the time we got to the top of the hill.

“What about this one?” Awesome-ez wondered pointing to a really great tree.

“Awwwwe that’s perfect!” Henry exclaimed. “Let’s get this one!”

 (Henry with Luther and Vivian)

 (Henry to the left of the proposed tree)

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed, “It’s close to the path and it should fit pretty well in the bucket. You know, it’s about the right size for the game room as is.” I marveled. “Good eye! Lis Let’s get it down.” I said walking up and putting my saw into action. In just a moment it was down. In another it was in the bucket and we were in theory on our way.

 (taking it down)

 (Almost done)

 (the tree it's mine!)

 (Me - loading the tree while Henry drives)

“I can’t see over the tree.” Henry lamented.

“We can hold a stick up in front of you and you can just guide the tractor toward the stick.” Awesome-ez suggested.

“OK. Let’s do it.” Henry agreed readily. Although in short order it became clear that wasn’t going to work. He just couldn’t maneuver the tractor and see the stick and keep the tree balanced on the bucket. Awesom-ez offered to take over and Henry agreed giving Awesom-ez a quick refresher course about the controls and we were off once again.

 (Awesom-ez and the direction stick)

 (Lisa's got her stick)

 (ready to go now)

 (Henry's got the stick and Irish as Awesom-ez follows with the tree)

Our parade moved slowly down the steep hill and past the spot that spelled disaster for us last year. Thinking back I realized I’d meant to price winches this year. I really had to get on that. It ‘s something you don’t’ think about until you need it like a flashlight, Earthquake water or insurance. The other day my dad’s friend, Chad told me just to get a hand-cranked one, but Tom informed me that despite the increased price he was a staunch supporter of the motorized version. Easy for him to say, I still didn’t have one did I?

 (It's hard to see but the rocks are where the tractor went off the path last year and into the creek which runs under that mossy log)
 

Anyway this year’s tree was going so well it really was too good to be true. Oh I mean I wish there’d been snow for added charm, but the brisk air was plenty of ambiance and now that we’d passed the danger zone it was smooth sailing.

Henry ran ahead with Irish. He didn’t have gloves on and his hands were frozen flesh.

 (Henry runs home with Irish)
 

I hopped on the back of the tractor while Awesome-ez navigated us home. She adeptly got both ends of the tree through the narrow gate without incident. And just when I thought the adventure was over, it began.

“Mil?  Didn’t you say the goats thought the pine branches that blew down during the windstorm were a delicacy?”

“Yeah,” I said casually.

“What if they go after the tree?” She said cautiously.

“Oh, I can’t imagine that,” I said with confidence

“Oh no? Then why are they running over here?” She wasn’t just whistling Dixie. They’d spied the tree and were after us like a band of highway robbers.

 (They can't help themselves the goats begin to ravage the tree)
 

“Quick grab the tree!” She said grabbing one end.

“I’m trying! They’re eating it. I can’t lift it out of the bucket without breaking it.”

“Just grab it!”

“Got it!”

“OK now run like you’ve got the football Mil. Now!” And run we did. She had the front half of the tree and I had the back with four goats running after us trying to eat the top of our new Christmas tree.

“They’re nibbling the top!” I yelled.

“Keep moving!” She yelled back without turning around. “I’ve got to get the gate in a second.”

“Hurry, they’re eating the tree, tearing off branches!” I screamed willing her cold fingers to get the latch.

“Got it! C’mon!” She instructed and I obeyed slamming the gate behind me.

I looked over at her and she was half laughing half panting. “They’re like piranha.” She wheezed.

“I can’t believe they did that. It never occurred to me we were in peril.” I said watching Christina lean over to try and munch on the tip of the tree.

 (Christina is shut down)

 (Awesom-ez securing the tree)
 

 (never give up?)

 (inside at last)

 (Up!)
 
 
 
 
 

November 12th With A Huff And A Puff

 (Dashingly handsome Cluck-Cluck and not so demure Silence Dogood snuggle up on a cold wet night - on top of the rabbit hutch- can we expect turkens?)
     

    It rained and rained and rained torrential frightening flood kind of rain and the wind howled and blew with more ferocity than the big bad wolf. Branches littered my lawn like pickup sticks. A tree went down by Amy’s place; two were down by the pond. I spoke to my neighbor, Dave, he told me the guy next to him lost seven trees. And more wind was predicted. We decided to wait on the cows until things settled down.

    Only they didn’t settle down. In a day fall had disappeared replaced by winter. Every leaf was blown from every tree revealing a stark beauty. Jeff canceled me for work because of the storm. We lost power for 14 hours and I still couldn’t get the blasted generator to work. Tom and I had changed the spark plugs, checked the fuse, jumped the battery, made sure there was gas and oil, but still nothing. Not knowing what to do I called an old friend. After all when you need help with a motor, call a German or if you can’t find one, an Austrian will do. Franz explained the ins and outs of the carburetor. Where to locate it, how to get to it  and what to spray in it. Then he described in great detail how the spray functioned in the thing.

 (Franz Neuwirth)

 (the mighty Centurion 15000- a  powerful beast - if it worked)
 

 (the air filter - with the carburetor to the right)

 (the top of the geni - Franz)
 
 

    “So you mean it’s like a can of hairspray? If you don’t use it all the time it gets clogged in the nozzle and you have to unplug the goop?”

    “Uh yeah, Neezer, something like that,” Franz replied indulging me.

    "Franz, what you fail to understand is I don't want to know anything about generators, carburetors or air filters."

    "Neezer, you just don't have that luxury. You live in the land of Hansel and Gretel."

    I acquiesced and did as he instructed, or so I thought. After my first attempt didn’t work, he went over the basics again.

    “So you spray the stuff and you don’t put the air filter back on until you’ve jumped the battery?”

    “Right, the evaporation rate of the starter fluid is too great. Just give it a good ‘psssst’ down the throat of the carb and it should fire.”

    “Should.” I had my doubts, but I was determined. When I tried, I had to get the tractor right up to the house lifting the bucket high in the air. This made me nervous, because if the hydraulics gave out and the bucket fell on top of me there was no one to take me to the hospital. Then again like almost everyone I know, I currently don’t have any health insurance so I’m not up to taking any chances. If I got hurt who’d make dinner or feed the animals? I put my fear aside and set to work when I heard a creak. The wheels of the tractor had started to slip slightly on the soaked ground and I panicked. The tractor was uphill from the propane tank. My mind raced at the catastrophe that was possible. I jumped on the tractor pulled it down the hill and turned it off.  Scared. I decided it was time to stop. I had to go pick up the boys from school anyway.

 (This summer I really meant to paint that generator shed to the left of the tractor
 

    “Franz, I couldn’t do it. I got scared.”

    “Can’t you ask some randy cowhand to come by and help you?” He asked in his slow sleepy Franzel voice.

    “I asked my brother-in-law, Chris, and he just laughed and said he didn’t even know what a carburetor looked like. He said his gender didn’t make him motor proficient. Well, he didn’t say it exactly like that, but you get the gist. Tom would help me, but he’s not here. You know maybe I can ask my new neighborly neighbor Dave to come by,” I mused.

    “You really should have someone there with you.” He said making me feel a little less cowardly. “If it doesn’t work next time, you might have to take the carburetor out and take it apart. Is it water cooled or air cooled.”

    “You’re kidding right?”  I asked and he laughed at me.

    “Uh no. It might just be too clogged. Or it still could be the spark plugs.” He suggested.

    “OK, OK, OK.”

    “Neezer? Do you have power now?”

    “Yes, it’s just that there’s been a lot of bad weather, we’re expecting more and it’s getting colder. Last year my pipes froze because my well pump doesn’t work when the power’s out. And my animal heat lamps will go out in the barn. It’s not really a problem yet, but I’m trying to get this handled before it is.”

    “Ahh planning ahead.”

    “Trying to.” I said hanging up.

    By the time we were ready to drive home the winds were picking up again so I told Nick I’d drive. He grumbled for a moment, but I think he was secretly relieved. He’s a good driver now and always prepared to compliment himself, but this was a little unnerving. We wound around state route 9 in silence and turned on to Mosquito Lake Road. We were almost home when we came upon a tree across the road resting on some kind of line. Was it a power line or phone? I didn’t know. We debated whether to turn back or go on.

 (To go or not to go? That is the question)
 

    “We have to feed the barn animals,” Nick said matter-of-factly.

    “With the bridge out, if we drive under it we might be trapped tomorrow. We might not be able to get out.” I explained.

    “And that’s a problem why?” Henry asked not wanting to go to school.

    “Yeah, I think we should take the chance. Going back means driving all the way back to Bellingham.” Nick added.

    “Nick maybe you and Henry should get out of the car while I drive under it. I think it’s safer.”

     “I’m not going out there. What if there’s another cougar? You kiddin’ me.”

    “Nicholas Lyle,Berger no cougar is going to come anywhere my van with the lights on and I have a horn.”

    “I am not going to be some kitty snack. I’m not going to lie. I’m afraid of the dark.”

    “Nick, I don’t want to take any chances. What if my van brushes one of the limbs and the tree comes down?”

    “I’ll take my chances.” Nick assured me in a tone that confirmed I wasn't getting him out of the van with out a crowbar. 

    “I’m doing what he’s doing.” Henry chimed in.

    In all honesty I didn’t know what the right answer was and having encountered four cougar in two years. The brown bear relocation project flashed through my head. A complete long shot, but who knows what evil lurks.

     I pulled up to the tree and punched it. I might own a van now, but it wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I would have thought a van a fate worse than sensible shoes and cotton panties. I went from my yellow CRX si to a sedan with a mean clutch when my mom had a breakdown I had strapped Henry’s car seat into two-seater. I inched forward and peeled out. Safe on the other side I started thinking about the morning. Amy, Andrew and little Max had a plane to catch to see her family for Thanksgiving.

    I called Puget Sound Energy and reported a downed tree on their line. Then I called Verizon and reported a downed tree on their line. I wasn’t taking any chances there was a tree down in our yard and the wind was picking up.

    “Yes, Ms. Miller we’ll be out to fix it. We promise to get there by uh… Tuesday.” A distracted woman from Verizon informed me.

    “Tuesday. Tuesday? Are you aware it is currently Thursday?” I asked incredulously.

    “Yes.”

    “Are you further aware we will be blocked in if the tree falls and it is not removed?”

    “Is there a phone number we can reach you at Ms. Miller?”

    “Not if the tree goes down.”

    “Oh right.” She said and I hung -up.

    I dialed my newly acquainted neighbor, Dave.

    “Dave, I hate to bother you, but I thought you should know, there is a tree hanging from a line blocking both of us from town. You might want to bring your chainsaw with you when you go to work. It might on the road by then.”

    “Thanks, I will.  The winds are terrifying. A really big pine tree went down roots and all by my house in the middle of the night. It smashed my 80-year-old chicken coop.” His voice was heavy and sad.

    “Oh that’s horrible.” I said shocked.

    “The dry summer, the endless rain and now the wind, it’s not a good combination. Every chicken I had died smashed into the ground. It’s funny I really miss them. I was attached you know?”

 (Dave's smashed chicken coop)

     “I do know. Do you think I should have the kids sleep downstairs? Or do you think I’m going too far. I don’t want to scare them.”

    “I don’t know you’re place is pretty in the clear except that front bedroom.”

    “That’s Henry’s, maybe I’ll have him sleep with me.” I thought out loud. “Well, see you soon. Say hello to Gnatalie and the boys.”

    “Thanks for the chainsaw tip. No one much cares what happens up here. If we get stranded we’re last on the list.” He pointed out.

    “Dead last.”  I agreed. I hung-up made a cup of Earl Grey added a splash of 2% and started researching how to clean a carburetor – just in case.

August 18th You Gotta Stick To It

(A Winnie The Pooh- sized honey pot)

     I’m not going to save the farm working at the Everybody’s Store for minimum wage weeding the garden or making sandwiches. Of course, there are other benefits, it forces me to take showers, put on make-up and talk to people about things other than how to help a limping goat (Rachel) or what dimensions a stall for a horse and donkey to share should and if tom’s are more aggressive than roosters.Just like the old days minus the manicures and waxings.

    Mike and Donna (our faithful bee mentors) and Tom and Henry and I are now officially Henry’s Sweet Ass Honey™. Determined to turn Henry into the Paul Newman of honey by bringing pure, raw, unfiltered honey from the North Cascades to shelves everywhere. After all, Paul Newman didn't invent spaghetti sauce.

    Our strategy is trying to enter a fairly saturated local honey market by trying something, not new, but different. Honey Sticks. My friend, Lisa (Hemstreet  - Lisa #4) sent me a covert picture she took at a fair in Orange County. Honey sticks are not new, but they are also not really branded. They’re generally only available at fairs and some specialty stores, so inspired by the Everybody’s Store’s Landjaeger a small unit of meat which sells for a dollar seventy-five (by the hundreds) and is available in regular and spicy, we decided this was way in to the market.

    Since that time, we’ve been working on Henry’s Handy Honey™ (plain sweet honey in .2 oz servings – great for a healthy treat or for lunches) and Stingers™ (spicy versions for more adventuresome palates). Of course, we’ll also sell jars and hopefully sundry other products. Now, if we just wanted to sell honey retail like at fairs and on roadsides we could pour it into jars, slap a label on it and be done. However, once you start adding spices and selling wholesale it gets a lot more complicated.

(Mike straining the olive honey we're using to test with - straining is different than filtering. Filtering is a process that includes heating and depleting the honey of some of it's positive properties)

(Red Stinger trials)

(We experiment with different Stinger™ recipes-Mike and Donna taste the results)

(Henry is filling the first sticks while Donna reads the instructions and supervises)

(Donna lines up the tester sticks)

(Henry heat seals the tester sticks)

   To sell wholesale this requires a plethora of paperwork. You must register yourself and your hives with the Washington’s Department of Agriculture and then apply for a food-processing license, create a business and get a tax identification number. You have to use an approved Health Department inspected kitchen and have your recipe analyzed, draw schematics of the kitchen, write down and draw the steps of producing and packaging your product, describe your sanitation procedures and your delivery methods and provide liability insurance. This is not for the faint of heart.

    All of this seemed doable except the kitchen. I knew I would never ever pass inspection on this farm with five dogs and three cats in the house. Donna and I thought we were kaput until I heard of kitchens you can rent and then happened on Skagit Valley Organics. Ryan Haldane and his wife, Nell built a beautiful kitchen in the middle of nowhere for farmer types like us who want to package value-added products and can’t because they don’t have a fancy shmancy kitchen. My friend for instance makes a great goat cheese but has to sell it to acquaintances as dog food because he does not produce it in an approved kitchen.

    I called Ryan, explained our situation and asked him what he’d charge for us to process our honey at his place. “Ten dollars an hour” was his response. Ten dollars an hour?
   
    “Can I come tomorrow and take a look at it?”

    “Sure, how about 3:00PM” Ryan offered and I agreed

    So armed with our enthusiasm, Henry and I left Tom home to continue working on the Dutch door for the turkey enclosure. We had to hurry because I got off work from the Everybody’s Store at 2:00PM and Henry had gymnastics at 4:00. To help make things go more smoothly, Amy drove Henry the seven miles down Mosquito Lake Road to Acme and we were on our way.

    Henry and I drove along the highway following the directions I’d scribbled on a take n’ bake pizza box because even our navi, Loretta, didn’t recognize this place. Slowly, we turned into a driveway and made our way to the back of the property. People out here don’t like nosey trespassers, so I was a tad hesitant having a smallish child in the car.

    “Hey, are you Ryan?” I asked hopefully.

    “Yes, Denise?” He answered with a smile and came walking toward us.

    “I’m so glad, I didn’t want to drive up someone’s property and it be the wrong place.”

    “Yeah, that might not go over so well huh,” he concurred.

    I parked while Henry got out and shook Ryan’s hand. We followed him over to a building and walked in. It was so out of place and unexpected I felt as though I was walking through the looking glass. Inside was a completely modern industrial kitchen painted a soothing shade of mint green. It had everything, even Hobart mixers and a place we could store some of our stuff so we wouldn’t have to haul it all back and forth. I think I heard a chorus of Halleluiah.

(In the kitchen with Henry)

(Skagit Valley Organics Kitchen SR20 in Sedro Wooley)

(Henry is ready to bat clean-up)

(View with the door open of Ryan's house)

    I asked Ryan a million questions, Henry tried out the bathroom and we took pictures for Tom, Mike and Donna. Ryan offered his help whenever possible and said he had a schematic of the kitchen he could dig up. He also mentioned a class I should consider at the Northwest Agricultural Business Center in Mount Vernon. I jotted that down thinking maybe Donna and I could take that together.

    “Yeah, I’m glad this will help you out and maybe down the road we can trade time for honey” Ryan suggested.

    “Well, we hope to be longtime customers” I said gratefully.

    “As a farmer, actually, I’m originally from Eugene, I wanted to help other farmers out and so we decided to build this kitchen for catering and packaging”

    “I wish I was a better farmer. My garden this year did ok, I got some tomatoes and beans, but the goats ended up devouring my blueberries and lettuce. I really could garden in California, but I need a coach here” I admitted.

    “Don’t feel bad. I was just about to bring my crops in and a herd of elk destroyed it all and I mean all last night. I didn’t get one thing and I know what I’m doing,” he laughed wryly.

    “Wow! Elk, we just saw elk the other day, a big bull and a cow and my mom stopped the car in the middle of the road, grabbed my dad’s camera, climbed the bank and completely disappeared into the forest. I was really nervous when the forest swallowed her up, but she came out” Henry added.

    “I didn’t get the shot it was too dark and my lens focused on the trees instead of the cow. I've been trying to get an elk for two years, but something always happens” I said as we shook hands and left.

    On our way to gymnastics, I called Tom. “The kitchen’s perfect. It had everything we need and it’s really only $10.00 an hour with no minimum”

    “That sounds great. How did you leave it?” Tom asked.

    “I told him we had to get our inspection lined up and I’d be in touch. Oh you know what, he lost all his crops to a herd of elk last night”

    “Did he actually see them?” Tom wondered suspiciously as doesn’t really believe there are that many in the area.

    “No, but he saw their hoof prints in his field” I said defensively as I hung-up.

    “Elk! Mom!” Henry said pointing out the front window to the right. And there they were, Ryan’s thieves in the night. We parked and got out. I started walking through waist high grass to get a better view when something sizeable moved in front of me and I came rushing back to the side of the highway and Henry for safety. I decided I could see just fine from there.

    “They keep coming out of the bushes like stars on the red carpet” Henry marveled. “Look at him! He must be the head guy,” Henry exclaimed. "Did you finally get your picture?"

(Elk cow and her twin calves)

(Elk herd)

(Here comes the big guy)

(Six-points on this buck)

    “Aren’t they beautiful?”

    “Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, I think there are about thirty, but it’s hard to tell,”

    “These must be the freeloaders from Skagit Valley Organics”.

    “Ryan’s field. Maybe you should give him a picture of the big guy,” Henry suggested. “Look at those babies, all those guys had to eat something”.

August 3rd Scent Of A Woman

(New shoes don't stay new for long)

Sitting back in a Weight Watchers meeting I was happy to be facing the music. Again. I’d been snacking to the point of my clothes being too tight and frankly I can’t afford new clothes so I’m out of options.

There was a brand new leader on Tuesday, eager and peppy. At first, I thought she might be a little too enthusiastic, but as I listened to her talk I decided I was really ready to commit. She was all about challenges; she had some vegetable challenge where you were supposed to have more than half your plate full of vegetables, and apparently the week before she had a “try-a-new-vegetable-challenge” and now she was issuing an exercise challenge. I was up for it, but as I sat quietly lost in thought I drifted back to why I’d stopped walking a year ago, the cougar episode. I was afraid of the big cats, but now I had true motivation, competition. Awesomez had joined Weight Watcher’s too and now we had a contest. Something akin to the biggest loser, and there is nothing like a contest to get me going.

Determined, I took the 50.00 bill Awesomez had hidden in my wallet and bought a decent pair of walking shoes. I laced up the next morning with my new walking coach, Henry who donned his bicycle helmet and accompanied me. We went early in the cool of the morning.  I felt smug as I toasted my two point multi-grain English muffin smearing two points of creamy peanut butter on top while I sipped my coffee fresh from the glow of my walk.

The next day, my “coach” was too tired and the bum slept in, so Vivian and I went it alone. Walking along, I noticed some poop in the middle of the road. Curious I studied it. It was big enough and it was filled with hair, I suspected it was cougar scat but knew it was far fetched we hadn’t seen cougar in a long time and what were the odds it would poop in the middle of the road. The scat was still fresh with urine puddled, I didn’t want my imagination to carry me away, but nonetheless it’s not what you want to see as you try and walk off a couple of chocolate meringues from Trader Joes™. I would research the specimen later and identify the culprit. Vivian had a completely different attitude; she walked up squatted and confidently peed right over it. Her confidence gave me confidence and I walked on accompanied by my canine bodyguard.

(Clearly cougar scat - this picture taken some time later when I came back in my car)

(a wider view)

On my third walk, Amy and my “coach” both came with me, Vivian and Irish. We chatted and laughed and probably didn’t walk as fast or as far as we should have, but I got my heart rate up.

Walk number four was Phoebe, Quinn and Henry on his bicycle with my constant walking companions Vivian, and Irish. The canine bullet, Rat-Bat (Bruno) somehow escaped the house, squeezed under the fence and found us half a mile away.

“Look that’s the cougar scat my mom saw the other day”.

“Why would a cougar go in the middle of the road?” Phoebe asked.

“Well, there were four things that identify cougar scat. First it should be as big as a large dog. Check. Two, it should have hair from it’s last kill. Check. Three it should be in segments. Check and double check. And four, the documents say, it’s important to note where the scat is. Cougars like to mark their territory and so they go out in the open usually in the middle of a trail” I explained.

“That’s in the middle of a trail all right,” Phoebe agreed.

Together, we walked faster and farther, but didn’t quite walk as long as I would have liked because I needed to get to work.

(the forest is thick with fern)

This morning, I was down to only Quinn and Henry, who was sick of how hot his helmet made his head and pushing his bicycle up some of the steeper hills decided he would walk. I left Vivian the guard dog home due to limping. We took Irish and started out. The morning was crisp and bright. Sun streamed dreamily through the trees as we marched up the hill determined this time to finally get to the bridge. About three-quarters of a mile into the walk I smelled an overwhelming odor, as pungent as a skunk but not a skunk at all. I looked around wondering what the smell was.

“Do you smell that?” I asked.

“No. I don’t smell anything” Quinn answered keeping stride.

“I smell a really strong smell. It reminds me of ‘Harry and the Henderson’s. You know, they say Sasquatch smells really strong and that’s how you know it’s there”.

“I remember that movie,” Quinn said. “We saw it with Tom and Wayne I think”.

“You know, there are more Sasquatch sightings on the 9 than just about anywhere. The guys from the city who were out here last week said they weren’t going to rule out Sasquatch in a forest this size. And besides, it’s the non-believer who gets it in the end” I said through my huffing and puffing. “Or the annoying, squirrely kid on the bike”.

“Good thing I don’t have my bike, “ Henry smiled.

“Neese you kind of sound like a warthog when you’re walking and talking” Quinn so kindly informed me. Just then, we heard a huge rustle in the bushes and we could see the foliage moving.

“That’s big enough to be an elk,” I said thinking back to that fateful day last summer when I’d said just about the same thing. We walked on.

“Didn’t Kristi, the girl who used to live here, see a Sasquatch?” Quinn asked.

“Well, she saw something. She was lost one night in the late fall and something about the size of a black bear went in front of her car. She stopped and it looked at her, but she couldn’t identify it. It really freaked her out”.

“She said it kind of had the face of a monkey” Henry interjected.

“She didn’t want anyone to think she was a kook, so she never really told anyone else, but it was near the Strand Road on the 9” I snorted. We heard another break of a branch in the bushes. It wasn’t as loud as before but seemed just behind us. We turned to look but didn’t see anything.

“I smell the smell you were talking about” Quinn said sniffing the air.

“Me too. Ugh it’s horrible. Maybe it is a Sasquatch” Henry laughed.

“Yeah, maybe it’s tracking us right now. Maybe we’re being followed by Harry, he left the Henderson’s. Or we think we’re being followed by a Sasquatch and a cougar will jump out of the bushes” she laughed too.

“Of course, we’re going to see a Sasquatch, I didn’t bring my camera” I added as I quickened our pace.

The conversation wound around to aliens, the Egyptians, alternate Universes, Loch Ness and unexplored regions of our oceans. We discussed cave drawings and giant squid, the cruelty of man and science and our inability as a species to allow others to co-exist. Quinn wished we’d see Sasquatch and could give him refuge on the farm. “He could eat blueberries and we’d be friends with him, but we wouldn’t tell anyone” she said wistfully.

“Yeah right, look at the Giant Squid it was dead after just one day, you’d think they’d learn” Henry said as we reached the bridge. “They can’t leave well enough alone”. We looked around a bit taking stock of what had been done. The place was deserted which seemed strange for a work day, but no wonder they’d scheduled almost a year if they’re not going to be working on the renovations consistently.

“This is just about two miles, it’s getting hot so let’s get going,” I said as Henry turned the happy-to-be-on-walk Irish around. I thought of Vivian probably moping at home sitting on my bed thinking she’d been replaced.

We walked a long easily as Quinn pondered if Kristi had actually seen Sasquatch. “Then according to Kristi, a Sasquatch doesn’t have to be that big. Now maybe she saw a baby, who knows. People probably exaggerate,“ Quinn surmised.

“Like when they almost catch a fish,” Henry concurred.  And so Quinn and Henry concluded a colony of Sasquatch possibly the size of Henry could easily remain undetected in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. I had no argument to the contrary.

We walked at a fairly quick pace going up and down the hills and around the turns. We saw a smashed snake on the road and a few beer cans in the underbrush and I was wondering if the pack of Spirit’s on the side of the road were purchased at the Everybody’s’ Store, when I heard the low guttural roar of a lion. It wasn’t a loud roar like at the beginning of an MGM film, but it was unmistakable nonetheless. There’s nothing like a lion’s roar to make you realize you’re not necessarily at the top of the food chain. I looked over my shoulder searching the brush realizing the smell had been Karen, the cougar, not Harry. Quinn saw me look and went white.

“I was hoping that was your stomach,” she said with a look of terror in her eyes.

“You heard it”.

“Yes I heard it”.

            “Heard what?” Henry asked as he and Irish bounced along unaware a cougar was stalking us.

“We just heard a lion growl, didn’t you?” Quinn asked.

“No, I didn’t all I could hear was Irish panting” he said.

“Well, it wasn’t a loud I’m-going-to-pounce-on you-growl it was a-I’m-right-here-and-I’d-like-you-to-leave-right-now-growl” Quinn informed him sternly.

“No one panic. No yelling, no running. A cougar can cover up to 30 feet in one bound so there’s not a chance of out running them. They’re ambush predators so I’m going to just keep looking back and making sure we’re ok. Just keep walking at the same pace. They don’t want a fight. I just hope we don’t look like walking Land jaegers,” I said trying to make light of the situation.

“Maybe it was a bear,” Henry suggested.

“Well, I’d rather face a bear because at least I wouldn’t be a primary food source. They’re not carnivores. We can check the sound when we get home, but I don’t think so,” I said fairly certain.

“Notice it’s right near the scat we saw earlier” Henry pointed out. That meant we had three-quarters of a mile yet to go and I’d forgotten the air horn. How could I be so careless? Why wasn’t Irish reaching? I wondered if he had doggie ADHD. I wished I’d brought Deli. Then thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t brought Vivian, she wouldn’t have been so calm and probably would have gotten herself or us killed.

“Mama, at least you can say you got your heart rate up,” Henry said with a giggle.

“Henry! You don’t seem to be taking this seriously!” Quinn said exasperated.

(home again, home again)

When we got home we immediately started researching cougar. Playing every cougar audio clip we could find until we found a match. “It says here it might be a female in heat and that’s why she smells so strong right now,” Quinn read to us.

(Play cougar sound)

“I didn’t even know cougar smelled, but I’ll never forget it,” Henry said.

“Me either, I can’t believe we were close enough to smell her. I mean how close do you think that is? How far do you suppose we were? You didn’t smell them the other two times you saw them did you?”

“No I didn’t”

“Do you think maybe a couple of yards? I read about a guy who smelled a bear and he was only six feet away. Do you think we were that close?” Quinn asked wanting answers.

“I just don’t know,” I said, uneasy thinking about how close we’d been to such a frightening but magnificent animal.

I called Tom and relayed the events of the morning playing him the sounds we’d found on the Internet. When I hung up, Quinn asked, “What did Tom say when you told him?”

“Get a treadmill".

July 16th Without A Paddle

   

(Deli - proof only mad dogs and Englishmen)

    It was one of those still mornings when you can feel the heat on your skin and you just know the day is going to be hellish hot. As part of our fun activities we had planned to go whale watching and spend a gloriously sunny day relaxing on a boat cruising the stunning San Juans looking for orca. Unfortunately, on the only day the cruise ran, I had to work and I mean I had to work. Jeff was expecting a slew of travel writers on Friday who were doing a press junket and they wanted to feature the Everybody’s Store. He needed all hands on deck.

    As a fallback, June, Awesomez and I decided to take the kids tubing down the Nooksack River with my sister. Tom although an enthusiastic tuber, decided a man’s place was in the chicken coop close to his Skilsaw™ and opted-out as he wanted to build another door before he his time was up and he had to return to real life in California.

(Pea almost always working)

    In preparation for the trip Henry counted tubes, while Quinn counted life jackets. The river is only inches deep in some places, but my sister and I are fiercely safety conscious, subscribing to the belief that if someone gets in trouble, you can’t help them if you’re exhausted. And there’s always the possibility you could hit your head. This seems nuts to most and hardly a tuber is seen with a life jacket, and it’s often a battle to get some adults to wear their life preserver. Awesomez was no exception. I got the whole I-used-to-swim-competitively-speech in Wal-Mart as I grabbed a couple of little life vests to stuff Lindsey and Henry in.

    Outside The Acme General Store Henry inflated the tubes and the rest of the kids lounged on a bench in the shade. In a group our size everything takes longer, getting snacks, sunglasses, shoes, sunscreen and towels in the right tube, on the right person or situated in the right car. Awesomez and I went and deposited the my sister’s van on Strand Road, only a couple of miles away, but about a three hour float.
It was getting later than I liked. We were putting in at almost 3:45PM, but it was hot, hot, hot and we’d be done by 7:00PM so I didn’t really worry, as it doesn’t get dark until 9:30PM or so.

    “Lisa, I don’t need one if we don’t have enough” Awesomez offered.

    “Lisa, this isn’t a swimming pool there are obstacles and things that can happen” my sister said unyielding. “We have enough life jackets as, Tom isn’t here,” she stated as we trudged down to the riverbank. I smiled to myself as I noticed Awesomez’ lifejacket wasn’t fastened. Knowing her rebellious nature and the fact that she's my big sister, I didn’t push her, at least she had it on. I considered that a win.

(June, Carly and Quinn ready for fun)

(Lindsey not so sure)

(Nickie ready to tube!)

(Henry walking to the river)

(Henry posing a chip off the old Robert's block- thank God)

(Carly getting in her tube)

    From the moment we got in the river June transformed into a bubbly Esther Williams. She paddled and splashed laughed and twirled her tube singing a happy song. While Lindsey on the other hand, did not meet Old Man River with the same excitement. She was in a snit from the moment her toes touched the alpine stream. She sat there in the middle of her tube motionless pouting.

(starting out - note my bar on the far right - )

    “I can’t do it. I’m not big enough,” she complained. June looked at me and rolled her eyes.

    “Linds, you're thirteen, Phoebe is eight, and shorter than you, she’s doing it. C’mon you’re a swimmer” I called over my shoulder as the current took me and the floating bar tethered to my tube merrily along.

    “I can’t!” She screamed in a voice that set my teeth on edge.

    “Then roll over on your tummy and kick,” I suggested.

    “Yeah, roll over Lily-Pop and kick” June chimed as she bounced along.

    “I can’t!” Lindsey screamed again with a scowl on her face. Mama Awesomez took over and, waded back to help Lindsey.

    “Just don’t talk to her,” Awesomez suggested as she splashed by. I gladly complied remembering my early angst ridden teen years where everything was horrible and no one understood me, including myself.
The rest of the floaters, Henry, Nick, Quinn, Phoebe, Carly and Lisa were scattered about the river laughter streaming behind them like ribbons in the water.  June had gotten out of her tube to blow it up and accidently let a good deal of air out. The opening was quite large and needed a conical shaped adapter to inflate it. She was stuck. Now she stood there in the middle of the river with a saggy tube.
“It’s OK I can still float on it” She said trying to make the best of it, but gone was the lilt in her cheery voice. I grabbed the tube folded the plastic back and began to blow, and blow and blow and blow. I wanted Esther Williams back.

    When the tube was properly inflated June simply looked at me and said “Impressive” followed by a few giggles and well, OK there were a few other comments, I will leave up to the gentle reader’s imagination. Anyway during this time my sister had gone around a bend in the river and gotten stuck on a downed tree jutting out horizontally across the water, half the branches were sticking up out of the water and the other half poking down into the river. She tried giving the thumbs down signal to the rest of the group to avoid this turn by getting out and walking around. Lindsey was the only one who saw the signal and got out. I did not. And got stuck, but was able to free the mini bar and myself without spilling a drink. Awesomez did not see the signal either and followed me a bit distracted by Lindsey, wondering why her child was now exiting the river after she’d just gotten her going.

    A novice tuber Awesomez had little control of her tube initially andgot trapped under the tree. Struggling against the current to right herself as her asthma medication floated away. Awesomez who has serious asthma never goes anywhere, anywhere with out her inhaler. Trying to stay calm in light of the life threatening loss she pulled herself up just righting herself in time to see June and Phoebe who were now clipped together with a rope coming tumbling toward her. Seeing the rope knowing there was nothing she could do, she braced herself for the hit, she went down again. Exhausted and with out her shoes on she was beginning to get in trouble, when she was hit again by Quinn and then some guy, and then a blond woman with a pony tail who I could hear say callously “Don’t worry you didn’t hurt me” to Awesomez after she pushed her back into the tree once again. During this time by the grace of God, Phoebe found Awesomez’ medication.

    “The pack just floated right up to my foot and I grabbed it,” she explained with her sunshine smile.

    "The river giveth what the river taketh away" I said as she gave it to me. I beached my rig making my way back to the tree. When I got there a scared and exhausted Awesomez was struggling to keep her composure. She was caught under the tree again and trying to maintain her breathing. Quinn was wrapped around her and unsure how to get herself out.

    Nick worried too about his mother was right behind me. I climbed the tree and made my way over to the struggling pair while Nick was on the bank not far away. Quinn was still sitting in her tube, but Awesomez was barely above water caught on a branch of the tree.

    “Quinnie! Look at me! Put your feet above your head on the tree so you’re sitting in a “V’ then I’ll pull you out of the water and you can stand here on the tree. OK?”

    “Niece, I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough,” she sounded panicky.

    “No. You don’t have to, I’ll pull you, just put your feet there and hold on wrist to wrist so we don’t slip, just like your mother and I taught you we did in vaulting”.

    “I’ll try,” she said feebly. Putting her feet up. I grabbed my sister’s child with all my strength and up that oversized beanpole came.

    “Now, jump off the tree into that spot right there where it’s deep and Nick will help you get to the edge Right Nick?”

    “Right” Nick responded dutifully. “Over here Quinn” he encouraged retrieving her tube I’d already tossed. Splash! In she went. One down.
Now for Awesomez. “Lisie, I’m going to get you out.”

    “I’m hurt and I’m so tired and my inhaler is gone,” she told me so I’d know the whole picture.

    “No, Phoebe found your inhaler and shoes down stream so we have them don’t worry” I said gently trying to reassure her.

    “People keep hitting me, June and Phoebe and this rope. I went over the rope and under the tree,” she said looking exhausted and depleted.

    “I know I could see from where I was, that’s why I’m here. Who thought I’d be helping you” I tried t make light of the situation. “Now I want you to do just like Quinn did. I’ll pull you up”

    “I’m too far below you, I can’t even reach your hand. I’m going to have to get up on one of these branches,” she said and I agreed, as she was all but submerged and tangled in a mass of branches. Watching her I could see the fear in her eyes, slowly and carefully she pulled herself up onto a branch just beneath the surface of the water, once there I was able to get her to the top of the tree.

    “Now you’re going to have to jump back into the water,” I commanded authoritatively.

    “What? I don’t want to” she resisted.

    “You have to, it’s the only way. You’ll be all right, Nick’s there he’ll help you”.

    “I’m here Mama” Nick assured her.

    “OK Son” she called back, “but I’m not jumping. Can’t I just lower myself in?”

    “Sure, but I think you might hit more branches and it’ll take more strength. You look exhausted,” I said.

    “I am,” she returned as she sank into the water again.

    That disaster behind us we regrouped on the banks of the river. Awesomez depleted both physically and emotionally sat in her tube quietly for most of the afternoon.

    “Awesomez, you look dead” Carly was heard to say each and every time she floated by Awesomez.
“Really, you look dead. Did you really go over the rope and under the tree?” She’d ask in naïve amazement, forcing a reluctant Awesomez relive the ordeal over and over again.

    The rest of the afternoon went on mostly without incident except for the Phoebe ordeal. Phoebe after rescuing the inhaler got in trouble again with the rope clipping her to June. June went around a rock and fell out of her tube while Phoebe and the rest of the rope could not. Phoebe now stuck in deep water alone couldn’t un-hook the clip and Lisa was some distance away while I was still helping Awesomez. Henry seeing Phoebe was in trouble leapt from his tube and swam against the current pulling himself hand over hand on the rope until he reached his cousin. He couldn’t unclip the tube either, but stayed with Pheebes comforting her until Lisa could get there. Phoebe was beyond grateful to her hero, Henry.

(Nick floatin' along)

(Henry enjoying the float)

(Lisa relaxing)

(Our happy tubers on the Nooksack with Mt. Baker in the distance)

    We now bounced along singing and chatting. June sporting her floppy hat was enjoying herself so much Carly asked her on more than one occasion if she was drunk.

    “No I’m not drunk silly, I’m just carefree and having a gosh darn good time as river-rat Barbie” June explained to her niece who usually sees her dressed to the nines full of responsibility with her big job. Just then we heard a scream.

    “Was that laughing or crying?” I wondered aloud.

    “I think it was laughing,” June guessed and floated on. I didn’t think so. It was Quinn and she was with Awesomez.  If there ever was a pair destined for trouble it was them, “Klutz and Klutzier”. Too far downstream to help, I waited and watched from a distance.

     Quinn had veered to the left and gotten stuck on another tree. Tumbling out of her tube she was then caught on and scraped by an unseen branch causing her to scream bloody murder. Seeing the fear emblazoned on Quinn’s face Awesomez reflexively jumped out of her tube, and went to rescue Quinn from the treacherous branches below the surface - thanks to help of her life jacket they both made it out in a relatively short time. From their faces, I’m not sure who was more frightened, but somehow they managed escaping a little worse for wear.

    While Quinn and Awesomez seemed to be riding the rapids from hell, the rest of us floated merrily along. Phoebe and June navigated the twists and turns relatively carefree and Lindsey bobbled about enjoying the ride. Nick and Henry were in their own boy world talking about who knows what, but having fun nonetheless. I sipped my libation and scooted betwixt and between them all serving up refreshments when the mood struck me. When you’re the bartender, everyone wants to be your friend. Although, I could hear a parched Awesomez hollering “You’re the worst bartender ever!” from way upstream at me because I wasn't attending to the stragglers. She was laying like something dead in her tube according to Carly.

(Lindsey Rose and June)

(Quinn floating by)

(Nick and Mama Awesomez)

    The sun began to wan as we continued to float and suddenly it seemed to be getting a lot cooler which is what I’d been afraid putting in so late. We kept looking for the beach at Strand Road, but with the extreme weather last winter and now the extreme heat lowering the water levels everything looked a lot different. I realized I should have walked down to the banks and looked for some kind of marker like I did last year with Tom, but in my haste to get everyone going I hadn’t. I was kicking myself now as the kids started ask “how much longer?” I really didn’t know the answer. I didn’t have my watch on. We kept stopping and looking then continuing on. We’d seen some floaters earlier who said they were going to the bridge, but that was all the way at Potter Road by the Everybody’s Store and we weren’t going that far that was about a five hour float.

    The light was sinking fast and we were now the only ones on the river. I knew we were lost. June still enjoying herself kept singing “…set sail that day for a three hour tour, a three hour tour. The weather started getting rough…” and Henry’s lips were eggplant and he was shivering like a Chihuahua. Of all people, Lindsey turned out to be a real trooper and kept on going without a word. Awesomez was done before she started and was just enduring the experience, Quinn was over the whole thing and my sister and I were feeling the strain of responsibility. Exchanging knowing looks as we eyed the banks. We figured, worst-case scenario we’d climb the banks and plow through someone’s cornfield. As the last of the light slipped from the sky we came around a bend in the river to reveal a bridge.

    “A bridge, the bridge! We’re here!” Nick cried and everyone was relieved, except Lisa and me.
“Bridge? There is no bridge at Strand Road” I said softly.

    “I don’t remember one either” she said. 

"That's because there isn't  one" I said.

(The bridge)

 Cold and hungry we all got out of our tubes and began looking for a way up. Awesomez and my sister trekked through a narrow passage with a few of the kids and found their way to the bridge first. Nick came back for the rest of us. Once on the bridge, I knew we had gone all the way to Potter Road. By the time we got there Awesomez explained they’d hailed down a guy in a tie-dyed t-shirt on a Harley and Lisa was now hitching a ride to her van on Strand Road.

    “At least she’s on a motorcycle it’s less likely he’ll stop and kill her,” Henry said hopefully. I hadn’t seen the man and for a moment, fear gripped my heart. Lisa and I have seen our share of evil, but I knew my sister was not a foolish risk taker, so I tried to remain calm, although riding a motorcycle, soaking wet with no protection was scary enough. At least Harley riders had some sense.

    Moments later, the grey-haired motorcycle man pulled up “You must be our Knight in Shining Armor!” I called.

    “Hey there, I think I scared that mama to death, but she’s on her way back with the van” the man said.

    “Where you all from?” He asked.

    “California, Mammoth” Awesomez responded.

    “Well, you’re no city girl” he answered back.

    “Bellingham” Quinn answered and he nodded.

    “Mosquito Lake Road,” I said, “I work at the Everybody’s Store,” I added.

    “I’m Jim Abernathy”

    “Oh my gosh! Jim Abernathy! I’ve read you’re flyers, you’re heading up all the local meetings about the thefts recently aren’t you?”

    “Yeah, that’s me. I’ve known Jeff a long time but I sure as hell wouldn’t work for him,” he said with a smile.  I smiled at this.

    “Amy makes it easy” I said and he smiled knowingly. We spent the next few minutes thanking our hero for taking the time to stop.

(The rescue! Carly, Lindsey, Awesomez, Lisa. Jim Abernathy, Quinn, Phoebe, June and Nick)

    When we finally got home a worried Tom had the Hummer keys in hand and was just about to go look for us. Wonderfully, he’d barbecued his spectacular tri-tip ready which had been ready for over an hour, baked potatoes were in the oven and watermelon sat on the counter cutup and ready to eat. Descending on the food like vultures no one spoke until the food was completely gone.

    “Now Denise, I’m going to need that nice Jim Abernathy’s address so I can send him a proper thank you note for rescuing us” June chirped as she poured Awesomez another medicinal glass of Pinot to soothe her injuries. “I had such a good time today” she cooed.

    “I know, you really did” Awesomez said trying to smile through her obvious pain. Her blood red and purple bruises now quite visible, “It was fun to watch you like that again”.

    “I felt so free” June agreed.

    “I thought she was drunk and you were dead,” Carly said completely deadpan again.

    “Well, if everything had gone as planned it wouldn’t have been such an adventure” Quinn said. That's my girl.

July 6th Things Look Grimm

(baby barn swallows in their nest - I think they look a little like seals)

    I came home from work to find Phoebe sitting in the yard enjoying the sunshine. Mike was asleep in the family room no big surprise. Both had come out to the farm to see the new babies chicks and help me with farm chores.

    As Phoebe and I dove into a 2lb bag of super ripe red and yellow Rainier cherries I'd brought home from the Everybody's Store, Mike woke up and joined us in the kitchen. Phoebe and Mike exchanged a secretive look and the two of them started to tell me about their walk to the pond. It seems they’d gone out to to see the ducklings Amy had spotted a couple days ago. Only they didn’t have much to say about ducks, instead they told a story like something out of a fairy tale. They said the pond had disappeared.

    “What? The pond. I think you’re exaggerating. We were out there barbecuing just a month ago at Henry’s party. Sure it was a little low, but it wasn’t that bad”.

    “It’s that bad” Mike said somberly as Phoebe nodded in agreement.

    “Let’s go. I want to see,” I said in complete disbelief.

    “You absolutely have to” Mike said putting his work boots back on as Phoebe nodded again shoving a few more cherries in her mouth.

    As we walked across the pasture, with grass taller than Phoebe, I couldn’t help but think the two of them were a little negative. Sure we’ve had a lot of sunshine and some more than hot days, but seriously a pond doesn’t just disappear. Mike can be so absolute in his statements. Mike was certain Obama wasn’t going to be a contender for the nomination after Super Tuesday. Certain. He could be so completely annoying that way. What the heck did he know anyway?

    He knew an empty pond when he saw one that’s what. The pond was gone. In its place was a gaping hole in the ground. A scar on the Earth. I stood there in disbelief. I looked down at all the animal tracks in the mud looking for water only to find a swampy bog full of mosquitoes. Gone was the idea of having weddings out here. No one would even want to barbecue out here. Henry would be devastated. The beautiful pond is why I bought the property. Everything was ruined.

(the once inviting pond is nothing but a small mosquito riddled puddle)

(the pond as it was last November)

(bear tracks in the mud)

    I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to accept this I was going to have to fix this. I looked at Phoebe.

    “We can’t lose the pond. Let’s go up the stream and see if there is something blocking it,” I said marching toward the mountain.

      “I really don’t think there’s anything we can do. I don’t think it’s one rock or one place, I think it’s the depth of the sediment,” Mike said logically.

    I wasn’t interested in logic I was interested in results. This was my land and I was going to save it. I started moving rocks. Picking them up and moving them anywhere there was water the water was slow. Rock after rock, hour after hour. Mike and Phoebe took the lower part of the stream while I crawled up the middle of it toward the waterfall. I thought of pioneer women having to do the exact same thing to save their farms. I thought of Scarlet O'Hara and the land. I thought too how vulnerable I was with my back to the forest, all hunched over and small. It was almost exactly a year since the cougar incident and the fact that Mike was visiting again just like last year was not lost on me. But I had work to do. Four hours later I’d just about reached as high as I could go when I heard Mike calling.

(Strange rock formations were found along the stream - who comes back here and what do these mean?)

(Despite his opinion of futility, Mike  a true friend worked tirelessly with Phoebe on the stream)

(Phoebe just before she split her pants on the rocks)

    “Deeeeniiiiiiiise! Are you ok? Wheeeeeer arrre youuuuuuu?” He bellowed coming into view. He found me crouched down in the water my fingers had been rubbed raw from the rocks. Little drips of blood were staining the water.

    “I’m done. I can’t do anymore with my fingers like this” I said exhausted.

     “Duhneese! What happened?” Phoebe exclaimed.

    “Oh I just rubbed them raw from moving so many rocks” I said. “Did you see a big increase in the flow? I felt like I really got the stream moving,” I said proud of my work.

       “Uh, not really” Mike said in is defeatist voice again. I’d see about that, I knew how much the flow had increased every time I moved a boulder and removed a barrier. We started back down to the pond walking along the stream. It got smaller and slower until it just stopped. Nowhere near the pond. It seeped into the ground as Mike had said. My fingers were bloody for nothing.

(one little lonesome berry in the woods)

    Covered in mosquito bites from being near the pond we walked home dejected.  Phoebe had 80 and my back was covered. I had two under my eyes making me look like Droopy Dog.

    I called Tom but there was no answer. I didn’t want to leave a message. This was like a death I couldn't leave life altering news like this on a message. A few minutes later I called again. I hung up in frustration wondering where he was and how I was going to tell him. Suddenly, the emotion caught up with me. I hated this house, the land everything. The pond was gone and with it all my hopes. We couldn’t do much about it either; the landslide wasn’t even on our property. I couldn't take it anymore. I stood crying silently facing the wall shaking when I felt a little hand on my back. It was Phoebe. We just stood there like that for a while until the phone rung.

    It was Tom, “ I’ve got some really bad news”

    “Oh yeah, what Henry isn’t having a good time? Did he call?” Tom asked.

    “The pond is gone,” I declared.

    “What do you mean gone?”

    “I mean gone. Gone. Like ‘Holes’ gone. Seriously and completely gone. No water gone. The geese could standup in what’s left of the water gone.” There was silence on the other end of the phone.

     “Gone? How? Maybe when it rains,” He said hopefully.

     “Pea. Gone. Rain isn’t going to help at this point; it’s just going to mean more mosquitoes. Really I’m telling you it’s gone” I spat.

    “We were just out there a month ago for Henry’s birthday.”

    “I know. It’s looks like we’re on the set of the movie ‘Holes’. It's just a dry pit. Mike says it’s as if we’re under the spell of a wicked witch, only it’s for real.”

    “I just don’t know what to say. Gone huh. I’ll talk to you later” Tom said with a despondence I understood.

     Not knowing how to handle my grief, Mike and I went out to clean the barn while Phoebe watched some television and ate some more cherries. We got through the goat stalls when I realized I had to clean out the cow trough. It had been disgusting the other day so disgusting, the fish were dying. I’d scooped a bunch of dead goldfish out. The sun was creating havoc around here. The pond was drying up, the pasture grass was brown and the algae in the water troughs was taking over. I looked for the pump we’d used last winter when we’d gotten water out of the pond when the pipes froze. I thought it would make the job easier, but alas Henry’d left it out and half of it was gone, it was probably moved by a curious goat. I started to wonder who the evil witch was whose spell I was under.I had an idea. I reached for a couple of buckets bumping my bloody fingers on the side of the red one and winced. They started to bleed again. I didn’t want to get Giardia from some cow trough. If I was going to get some water borne parasite I should at least get it from a pond I thought.

    Solemnly, Mike and I walked down to the cow water only to find it full and crystal clear. We could see every fish in the tank. “I must have left the water on slightly, and the water continued to overflow until it cleaned the tank” I exclaimed happily. I was grasping for the bright side as we walked up to the house.

(clean water with happy fish)

“Well, the cow water is clean, the barn is clean, maybe things are looking up?”

“Denise, I hate to say it, but you’re experiencing bad on a Biblical scale and you’re happy the cow water is clean. That’s a bit pathetic. A little Pollyanna” Mike said with a grin.

    “It’s all I got” I said as we walked in the house. The phone rang. “Hello?” I said into the phone expecting it to be Tom.

    “Hello. This is your sanitation company.”

(my garbage truck)

    “Is something wrong?” I asked. I mean why else would my sanitation company call. I paid the bill. Maybe it bounced I thought. Or they were discontinuing service on Mosquito Lake Road because of the bridge.

    “Nothing’s wrong. You actually won a prize”  the happy voice said on the other end of the phone.

    “Really? Well, that’s great. What did I win?”

    “A food pail” she said. “You can pick it up at our office when you’re in town”.

    “Thank you. I will” I confirmed.

    “What was that about?” Mike asked.

    “I won something from the garbage company”.

    “Is that good?” He laughed. “What did you win? A month’s free pick-up?”

    “Some woman only twenty miles away in Ferndale won the Publisher’s Clearing House last week and I win junk from my garbage company” I laughed.

    “So what’d you win?”

    “She said a food pail”, I repeated.

    “Hey maybe that means you get a gift certificate to the Food Pavilion or something” Mike suggested.

    “Uh, I think it’s a garbage can” I said.

    “You think you won a garbage can?”

    “Yeah”

    “Things really aren’t going too well for you right now. I mean, things aren’t great for me, but you’re really not doing too well when you win garbage cans and there was that toad in the garage the other night that jumped at you” Mike reminded me.

    “You know when we got our Barbie names, I was Garbage Worker Barbie” I chuckled. It was funny until I thought of the pond.  I wondered briefly if I was supposed to have kissed that toad and where the heck was my fairy godmother? I thought this time it just doesn't look like there's  going to be a happy ending.

(my prize - a small food composter)

June 21st Silverbells and Cockleshells

  

  (Everbody's Store sandwich board)

    I got to work at the Everybody’s Store and made a Black Forest and Herb Gouda sandwich on dark Pumpernickel. Next, I weighed and sorted Australian black licorice into quarter pound packages. Naturally, I waited on customers and pumped gas, but I was surprised when Jeff called me outside to weed the strawberries.

    “You can eat as many strawberries as you like, your reward for working among them. Consider it your Zen” he boomed again in his baritone voice as he walked the few steps farther to his house

(taken from the parking lot a view of the garden with the Margolis house just beyond)

(the Everybody's Store Organic garden)

    I bent in half and began pulling. Pulling weeds can be one of my favorite activities, so I set to work happily. I like to do a couple of passes. It’s hard to get all of them the first time through. It’s best in my humble weed-pulling opinion to go for a certain type or size first and then go back over a couple more times. There are always the sneaky weeds hiding amongst the legitimate plant’s leaves. I stood up and un-kinked my back, looking around, really looking around and appreciating the amazing garden.

  The bounty was inspiring. The corn was strong and healthy, the rhubarb vibrant. As I went back to work thinking back to the day I moved in to my house in Woodland Hills, my yard had been a hot baked barren wasteland.

 

(rhubarb)

(Some lettuce - Amy said to come snip some when I wanted a salad)

(More yummy lettuce)
 

(me cleaning the pool in the middle of my dirt wasteland of a yard)

I planted hundreds of cabbage roses, shrub roses, and even climbing roses. Herbs like basil and rosemary were abundant. I grew perennials of every color including fragrant Lilac and Butterfly Bush, deep purple Mexican Sage, and velvety Lambs Ear lined the walkways. Queen Palms and hibiscus transformed the pool area. Lush Cape Honeysuckle hid my fences while tangerine, orange, grapefruit, plum, apricot, peach, nectarine, lemon and lime trees fed barefoot children in the summer. I put Redwoods in the back by my father’s guesthouse. Flowering lavender Jacarandas, fluffy yellow Tipuana Tipu and Chinese Elm provided shade and dotted the perimeter.

    Although there were the occasional plants that didn’t like the blazing hot sun, of my yard most varieties I selected were well suited. Tomatoes, artichokes and peppers thrived. However, climbing fig despite the gardener’s old adage “first they sleep then they creep finally they leap” never took hold.

(fountain on left surrounded by pink and white iceberg roses- cape honeysuckle on the pool fence- on the other side of path)

(fruit trees on the side - most flowers not in bloom yet)

    So when I moved to Washington, I was excited to plant all the things I’d wanted to plant, but never could because of the extreme heat. Fancy frilly things like Fuchsias, Peonies, Shark ferns and Rhododendrons. I thought I would grow a magnificent garden full of sweet, succulent vegetables. Not so

(my weed-eater, Miracle- with a mouthful of greens - in my flower not vegetable garden)

I thought as I collected my mound of damp weeds in a plastic crate and carried them to the compost. I don't get this place. I longed for my old garden where I knew what was what. I'm seriously ready to just give up. I don't know things like: do you plant when there's still a chance of snow? Or not? How do people get their gardens going just after the cold? Is it different up where I live than it is down in the valley? I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but my garden is nothing like this. It’s a disaster. I have non-existent spindly carrots. My peas are stringy, my cantaloupe is ok, my tomatoes whiney. Perhaps I thought as I looked around at this Eden, maybe it wasn’t just a job I was going to get from working at the Everybody’s Store.

June 18th A Little Bird Told Me

   

    A thick grey covered the valley, water dripping without any rhythm, like a blanket hanging from a clothesline. It was a dreary morning. I pulled up to the driveway and hopped out, as is now my custom, to open the gate when a small movement in the grass caught my eye. It was a baby bird struggling, soaked. I looked around and saw the parents nearby. Robins.

(All wet - a little robin)

(a mother or a father flies close by)

    I was worried the little fellow didn’t seem to be able to fly, but I hesitate to intervene after all it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

    Thinking a moment I walked over to the garbage and pulled out one of Amy’s moving boxes.  I ripped one side off creating a shelter for the little one. I thought he’d at least be able to dry his feathers and rest without worrying about being prey. I thought about calling the Wildlife rescue, but I knew what they’d say: “Do you see the parents? Oh well then leave the bird alone” so I did. I briefly thought of calling Amy, after all she'd worked at the zoo, but I thought she'd think the same thing.

(makeshift shelter)

  (moving on)

(Robin family)

(Robby trying to fly)

    Instead, I watched out the window like a nervous mother. The baby dried off and hopped up the hill to the house, then stopped. Completely exhausted. The mother and father were coaching and encouraging dive-bombing anything near it, but the little thing couldn’t go on. I decided to help again. Taking the box I went over and covered Robby up so he could rest once more. The mom came over and he opened his mouth oh so wide and she fed him.

(Daddy robin guarding Robby)

    “He’s going to be all right I thought, but then the geese came toward him. I saw them from his point of view and suddenly they looked menacing. Quickly, I opened the door ran onto the porch not taking the time to open the gate I flung myself over the railing much to Irish's surprise.

    I shooed the geese away and down the hill only to attract Miracle. I felt like a mother who came home from the hospital and suddenly noticed all the electrical outlets.  Luring Miracle to another area of the yard I took a large stick and imitating Little Bo Peep I herded my gaggle of robin mongers into the backyard where they couldn’t accost a terrified Robby.

(like vultures they descended)

(you'd never know they're herbivores from the looks of them)

(Miracle gives chase - one of her favorite games - although she never hurts anyone- Linda, one of Lloyd's daughters is in the rear)

    I tried to fill out the insurance forms I was supposed to complete, but I could barely concentrate. I kept going back and forth to the window checking to see what was going on. I called Lisa asking her if she thought I should take him in. “Nahh, if the parents are there he’ll be OK” she assured me. “If he’s there in several hours then maybe” she left the door open. My friend Rowan assured me robins spend several days on the ground and she herself had made the mistake of putting them back up in their nests when in fact, they needed to be on the ground to learn to fly. I still felt unsure, but I had to go with the collective wisdom.

    Amy came over with her mother to sign her lease. She needed it as proof of her residence so she could go get her Washington driver’s license. We chatted about my printer. “I have no idea why it says it doesn’t “recognize” my ink cartridges, but it won’t print.” I complained.

    “Well, we’ll make a copy when we’re in town.”

    “Oh you missed the events of the morning.” I said.

    “What happened?” Amy asked intrigued

    “There was a baby bird, a robin, I used one of your boxes as a shelter.”

    “Oh we wondered why the box was up on the lawn.” Amy said. “I thought the wind blew it.”

    “I saw him hop over with his parents by the shop near the fence. I think Robby’s going to be ok,” I said happily as they left.

    I went to the window and didn’t see Robby as I saw them pull out. Relieved he’d gotten to safety, I could finally concentrate on my insurance forms and get some of the lines filled out. I glanced at the clock and realized I had to go get Henry. Pulling up to the gate, I got out to open it, as is my custom, and noticed something in the road. Fear gripped my heart, as I knew, what it was. I walked closer. It was Robby crushed and lifeless. Amy had unwittingly run him over.

    Teary eyed I got in the car and started sobbing. Why didn’t I just put him in the box I berated myself. He’d be ok right now. I thought of how very hard he’d struggled to live, never giving up. I thought of his parents trying to help him. I felt I let him down. I know I can’t save them all but I have to try. It’s my nature.

May 10th Are You My Mama?

(leader of the band)     

    At 5:30 A.M.I heard a deafening racket outside my window. It was as if some gang of marauding teenagers had pulled up and cranked their stereo. It was the crooning of every flipping ding-dang songbird in the forest greeting the dawn. I pried my eyes open realizing sleep would not return with battle of the bands outside my window. I perked up as I remembered Alexis’ Mother’s Day gift. The bag of Deadman’s Reach was downstairs waiting to be ground into an aromatic elixir sure to revive me. As I poured my first medicinal cup Henry bestowed on me a compass drawing he did in school and then I received a pastel pink and yellow heart on printer paper only slightly crumpled on one side like it had been stuffed in a sixth-grade's notebook. I gazed upon the drawing "Happy Mother's Day, I love you" was scrolled in tidy penmanship. It was full of emotion and care save the crumpled part. But then out came the piece de resistance a card with a fold and a saying. It wasn’t full of scribbles or too much erasing. It didn't have creases, rips or tears. I welled up. He’d listened. My son, a husband in training.

(My card- lettering learned from Miss Elberfeld (4th grade) - yellow is my favorite color)

(sweet)

    Dressed and ready for the day I met Alexis outside. He’d already fired up the tractor and true to his word was scraping the mat of weeds off with the sharp edge of the bucket. It was a bright sunshiny day and now that the fence was finished my four-legged lawnmowers, the goats, sheep and Miracle were out chomping the lawn. This is the way I dreamed it would be:  goats meandering by like they stepped out of “Heidi” taking nibbles of pine while the sheep drifted by the purple Agapanthus like strange clouds, the geese chatted by the barn while Miracle kept watchful eye on everyone as I sipped my coffee.

(Alexis clearing the land)

    After Alexis went off to work, my sister called and said she, Chris and the kids were going to head out for the afternoon. All the better to garden I thought.

    Before Team Donaldson arrived, Henry and I started to work. “Mama. I just want to let you know, I almost put you were more special than Awesomez on the card, but I erased it. I just couldn’t say it. I mean I love you and you’re my Mama, but well you understand, she is Awesomez.” Henry explained tap dancing as fast as he could.

    “I understand, I love her too.” I assured him."Now hush up and pull the Rhododendron the whole plant is poisonous to the goats."

    I’d let the cows out of the pasture again. This time I felt confident because we’d installed two gates. One gate blocks the barn animals from going into the road and the other gate keeps them from going down toward the pond. This in turn will keep Abe, Anna and Andy down munching on grass in what was our old cornfield. Or so I thought, until I looked up and saw Andy giving me the eye as we worked in the garden and before I knew it he'd found the one weak spot in the fence and charged through it. He wasn’t exactly a raging bull, but he got the job done. Suddenly Abe and Anna were in hot pursuit. Miracle was stunned at the sight of these new ruminants. I worried she might be like Quinn who does not like to be in the company of someone older and taller than her. “A person can be older or taller, but not both. Actually, I like to be older and taller if possible,” Quinn says whenever anyone will listen. If Miracle was like Quinn we might have a barnyard brawl. Would she attack or would the cows chase the goats like true “bullies”? I stood ready to react, but it was as calm as a nativity.

(Deciding the best place to be is on the other side of any fence)

(mowing my lawn)

(everybody eats)

(happy cows)

    We set back to work hoeing and taking tractor loads of debris away. We were hard at work when the Donaldsons pulled up. After some quick hugs and hellos we decided to break for lunch. In the kitchen Quinn asked “So what did Henry give you for Mother’s Day?”

    “He cleaned my room.” I said proudly.

    “Girl clean? Or boy clean?” Phoebe inquired.

    “Girl clean.” I assured her. “He vacuumed, put stuff away and I got a card too, plus a neck warmer-thingy.”

    “Girl clean? That’s good Henry.” Phoebe praised.

(Phoebe and Henry climb trees for entertainment)

(monkey-boy)

(Lunch is served in the tree as requested)

(Miracle with her fly mask on relaxing)

(working girls)

    After sandwiches we jumped back on the project. Phoebe and I manned the tractor bringing in loads from the compost pile.

    “This is some goooood shit.” I exclaimed as I savored the aroma, digging out a nice big load.

    “Really” she confirmed as we examined the sample teeming with earthworms.Lisa and Chris were hard at work mixing up the amendments and leveling the ground while Henry insisted on throwing knives at a tree and Quinn read a book.

    “Do we have to keep the garden gate closed all the time?” Lisa yelled over the tractor.

    “Actually yes, it seems the sheep like blueberries.” I yelled back.

    “Hey! Stop!” Lisa giggled. I turned back to see what she was talking about. “It’s nothing," she waved, "I just never had a sheep nibble my ankle before.” Apache was giving her kisses.

    Phoebe, Lisa, Chris and I got the garden to a point where we were ready to put in rows when we noticed there were no bells.

    “No bells that can only mean one thing.” I said wondering how they could have gotten out. “Do you think they knocked down the fence?” I asked. “I mean I know that’s not what you’d expect from a cow, but how else?” I asked half to myself as we began to walk the fence line with Anna who was also wondering where those good for nothing steers went off to leaving her behind.

    “I hear them.” I said listening to the faint clinking of cowbells. Turning my head toward the sound. I saw them in my only neighbor’s yard they’d hopped the fence.

    “Who wants a cookie?” Lisa yelled in a high-pitched voice. "Who wants a cookie?" She repeated. In only a couple of times, the boys were running not walking back, and over the fence they went.

    “It surprises me every time how nimble they are.” I reflected.  “But you know “ I said imitating my father, “there was that one f----- who went over the moon.” Lisa laughed. It was still funny.

    We came back to find Quinn in the garden. She’d finished her book and was wondering if they could still make it to the bookstore tonight. As she stood around not helping she began standing on one of the garden stakes. Balancing on one foot she said, “If this was a little wider this would be like Survivor.” 

    “Hey let me try.” Chris said as he climbed up on the stick. “One-one-thousand-two-one-thousand. . .” the girls chanted in unison until Chris dramatically fell off.

(Chris doesn't survive)

    “You two are the slowest counters I’ve ever heard.” He complained.

    “I did it longer.” Quinn said all smiles.

    “Let me try.” Phoebe insisted and then naturally, Lisa and I had to have a turn. We were now counting and competing for the best time.

    “This is fun.” Phoebe laughed, “Farm fun.”

    “Hey Quinn, you could do this at your birthday party.” Lisa laughed. "You young'ens would have a lot of fun." she hillbillied.

    “Great. My friends will say, gosh that party was fun. Quinn had us stand on a stick. No. They wouldn’t get it, but just so you know I think I've won with the best time.”

    “No. I did.” I corrected.

    “No. I did.” She said incorrectly. Being younger, I let her believe she was right poor thing, but as the winner I knew. I knew I had the better time she just couldn’t handle it.

    With all our falderal we got the stakes up and the string, but it was time to call it quits. Henry and Phoebe wanted one last knife throwing demonstration over by their tree. Most of us went to watch, but Quinn disappeared until she came out the front door. “Denise? Who’s this?” Quinn asked holding up a gosling. I gasped.

    “I don’t know! We’ve never met!” I was stunned. “Quinn where did you get that?” I asked completely confused. That was not one of Clara’s it was yellow and downy. I looked at it again. Its bill was black just like it’s feet. Clearly this was a Canada gosling. 

(in search of a Mother)

    “I found it walking across the lawn. I heard it peep and looked up and there it was, so I picked it up before the dogs saw it. Then Bruno took off like a shot for the fence down by the pasture. Maybe there are more.” So Quinn holding on to her charge showed us where Bruno had gone and we formed a search party. Looking and listening for peeping. I went and got Mabel to see if her honks would flesh anyone out of the tall grass. Just as we were all about to give up, Quinn found another one in a most remote area. We looked for the mother. The two goslings had been quite a distance away, and no one could locate a possible nest. I’d seen Canada geese in the pasture, but not hanging around the creek nor did I have any idea where the nest could be.

    “This is so weird, they need to find a mother on Mother’s Day.” Henry remarked. “Hey Quinn does this make them your babies? You’re the goose girl.” Quinn smiled wryly as she wiped goose poop out of the nest in her sweatshirt.

(twice the fun on Mother's Day)

    “It’s OK they’re just babies.” She replied cheerfully as we went to the barn and decided to try Mabel with the goslings.

    “She sat on her eggs for a good long time, maybe she’ll think they’d hatched while she was out. “ I suggested.

    “That’s some while you were out.” Phoebe laughed. Lisa took the goslings and rubbed her scent on them while she wasn’t looking. Mabel wanted nothing to do with them, so we tried Ruthie. She wouldn’t take them under her wing either. Next, we tried Clara, the proven mother, but she was too consumed with worry over her goslings that she didn’t relax.

    So we tried another tactic. We got Quackmire involved, after all, he’d been an excellent guardian to Clara’s hatch. Then we tried Ruthie again. No good, she just acted like she wanted to get away from Quackie. So we brought Mabel back in. Perhaps they’d be OK if the two of them were in there like Lloyd and Clara. I put the incubation light a safe distance away from the straw. We didn’t really need the adults to care for them as long as they protected them from any nocturnal predators like barn rats.

(Foster Family)

    “What do you want to name them?” Henry asked about 43 times.

    “I don’t know, some kind of outcast name like the elf who wants to be a dentist. What was his name?” Quinn mused.

    “I don’t remember.” Henry answered. “How about Romulus and Remus? Or Oenone, the wood-nymph?”

    “Uhhh no.” Quinn responded authoritatively.

    “Look we can’t keep them. They’re migratory birds they need to learn to fly.” Lisa said.

    “They do? Won’t they just know?” Quinn was confused.

    “Didn’t you watch ‘Fly Away Home about 35 times?” Lisa asked incredulously

    “Henry, the guy who shot ‘Fly Away Home’ Caleb, is the dad of Zooey Deschanel the girl in ‘Yes Man’. Anyway, I think the goslings are ok for the night. I’ll keep checking on them, but in the morning I’m calling the Wildlife Refuge.” I announced as we shut the barn door.

    “Mama, you relax, I’ll make dinner.” Henry said losing interest in the idea before he got to the kitchen. The phone rang as I got out the steamer. It was Awesomez’ daughter, little Lindsey, “Rizzo,I want to make my mom dinner, but I don’t know what to make. I need help.” she bleated.

    “Whatdya got?” I said pulling out my ingredients.

  (Henry and his buddy, Irish, have forgotten about making dinner)

February 26th The Weather Outside is Frightful

(Coach Gordy training Henry on Giants)

    I can learn, I can change and I have proof. Last night, my sister called me at gymnastics and said the hail we had earlier was turning into a full-blown snowstorm.

    “The roads are getting bad fast, I think you should go home.” She said in her ‘I’m now officially protecting you voice.’

    And although I didn’t immediately leave gymnastics with Henry, I did immediately call Alexis to assess the road conditions. He is potentially more laid back about them than I am. “I’ll give you a call if it looks too bad, but for now it’s OK.” He said with authority.

    I didn’t want Henry to have to leave gymnastics when he’s missed a bunch of time due to wrestling. He only gets one more meet to qualify for Regionals and then it’s over for the year. He was working really hard. While I was watching Henry practice giants on the high bar, my friend, Lisa, called and strongly urged me to follow my sister's instructions as she believed my sister the levelheaded one or something of that sort. So I was frankly pretty proud of myself, I had indeed responded in a concerned and responsible manner, and when Alexis called saying, “Time to go, it’s dumping.” We left.

    The ride home was tense with “Family Guy” droning in the background and flakes the size of cell phones flying in my face. The windshield wipers had quickly frozen making a constant pounding noise increasing my stress ten fold. My friend, Lisa called every twenty minutes or so to check on us and although I was a wreck I kept telling her I was fine in an overly cheery voice which irritated her as she could see through my crusty outer shell. We had wisely taken the more traveled route to minimize our chances of getting stuck and even the Interstate 5 was slow going. Along the way Henry and I passed more than one car in a ditch. Each time we stopped and got out cell phone in hand checking to make sure everyone was all right and a tow truck was coming.

    Once to Mosquito Lake Road Henry called Alexis to tell him to expect us home within a half-hour, just in case. The snow on the long dark road was deep. The radio claimed 10 inches had fallen at our elevation in the last couple of hours. I had thought the peppy radio voices were exaggerating, but now I was convinced. We crawled along staying in the single lane of tracks. Occasionally, high centering, but having enough traction to keep going. We were almost to the place where we’d been stuck the first time I went into first gear and started up the hill, leaning forward for good measure.

    “Come on Mama!” Henry encouraged from the dark backseat. The “Family Guy” was now off as I needed the quiet less I completely flip out.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can I thought as we climbed up the hill the traction control kicking in. Just about three quarters up the hill, headlights came into view traveling on the same single lane tracks. Was that Alexis already coming to get us? No. The massive truck didn’t yield to us and barreled past us. I had to pull off into the deep snow and come to a stop losing my momentum. Henry and I sat there in disbelief.

    “What are the chances of a car coming around the bend in the middle of the evening at just this moment?” I asked incredulously.

“We hardly ever pass anyone.” Henry confirmed. I backed up and tried again and again and again, but I couldn’t get far enough down the hill to gain the same kind of speed. We were now almost immobile in the middle of the road. I wasn’t at all comfortable with this so I backed up again and began fish tailing. My heart beat hard knowing of the drop off just a few feet away. I stopped. I took a few deep breaths and spoke reassuringly to Henry.

    “Mama are you scared?”

    “Well, no not now. I was while we were driving, but now I’m OK. There isn’t anything to worry about this time. We know Alexis is coming very soon. Check the time, he won’t be late. He knows we’re out here so we’re fine.”

    “I’m awake this time and it’s scarier. There isn’t any light at all when you turn off the headlights. I don’t think you should try to move anymore.”

    “I don’t either. We’re not going to make it, so there’s no real point. I just don’t feel comfortable in the middle of the road if someone comes around the turn so I’m going to make one last effort to pull up to the side.” I informed him.

    “OK.” I slammed it in first and made my move stopped the car and waited. True to his word Alexis came along in short order.

(Alexis arrives)

    “Are we going to do the old tractor maneuver?” I asked as he got a towline out of his trusty Jeep™.

    “Yeah, I’ll pull and you take the stuck vehicle.”

    “Well, we’ve had plenty of experience.” I laughed glad he was here. “What am I going to do if you ever move away Lancelot?”
(10 " of snow Whatever!)

(Alexis pulling into position)

(Henry in the van)

    “You’ll manage. I know you.” Was that a compliment or a slam I wondered? I’m still not sure. Alexis backed up with a tad more zip than was called for smashing right into the front of my van. I held my breath. I had a sudden vision of Henry strapped in the Odyssey™ and going over the edge. I stood there helpless watching the van lurch backward sliding just a bit. No harm done. Alexis got out and we assessed. Nothing was wrong with either car. In a jiffy we were hooked up and home.

(Alexis sets up)

    In the end, while I had to admit to my Protective Paisans, my Concerned Clan, my Fearful Family consisting of Tom, my sister Lisa, Mike and my friend, Lisa also known as “Go-Go” that I did indeed get stuck on Mosquito Lake Road. Again. In my defense, I was able to point out it is also true I took logical steps to prevent a repeat of our last ordeal. I might be annoyingly independent, pig-headed and shrill when excited, but I do listen. Sometimes. I might even go as far as admitting I might need taking care of - on occasion.
(Alexis carries a laughing Henry)

(Alexis takes my inappropriately dressed child to the house)

January 9th The More Things Change

   

(Just a bit of snow still in the pasture)

    Once the rain completely stopped and most of the snow had melted my curiosity got the best of me. I couldn’t resist going out to see the land. Wayne and Alexis already  surveyed the damage, but decided to go with me anyway. I noticed the difference starting at the pasture, there were deep ruts and erosion where the stream had rerouted ripping and tearing holes in the earth. No big deal really as Washington is after all the land of Jack and the Bean Stalk. It’s so fertile here, if you put a tire in the ground, a car just might grow.
(Wayne stands with one foot on what was the island and the other on the new grey ground)(no longer an island the pond ends at the front of the picture by the bridge)

(bridge with new rock)

(I wasn't the only resident taking a look around - here are Wally's foot prints)

(Wally's front paws)

     It looked like a volcano had erupted and sent lava down to settle in the pond. We now had a grey and black rocky beach instead of an island. Walking up the stream where once was thick growth was a wide rocky path. I couldn't help but be awestruck at the power of Mother Nature re-inventing herself.
(new rocky waterfalls)

The stream was lovely lined with rocks. Stair step waterfalls gurgled as the stream wound around in its new path. I imagined it would be great place for sipping chardonnay in the summer time. The kids would love it back in here under the canopy of the forest. It was open and beautiful as the sun shone through dappling the rocks with light as it danced off the water. The farther we walked the more amazed I was. Trees strewn about with enormous root balls jutting in the air, striking rocks, logs stripped of their bark and made smooth from the power of the rushing water. I stepped over a fence that used to be five feet tall. Now merely six inches stuck out of the ground. We kept going until we found the source. It was a landslide that created a cavern more than fifty feet wide and at least two stories tall.
(Irish above t he cave in)

    Climbing a huge tree that looked like a drawbridge. I thought this would be a great place for a fort. My thoughts turned to Henry, he’s studying geography in class and has been asking me how erosion works. Thinking mostly of our doomed trip to the Grand Canyon, he had it in his head that it was a process taking thousands of years, not just a couple of days.  I stood there thinking what he was going to say when he saw this and then I thought if this history thing doesn’t workout maybe  we could be a great science field trip.

(strewn trees)

January 7th Too Much Of A Good Thing

(On the 9 at Acme)

    On the way home from gymnastics last night Henry and I crossed five different spots where the water was cascading over the highway. He barely noticed because he was busy coloring some project for school by the light of his cell phone. I however had a strained neck by the time we got to Acme. Just before turning onto Mosquito Lake Road, I had Henry call Wayne and let him know we where we were. Just in case. We've already spent one night on the road and so I'm  perhaps a little overly cautious at this point.

    Despite my fears, we made it home safe and sound. The rain pounded all night long. On edge, I woke-up  early and went downstairs to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, feed the dogs and check my email for school closures. Just as I suspected Bellingham was shut down, I called Lisa since I doubted she’d check. I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t driven in it last night. 

(Two by Two they're boarding the Ark)

    All we can do is sit inside the house and watch the water rise. The pasture is flooded, the creek along the road has expanded 100 feet. The cows are dry for now, but the pond has been devastated. Water is rushing down from the mountain bringing sediment with it and depositing it in our pond. So in effect our pond is being filled in.

(our pond -- not what it was a day a go - a good thing we don't need water  as it is so full of sediment we'd never be able to use it)

(You can see Abbey having to swim this walking path)

(compare with picture below - same place)

(This was a small two foot stream a day or two ago - you can compare to the 30th of December picture - )

(from the creek by road to the fence was a hundred feet)

(Wayne and Abbey wade through the current in the pasture)

    I watched the news and saw some guy jet skiing down Iowa Street. We drove to the one lane bridge and were shocked to see there had been a small landslide exactly where Henry and I had parked the night we were trapped in the snow.

Mental note: Next time I’m trapped on an isolated road be sure to park nowhere near a steep hill – if possible.

(The stop sign - is where the front of my car was parked - the small slide on Mosquito Lake Road)

The thing I notice most is the noise. From the moment you step outside you can hear the roar of sudden streams everywhere rushing down the mountains to the rivers. The trees, logs and debris piling up.

The rain continues.

(about two months ago - same place as video - note no logs just stones on right)

(Our quiet little stream becomes a rushing river)

January 5th All's Well That Ends Well

(Life in an Ansel Adams picture -on the way to school)

     Day 24 –of our drought. The day Pea and Laura head home, school starts and the well-guy is coming to see what he can do about our water situation. I stumbled downstairs to find mouse guts laced with blood in a heap on the floor in the kitchen. An omen? Ignoring it I got my coffee and went back upstairs to inform Tom he should handle it.

    I pried a teary-eyed and reluctant Henry out of bed. He like every other child out there did not want to go back to school. Tom and I had heard last night how horrible he had it without any friends. “Kids roll their eyes when they get paired up with me.” He complained.

    “Maybe you try too hard honey. Your daddy and I knew a great guy who tried too hard.”

    “You mean Kenny?” He finished before I could.

    “Yes. Kenny. You should just relax a little. Stand back. Let the other kids be funny. Ask questions. People like to talk about themselves. It’ll be good practice for dating.”

    “Mom!” Henry blinked back tears. “Mom how old were you when you first had sex?” He said with more strength in his voice as he redirected the conversation.

    “Henry! That is none of your business.” I protested. Tom simply and silently rolled over checking out of this conversation entirely. Typical.

 Henry cried off and on during the night. Tossing and turning in his bed coming in our room every half-hour or so until he just fell in bed with us. It’s hard knowing you’re dad’s leaving again and may not be back until March. It makes my heart hurt to watch him in so much pain.

    Nonetheless, the bell was going to ring and he was going to be in his seat or my teaching credential wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. When I got back Tom informed me he’d relocated a mouse he’d found alive in the dog food outside. I was relived as I’d seen the little guy a couple of times and wondered if he was the heap on the floor this morning. The well-guy was arrived minutes later ready to check out our problem.

(Checking out the pump house - warm and balmy)

    Naturally, he informed me it was “weird”. We had some power to the pump, but only 115 amps or volts and we should have 230 amps or volts I’m not sure which. An electrician I’m not. He couldn’t figure out why we’d have that much and where it was finding a ground. After a bit of water sleuthing he determined the problem to be in our well itself.

    This presented a few new problems. One, our well is 80 feet deep and he couldn’t get it out by himself, it seems this is inordinately deep most are 40 feet. Two, he hadn’t anticipated “This much snow! I didn’t expect this. I’ve got to call my partner. You see I’ve got to be able to drive down into the pasture and I can’t even get up your driveway without chains. I didn’t bring any because there isn’t any snow in town.”

    “Do you want a cup of coffee while you wait?” I inquired trying to be civilized.

    “No. No. I’ve got paperwork to do in my truck. Thanks” and off he went.

    The next thing I knew two other guys were there and he had his chains on. They got down to the pasture, but the snow was so deep we couldn’t open the gates.

(The guys digging the gates open)

(Stuck!)

(Checking out the action)

After digging those open he drove in only to get stuck with a high middle. It seems the ground had thawed underneath. Abe, Andy and Anna were very curious about this new development. The guys eventually dug the truck out and all I could think of was how much this was costing me.

  (Tom and Laura leave)

While they were doing their thing, Tom and Laura were packing up and driving off. I guess it was good I had this to tend to or I’d have been in tears just like Henry. Before he left though, Tom cashed in some frequent flyer miles and booked a flight up in two weeks so we could all go to Henry’s meet on Bainbridge Island.

 
    Once they realized the truck wasn’t going to get to the well, I thought they’d leave and come back another day. Nope, these were hardy fellas.

    “We’re here now and we’re going to get you water. My other half would be staying at a luxury hotel by now. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still laughing.”

    “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to leave.” I insisted. Perseverance pays off, they worked until they were successful. It seems the pipes froze in several places. First to the shop, then to the house, but the real problem was they froze from the well to the pump house. The pump doesn’t have a shut off valve and it continued pumping until it burned out. Seven hundred dollars and a new pump later we had water. I felt stupid. I guess if I’d turned off the pump the moment the pipes froze this wouldn’t have happened.

(Having to keep shooing the curious cows away the guys worked until it was done)

    “Don’t feel too bad, this has happened to a lot of people and if they only froze from the pump house to your house it would have been fine. You see, we only bury our pipes two-feet down here.”

    “Oh, I see. I lived in Minnesota and they bury them six feet there.” I said not feeling any better.

    “We don’t expect Minnesota-cold here.” He said practically.

    When I first heard the gurgle of water run through the pipes under the house my heart leapt. I held the flashlight while Mike, the well-guy, turned the valve and voila! We could shower!

    “How much do I owe you?” I said hesitantly.

    “I’ll bill you.” He said with a wave. I wanted to hop in a hot shower, but it was time to go get Henry.

    He was standing by the gym, our appointed meeting place, waving and beaming when I pulled up. “Sorry I’m late. How was school? Did you pick one kid to ask over?”

    “School was great! I was talking to another kid whose mother is also late a lot.”

    “I am not late a lot.” I said defensively.

    “I didn’t mean – any way – you know the kid I told you about who usually rolls his eyes when he gets paired up with me, well he actually asked me to be his partner today! And you know what else I wasn’t the only kid who didn’t want to go to school today. I felt better about that.” Henry blurted.

 “You know what else? We have water!”

    “We have water? We have water! Yipeee! We don’t have to see each other’s pee anymore? This is great day. Except for Daddy and Laura leaving.”

    “I have news on that too. Daddy’s coming back in two weeks for Bainbridge and Laura’s coming to Las Vegas for your meet.”

    “Mom can I celebrate with a hot bath when we get home? I want to use my tangerine scrub I got for Christmas.”

December 26th Frosty

   

(Denise taking a break from the construction)

    The morning after Christmas was one of those rare days of sleeping in, followed by pots of hot coffee, crispy bacon, scrambled eggs and Chai French toast, back by popular demand. Over breakfast it was decided there would be snowman-building the likes of which Mosquito Lake Road had never known.

(Tom takes his  beloved Ridgeline™ to the pond with Henry, Lu and Vivian in the back - Irish jets ahead to get his energy out)

    So, after the chores were done, toilets filled and barn animals watered, everyone bundled up and set to work.Tom and Wayne shoveled piles of snow while Henry and I patted everything down. Henry, when it comes to this type of work, has the attention span of a gnat. He’d pat for a short time and, the next thing we knew, he was throwing snowballs at the dogs. Irish, Luther, Vivian, Bruno and Abbey thought this was great fun.

(Wayne, Henry and Pea - men at work)
(Irish at full tilt - at home in the snow)

(Henry and Irish)
(Henry nails Irish with a snowball)
  (Luther and Irish cross paths)
(Bruno and Vivian - action snow dogs)

(more action)

(Pea takes his work seriously)

   Disobedient Deli, of course, was sequestered in the house, watching through the window. After a while Alexis wandered out and joined in, offering his opinion on how he felt the snowman should be built.

(Deli Dog)
(Wayne throws a snowball up for Abbey)

    Unfortunately, the scope of our work went beyond the limited hours of daylight and it was decided the project would have to be continued. After all, Rome was not built in a day. Tom thought next chance we got to work on it he would utilize the strength of the tractor for phase two. The heck with the shoveling. He wanted a serious snow giant. The question remains: Will the snow giant actually be finished or continue to be a big mound of snow towering over our driveway?

December 21st Alive!

(Henry outside his bedroom window)

Henry the homebody decided to stay home, but Alexis and I decided enough was enough we needed to go to town. We wanted to replace my broken chains, and take a hot shower. With Alexis by my side, I exchanged the chains with some brisk convincing. And we were off to Lisa’s luxury bathhouse.

Warm to the bone and ready to go home, we gathered up the girls for a weekend on the farm. Naturally, they made popcorn in the popcorn machine and we watched a triple feature “All My Children – the memorial to Myrtle Fargate”, “Crusoe” the new series and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. By the end, everyone wished Irish’s name was Clarence, he’d have made an excellent Clarence - but tell that to the Notre Dame graduate.

(snow snuggling)
(Henry carries sled/boat)

(Quinn tumbles)

(sisters)

(Norman Rockwell winter weekend)
(Andy watching the action)

(fun, fun, fun)

(at the bottom of the hill)
(sledding cougar hill near the pasture)


(flying down the hill)

    For the next two days except for taking care of the animals and getting water from the stream by the pond, it was sledding and more sledding. We brought the inflatable boat from the pond to accommodate us. Henry and I carried the boat up the most with Quinn complaining. “Tell us Phoebe, when are you going to carry the boat up?”

“I di-idd!” Phoebe whined with a familiar, this-snow-is-so-hard-to-walk-in-and-these-boots-are-so-heavy-I-don’t-think-I’ll-make-it-up-the-hill-one-more-time-tone.

“No you did not.  Denise carries it up for you Phoebe. Is it because you’re the littlest and you can’t?” She said with the distinctly bitter older sister tone.

(making the goose bed and leaving food)

(Henry and Alexis walk on the frozen pond)

(the pond gets smaller and predators can get closer)

I remember when I was five my mother saying “Hold your sister’s hand, she’s so little she’s just three yet”. Only to hear her saying when I was eight “Hold your sister’s hand she’s only five.” I guess I was wired for big sistering though, because I liked taking care of Lisa. If she fell, I helped her up. When she was little I’d make treasure hunts for her on vacation and help her find the clues leading to the buried treasure of candy rocks in the middle of the Painted Desert. I taught her to count to 100. Of course, she was the brave one. She would go right up to kids and ask them if we could play too. Naturally, we fought, and sometimes I thought our neighbor, Jennifer Spaulding, was more fun than boring old Lisa. It was like those then my mother would always say, “Friends will come and go, when I’m gone Lisa will be there. Always take care of each other.” Quinn and Phoebe bicker much, much more than Lisa and I did, but I’m hoping they’ll muddle through it.
(going to bed)

(Vivian chases Bruno)

(Bruno charging through the snow)

    Getting them home started with loading up the laundry and putting the geese away and ended with digging out my car and getting my new chains on. Eventually, we rolled along, Phoebe and Henry watching Jack Benny in the backseat.

    Lisa’s was a dream. Henry and I each began our treatments differently. I sipped on hot tea as Lisa baked cookies. Henry took a towel and spent some time in the Jacuzzi and sauna before his shower. Lisa helped me start the laundry. I followed Henry’s path and donned clean clothes at the end. After dinner and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (my father’s favorite Christmas special) when I finally had everything folded we loaded up the car. Getting the car out required, Chris, driving, Lisa digging, Phoebe shoveling and me adjusting the chains. It took us almost two hours just to get me out of their steep driveway. I thought of staying the night, but I had the animals, the house to clean and Christmas was just days away. There was so much to do at home.

    “I’ll call you when I get home.” I said as I watched them start digging Lisa’s car out so she could get to work in the morning. Slowly I crawled home listening to some radio call in show “Neighbor to Neighbor and Driver to Driver” about how snowed in everyone is. Ex-Ohioans were giving tips on how it’s done in the real cold. Washingtonians were mentioning with the steep hills doing some of what the “experts” said wasn’t so easy. Henry slept in the backseat.

    I pulled over three times to check my chains. Once at an Arco where I had a man help me tighten them one more notch. Once as I started on Mt. Baker Hwy and finally just as I turned on to Mosquito Lake Road. I drove at a snail’s pace as the radio show turned to static in the Welcome Valley. I eventually punched the button and started singing Christmas songs. We were going slow but steady in the toasty car. We wound around the ominous “S” turn and went carefully over the one lane bridge. We were only two miles from home as we came to the last real obstacle. The one I’d been nervous about the incline. This is where the road ascends a couple hundred feet. I shifted down to and tried the hill. We got about half way up and began sliding backward. I turned the car gently and guiding it backward down the hill a ways and shifted down into the lowest gear. I tried again and got a little farther. I tried again and the car began to slip making strange grinding noises almost all the dashboard lights lit up. The brake light, the ABS light everything. Startled, I sat in the car thinking as giant fluffy flakes fell. I had to weigh my options. If I tried again and again, more than likely I wasn’t going to make it the snow was almost six inches thicker than when I left. If I tried and failed, the car could slip backward and go over the edge. The drop off is severe. Not wanting to risk it, I backed the car down the hill closer to the one lane bridge until I came to the road sign warning drivers a stop is coming up. I tucked the van under the sign hoping to make us as visible as possible. It was on the wrong side of the road, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near the edge if someone came down the hill and lost control. On this side of the road we wouldn’t be in the line of a skid.
    My mind raced thinking of all the possibilities. Should we get out and walk? We’re only two miles from home. I thought of Henry sleeping in the back seat. His boots were so wet I made him put plastic bags around his feet before we left. He was so tired and the snow falling so hard and I was wearing blue suede boots without any tread. I looked in the car for a flashlight; I had one in my emergency kit. Turning it on, I couldn’t believe how puny the beam looked. We couldn’t walk Henry would never make it and I wasn’t leaving him here alone.

    “Henry, Henry, Henry! Wake-up Honey. Henry I’ve got to talk to you.”

    “What? What? What! Mama, I’m so tired”

    “Henry, I’ve got to talk to you. You don’t know where we are.”

    “We’re at Lisa and Chris'’”

    “Um, no we’re not. We’re on Mosquito Lake Road and we’re stuck. We’re going to spend the night here, Boo.” I didn’t want him waking up in the middle of the night and freaking out.

    “What?!! We’re going to spend the night in the car, Mama?”

    “It’s OK, Honey.” I cooed. “We’ll be fine. The car is nice and warm. We have all our laundry from Lisa’s, so we have lots of things to keep warm. Lisa gave me water before we left so we really don’t have anything to worry about. We’re safe in here until someone finds us.”

    “What if something scratches at the window?” Henry sounded panicky.

    “Henry, people go on safari in vans – we’d be fine even if Karen, the cougar, paid us a call. Who knows we might even see something amazing out here alone.” With the car still running and the lights still on, I opened the side door to the van. The snow came all the way up to the floor. I told Henry to lean out and pee. You don’t have to tell a boy to do this twice. I went outside and did the same.

    I reclined the backseats and tried to get Henry comfortable for the night. He was wearing snow pants, but only a t-shirt so I had him put on a couple more layers out of the laundry bag. He put on my old red elf hat he’s taken to wearing and without another word snuggled down under the comforter like a little hamster burrowing in. I was alone again. The heater still blasting I sat next to Henry watching the snow. I leaned forward and turned off the car. I’d filled up in town when I adjusted the chains, so I had plenty of gas, but I didn’t want to waste it. It was dark. As my eyes adjusted I could see just a faint hint of light outside the car as the snow began covering the windows. It got cold in the car quickly. I knew it wasn’t crazy cold because it was snowing, but the comforter wasn’t going to be enough to be comfortable.  I was wearing my jacket, but Henry’s was still wet from sledding. Robinson Crusoe popped into my head, as did every survival tip I’d ever heard. “Be careful of snow covering your tail pipe and carbon monoxide filling the car.” “Keep the windows open a crack.” Robinson’s secret to survival was gathering all possible supplies before he needed them, so taking a page from the book I started to do the same. Crawling into the trunk area I started digging around. I found flares and threw them in the backseat. It didn’t seem they’d too be useful as no one could see them. I kept digging. I found an old pair of Tom’s water shoes. They might be useful if I had to walk in the morning. I could put them over my boots. I threw them in the back seat. I got Henry’s Toblerone™ bar I’d bought him for Christmas. We could share it in the morning. I tossed things around uncovering Jumper cables, rope, and the emergency thermal blanket. I opened the blanket and put it over Henry under the comforter. “Keep the baby warm, keep the baby warm” went through my head like some deep maternal mantra. I thought of the little girl who’d died in Seattle a couple of weeks ago sleeping in a car with her parents. I snuggled in next to Henry.

    In the quiet, I prayed. “Dear God, thank you for keeping us safe and warm. Please take care of us through the night. Please let Lisa hear me.” I sat nervously looking around me. The bears would be hibernating by now. Cougars wouldn’t be out in a night like this. Truly I was more worried about bad guys than animals. I’d read “In Cold Blood” for book club. Suddenly a loud crash on the top of the car, like a nervous cat I jumped out of my seat as I realized it was a tree dumping snow on the car.

    “Lisa, can you hear me? I need you. Find us.” I knew she’d be panicky by now. She wouldn’t go to bed and forget about me. I’d told her I’d call and I knew she’d worry. We’d been through enough crises. She wouldn’t dismiss this. We’d heard a news story last year about a woman who was missing for a week. Her husband finally got Verizon™ to access her phone and locate her via satellite. Lisa had said, “I’ll tell you what, if you were missing it wouldn’t have taken me a week.” I knew too she and Chris couldn’t make it out here. Not on this road. She’d call Tom and he might call Alexis. I waited hoping for headlights to come around the corner and find us. As I looked out into the dark, I realized I didn’t have my camera if we did see something amazing. Which meant, we’d probably see sasquatch. Maybe he’d help us like dolphins do divers. Why do I always think a sasquatch is male, I wondered.

    I turned on the engine every hour for a couple of minutes heating up the car. About 1:00AM I gave up hope of rescue. The next thing I knew, I heard banging and scratching at the window. I looked up and saw a black object in the window. Frightened out of sleep I sat still thinking this is what Henry was afraid of.

    “Dee! DEE! Are you in there?” It was Wayne! Lisa had heard me. I knew she would.

    Prince Charming had arrived. “Wayne! Wayne! We’re here!” I unlocked the doors.

    “Lisa called. She had the highway patrol looking for you. When they didn’t find you on the main road, she had me come looking for you. I’m so glad you guys are all right. I was so scared.” He explained hugging me.

    “Wayne. I was afraid something would scratch at the door, I never thought it would be you.” Henry exclaimed. “Mama? Can we go home now?”

    “Yeah, We’re going home Buddy.” Wayne said with a smile.
(digging out the next day)

(Wayne shoveling us out)

December 18th When You Give A Cow A Cookie

    (Needs the shutters Pea!)

    When Pea called this morning I dreaded poking a toe out of my warm covers. I slipped on my wool socks raced downstairs pushed the button for the coffee and turned up the temperature from 56 to 64 degrees and ran back to bed for another hour. Today school was delayed again so we had plenty of time to take care of the animals, load the waffle project and the waffle iron into the car and get to school on time. The drive was dicey once we got to Mt. Baker Hwy. Large puffy flakes were beginning to fall fast and furious the closer we got to Bellingham.

    Henry excitedly bid me goodbye as he happily marched off to present his project. I met up with Lisa and Annie and together we ran to get Henry’s new glasses from the optometrist then to Trader Joes™ for some necessities. Actually, I did have to select foods that require little water or clean up as we’re going on day 4 with frozen pipes.
(From what I hear this could this be Trader Joes in Malibu - instead of Bellingham)

    Chris called Lisa while we were grabbing some lunch and said, “If Denise wants to get home tonight she better get going. People are leaving work now if they live in Sudden Valley and that’s not as far as Denise has to go.”

    “Really? Henry has a horn lesson after school, I guess I’ll just call Kevin and cancel it.” I said more to myself than anyone else.

    “Actually, look around you. I think we should pick the kids up now. That guy over there tried to take a left at 35mph. It’s not going to be safe in an hour or two.” We all agreed it was probably the prudent move.

    After Henry piled in the car yapping excitedly about the waffle party his teacher agreed to on Friday we didn’t get two miles before we had to pull over and put chains on.
(Henry and I master the snow conditions)

(Middle schoolers enjoying the weather)
(Bellingham under a blanket of snow)

(along Mt. Baker Hwy)

(Church in Deming)

(Snowmobiling down Mosquito Lake Road)

    The ride home was slow, but uneventful – until we discovered one of the chains had snapped. The other snapped in the driveway leaving me unable to get up the hill. So Alexis and I used our tried and true tractor-rescue method and got the Odyssey up near the barn.

(pulling with the chain and Jeep again)

    It snowed and it snowed and it snowed. In the morning a sparkling white blanket covered everything transforming it into a winter wonderland. All the animals were fine, but the geese opted for spending the day in the barn.

(back to bed)

(Henry pulling down snow from a tree limb)

    Henry and I decided to go sledding and take a walk with the dogs to the pond. So I released the hounds even Deli. And about as predictably as you can get she was gone up Cougar Hill without one Disney-look back over her shoulder Irish was right behind her. I picked up Rat-bat dog, Bruno and sent Luther back into the house for fear they’d follow Deli, never to be seen again.
(Rat-bat-dog "Bruno", Vivian and Luther enjoy the snow)

(Deli takes off)
(Bruno is about as tall as the snow is deep)

(Irish gets his freedom)

(And there she goes)

    Vivian stayed with us and had a great time. We fooled around at the pond checking out the lone Canada goose honking sadly for his or her gaggle. I think it was left behind because of a bum wing. We decided to bring it some food tomorrow.

(If you look closely to the right in the water is the Canada Goose)

(Vivian the snow monster)

    On the way back, Abe got annoyed we weren’t delivering grain or cookies and despite the board Alexis put up he bust through the feeder right as Henry threw a snowball at him. 

(And out he comes through the feeder- Abe)

(From the pasture - our winter wonderland)

(Abe in search of cookies)

Abe high-tailed it to the barn because he now knows where I keep the cookies. After a little playtime with Henry and a snack he went back to the pasture happily. Or so we thought, just as he was about to go through the gate you could just about see the light bulb go off in his head as he remembered the cookies in the barn. He spun around and trotted right back up the hill to the bag. He was in the barn and had his head buried in the bag when I got there. He had a couple more cookies and went in for the night.
(Abe gets his snack)

(Henry plays tug of war with Abe- Abe wins)

(Henry and his cookie loving cow)

    Henry took a few runs on the Cougar Hill sled run. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon grooming it and wanted to take a few more runs while I fed the animals. As he was finishing up who should come meandering back after four hours but our canine Lewis & Clark.
(Cougar Hill - formerly known as Coyote Hill)

December 15th Clothes Horse?

(our first snowfall this winter - the house in need of the black plank shutters Tom is going to make when he "has time")

    I woke up this morning to find that, due to extreme cold, all Bellingham Schools had been delayed two hours. I looked at the temperature: 7 degrees, much colder than we ever got last year. I began to worry about the animals. Really worry. If it’s 7 degrees now, how cold was it last night? Would they all be alive this morning? I know they’re animals and, except for the geese, none of them go south for the winter, but this was an extreme drop in temperature. I thought of the geese huddled together. Were they like penguins, taking turns being on the outside of the huddle?

    Riley is over a year old now, but would the goats be able to withstand such a drop? They weren’t dressed in wool like the lambs. I wasn’t too worried about the lambs, as their wool has come in nicely since the shearing. And what of Miracle? None of the other animals snuggle with her. True, she has more body mass, but 7 degrees?

    I went to make some coffee and call Lisa. Certainly, she’d have some thoughts on the subject. She’d tell me not to worry – I thought. I turned on the faucet and, after a stutter and hiccup, a tiny trickle came out and then stopped. Our pipes had frozen. My mind reeled. This had so many ramifications. I couldn’t make coffee. No coffee and no shower, when I more than desperately needed a shower yesterday. It’s not often I do my hair for the cows, but I do try to stay within social norms. Good thing it’s hat weather. Frozen pipes? No coffee? We’d turned on the light and even added a heater to the pump house. No coffee? The pipes must be frozen somewhere else. I worried again about who would be alive in the barn when I got there. I didn’t want to go. I stalled, went upstairs and woke Henry, preparing him for what I might find in the barn.
(not much snow, but blue skies and cold, cold, cold)

    Lisa had cautioned me about the importance of the animals'  water. She warned me that the temperature has to be brought up somewhat or they won’t drink enough, even if they can. “After all, who likes to drink ice water when they’re freezing?” she said practically. I’d brought a bucket in last night to heat up some water and take it to the barn to warm up their water. Seeing as the faucets weren’t working, I went to the toilet tank. I took off the lid and started bailing out water with a mason jar. I heated the water on the stove in my cast iron pot, while I rooted around the house until I found a discarded cup of coffee from yesterday. Tossing it in the microwave, I threw on Pea’s red robe with the tattered tie, slipped into my blue duck boots, put on my brown leather rain hat with the chin strap (the one Wayne calls my “Indiana Jones” hat), and made my way out to the barn with my stale, but steaming, cup of coffee in one hand and my bucket of boiling water in the other. I was trudging along just about at the chicken coop when I heard the glorious sound of Miracle braying “Good Morning”. She was alive! Relief went through me and I walked a little quicker.
(Angus, Sheryl and Mildred getting their fleece back)

(Apache wants attention)

    Once inside, I began counting animals and was relieved to find everyone alive, though sluggish from the cold. Their water buckets had more than an inch of ice. I couldn’t imagine how cold it must have been. The geese’s metal water dispenser was a solid ice cube. I shuddered at the night they must have had. Animals might be able to survive like this, but these are my babies, my responsibility. I couldn’t stand it. Money or no money, they weren’t going to spend another night like this.

     Chipping away at the ice layer until it was clear, I poured the boiling water into the water bucket. Then I fed everyone and went down to the pasture to give Abe, Andy and Anna an extra serving of grain. Before we left for school I wrote Alexis a short note explaining the water situation. We were going to have to do something because the animals needed more water and I draw the line for their well-being at Evian. A bucket brigade from the pond was the most obvious solution

(loafing shed for cattle)

    After I dropped Henry off, I met up with Lisa and we headed to the feed store. We were lucky enough to find a water heater for the cows' 200-gallon tank and a smaller one for the barn animals, but I’d have to change their water bucket. We realized I still had the big black tub the goslings used when they lived in Henry’s room. While I was at the register, Lisa started looking for dog collars and I struck up a conversation with the gum-chewing, blue eye-shadowed girl who was ringing me up. I told her how worried I was about the goats, despite what everyone said. She looked up sheepishly, and said, “I just bought my Nubian a coat.”

    “You did!? Where did you get it? I wanted to get coats for my goats last winter, but everyone laughed at me.”

    “Me, too, but I feel better. Mine are pets. I got it here. A lady came in and said she’d bought a dog coat and it fit her goat. So I bought mine and it fit even my Boer. What do you have?”

    “Oberhasli. Nubians are kind of small. My son, Henry, wanted a Nubian. He thought they were dolls.”

    “They are,” she agreed authoritatively.

    “But Boers are big. Which aisle?” I queried. She pointed me in the correct direction and, after her next customer, came over and helped Lisa and me sort through the coats. Once we’d determined the appropriate sizes, there was the matter of color. I simply couldn’t put Alexander in pink; he’s already a wether and I don’t think his ego could take it.

    After purchasing my wares, Lisa and I parted company as she headed off to Costco and I hit two more feed stores looking for a coat for Miracle and something to give the geese water. After finding both items lickety-split at Laurel Feed Supply, I shoehorned in a conversation at the register about possibly piggy-backing an order of Silver Dorking and Black Java chicks and maybe a couple of turkey poults with theirs. The woman said she’d look into it and took my number. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
(Alexis - heaven sent - on water patrol)

    I raced home with my packages, eager to get everything set up. When I got there, Alexis was already bringing pond water to the barn in 5-gallon buckets in his trusty Jeep™. He filled up the new water container for the goats, sheep and Miracle, while I unloaded the feed, set up the water heaters and screwed the hook in place to position the geese’s new, heated bucket snugly between two studs. (the water heater assembled. Gray protective coating around wiring - cage around heating element - so plastic buckets won't melt)

(the transferring of water)
(cows' water trough with new heater)

(cord heats up entire bucket)

    Finally, it was time to dress the goats. I started with Rachel; she’s the queen and, if she does it, the rest are more likely to follow along. Her coat fit pretty well, if a tad tight around the girth. Other than that, she didn’t seem to mind it at all. Next came Christina, then Alexander and finally Riley. Alexander bucked a couple of times, but a few packer pellets calmed him right down.

(Riley in his orange coat to match his collar)

(three goats in coats - Rachel pink, Riley orange and Alexander red)
(Alexander)

(the sheep - Apache, Angus, Mildred and Sheryl - and the geese opt for natural fibers to keep warm)

    Imagine, if you will, trying to get a spooked, stubborn little girl to try on something she doesn’t want to. Now, imagine she can beat you up. At first, Miracle ran from the coat. I put it down on the snow and walked away as if she weren’t there. She came up and sniffed it. I came back. It was a few times around the pen before she let me slide it over her back. Hooking it was going to be another matter entirely. I was nervous. I didn’t want her to launch one of her missiles in my direction. So, I stood there talking to her. “Shhh, Miracle, it’s ok. I’m just going to hook this around your tummy. It’s not going to hurt. It’s going to keep you warm. I’m just going to tighten up your belt so it hangs properly. Purple actually looks very nice on you. You must be a winter because you look stunning in true red. You look lovely. No, it doesn’t make you look fat at all. Don’t be an ass.” I got all the hooks done except the last one. I was supposed to hook it under her tail. Seriously. Under her tail. This is a little like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”.  Well, if she was longer it would go under her bell, but she isn't, so I slowly and gently pulled her tail up as if I were dealing with nitroglycerin. I moved delicately. All the while, Miracle was holding her hoof ready to kick out if things didn’t feel right. Luckily, she looks swanky in her royal purple blanket and I don’t have any bruises to show for it. (Miracle prancing around with her price tag on like she's Minnie Pearl)

(the challenge)

(Miracle - wondering if she looks like an ass?)

(I 'm alive; I win!)

    When everyone had their jammies on, I went to get Henry to shuttle him to gymnastics and buy 17 gallons of water. My phone rang. It was Mike.

    "Did you get the water taken care of?" he asked, concerned.

    "Yes, and I got the goats some coats and fed the cows some oats," I unwittingly rhymed.

    "What?"

    "I said, I got the goats some coats," I repeated.

    "That's what I thought you said. I couldn't believe my ears. I never imagined you got the goats coats. I thought It sounded like you were reciting a Dr. Seuss." We both laughed. I guess it did.

    When we got home, I microwaved some of the water to wash my face and poured the rest over my head in the sink to wash my hair. I had forgotten that the water had sat for three hours in cold storage in my car. Ruing I hadn’t microwaved more water, I stood in the bathroom wondering how long this was going to last. I eyed the bathtub. We could heat up the kettle and fill the bathtub. The colonists stank up all thirteen colonies since they rarely bathed. Perhaps I'm being historical.

December 12th, 13th & 14th Much Ado About Nothing

(Pea in his tree beard from the Christmas party - and, yes, those are presents hanging down - I still prefer the candy cane beard of years past - but an ok entry)

      My hands stiff from the cold and covered in mud from mucking the stalls, I called Tom to ask his opinion about something. There was laughter on the other end of the phone as he talked to other people in his office. They were regaling each other with tales of  last night's Christmas party. I imagined them warm and dry, dressed in nice clothes, eating bagels with cream cheese, drinking coffee. I longed to climb through the phone line and sit down with them for just a few cups.

     Here, the last several days we’ve had predictions of a mammoth-sized blizzard. So Wayne, Alexis and I have been trying to get everything in place to be ready. Alexis built the generator shed so we could use the generator and keep it out of the elements. Wayne brought in wood and I prepared the barn, putting in extra bedding for all the animals.
  (Voila! The new generator shed. Ok - it needs painting, but it's too cold for paint)

(Wayne and Alexis heave the generator into place)

    To make double dog sure the pipes wouldn’t freeze I unscrewed the door on the pump house and  installed a new light, which is usually enough to keep the pipes warm. Alexis got panes to replace the broken ones in the barn windows, so the 60mph winds we were expecting wouldn’t blow through the place.

(the well's pump house - ok, ok, ok it needs paint, too, and shingles and the junk taken away)

(loafing shed with straw)

    We took straw down to the cows' loafing shed as frozen ground isn’t too comfortable or warm. We also spread straw across the hayloft as a bit of insulation. In general, we felt pretty prepared.

    All that being done, I bought supplies and invited the girls to spend the night. We thought we’d make a fire, finish the Christmas tree and watch a double feature; then go inner tubing down Cougar Hill (formerly known as Coyote Hill) in the morning.

(Our homespun Christmas tree with its lights on - Quinn said it looked like a tree in a magazine article on how to do something "different" for Christmas)

(Henry falls asleep on Irish)

     We waited, we watched, we peeked out the windows, but no snow, no wind, nothing. We finally went to bed after watching "Roxanne" with Steve Martin and “Somewhere In Time” with Christopher Reeve. In the morning I looked out the window expecting a white glistening blanket. Still nothing. 

     All day we waited. Henry worked on a report for science. He had to research how a machine works, learn the history of the machine and demonstrate its operation.  Baker-boy chose the waffle maker. About 4:00 snow started fluttering down, swirling around in the air, some of it sticking to the ground. By morning, we expected a thick blanket of glistening white. But no.
(Henry works on his waffle project)

    It’s true the next morning we had snow, all right, but only about an inch and a half. Weeds stuck up out of the snow, marring my Bing Crosby-type expectations. Nonetheless, when I went to the barn I eagerly opened the goose pen. This was the first snowfall for Lloyd, Mabel, Clara, Cleveland, Quackmire, Matilda, Ruthie and Alfred. I opened the barn doors wide and waited. They looked outside and just stood there, honking. I led the way, but they just stood there, still honking. I called them “Hey, hey, hey, little geese, hey, hey, hey”. They perked up, knowing Mama was calling. Out they came, stomping around with their built-in snowshoes. One, two, three steps and they all sat down. They didn’t like it. They didn’t like it at all. I called them again. “Hey, hey, hey, little geese, little geese!” They perked up, looking for me, and once again got up and, “thwap, thwap, thwap,” they plodded along on their silly feet. And then they sat down. Surprised, I walked back into the barn and fed the rest of the critters. As I was throwing a flake of hay over the top of the wall, aiming for the feeder across the room in an attempt to save a trip into the pen and reassure myself I could still sink one, I practically tripped over eight good-for-nothing geese too afraid to stay outside. But I still made it – two points.

(the little geese see their first snowfall)

  (Cleveland makes tracks)

(everyone tracks)
(the boys - white - and the girls - gray)

(Clara gets some height!)

(more sitting)

    I walked out to the pasture. Beyond the gate, where the dog tracks stopped there was undisturbed beautiful snow. I found the cow dishes and filled them with a healthy amount of grain. Extra calories equal extra heat during a cold night, which reminds me of those Campbell’s soup commercials where a fairly short snowman walks into a kitchen, sits down, takes a spoonful of soup and quickly melts into a kid. As I leaned over the fence to place Anna’s portion on the ground, I noticed some tracks. They looked like big kitty cat tracks. Upon closer inspection, I noticed they wound around the pasture from Cougar Hill. Creepy and cool at the same time.
(Karen?)

    The geese roamed around the yard during the day, finding any patch of land not covered with ice or snow. The big babies. We never felt any wind and were pretty sure this non-event of a blizzard was a bust, but it did get cold, colder-than-it’s-gotten-in-18-to-20-years cold. I lay in bed at night hearing mooing in the pasture. “Moooooo Moooooooooo, Mooooooo.” I knew Abe was calling me, but I was not going out in the pasture in the middle of the night in the cold, in the snow, alone. If Mike or Tom or my father had been here I’d have woken one of them up and dragged them down there with me, but as it was I wasn’t going alone. I thought of Laura Ingalls. In the book about her husband Alfonso’s childhood, she told of them getting up in the middle of the night to roust the cows, running them around to elevate their body temperatures. I knew something was wrong. Abe only moos when there’s trouble. Maybe he was cold; maybe there was a cougar. I began to worry, but decided if it was between Abe and me. I was going to have to pick me. I tossed and turned for a long time, trying to force myself back to sleep.

    In the morning, I boiled water on the stove, filled up buckets and took them out to the barn. As cold as the night had been, I knew that, even if their water buckets weren’t frozen, the water would be frigid and the animals wouldn’t drink as much as they should. Just as I got about halfway there, I heard “Clippity-Clop Clippity-Clop Moo Clippity-Clop Clippity-Clop Moo”.  Abe came trotting up the hill mooing loudly, “I'm out of the pasture! I was out all night.You didn’t come get me and I can’t get back in. Let me back in! I want to go back in!”

   Well, I told him, “You’re just going to have to wait until I feed everyone else and then I’ll put you in.” He did, indeed, wait patiently outside the barn by the garden, blowing his hot breath on the snow that covered his whiskers with ice. I walked him down to the pasture with a bucket of grain. I took a look at the cows' water trough; it was the most frozen I’d ever seen it. I took a stick a la Wally and began stabbing at the frozen water, hoping I wouldn’t find George or Max, the Koi, frozen inside a chunk.  Although it comforted me to remember the lady at the shop said they could live through being frozen in a chunk of ice, I still had to be mindful not to throw them away. I was shocked to find the ice over 2” thick.  My thoughts drifted back to the Ingalls’ Ice House as I pulled chunks of ice out of the trough. The weather is supposed to stay this cold or colder for a week or more.

(ice from the top of the water trough)

December 10th Blue Light Special

(Part of Mt. Baker Hwy during the daytime)

    At night, as Sunset Drive turns into Mt. Baker Highway the shop lights and streetlights disappear. The houses get farther apart and dark pastures line the road. Once you pass the Nooksack Casino the pastures give way to towering trees of black. The only illumination is from reflective signs along the road, oncoming cars or an occasional barn light. It is in this tunnel of black that  it suddenly appears. Rising above the lonely road 120 feet in the air is the top of a giant fir cloaked in blue lights.  Eerie and beautiful, it sparkles in the night. It is the Blue Tree.

(the Blue Tree)

    I first spotted it just before Thanksgiving last year. It wouldn’t happen every night, only sporadically. Then it would disappear completely for weeks at a time, only to reappear mysteriously before Christmas. Why is it there? Who did it? Why does it glow some nights and not others? Is it for Christmas? Is it just because? Does it have some other meaning?

    It touches everyone who sees it. Mike came home last year excitedly asking me if I’d seen it. “Someone has either done an amazing job stringing lights or this is on the level of the aurora borealis,”  he joked. Science humor. “It’s something about that blue glow. It’s ethereal.”

    Last year, Tom was mesmerized by it. MaryRuth loved it. The girls were awed by it. Henry waited for it, excitedly hoping every time we drove home it would be there.

    This year, I got calls asking, “Have you seen the Blue Tree? Is it there? Has it appeared?”

    Mike asked Lisa and Chris, “Has Denise seen it? Is the Blue Tree back this year?” They didn’t know. They had no idea what he was blabbering about. They’re city, not county. All were relieved when I made the calls telling everyone from MaryRuth to Mike – It was back!

(The Blue Tree - with other colors)

    This year it did it again, appearing and then disappearing. Now there are other colors, too. They’re not on all the time and sometimes the blue is off entirely. You never know what you’re going to get.

    Some brave and daring soul has selflessly scaled a giant evergreen and spent hours winding endless strands of blue lights into the very top. I don’t know what it is about the tree, but it just makes you happy as it stands there glowing up in the inky sky.

(It is hard to capture the height and drama of the tree as it rises out of the darkness)

December 3rd Love Is In The Air

(Henry waiting for his lesson)

    “Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens. . .,” Julie Andrews joyfully sang from the back seat as I wound up into the hills above Bellingham. Henry was enthralled with his first viewing of “The Sound of Music”. We were on our way to Western Washington University’s Performing Arts Center to meet with Kevin Woods because my father was not at all pleased with the idea of his grandson switching to the “God Damn Tuba”. So my dad offered to pay for a couple of lessons and, through his musical connections in Bellingham, we found Kevin for Henry’s first cornet lesson. I mentioned the tuba issue and Kevin responded in true horn player fashion. “Oh no, not the tuba!. That’s going to hurt your social life. You want to play the horn.”

“Well, when I play I sound like a moose,” Henry lamented.
(Henry illustrating the mouthpiece is stuck)

    During the lesson Henry learned to hold his lips properly and how to place his tongue. Kevin gave him exercises like holding a pencil between his lips for 15 seconds at a time while making the “trumpet face”.  Henry was trying to match Kevin’s pitch when "Doe – a deer, a female deer” from "The Sound of Music" came up. I told Kevin that musical ability had skipped a generation in my family as I couldn’t match a pitch to save my life. In fact, my friend Dawn used to subtly put her finger in her ear when she stood next to me to sing. Kevin smiled, and said he played in the orchestra pit for the play “The Sound of Music” and their Maria couldn’t hit all her notes. Somehow I didn’t think we were talking apples to apples here.
(Henry learning how he should hold his lips so he won't look like he's playing the tuba or sound like a wounded moose.)

    They did scales and drew pictures of teeth and lips. Kevin adjusted the height and angle Henry was holding his horn. I didn’t know how all this was going over. Henry looked a little bored and seemed to be looking away a good deal of the time, which would have sent my father into a rage if he’d been working with Henry. According to my father, he's a player, not a teacher.  When we were about to leave, Henry said enthusiastically, “I’m hoping we’re going to be able to do this again next week. I just love it.”
(Henry and Kevin Woods at Western Washington University)

    On the way back to the car, I was going to mention Henry’s lack of eye contact. He was well aware of it, because he brought it up first. He explained he’d been staring at Kevin early in the lesson and was self-conscious about it. He thought Kevin was “so cool and completely amazing”. (Henry threw out his apple core - not 3 seconds later our friend here grabbed it and flew away with his prize)

      We got home as the Von Trapps were hiding from the Nazis. Henry was sure Rolf wouldn’t turn them in. Once inside, we fed the dogs and googled the Von Trapps - learning the true story is even more interesting. I cooked dinner and, just as we sat down with our Sloppy Joes, we heard a siren. The dogs went wild. The strange thing was it didn’t stop. I wondered if there had been an accident close by.  I went outside on the front porch. It was no siren. It was an eerie bloodcurdling scream coming from the pasture. The screaming was rhythmic and creepy. At first, I thought coyotes. This seems to be my default setting. Henry and I rushed around to find the Costco™ flashlight and, once I had it, I began sweeping the pasture looking for eyes. Henry dialed Alexis so he wouldn’t miss the excitement. Now two flashlights began criss-crossing the pasture. You would have thought it was a grand opening. I yelled to Alexis from the roof just outside Henry’s window.

    “I think it’s a coyote,” I called down.

     “Me, too.”

    “Hey, you want to take a ride?”

    “Sure. I’ll get my keys,” I climbed back inside from my observation deck and raced down the stairs.

    “Can I come?” Henry pleaded.

    “Of course, get your shoes. Quickly.”  Off we went with three flashlights, down into the pasture while the screaming went on relentlessly.

    “Mom, if it’s a coyote and it has a kill, it might be Francine,” Henry worried.

    “I know, Honey. I thought the same thing.”

    As we drove I began to really listen to the sound. A coyote yips or howls. This was different, but familiar. I remembered this sound from last year. On Thanksgiving, we’d heard this same bloodcurdling scream. Lisa and I had rushed out to the barn, fearing something was injured and dying. I’d heard it many nights after that last fall and could never identify it. I’d told a lot of people about it, and one County Gal finally said to me, "It’s raccoon. They mate in the fall and winter and it’s the female mating scream." After listening closely to it, the three of us were pretty sure she was right. Alexis was surprised raccoons could make a sound.
(not a picture I took, but one I found of a screaming raccoon)

    “Even bunnies can shriek,” I said.

    “Bunnies can shriek?” Henry asked.

    “Yep,” I verified.

    “Well, a raccoon does have a dog quality about it. So I can see they’d be able to make that kind of noise,” Henry offered.

    “Well, now that you’ve suggested it, I can see that it doesn’t really sound like a coyote. Huh. Interesting,” Alexis added.

    "Raccoons are not just soft cuddly creatures with fluffy tails. They're fierce. In Minnesota, they'd lure dogs out into Minnetonka and then climb on their backs and drown them."

    As we got to the middle of the pasture, we apparently killed the mood because the terrifying, but passionate shrieking of the raccoon went silent. Not wanting to waste the evening,however, we took a swing by Wally’s pond, and then on down the kooky bulldozed path adjoining my property. Hundreds of plant containers, heaters, plexiglass and other things indicating someone is up to no good had appeared.

    "Look at all the downed pine trees just dying. Look! The bulldozer has just pushed them over and left them there to rot. We can recycle them into Christmas trees." I'd been looking for a good tree to chop down, but this was even better. You never know where or when you're going to find what you're looking for.

    "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," Alexis agreed.

    "Let's get more than one. Let's get a Charlie Brown one for my room," Henry suggested while we bounced along at a pretty good clip. Henry, who was sitting in the back, but leaning so far forward our shoulders were even, yelled, “Floor it!”  Alexis takes direction well, and we began accelerating through the dark forest with the headlights reflecting beads of fog.

    “Fasten your seat belts and enjoy your ride. Smile for the camera in the tree to your left. You’ll be able to pick up your picture in the lobby on your way out of Deming Land,” My son yammered as we zoomed around downed trees, laughing hysterically.

    “Snap out of it,” I admonished.

    “What’s he?” Alexis looked perplexed.

    “He’s just doing his Disneyland™ – Indiana Jones™/ Jungle Cruise™ commentary. They always take your picture during the scary parts of roller coasters like Space Mountain™,” I explained.

    “This is just like the Indiana Jones ride. We're going fast. Fast is fast. Fast is good. We’re in the dark in a jeep racing up and sliding down muddy hills, dodging logs where fierce raccoons might be popping out of trees. Raging beavers could be trying to cross our path. Instead of a boulder – at the end we have a cougar jump out at your car here at Fort Flashback. Thanks for visiting!” Henry said in his tour guide cadence.   

  

November 23rd My Deer Friend Francine

(the early bird)

    Today was Thanksgiving – well, our Thanksgiving since Tom won’t be with us on Thursday. I roasted a small 12lb turkey, did an apple, cornbread, mushroom, onion and sage stuffing, whipped up some garlic potatoes and steamed some not so traditional but always yummy edamame from Trader Joes™ for good luck.

  (Alexis spearheads the concrete pad project for the soon-to-be-necessary generator)

 (Tom and Henry assist)

(Tom starts the long-awaited painting)

     In the late afternoon, I tented the turkey with aluminum foil and went out to grain the cows as we were expecting a cold night.
(grain and mouse - must remember to snap lid on tightly - had to lower a shovel inside to let him climb out)

   Grain is important in the winter because the cows need the extra calories on cold nights to keep them warm. After feeding the animals in the barn, I walked down to the pasture with a bucket of grain in one hand and the now requisite cougar-deterring air horn in the other. I was just about to climb over the fence and fetch the black flat-bottomed rubber bowls I divide the grain into when I saw her. A doe. She was the same doe from the night of the cougar sighting a couple of weeks ago; the same doe that appeared at the beaver pond unafraid last night. The same doe Quinn and I have seen on occasion. We both thought her so vulnerable all by herself. Was she destined to be Karen’s cougar chow? Quinn and I plotted to round her up and put her in the barn at night to keep her safe. My practical sister’s reaction to this idea was ”Great, Denise, one more mouth to feed.”   And, of course, there was the little detail that she was a wild animal. I am not the sort who would jump in a panda enclosure to get a hug. Or place my child on the back of a buffalo for a picture. So, as much as I worried about the doe, I’d have to accept the situation- Que sera sera.
(All alone)

    Here she was alone. Again. The moment I saw her I was prepared for her to run away, but she didn’t. She walked toward me, ears turning around the way Miracle’s do when she’s listening intently. As she got closer I stood statue still. I was unprepared for what happened next. She copped a squat. Peed right in front of me. Deer urination is a really ridiculous reason to lovingly remember your mother who has passed away, but it was exactly what happened. My mom, the teacher, the woman amused by second grade humor, felt that nature shows omitted wild animals urination and defecation. As a result, she brought back pictures from her safari of cheetahs pooping. Now, here in front of me was a little doe. I never knew they squatted. The cattle just stand and pee. Now, the goats do squat. Interesting. Thinking of my mother I snapped a picture.
  (Like mother, like daughter)

    Abe was making quite a ruckus as I had yet to hand over the grain, while Anna and Andy stood idly by. He about went berserk when he saw me scoop out some of his precious grain and put it on the ground for the doe. Afterward, I went about my business and she walked over beyond some trees.

   After graining the Devons and, inspired by the doe, I walked on toward the beaver pond hoping for a glimpse of Wally. On the way I disturbed two more doe nibbling their dinner. I said, “Good evening ladies, lovely weather we’re having. All this sunshine is wonderful, isn’t it? I hope you’re not afraid; I’m just walking through here. Don’t worry about me.” Once again, I was stunned they didn’t scamper away.

(Light growing dim - one of a pair)

   Perhaps they found my voice friendly, or perhaps I don’t look menacing. Whatever it was they let me walk within 30 feet or so of them as they occasionally looked up at me and continued eating. Wally was not en casa, and the light was fading dramatically, so I began to head back. When, suddenly, my little doe appeared again. She’d been watching me from under a tree. And, as I made my way back, she continued to walk toward me. Closer and closer and closer we came to each other. I kept walking and talking, “Francine, I think your name might be Francine.” I babbled. “Well, Francine, I’m quite happy to make your acquaintance. But I want you to be careful; there are lots of predators around. Do you know Karen? I don’t suppose you do or we wouldn’t be chatting. I wonder, why don’t you meet up with those other two does? Don’t you like them? Or don’t they like you? Are they the mean girls? Little Francine, are you hungry? I’ll get you some deer food at the store so you’re not hungry this winter. I think you would like one of those deer blocks.”  I rambled until she was only about eight feet away. We studied each other. I felt so blessed to be standing there so close to her. I’d idolized Jane Goodall growing up and for a nanosecond I felt the thrill she must have felt for 45 years.  And then it was over and she bounced away.
(Henry's heavenly chocolate)

    Soon after, Alexis came over, chocolate ganache in hand ready for - what else? - “Lethal Weapon 3”.  We skipped the fancy-dancy dinner table, as we’ll do that later in the week. I took a bite of turkey. I had so much to be thankful for. I finally made a new friend I could talk to. And this was the best turkey I’d ever made.

November 22nd Out on a Limb

(The bathroom project drones on - note new coveralls)

(I'm quite the little charmer with a very tolerant Pea)
(Denise behaving better - Tom still tolerant)

    Saturday was a blur. Projects being done everywhere you looked, which is tough because we have a no purchase policy. Meaning we can only do projects for which we have all the supplies on hand. Tom was mudding drywall and working around the house trying to mend things I can’t or haven’t. Henry jumped as chief errand boy. Poor kid made three trips to the chicken coop trying to fetch the correct screwdriver before Tom just did it himself.
  (Henry in the headlights)

    At the close of the day, we were all ready for a little adventure. So, heavily armed with blankets and flashlights, we hopped into Alexis’s jeep and went out to the beaver pond to see what we could see. Which, when Alexis turned off his headlights, was absolutely nothing. Total darkness.

    It was so dark that we knew we wouldn't see Wally. We whispered to each other to roll down the windows because we figured gnawing wood had to make a significant sound. We rolled down the windows and waited. Shushing each other. Well, truth be told, I did most of the shushing and the boys did most of the yapping. I simply couldn’t believe three males had so much to say. Generally, it’s like pulling teeth to get them to talk and now, out in the middle of the wilderness on a stakeout, they wouldn’t shut up.
(Peabrain, Henry-boy and giant-sized Costco flashlight)

    Not being able to sit there and do nothing, the men got out the flashlights. Big and bigger. Alexis put his arm out the window and did a police swoop around the pond. Just as he said, “You know, there could be something right by us and we’d never even know it,” his beam hit a doe. She was walking right toward us, undaunted. We all jumped, as she was about 20 feet away. We sat there thinking she could have been Karen, but she wasn’t. And she was a sign that all was calm.
(doe in the dark)
    Alexis and Tom continued their spotlight sweeps lighting the bushes, trees and edges of the pond but we saw nothing. Disappointed, we decided to head home, where we popped open a bottle of wine for the adult explorers. Having just been introduced to Mel Gibson in “Lethal Weapon”, Henry was now prepared for his continuing movie-vernacular education in “Lethal Weapon 2”.

   As Joe Pesci is just about to deliver his infamous line about not getting the correct order at the drive-thru window, Irish starts barking. I excuse myself and go to investigate. Nancy Drew is on the case. Grabbing my puny flashlight, I stand snuggly next to Irish for reassurance and begin scanning the tall grass, apple trees and hillside for gleaming eyes. I see nothing, but I trust Irish to tell the truth so I keep looking as, in the background, Mel Gibson shoots up half of Los Angeles . And then I see a pair of amber eyes looking back at me from a tall pine tree. Is it an owl? Knocking on the window to signal my crew, I motion for them to come outside. The house falls silent as the movie is put on pause. Alexis, Tom and Henry file out with enough flashlights to light up Dodger Stadium. It doesn’t take long to establish the eyes aren’t an owl’s. I light up two more blinking pairs. My flashlight does not compare to the flood of light Tom shines. The beam lights up the field beyond the cow pasture - a;most a`thousand feet away. He aims it up in the tree and there they are - three little masked bandits. Raccoons. They watch us and we happily watch them.
(neighboring family)

November 8th Shadow Of A Doubt

(The Red Baron - Irish wearing protective eyewear)

    I woke up to a wet nose being shoved into my eye socket. Sleepily, I reached my hand out to snuggle the baby giant. This would be Irish’s one and only attempt to wake me before he peed a puddle the size of one of the Great Lakes - infamously known in our house as ”Lake Irie”. Despite the dark morning, this is motivation, as I go through Costco packs of paper towels like other people use milk. I opened one eye and peered at the clock - 5:30AM. Reluctantly, I threw back the covers, slipped my feet into my fuzzy slippers, threw on Pea’s tattered, but warm red robe and shuffled down the stairs. Opened the front door and put Irish on the porch before going back to bed for another hour of sleep.

    Still dark at 7:00AM in the Pacific Northwest. I finally got out of bed and forced myself to go outside and feed the barn animals before taking the time to brew my coffee. I felt selfless, virtuous and proud of myself. As I was about to open the barn door I saw a humongous print.

(paw print by barn)

    I wondered what animal had been so close to the barn. I opened the barn doors and released the geese. Honking and flapping, they made their way outside, only to turn around - as they often do - wondering what’s taking me so long. They all came back inside to watch me let the goats, sheep and Miracle out of their pens, but they lost interest as I went about separating flakes and feeding the four-footed animals.

    I was dutifully filling up the goats' water when I heard the geese begin shrieking. Dropping the hose, I ran across the rocky driveway, struggling to keep my slippers on by curling my toes and holding the red robe up so I wouldn’t trip as I awkwardly tromped.

    Irish was off the porch and chasing the geese. I began calling for help. Screaming over and over, “Henry! Help! Irish! NO! Henry! Help! Irish! NO!” Poor Mabel had been singled out and was flapping and running for her life. I caught up to them as Irish had his mouth around her neck. I don’t think he meant to harm her. I threw my robe over Mabel. It worked, and Irish bounded off in another direction. He cornered the rest of the gaggle as I continued screaming for help, my throat hoarse. I couldn’t keep him away from every goose. He’s unbelievably agile and incredibly fast. I felt very alone and desperate as I screamed for help. Bruno momentarily distracted Irish, so I seized the opportunity and ran up to the door pounding and screaming. No one came. I ran back toward the geese, toes curled, to usher the gaggle to safety in the dog run. Once they were inside, Irish ran around happy as you please with the rat-bat dog, Bruno. Bruno probably couldn’t outrun Irish on a straightaway, but then again, he’s not dumb enough to try. Rather, he darts around like a bullet, making quick turns Irish can’t keep up with. Truly a big baby, Irish just wanted someone to chase and to chase him. Mabel was not as forgiving. 

    About this time, Henry came out and I yelled hoarsely for him to turn off the hose in the barn. I figured it was flooding all over the place. I realized that when I had let Irish out this morning the gate must not have been closed. Wayne had come in late and probably left it open, so all this time Irish had been wandering around enjoying his freedom. It was his footprint by the barn. Obviously, my brush with the cougars had left me paranoid. We did not have large predators coming this close to the house. I went inside and brewed my coffee. I had really earned this pot.

    After that, the day went on quite nicely. I haven’t mentioned it but, sadly, Kristie moved out of my dad’s apartment above the shop and in with her friend, Jena on November 1st. I was very sorry to see her go. We didn’t do all that much together, but the occasional glass of wine and knowing there was another woman around was comforting. However, today my new tenant, Alexis, moved in. He’s a great guy who moved here from just south of San Francisco.

(Alexis bearing gifts of coffee, cookies, pinot grigio and dog biscuits from Trader Joes™)

    Alexis is the kind of guy who jumps right in. His first real day here and he offered to help Henry in the barn while I finally took down the now out-of-place and goose-ravaged graveyard. The moment Alexis produced an impressive Butterfly knife Henry was an immediate Alexis fan. After what seemed to Henry a socially acceptable amount of time, he asked Alexis where he got his unusual name. “After all, it is kinda odd for a boy.” The answer seems to be his mother was French and his father was Greek so they chose a name that would suit both cultures. There’s another version according to his cousin in North Carolina that has to do with a czar, but we’ll leave that for another time.

    It was past time for me to grain the cows, which made me a little nervous. Gallantly, Alexis offered to join me. We walked down and I showed him where I’d been standing when I’d seen the cougar and where the cougar had been. Not wanting to freak him out, I said that many people had lived on Mosquito Lake Road for twenty years and had never seen a cougar. “In fact, Wayne says I’ll probably never see another one, which is OK by me."

    The evening brought Wayne, Henry, Alexis and me together for a celebration of his first real night on the farm. Naturally, our fare included chili, chocolate-butterscotch cookies and “Journey to The Center of the Earth”. Poor Alexis had every single animal on his lap for a time. A good sport, he hugged, snuggled, petted and accepted kisses from Bruno, Abbey, Luther, Irish, Emmet, Vivian and love-starved Deli – who inexplicably lights up when Alexis walks in the room.

    After the movie, Wayne sleepily climbed the stairs to his attic world while I walked Alexis out to the front porch. We stood there in the bright moonlight talking about the beauty of the place, the pros and cons of living here and whatever else entered our minds. As I was talking to Alexis I noticed a movement behind him in the shadows. Ever paranoid, I doubted myself. Wondering if my eyes or the shadows were playing tricks on me, I asked Alexis to turn and tell me if he saw it too. He looked and, after a moment, said slowly, “Yes, I do. There’s something light-colored there. I can see it moving. I wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

    “It’s a cougar, isn’t it?”

(taken the next day from the porch - the cougar was on the other side of the driveway between the pine tree on the left and the post on the right)

    “Yes, it is. It’s definitely a cougar. Look at how it moves,” he answered almost inaudibly. As we watched a giant version of Emmett slink casually down the path between the apple trees and along the pasture fence line, I ran inside to get a flashlight. The big one Tom bought me didn’t work. Again. So I grabbed a little one and ran outside, yelling to Henry we had a cougar in the front yard. We held up the flashlight and, sure enough, two green eyes blinked back at us. The cougar had been about eighty feet away from the house.

     “Hey, do you want to hop in my jeep and go see if we can get a closer look?” Cool. A new playmate.

    “Is it a hard top?” I queried hesitantly. Small chuckle.

     “Good question. Yes, it is a hardtop.”

    “Heck Yeah. Let’s go. I’ll grab my camera.” I ran inside and asked Henry if he wanted to go.

    “Uh. NO! I do not. Mom, I don’t think you should go out looking for cougars either. Moms don’t do that when they have children.”

    “This one does. I want to see one, just not standing next to me.”

    As we hoisted ourselves into the jeep, I glanced up to Wayne’s room because I knew he’d want to go too, but it was dark and I didn’t want to wake him to go on what would probably be a wild goose chase (my second today).

    Scanning the pasture, trees and surrounding brush for eyes, we saw raccoon eyes, and a lone doe, but no cat so we returned home from our safari planning our next adventure. We thought we’d do a beaver pond stakeout. We’d need blankets and hot beverages, flashlights.

November 6th As Luck Would Have It

  (The house from a cougar's perspective) 

    This morning started out very dramatically. Henry yelled that Emmet had killed one mouse and had another mouse in his mouth. “It’s not dead!” Great. I couldn’t think about that now, we had to get to school. With a firm grip on his green collar, I walked Irish past the dining room table where Emmet was torturing his most recent victim. Lord, have I changed.

    “Mama, the mouse got away when you took Irish to the bathroom. Now he’s behind the dining room chair in the corner. Emmet doesn’t know where he is.” I glanced over, figuring the poor thing was terminally injured, but no. There he sat looking up at me as cute as anything. Whiskers twitching. He wasn’t going to last long, but late or not, I couldn’t leave the poor thing to be hunted down. After all, he wasn’t a rat. If he had been a rat, there would have been no reprieve. I’d have walked out the door without looking back.

    A mom on a mission, I didn’t have time for squeamish. I put Emmet in the laundry room and the little rat dog as well as all the other dogs in my room, except for Luther. What’s Luther going to do, but make friends with it? I instructed Henry to go get a bucket. He came back with an old kitty litter bucket. We blocked the little guy with the screen Scarlett had popped off the window. He ran into the bucket. I yelled for Henry to lift the handle and voila! Our makeshift mousetrap worked pretty well.

   “You are one lucky mouse,” I told him. Henry took him outside and he scurried away as we sped off to school, hoping not to be late for the before-school band percussion practice.

    When I got home, I divided my time between looking for jobs and cleaning the house, adroitly avoiding the pile of laundry. The house was so quiet, the only sounds I was aware of were Luther’s snores and my shoes on the wooden floor. The entire menagerie was all snug in bed.
(Bruno yawns as Vivian snuggles)

    I was excited when the phone rang because Wayne had just given me a headset to wear around the house like an operator. I always laughed at my old neighbor Steven DiMarco who wore one. Now, I was thrilled to be wearing one.

    “Hello?”

    “Hi, it’s Tob,” The tone of Toby’s voice sent off alarm bells. It was harried and secretive.

    “What’s wrong?”

    “Well, just about everything. Starting with six policemen who were just searching the house.”

    “What? Who are these people? Is it the drunk?” Toby’s been staying with a woman, Fran, who is really very nice. Although she is an enabler. She divorced her drug-addicted abusive husband, but now allows him to live with her because he’s no longer using drugs. He’s just a falling-down sloppy drunk.

    “No. That’s what I thought. I thought Ricky had finally killed himself or someone else. But no, it’s the daughter. She moved in recently with her boyfriend. And, actually she’s really nice and sweet. Always doing thoughtful things like helping Dean or buying flowers. She’s been looking on craigslist and tipping me off when she sees some job I might be right for.”

    “So what was it for? Drugs?” I was fairly sure.

    “Well, yes, and, apparently, fraud. You know how I told you she’s been on craigslist? It turns out she and her boyfriend have been conning people into believing they have a rental. She asks them for a $2,500.00 deposit and they give everyone a different move in date.”

    “Toby! That’s so evil. How can anyone knowingly prey on innocent people looking for a place to live and clean them out? It's never right, but I can understand some crimes.”

    “I know. You can get the ones where the crime is a nameless, faceless corporation and they don't connect a person with it. And she’s so nice, friendly, and cute doing all these nice things, but remember when Fran stayed with me for that year a while back? Well, I don’t know if you remember, but it was because her daughter caused so many financial problems and drained her grandmother’s bank account, causing the grandmother to have to move out of the home she was living in.”

    “She’s just this side of Ted Bundy if you want my opinion. OK. I know she didn't kill anybody, but you know what I mean.” These were real vermin - rats, not mice.

    “Fran tried to do what was best and bailed her daughter out. But she just kept bailing her out and so she never learned consequences. Recently, they moved in here because they got busted for a check cashing scheme.”

    “What does Fran think now?” I asked, while I mopped the game room. I was riveted, like I was watching TruTV.

    “She just sat in a chair asking what she was doing wrong while the police searched the house, seizing evidence. She was going to try and bail her out again, but the bail is set pretty high. She can’t afford it. Ricky was drunk by 10:00AM and he keeps moaning about bailing out his little girl. Miller, I have to tell you I can barely stand it. But I don’t have the money to leave right now. I was asked by the police over and over what my relationship was to them. They think I’m one of them. Dean just watched TV and talked to the police about his show. He hasn’t asked me any other questions yet.”

    “Wow. Well, now what? You don’t really have any choice right now. You have to stay.”

    “I know. I did get work for this weekend in Big Bear, so Dean and I are going to get away and have some time away from here. Ricky is just a nightmare stumbling around. I keep my door locked. He went to a detox place for a couple of days and had the shakes, vomiting - the whole bit - but he just left there and went to a bar. I memorized his license plate so I can call the police.”

    “How does Fran deal with that?”

    “She says the bar is only two blocks away and he drives really, really slowly,” Toby laughed nervously. “As if that helps. You know we’re surrounded by three schools.”

    “She’s obviously never lost anyone to a drunk driver. I have and she is going to be as responsible as he is when he kills someone. You’re living in a snake pit surrounded by felons. Honestly, I don’t know anyone like that. The daughter is horrible, preying on people. And you're living with them. You know, right now, if it weren't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all.”

    “You're telling me. She obviously has no moral compass. It drives me crazy. They worked so hard devising this scheme. If they'd put that energy toward getting a job, they wouldn't have to do this. She’s so charming. Dean adores her.”

    “That’s scary, but I guess con artists have to be charming. It’s a job requirement. I’m worried. You don’t want Dean thinking bad people are nice. That could be very confusing for Dean,” I worried as I swept up mounds of dog hair.

    “I know. He just doesn’t have the ability to understand this. He thinks bad guys are just bad guys. And he can so easily be led down the wrong path. I told him the police were just doing a check in the neighborhood, because they thought there were bad guys around.”

    “Well, that’s good,”  I sighed as I pushed dog hair into the dustpan.

    “On the upside, the daughter and the boyfriend are going down for sure. And will probably be gone for about six months or more. So there are two less people in the house.” More nervous laughter.

    “That is definitely a benefit.”

    “Well, I’ve got to go. I’ll let ya know if anything else happens.”
(From the driveway)

    I was drained after that. I couldn’t imagine Toby living there with Dean, getting him ready for school every morning and trying to pretend Ricky was just another nice man. Meanwhile, these scheming con artists were bilking people out of money and Fran tolerated all of it. I couldn’t manage to feel sorry for her. She just let it all happen. In fact, she’s responsible. Without her, they couldn’t commit their crimes. No, I didn’t feel sorry for her. I was reminded of the old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
(The pond switching from fall to winter)
    Wayne came home and we took a walk to the pond, enjoying the crisp day. We didn’t take any of the dogs with us, just in case we got a glimpse of Wally, the beaver. We didn’t see him, but we inspected his lodge and tunnels.

(Wally's entrance) (Wayne works on Wally's masterpiece)
(A breakthrough)

We tore down his dam because we’re expecting rain. The forecast says four to eight inches tomorrow. Seeing the pond always lifts my spirits. I felt lucky to be here in this special place. All my troubles and Toby’s troubles drifted away. The beauty of the hills relaxed me.
(some of the last leaves of fire) (water droplets)

    On the way back, we looked at deer trails, inspected cougar paths. It was so quiet we could hear the “whoop, whoop, whoop” as a hawk’s wings pushed the air and a field mouse skittered away through some branches. I wondered if that was our lucky mouse being lucky again.

October 25th Fallin' In Love

     October has been spectacular here. The days are bright and sunny, while the temperatures are steadily dropping. Unlike Southern California, you know it’s time to put on your fall wardrobe because of the weather rather than the calendar. Not that I have a fall wardrobe anymore, but I am putting an undershirt on before my coveralls now. Most people with style are starting to wear scarves with coordinating hats. boots with heels and smart wool coats. Everyone has something different they love about fall. Either it's jack 'o' lanterns, football or hot pumpkin spice lattes – my friend, Laura, says she sucks down as many as she can in a season.
    (One of my neighbors on Mosquito Lake Road)
    For me, it’s the leaves.  I love the buttery browns, buttery golds, tangerines and, of course, the crimsons. I would get a small peek at fall in California because I had a stand of Liquid Amber in my front yard, but the difference here is the scale. You're transported into a virtual “snow globe of leaves.” The color swallows you up.

The mountains are on fire as the sun hits the trees, back-lighting their leaves.

When we drive past a family outside doing something so Saturday Evening Post as raking leaves is when Henry and I miss Tom the most, more than on the holidays. And there is nothing more amazing than driving down the road, the sun peering through the trees, leaves swirling down around you in slow motion. (a few of my favorites)

    Now, I'm not so sure Lisa likes the leaves with the same passion I do at the moment. You see, she had a Gladys Cravitz-type neighbor stop by her house the other day and say, "Oh! Look at all the leaves in your yard; it looks so Fall at your house. I guess you like it natural." That's code for "I guess you don't keep your place nice and neat like mine, you slob."  

    Out here on the farm, we mostly leave them where they fall.  Or scoop up an armful and feed 'em to the goats. Miracle likes the Sycamore, especially if they're nice and crunchy.

(Alex sneaking one of Miracle's Sycamores)

(Miracle guarding her stash)

October 14th The Trickle Down Theory

(A big 'un)

    Henry and I leashed up Irish and Deli and took all the dogs for a walk to the pond to get a little fresh air. Henry’s been sick and I’ve been sick with worry. Worried about money, worried about our future, worried about what’s going to happen. Worried about whether or not the 750 billion dollar bailout will ever reach the people who need it. So, should we give up on Fort Flashback? Sadly, I think the answer is yes. We, like most people, have got to concentrate on the basics, paying the mortgage, gas and food.
(Deli and Henry in their fall coats)

    In the beginning, I talked to banks until I was blue in the face. Although encouraging, the bankers were mainly helpful only in passing me on to the next banker, who could not loan us the money either. At the time I didn’t know the economy was on the verge of collapsing. Back then I spoke endlessly to venture capitalists who were interested -- if they could have a quick exit strategy. There really isn’t a quick buck to be made in a colonial living-history facility. I was told to try and get grants because my cause was altruistic, but I’m no grant writer and, frankly, the ins and outs of nonprofits elude me. I’d need help. I’ve spoken to potential investors who say the plan is viable, but time marches on and nothing happens. Financial consultants want me to become a Bed & Breakfast. Which I suppose is still a possibility but, honestly, I hate doing my own laundry, never mind other people’s.

    I know I’m not alone. My friend, Doug, told me of a man in Porter Ranch so despondent he killed his whole family because of his financial situation. And the other day I sat next to a teary-eyed woman at gymnastics who was speaking on the phone to a friend about walking away from her house and starting  over completely. It seems they were going to have a big family reunion in Italy this summer, but now no one can make it. She was going to try and sell their computer to buy food. Strange that we’ve come to a place where this doesn’t shock me. Is this peek through time? Is this how it felt in the '30's?
(Henry swings -)

Will we look back and call this the second Depression? As we walk along, I push back my tears. The dogs racing around with tails wagging, the cool crisp air on my face, and Henry’s laughter seem to melt my worries away. 

(Henry swings)
(Vivian dares Henry to play)
(Vivian makes sure Henry knows she's still fast)
(Vivian wins)
(Vivian dives in for kisses)

(Bruno - the rat bat dog)
(Luther being pursued by the rat thing)

     Bruno races around the other dogs like a bat out of hell. He seems to have springs in his legs as he jumps over Luther, dashes around corners and squeezes himself under just about anything. Irish is fascinated with him, watching Bruno’s every move. Anticipating where he’ll be, Irish tries to block him. He loves playing with Bruno, but Irish is still recovering from his July motorcycle injury and must remain leashed until he gets the pins out of his leg. (Bruno leaps) (Irish still recovering)

Deli, on the other hand, is always leashed or she’s gone, gone, gone after some enticing scent. Luther and Vivian are very easy, taking turns racing, rolling and investigating. They come running at just the mention of their names and are never far from sight.
(Vivian and Luther enjoy the day)

    The pond was not as we expected. Wally (the beaver) has completely dammed the pond. Again. This time he has done an unbelievable job. There isn’t even a trickle flowing past his dam. The pond level is high and the water is stagnant. Wally's taken down more trees around the bank, stripped the bark off others and cut some trunks into manageable pieces to move. We inspected his work, amazed at his craftsmanship and diligence. I really need to set up a beaver-cam with night vision.
(Wally's work is never done)

(Always a new project) (Some of Wally's trees, the pavilion & Lu)

    Not quite ready to go home, we circled around the pavilion and walked on. At the end of the path we were surprised again. The barbed wire fence marking our property line was gone. The creek just beyond it had been filled in, with just a tiny stream running through a buried tube. Where trees used to be someone had bulldozed a gash in the forest. Pushed-down trees were strewn about like giant pick-up  sticks. (trees on the sides pushed almost, but not quite, over)

Stunned, we walked on. The path kept going and going until finally we came upon the instrument of destruction. Obviously, this was the noise I’d heard at times in the mornings. I’d thought it was loggers taking down cedar, as we’d been asked if they could selectively log some of our trees.

    “Mom, they annihilated the creek.”

    “ I know. I can’t believe it’s just gone. I can’t believe they had permits to do this. That was a wetland.”

    “You mean they’re sneaking?”

    “That’s exactly what I mean. This place looks like “Over the Hedge” where the men come in and recklessly chop down the forest and fill in the water source without a thought. I really can’t believe it.”

    “Should we tell someone?’

    “Well, it’s a little late.”

    “Yeah, they can’t ever put it back.”

    “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.”

    “Is that what people think?”

    “Sometimes. You know, I don’t know for sure they didn’t have permits to do this, but it just doesn’t seem right. I am not allowed to have our cows come within a hundred feet of the creek that runs along our property.”

    “You mean the one Wally dammed up?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Are you going to call someone, Mama?”

    "I think I am. I don’t really like tattling, but this just isn’t right and if I don’t say anything, then I’m part of the problem, too. I don’t think anyone can build here because of the wetlands. I think this will just be for hunters.”

    “Just great! More gunshots. Who are you going to call?”

    “The County.” We started walking back, surveying the damage. Deli was on high alert. I wondered what animals were displaced. “Henry, we’ve got to come back with a shovel and open up that stream Wally blocked.”

    “OK, but what’s the big deal?”

    “Well, there isn’t even a trickle getting through.”

    “I know, but he likes it that way; he lives there and he keeps doing it. Why don’t we just let him?”

    “Well, what about all the animals that depend on that stream as it winds to the river? That’s their drinking water. Toads, frogs, raccoons, bear, deer and who knows what else.”

    “Well, they can come to the pond.”

    “Henry, we don’t know how far into the forest it goes before it meets the river. They can’t all come across the road to our pond. Wally has shut down that stream just like the bulldozer.”

    “Why that ..., he didn’t have a permit. Call the County on his beaver butt.”
(Wally's dam)

October 10th I Love The Nightlife

(sunset on MLR)

    As I turn left out of my driveway to pick up Henry in Burlington at gymnastics I notice the scenery is suddenly so different than it was just a short time ago, the light disappearing with the leaves. Autumn is putting on a show. The skies are clear and crisp the leaves crimson and gold. This is no bumper-to-bumper drive to collect my son; rather it is a recharging time to reflect on the beauty around me.

   

(Evelyn and her friends)

    On the way home, Henry and I catch up on the day’s events as we theorize and strategize about our favorite castaways, in anticipation of watching Survivor – our guilty pleasure.

   
   

(More Mosquito Lake Road)

Suddenly interrupted by a screech we couldn’t help but be awe struck as a barred owl flew at a dramatic angle down from a tall pine tree and across the road perhaps fifteen feet in front of us and about fifteen feet above us. My headlights lighted up its wings and we could clearly see its face and talons as it landed in a tree on the other side of the road.

(Mt. Baker aglow from the 9)

    Taken aback we talked about how amazing the sight was, just as a couple of raccoon strolled by the light of the silvery moon.

(neighbor pays a call)

 

August 15th Rolling On De River

    The day had finally arrived to go tubing! To make sure we were there on time, Tom and I made our requisite run to Lowes™ early in the day.  We also had bills to mail, taco fix'ns to buy and so we hurried. The minute we got home, we jumped in our suits, grabbed our tubes and sped down to Acme to wait for the Donaldsons.

    We blew up the tubes, got some snacks and waited. We drove to Strand Road the drop off place for the car and called them. They were going to be even later – they went a different way and got lost. We played games like “Going On a Picnic” It seems there was a miscommunication. We waited for two hours. (Tom, Henry, Sam and Kimona kill time playing games)

    By the time the properly apologetic Donaldsons arrived it was simply too late to go. We couldn’t risk being on the river after dark. And because Lisa was working at the Emergency Clinic and Chris had a business trip to New York, we didn’t think we could go on Sunday. I felt terrible. After all that preparation,  Sam and Kimona were going to miss going.

Like every Hollywood ending - All was darkest before a lady told Chris  there was a short 1/2 mile run we could do. Something was better than nothing. We hopped in. The sun was hot and the water cool. The snowy mountains peered at us from the distance as we bobbed along with the current. (Kimona give it the thumbs up)

(Henry and Sam go head first)

(Quinn trying out the boy's method)

    A few minutes into the float there was a flurry of rescheduling. We’re all going again tomorrow – except Lisa (you just can’t blow off the Emergency Clinic)

(Tired but happy Sam)

(Packing in the Pheeb)

July 31st Whooo Is He?

(Puppy to be named later)

   

    We woke up this morning without power. My first panicked thought was – did I pay the bill? – Yes. Whew. OK, so I called Puget Sound Energy and only six other homes had reported the problem despite the fact that over a 1000 home were without electricity. Apparently, this was a scheduled outage and we’d gotten a notice in the mail.

    I hate the mail. It’s like laundry so I hadn’t opened it yet. I open all the bills at once and pay them. This particular strategy works pretty well most of the time, but not today.

    I found some old coffee in the pot and heat it up on the gas stove. Desperate times.  I looked for my plastic filter holder so I could make some more, but couldn’t find it. I did find my lasagna pan broken in six pieces on the floor courtesy of Luther and friends. Now I haven’t got a lasagna pan, pretty or otherwise. I may have some glass ones I left at Lisa’s I’ll have to ask her. No matter, I went out to feed the goats. I was shocked and disappointed to find they’d left the door open all night. I walked into the dark barn slowly afraid of what I might find. Thankfully, everyone was accounted for, but Miracle was ticked off. She’d been left to wear her fly mask all night and she wasn’t happy about it. This was the kids third attempt and third failure at the barn animals. The first time the boys fed them, but didn’t let them out. The second time, the girls let them out, but didn’t feed them. This time they all went out there and I presume they fed them, but left them vulnerable all night. We were going to have to have a talk about responsibility when they woke up- if they ever woke up.

    The kids slept until noon – they got dressed and we went to town to get those pesky life vests, some air horns to keep about the property and to deliver the puppy pens the geese are no longer using to the Donaldsons. The puppy without a name arrived today.

    Of course, he is soft and sweet and snuggly and very kissy. He came from the Skagit Humane Society and seems quite happy with his new digs.

    We spent some time meeting him when he arrived, but left so Phoebe and Quinn could get to know their new dog. (names - Charlie and Cooper are being bandied about - pictured with Phoebe, Quinn and Winnifred)

    On our way home we talked about caring for the goats. The kids swear on their lives they closed the door tight. They say they're sure. I want to believe, but the door doesn't just open itself. Does it? (It never has before)

    Our local wild life expert, Kimona spotted a raccoon and a Barred Owl as she chatted about the evils of city life. A girl after my own heart. -

July 28th Ready Or Not

  (view as we drove home from gymnastics in the afternoon)

    A spectacular day with bright sunshine and cool shadows, a day to play outside a day for running, screaming, giggling, plotting and planning: Hide & Seek tag was on!

    Quinn and Kimona, the masterminds of the game, certainly had an unfair advantage: they’re a year older and – well, they’re girls. The boys however, aren’t stupid so don’t feel too sorry for them. The rules were simple

1. Each team of two must stay together.

2. Each team must have a noisemaker of some kind. A cowbell or air horn – to give up or in case of trouble.

3. No hiding in the bushes or grass so that you look like easy prey.

4. No large farm equipment such as the tractor may be used.

Team Girl: Quinn (12) and Kimona (13) were the first to seek. They had to wait ten minutes in the house with me while I was getting my lasagna going while Team Boy: Sam (12) and Henry (11) went to hide.

    While the girls were waiting, it became clear that the game had already started. It seems the two of them had been lurking in corners eavesdropping while the boys were looking for a pair of walkie-talkies.  They felt certain the boys were headed to the pond and it would be a snap to get them. But just in case they devised a fake list in a notebook they were going to leave on the counter of pretend places they might hide. This way when the boys went looking for them, they’d be safely tucked away somewhere else.
  (OK - they can't spell - but that's not everything.)

    Well, it seemed like a good plan as I listened, nodded and grated the mozzarella. After searching high and low for my good Portmeirion™ lasagna, pan I vaguely remembered my father had accidentally broken it when he used it as a makeshift dog dish. Time was up and I sent them on their way.  I put the sundried tomatoes on top covered the pan with foil and shoved it in the oven, and went outside to find Wayne in the shop with Kristi.
  (Cleveland, Mabel, Clara, Lloyd, Mathilda, Ruthie, Alfred & Quackmire assess Wayne and Kristi's progress)

Wayne has decided he likes the cut of our cloth. Which means he asked if he fix up our attic and move in for a while as he gets back on his feet – he’s getting divorced. Hmm. Let’s see. He cooks, cleans, organizes, drywalls, knows how to do electrical work, paints houses, builds things, dabbles in plumbing is a nice guy, can shoot a gun, brings us fresh crab and spontaneously does things like clears out the brush by the pond so the kids won’t be cougar cookies. Well, ok. Maybe I can suffer through it.

Anyway, Kristi and Wayne were clearing out the shop, so Wayne can build a wood rack and fit his table saw in Tom’s shop. Just then we were approached by two very smug boys.

“We lost them.”

“What?” Kristi inquired.

“The girls. We hid in the boat in the middle of the pond and they couldn’t get us. They even tried to trick us by leaving and changing their clothes so they could come in after us. But it didn’t work. We got away.”

Just as I was introducing Sam to Kristi, two screaming girls came rounding the bend.

“There they are!! Get ‘em!” Bellowed Quinn as both she and Kimona began almost yipping. The boys took a horrified look over their shoulders and raced away with girls in hot pursuit.

    The shop continued to be organized and the lasagna baked. Until a somber group came in the door a long time later. It was Quinn who started talking.

“OK, let me tell you what happened.”

“Is everyone OK. Tell me that first.”

“Yes. Everyone is all right now."

“OK. What happened?”

“Well, we thought the boys were pretty smart using the boat in the pond, so we did the same thing. Only. Henry pretended Sam had ditched him and he went on how the game was over and we started to feel sorry for him.” Quinn rattled off very quickly as only a radio announcer and a middle school girl can.

“Henry’s a pretty good actor, so we believed him.” Interjected Kimona.

At this point, I started wondering what the problem was, were they going to complain about Henry’s playing the game in a “Survivor-like-way"? And where was Henry? He hadn’t come in yet.

“Well, we saw Sam hiding in the bushes and Henry gave us a long explanation how Sam had betrayed him and they weren’t working together anymore and we believed him again.” (Gullible) “Then Henry started swimming out to get us and suddenly he seemed to be having trouble and couldn’t keep his head above the water.”

“What? Where is he?” 

Just then Sam and Henry walked in the door. Henry was in some of Quinn's dry clothes but very shaken up. Quinn continued, “Well we thought he was faking again and he started asking for help. When we realized, he was serious we yelled for Sam, but Sam had already figured it out and was diving in the water. Sam pushed Henry to the dock and rescued him.”

“Mom, I got so cold in the water, I couldn’t move my arms or legs very well.”

“And you’re a terrible swimmer Honey. We’ve got to get you some more lessons. You never want to take swimming seriously, but it’s really important.”

“Sam saved me.”

“Thanks Sam." I said with my whole heart. "I’d really miss him if he were gone. I’ve grown used to this little punk. It’s forty minutes to the hospital, my lasagna would have been ruined.”

“MOMMMM! I was really, really, really scared.” Henry whined almost crying as he wrapped his arms around me. I could feel his cold skin and see the fear in his eyes.

“I’m sure you were Honey. I’m scared just hearing about it. I can’t think about you being seriously hurt. Do you remember the 4th of July four years ago? I can’t think those thoughts. We’re going to have to leave life preservers and some other equipment by the pond if you guys are going to be playing there. But we’re all clear – NO ONE pretends to be hurt or injured."  I could kick myself. I just had all the kids trying on lifejackets for tubing - earlier today in Fred Meyer™. I should have bought them instead of waiting to see if I could get them cheaper somewhere else.

“We just thought he was the-little-boy-who-cried-wolf. When we finally figured out it was real, we yelled to Sam.”

“This isn’t Sam’s first rescue. Remember Mom, he dove in and saved his little sister too.”

“ I remember, that was about two years ago right?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey Sam, I’m a horrible swimmer. Thanks for saving my life. Want a marshmallow? Oh and Quinn, winner picks the movie. And we won.”

(Wearing Pea's t-shirts, the girls plot)
There was some arguing, but the girls conceded almost too easily. As they walked out with Wayne, Abbey and me to close up the barn animals, I heard them whispering about short sheeting bed, putting nail polish and sparkle blush on the boys while they sleep.

“How about if we put the little alfalfa goat pellets in their cereal in the morning?” Kimona wondered.
(Kimona and Abbey herd geese while Wayne watches)

July 20th Our Big Backyard

(Craig heads out to the field)

   

More work and more trips to Lowes™ and Wayne back for more made this day seem like any other day except for when the entertainment committee arrived, our neighbors Kristi and Stan. They came roaring up in their big shiny truck with food. For no particular reason, they sat on the edge of their truck as we worked and chatted. NASCAR, drag racing, tubing (down the river) and guns were mainstays of the conversation. We’re talking serious county. I asked Stan if he wanted a beer and he said “No. I have one in the truck.” (Stan)

(Craig gone native)

    These are two are salt of the Earth. The type of people you call in an emergency and you know, no matter what time it is, they’ll be there. Kristi and Stan laugh easily, feel as comfortable as an old pair of work boots and you don’t have to fuss. They’re people who know who they are, in fact they knew each other only eight weeks when they got married. When it’s right it’s right.

   

Unfortunately they had other plans and couldn’t stay for our barbecue out by the pond. Just as they were about to leave, Annie, Quinn, Phoebe and Winifred showed up. Tom whipped up his father’s chicken recipe that’s being handed down through the family and we didn't dally getting our party going -"shee-it"

 after all it's Saturday Night. (Tom, Annie, Craig and Wayne - seated)

Our last but not least important guests didn’t travel far, for our barbecue at the pond. Kristi (another one) and Olie (short for Olerud- Kristi is a baseball fan) her dog a Katrina Rescue walked over from their new home in Grandpa Horn’s old place, which means I finally have a neighbor lady – like on Califa Street when I had Anice and Nona.
(Annie watches the meal being prepared by the menfolk)
    We gorged on chicken, corn, watermelon (ala ‘Big Lu” with Pico de Gallo and lemon), potato salad and fresh crab Wayne caught out of the bay the other day. While the kids fished, the pack of dogs played and we sat enjoying the day turn into evening.
  (Wayne's dog - Abbey showing all the other pups how it's done) (Phoebe & Henry go fishing)
  (Perplexed Henry actually catches a fish as vegetarian Quinn screams "throw it back before you kill it's little trout spirit" and Phoebe shrieks for no real reason other than it seems called for)

    Annie and I noticed smoke. We were all amused to find out it was a campsite. Our pond is close to one of our property lines and there were campers on the adjoining vacant land. It felt absurd to be in your backyard and  see people really camping not just kids pitching a tent in the neighbors yard, but really truly “getting away from it all”.  I feel extremely lucky.

(There is so much stuff and so many dogs - Wayne drives the food back to the house with Craig and Quinn following behind)

July 18th Sunrise - Sunset

(seagull on point)

We all got up early and fed the animals, had coffee and showed Craig around. Instead of jumping right into our usual project mode, we decided we should take a day to just be a family. We stopped at the new café on Mt. Baker Highway (that used to be “Carol’s Coffee Cup” and then “Carol’s Girls”) for lunch, sat out on the patio enjoying the sunshine and Pellegrino™. Afterward we headed into to do some kayaking off Chuckanut Hwy, the PCH.

Lisa and Chris bought a sea kayak and its just a short jaunt from their house to Larrabee State Park where there is a small boat ramp. Craig and Tom donned their life vests on and hoisted the kayak on Chris’s Honda™ Element and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail they were off on their sea adventure. Henry and I too were off - to his eleven-year-old routine physical. I’d waited a month for this appointment and I wasn’t going to give it up for love or money. So we looked on the bright side and thought this would give Tom and Craig to have some father/son time before we returned. Not that they needed it as they drive to and from work together an hour and a half each way every day, but a rationalization is a rationalization and it was working for me. And Henry.

The physical went like most do, a cough here a shot there, but there was one notable exception. A frustrated nurse complained while taking Henry’s blood pressure that the sleeve was too small for his muscle, she’d have to get an adult-sized one. A sly smile crossed Henry’s face and hung there for a long time. He was so proud.

(Self Portrait)

We called when we were on our way back. Tom and Craig were having a great time tooling around the bay watching all the crabbers empty their pots.
(Craig, Henry & Proud Pea)

It was then the brothers went out together while Tom and I sat on the beach enjoying the sand, squirrels, seagulls and constant boat traffic. The boat dock wasn’t empty once while we sat there. Tom said it was busier than SeaTac. The crabbers would pull in set their traps and leave for a while and then come back and pick up their traps. It’s a wonder there is any crab left in Bellingham Bay.

(Henry & Craig) (more brotherly love)

Our next stop was Quinn and Phoebe’s Broadway Extravaganza. A grand finale for the singing camp the girls attended - given by BAAY (Bellingham Arts Academy for Youth) on State Street. We were a little late and Lisa text me there was limited seating so Craig and Henry went on a walk around town headed in the direction of Mallard’s Ice Cream while Tom and I went in expecting to endure the performance. Instead, we were bowled over by some of the performances. Not all were fabulous, but all were wonderful. The very idea the kids had the confidence to get up in front of an audience and sing. I can tell you right now I lip sync in church.

(Quinn -12 and Phoebe 7)

(Quinn & Phoebe with David Post)
The director, David Post is certainly teaching kids confidence and stage presence. Neither Tom nor I could believe seven-year-old Phoebe standing on stage singing a solo. Quinn! Well, she doesn’t look twelve in my old sequin dress leftover from a bazillion years ago. She was frustrated because she didn’t have time to memorize the lyrics to one of her songs, “Hear the Bells” and so she was rushed and didn’t feel she did at all well on that song.  I was frustrated I couldn’t get any good camera angles. (may Caleb Deschanel  forgive me - my camera and editing work film is far below par, but the girls are sweet).

The girls pestered me at intermission about where Henry was and why he was missing their show, but they were happy he was spending time with Craig.

When we finally got home, the evening proved to be just beginning as Craig came prepared with “Talladega Nights”. Henry popped it in the DVD and we all sat down for family movie night. Imagine my surprise when Karen roared on the screen – a wild  cougar.

I may have forgotten to mention but our doorbell has about 50 different “rings” and one of them is a cougar snarl. Henry has found it great fun to “ring” the doorbell when he feels I’m at my most vulnerable.

July 10th The Sounds of Silence

(Henry trying to teach the geese to fly) (Henry explains the finer points of flying - A little "Fly Away Home")

(The geese, Mathilda, Ruthie, Clara, Mabel, Lloyd, Alfred, Cleveland & Quackmire give it a try)

    Days that stain your memory forever, start out like any other day. You get up, eat something and benignly go about your normal routine having no idea what is to come. The day my mother died Toby was making lemon squares in the kitchen. The day I was raped Lisa and I had a fight while driving over Laurel Canyon.

    Today was Thursday and Henry went to gymnastics; I got a cut and color, went to Home Depot™ and applied for jobs online. Mike drove up from Tacoma to help me work on the front walk while Henry started his Tom Sawyer routine painting the fence posts white.

    Mike and I started about 3:00PM and worked steadily until around 9:00PM when we began to lose both our stamina and the sun. As we were pouring the last concrete mold I heard a loud “MOOO”. I stopped and listened; it’s not often the cows moo. They’ll moo at me if they want a cookie, but not if I’m not walking by. I didn’t hear anything else so I continued trowling.

    “MOOOO”. I looked up and scanned the field. Who was mooing? I couldn’t even see the cows. I wondered if they’d gotten out. Or if one of them did. I thought of Pancho and Lefty. When they’d gotten out the other cows had tattled.

    “Mike, I think something’s wrong with the cows. I hear mooing.”

    “I’m sure they’re fine. How’s the hay situation?”

    “Well, there isn’t much down there just some fragments, but they have an entire field of grass. I’d be surprised they’re mooing about that, but I did give them treats yesterday, maybe they just want some cookies or grain.”

    “That’s probably it. When are you getting hay? Do you know yet?”

    “Little Chris is bringing some out tomorrow. Mike? I don’t hear any bells. Nothing. Listen.” We stood there listening while the cement mixer churned rhythmically. Silence. Loud Silence.

    “MOOOOOO”.

    “Mike something’s wrong.”

    “I don’t know about the moos but the bell thing is eerie. No one is moving down there. I’ll go with you. We need a flashlight, it’s going to be dark quickly.”

    “I’ll get my headlamp Tom bought me, it’s in the chicken coop.” I put it on, grabbed a bucket filled with grain because you never know when you’ll need a bribe and started running toward the pasture. “Mike, Let’s go!”

    “Should I close up the geese?”

    “NO! We can do that when we get back, we’re losing the light.” Usually I would have had a dog with me, but they were all locked inside because they kept stepping on the wet cement.

    “I’m coming.” We started down to the pasture. Wearing my headlight I could see into the loafing shed. There was a pair of eyes reflecting back at me. Whew. One.

    “I see one in the barn. But where are the others?” We looked around.

    “Here’s one!” Mike called. “Anna is over in the barn, almost like’s she’s hiding.”
(Little Abie the Baby - wedged in)
    “I found the trouble! Abe is stuck in the round bale feeder.” There he was half in and half out. He looked relieved to see me. He seemed to relax. I gave him some of the grain and pet him. He calmly let me try and guide him out of his predicament, but he just couldn’t seem to really move in either direction. I ran and got a sledge. We banged away at the board as Abe calmly allowed us to aim above his head. I thought he’d get wild and hysterical, but he just stood there looking at me. Suddenly there was a huge rustling in the bushes.

    “That was a big animal.” Mike said solemnly. “I would be surprised if that was anything smaller than a moose. Keep working.”

     The sledge didn’t work, Pea had built this thing and with his do it right motto,  his structures aren’t comin down. I got the drill and began unscrewing things. I did get the upright piece out so Abe wasn’t wedged in. Now he had a couple of feet of room on either side of him to maneuver his body. I tried luring him with the grain, but he couldn’t seem to lift his leg high enough. I figured I’d have to unscrew the whole damn thing when I found the bolts Tom had put on either end. Big huge bolts I wasn’t going to be able to get out in this lifetime. Frustrated and cold Mike and I wondered what to do next. We decided maybe we could get him to step on a piece of wood and then he’d be able to get his foot over. So Mike left me with Abe and now Anna and Andy who were poking their heads through the slats angling for a bit of grain. (Abe free of the upright)

(Abe snacking while Andy tries to horn in)

I stood there petting Abe. He let me lift his foot and try getting it over the wood barrier, but it wasn’t going to happen. Mike returned and I put the pieces on the ground as Abe tried to step on them. He was not certain about this idea at all.

(In between 2nd and third slats - eyes appeared to the right)

As I was maneuvering the board in relation to his foot my headlight caught a pair of green eyes about fifty feet away.

    “Mike I can see eyes in the pumpkin patch.”

    “Well, forget about that we’ve got do this. Let’s hurry.”

    Suddenly, there was another pair of green reflective eyes. I figured it was a pack of coyotes. “Mike, there are now two. Do you see them?”

    “No. I don’t see them. I don’t see them.” He said with increasing intensity.

    “You can’t see them? Look. They’re right there.” I shined my light directly into their eyes.

    “I don’t see them. I don’t see them.”

    “Look right there."

    "I don't see them."

    They’re very close.”

    One pair of shining emerald eyes dropped down. It was crouched down in the grass. There was no question in my mind. We were being hunted. “Uh. Mike, one is crouching down in the grass” as I spoke, the other pair of eyes leapt four feet in the air. It was like watching Animal Planet™ or being on safari, I thought how graceful, just like a gazelle as it dawned on me, Cats. Big Cats. In less than a moment we heard a strange purr/chirping mind-numbing noise come out of the dark. They were communicating. It was an amplified version of Alvin and Emmett when they’ve found a mouse. I knew exactly how much danger we were in. They’d been in those bushes forty minutes and had decided to come within fifty feet of us. We were prey. I was only thankful Henry was safely in the house. My mind flashed back to a story I’d heard last Fourth of July. Some neighbors had told us of two cats that had annihilated all the animals on their farm. I thought of the other night when Irish had barked so frantically, I’d brought him inside. I remembered the cat scat we’d seen when we’d first arrived. I stood there my mind racing. Cats don't usually come out of the bushes with humans, we had a light, we were making noise, yet they were still approaching. There were two. Cats usually hunt alone. I braced myself. I wondered how much pain was to come.

    “Mike, they’re cougar.” I said quietly.

    “I know. I heard.”

    “What should we do? They’ve come for Abe.”

    “We’ve got to leave him. We’ve got to get out of here. I only have a pry bar.”  Absolutely. I knew he was right. He started moving quickly up toward the house ahead of me. I didn’t want to run and evoke some sort of prey response. My mind was clear as I walked slowly continuing to shine my headlamp directly at them. I knew I needed to appear as large and threatening as possible. I turned it around my head pointing my light at them despite my direction. We made it up the hill. I could see the light shining from inside the barn. The goats! I ran to the barn latched the front doors and called the goats and Miracle in. Every one of them ran into the barn as I slammed the second door and latched it. They were safe, hungry, but safe. As I came out, I could see Mike had secured the geese.

    We went inside I grabbed my air horn from under the sink gave it to Mike and positioned him on the porch in case of an attack on Abe. He sat there listening.  I went to the kitchen called Little Chris Donaldson and explained what was going on.

    “Denise, you need is another gun. A shotgun not just a rifle.” Yawned a sleepy Chris.

    “OK, we can argue that later, I don’t have a shotgun right now. I can't hit a cougar at night, I have an air horn. I have stuck steer and a couple of cougar. What do I do cowboy?”

    “That’s good you’ve got the air horn, you can also bang some pots and pans. Use a wooden spoon. But he’s not stuck. He’ll kick that thing down if he has to.” I thought of the bolts and wasn’t sure he could, Tom had made that thing to withstand Pancho and Lefty. He could move though now that we’d gotten the upright down.

    I called Tom, he sounded almost angry at everything I said. He told me he knew what was going on. He was short snapping at me telling me he heard. He said Henry had called while I was out on the porch. I knew he was just terrified and a long way a way. He couldn’t protect us. I thought of my mother’s safari. “I’m going down there in my van.”

    “That’s a good idea, go down there and shine the lights in the field. You wont’ get stuck. It’s been dry so there’s no mud.”

    “I think it’s safe. On safari’s you see big cats jump on vans and the people are safe.”

    “You’ll also have your horn.” We hung up.

    I started outside. “Henry?”

“Yeah mom?” I could see how frightened he was.

    “It’s ok sweetie, we’re ok. But no matter what you hear, do not come out of this house. Do you understand me?”

    “I do. I understand. I won’t, I’ll stay inside.”

    “Good, because I can’t help Abe if I’m worried about you. You’re safe. You have the dogs. If you need to, call Daddy or Lisa.”

    I informed Mike of the plan. He said he was coming. So armed with my headlamp, some pots and pans and the air horn we headed down to save Abe. But Abe was gone. He’d done just as Little Chris had said and gotten the hell out of there. Logic told me he’d have run toward the light and cookies– not toward the dark and lonely pond. Mike had been on the porch the whole time and hadn’t seen him, so he must have be back in the pasture. I tried shining my lights everywhere. No cougar. I could see pair of eyes in the loafing shed, so I knew some of the cows were inside. I had to believe Abe was too.

    I dropped Mike at his car and he shined his headlights for me as I walked gingerly into the house. I knew I was safe now, but I informed the dogs no one was going outside under any circumstances whatsoever. They could all pee inside tonight; I’d clean it up in the morning.

    Henry hugged me tightly. I knew the cats were probably long gone, and reason told me they’d never come in the house, but I closed all the downstairs windows anyway and took everyone of the cats and dogs along with Henry upstairs into my room closed the door and crawled into bed. The adrenaline rush and the terror had exhausted me. I listened for an attack. But it was dead quiet. No bells. I thought of all the times I went out by myself at night. I thought of the kids at the pond. I thought of the meeting about the turkey release when the woman from Fish and Game told us “You’d be shocked if you knew how many cougar are lurking around.” I started wondering why Abe had gotten stuck. Earlier in the evening I’d thought he’d just wanted to reach some loose hay, but as I thought back on it I started to see it differently. When we first went down the other cows were already hunkered down in the shed. Maybe the cats had been there and he’d gotten scared and bolted the wrong way. Maybe he was mooing out of fear. Then we came down and the cats had retreated into the bushes until they decided we weren’t a threat. I thanked God Mike had been with me and not Henry. What if I’d left him down there while I’d gone for the sledgehammer. I lay awake for a long time listening to the oppressive silence.

June 20th American Gothic

Tom’s parting words to me were “You’ve got to get that corn in the ground or it’s all going to be a waste.” Easy to say.

I went out to the field to assess the soil quality. What I know about the quality of dirt isn’t much. I do know that if you put a light bulb in the ground here, a lamp will grow so I’m pretty confident all should be all right. However, after the tilling of the field, the soil has giant clumps. To break them up I got the mower and “mowed” the dirt. Well, I tried. I went out to the field thinking it would be a snap. Naturally, I’m getting used to the fact that I’m wrong on a grand scale most of the time. I could start the tractor and go about three feet when the mower would die. I started getting worried I might ruin the tractor or the mowing implement. I walked back to the house and called my friends at Scholten’s tractor. A woman answered the phone. After explaining my situation and knowing my model number right off the bat, she told me she really didn’t know too much and I’d have to wait an hour or so until the rest of the people arrived, it was only 6:30 AM. You know farmers, we’re up early.

“You know Wayne was out here a while back and he told me there was a woman who knew about donkeys, that wouldn’t be you would it?”

“Why yes, I’m the donkey lady! I love donkeys.”

“Me too. I didn’t expect to like her so much. We’d love to breed her, but we don’t know how to find a jack.”

“I know lots of jacks.”

“But Miracle is a standard Crossback, don’t you have miniatures?”

“Yes. Hmm. But my husband is the auctioneer at the livestock barn in Skagit. Give me your number and I’ll look into it.”

    “Great. My husband really wants to get her pregnant.” The moment it came out of my mouth I knew it didn’t sound right, but whatever.

    “Oh and you know what someone just came in and he says you just need to set it on the higher setting on your side panel.”

    “I didn’t even know you could do that. I’ll try. Thanks.”

    Off I went mowing the field. I thought it worked pretty well, until I started trying to plant seeds. It was then I realized the clumps were really creating a problem. I’d gotten a little walk-behind seeder, but it wouldn’t cover the seeds with soil given the conditions. Phoebe walked out to the field around 7:30 to check on me. She is spending a couple of days helping Henry and me get the crops in the ground.

    My truck died so I couldn’t rent the proper farm implement to break up the soil. Even my Honda can’t take a tractor implement, too much metal.

I called everyone I knew who might know what I should do. After gathering as much advice as possible, I went to Lowes™ and bought an aerator to try and break things up and cover the seeds I’d already put down. I met Lisa at Lowes™ as she’s doing a fence project and acquired farm hand, Phoebe ready for action.
(After hours of assembly)

    This thing was worse than any bicycle on Christmas Eve. Mike and I got the thing put together about 2:30 AM. Without any time to waste “You’ve got to get that corn in the ground or it’s all going to be a waste.” Ringing in my years, I was up and out on the tractor by 6:00AM. The contraption worked sort of. It broke up a lot of the dirt, but it didn’t cover the seeds. Great. Now what?

    I thought of all the farmers who created this country. I thought of the hardships, the heat, and the soil. I have a newfound respect and sadness for all they must have endured. And no wonder they had so many children. I started thinking about George Washington, the farmer. An innovator creating a special octagonal barn with slats in the floor he devised a way to put the wheat on the floor and then have a team of horses tramp over it causing it to separate and thus cut down on the manual labor. What would he do? I said a little prayer. I felt terrible we’ve invested money in these seeds and I can’t do anything well.

    Phoebe was working the seeder while I did the tractor, as I watched her I noticed the chain on the back of the seeder that was supposed to brush over the newly planted seed and cover it with soil. I started thinking. I had a huge chain in the chicken coop I’d threatened to tie Irish up with a time or two. Sore beyond reason and existing on a concoction of Tylenol™ and Advil™ I hobbled up got the chain and fashioned it to the back of the aerator creating my new seed-covering rig. IT WORKED! With renewed spirit, Phoebe and I planted our hearts out until 10:15PM -stopping only because we couldn’t see the seeds anymore. We'll need a little more seed to completely finish the field, because we're planting seeds not in rows but every seven inches to create density for the maze.

    Around the middle of the day, Phoebe felt it was time she learned how to drive the tractor - she is seven and all. I was leary for a couple of moments, but we were in the middle of a flat cornfield, and when you let your foot off the gas the tractor stops. So I helped her seatbelt in and she got started at first she was nervous, but after a couple of passes she was drunk with power. Her smile was enormous. I thought - she will be able to tell people she's been driving a tractor since she was seven. Seriously farm girl stuff.

    At about 5:00AM I woke up to “WaaaAA WaaaAAA”. Terrified at what I might find, I looked outside to see a flock of ravens the size of owls dining on my corn. I threw on my slippers and ran down to the field screaming “Get ‘em Irish! Stop eating my corn you could for nothing freeloaders!” All the while I’m thinking of those singing and dancing ravens in Dumbo and wondering if Henry should stand sentry with his air rifle.

    In lieu of joining the NRA, Phoebe and I constructed a scarecrow. She’s not very feminine in fact she quite manly with almost a completely flat chest. She pulls her dishwater brown hair off her face in an austere ponytail and covers it with a baseball cap. A scowl is permanently fixed on her face. (Any resemblance to unattractive slackers living or dead is purely coincidental) We call her “Evil Evelyn”. Truly, she isn’t all that good at her job, because I still see flocks of crows at the all you can eat buffet line. But Deli is convinced there is an intruder in the field and we should all be on the alert. (Evil Evelyn)

(Phoebe making Evelyn's hair)

    We got an abandoned pair of coveralls from the barn stuffed them with hay. Dyed a mop brown, wired gloves through her arms, gave her a pair of rain boots Irish had chewed and finished her off with a pink bandana.

    Not to be out done, Henry and his friend Dakota constructed “Chainsaw Carter”. (Chainsaw Carter )

    Now that the seeds are in the dry parched earth that looks a little like Missouri, it's not supposed to rain for more than two weeks? This is Washington? The "it rains every fifteen minutes state"?  If I'd known you simply have to plant something to stop the rain, I'd have tried it in March.

    I guess there isn't a rush on those pumpkins.

June 1st And So On And So On And So On

        (hummingbird in the blueberry bushes)

    For the last several days I've felt as though I’m living the movie Ground Hog Day. Everyday I get up and put up the garden fence. It doesn’t seem as though I can actually finish this project. It looks like I’m just about to get the fourth side of my 50’X50’ area up and then something happens. This something has been, Irish.

    Trying to save a few pennies, the first fence was made of heavy-duty plastic netting and small green metal posts you pound into the ground with a sledgehammer. I bought the posts that were only about three feet high because I had some I’d found around the property and I figured I could alternate them. It never thought it would stop Irish on a rampage, but I never thought he’d want to get in the garden. It was meant as a deterrent from burying sundry bones and squeaky toys. It didn’t work.


    My dad went and got a batch of longer posts and I tried again.  I was more than a little surprised when he gnawed through it before I even got the last side up. I wondered why he didn’t just go around it? No matter it wasn’t going to work. I went back and bought 150’ roll of 4’ chicken wire. The rolls didn’t come in 200’ and I figured if three sides were strong he’d probably leave the back alone. Wrong again. I went and got the extra 50’.  Day after day we pounded and stretched. We dug trenches and piled dirt up. Finally, finally it was finished. By this time, Moaning and groaning, Mike who was now conveniently sick and sore said "This is either going to get me in shape or I kill me" took to his bed.

     Henry and I went on, we measured our rows, set our stakes and wound the string - our task nearly completed. Proud of our work we packed up our tools and decided to finish weeding and start planting in the morning.

    Our bellies full of Brown Sugar PopTarts™ and coffee respectively Henry and I gathered bucket of seed packets we collected from various places, including the ones Lisa got free at Whidbey Island Bank, and began. We planted row after row starting with the “rainbow collection” of carrots – they come in pink, purple and Lord knows what other colors. Henry had to plant those first. We decided to stay with roots and moved on to beets followed by broccoli and went through onions, peas and cantaloupe, black beans and ending with berries. We discussed germination, Thomas Jefferson and his beliefs about agrarian societies versus James Madison and the hummingbird that kept dive bombing us because we were too close to his blueberry bushes. (notice the tiny feet)

    I learned Henry wants to operate a zoo or become a crime scene blood spatter expert. Chatting as we worked the time flew by, but eventually we tired of bending and hoeing and took a break for lunch. I made sandwiches while Henry googled whether anyone had been born on Valentines and died on Halloween.

    When we returned we found the gate torn open and every string from every row lifeless on the ground. If Henry hadn’t been there I think I would have burst into tears. But he was so upset; I had to be the grown-up. We put one foot in front of the other and repaired the gate, made mounds for butternut squash, cucumber and zucchini and watered.

    This meant we could move on to our next project – bringing Wally’s logs to the pasture for Tom. Just as I was struggling and pounding the mowing attachment I saw Irish. He was eying a robin in the garden. Excited he started racing around the perimeter.  I screamed and charged him as he circled around the back where the ground gets higher and I had one little three foot stake. Then he did it. He put his front paws on the chicken wire and pushing it down. I screaming like an ax murderer at this point and so he stopped looking up at me as he folded the fence in half with his body weight. Fleetingly, I had visions of taking that menace to the pound and told him as much, but he wagged his tail and bounded after a butterfly knowing I was full of empty threats.

(Can you imagine two of them?)

    I went and got another stake, the ladder, and a shovel to repair the damage thinking: I don’t even like broccoli.

May 29th The Challenge

 
    Tom will be here in less than a week and there is so much to be done, not because I have to get the house tidy for him, although hopefully I will, but because I have to get all the supplies for his “honey-do” list. He’ll be working non-stop while he’s here, but for that to happen effectively I have to get all the supplies he’s going to need, as trips to Home Depot™ take half the day.

    His first assignment for me was to get some straight long poles to use as supports for the goat enclosure.

    Funds being tight, I asked if we could use some of the wood we had in the back by the barn. He said, “If you can find any straight ones then, yes. They’ll need to be buried in the ground at least four feet.”

    Armed with my tape measure , a cup of coffee and my trusty sidekick, Mike. Accompanied by Irish, Luther and Vivian we started for the woodpile. We found a few passable logs, but thought we should charge down to the pavilion by the pond as I remembered we had another pile of miscellaneous telephone poles and other wood down there. I stopped in to refill my cup and off we went.
  (Irish & Vivian lolling in the shade waiting for me to finish) -

As we approached I thought of Wally. Our logger extraordinaire, perhaps he had something we could use. Freshly mowed by my dad into a park-like setting I walked without fear of stepping on a snake over to Wally’s most recent downed tree. It was perfect. In fact, he’d cut it in two. We measured it and found one length alone was 35 feet and the other was at least 15’.  We walked on to a few more he’d taken. These he’d even removed the bark. They were all straight as an arrow ready to use poles. No decay as they hadn’t fallen they were logged. If I don’t watch Wally he’s going to clear-cut the woods. On the bright side he’s creating a nice open space full of light. (Wally's handiwork)



Well, now that we’d found our logs we were pretty proud of ourselves. This would save a lot of money. Using wood off the land, even better. It will look so rural and then I wondered -How the heck, are we going to get these really long heavy trees to the pasture? We can’t get the tractor back on this side of the pond.

Mike suggested we roll the logs into the water, get in the blow-up raft and push them across the pond, past the island, where the tractor would be waiting with a chain and then pull them onto the bank to the pasture. He added that because my father cut the grass they would pull nicely. It sounded like an immunity challenge on Survivor but I had to say the plan definitely had merit. I’d have to think this through and improve on the plan. 

Tom suggested rope and my newly acquired knot tying ability should be incorporated into the plan. Maybe I could tie the rope around the log. Henry could get in the raft and take the end across the pond where my dad could be waiting on the tractor to pull it into the water. It could be fun or I suspect at least calorie burning.

May 28th Where's Jethro?

(Barred Owl)



    For a year or so, my mother lived mother lived in South Carolina with her husband, Herb. Herb was an engineer and would be contracted to go different places. He lived a long time in Anchorage. After he married my mother he took local jobs in Southern California – mostly. On occasion they decide to take a short stint somewhere else.

    I visited them in Aiken, South Carolina. Tom and I had broken up for a while and so I packed my bags and traveled– this was my Bette Davis period. While I was in the South I learned that macaroni and cheese was considered a vegetable of the day at the Cracker Barrel. Almost everything is fried unless you go to the Olive Garden, and they have the most spectacular birds I’ve ever seen.

    My mother and I would tromp through the South Carolina woods suffering the humidity with our binoculars hung around our necks. I felt like Miss Jane Hathaway. At first I was reluctant. How boring I thought, but after a while I let my mother’s enthusiasm take over. I started to see the excitement of “getting” another bird. We would take our bird identification book and mark which species we saw. We were always looking for the painted bunting, but alas he eluded us. In bird circles a common color description I’ve found is Rufus. All the birds have it, especially the female. They’re brown, just brown, but Rufus adds a little glam.

    This morning as I trudged out to the barn in my slippers I saw it. An absolutely huge owl was sitting on the post of Miracle’s yard. I’d known it was around because at night I’d been hearing its call. “Who, who, who cooks for you?” It was taunting me. I grabbed my camera and snapped a quick picture. It turned its amazing head and stared at me. Unlike most animals it looked at me from the perspective of being higher on the food chain. There’s nothing quite like being stared at as a potential morning snack.

    Looking back now, I realize the birds were my mother's way of getting me outside my own problems, healing my heart and seeing the beauty all around me. Finding happiness in the everyday things around me. She taught me happiness isn’t a destination it’s the journey. If you wait for everything to be perfect to be happy you’re not going to be happy much. Hmm. “Whooo” was reminding me.

May 21st Morning Till Night

         I woke up bright and early to get ready for my day on the tractor tilling the fields. As I padded down the stairs I stopped suddenly. I know I live on a farm and things will never be pristine. There will always be some amount of dust, dirt and mud tracked in, but as I stood there in my farm house I saw a farm mouse scoot across the floor chased by my farm cat. He caught it, released it and off it went again. I went back up stairs and called Tom.

    “I don’t want to go down there while Emmett’s got a mouse. What should I do?”

    “Go back to bed.”

    “What? Go back to bed? That’s your advice?”

    “Yep. That’s what I would do if I was there.” He went on, something about carpal tunnel syndrome from the computer and some big meeting he had to get ready for, Craig was arriving early this morning and I don’t know, I wasn’t really couldn’t concentrate on his problems when I had an episode from the Discovery Channel playing out at the bottom of my stairs. He hung up. I sat there a moment feeling trapped. Then I knocked on Mike’s door.

“Mike! Wake up! There’s a mouse! Emmett has a mouse and I need you to get it ok?”

“OK.” I heard stumbling and grumbling from behind the door but out he came groggy with a plastic bag ready for action. I didn’t tell him it was still alive. But as luck would have it, Emmett had finished off the poor thing and Mike disposed of the body.

    It rained almost all day. I was on the tractor from 10:30AM until 8:00PM with a couple of bathroom breaks during which I canceled all my plans for the next day, as it was evident I was going to need to spend it on the tractor.

    I got a voicemail from Toby she got a couple of episodes work on her old job, “Monk”, and would be coming down to spend the night en route tomorrow.

    At around 8:00PM I stopped because I literally could barely keep my eyes open. I was surprised at how physically exhausted I was. Mike and Henry had fed the animals; I took a hot shower and rolled into bed before dark.

    The next day, was much more fun. I knew what to expect, I had mastered the tiller and felt confident. Irish accompanied me to the field and spent forty minutes chasing a butterfly around the field as I went back and forth, back and forth across the field. I tried to be mindful of critters. I didn’t want to slaughter anything so I would go up and back in my same track then pivot and go right next to the track I just made. I figured the animals would hear the noise and feel the vibration and instinctively move in the opposite direction, which is why I didn’t make a big rectangle and move around the perimeter.

    Riding a tractor is the anti-internet. On the computer you can look at lots of things, but you don’t really actively have to think. On a tractor all you can do is think. I spent most of the day replaying “Field of Dreams” in my head. Humming along in my soon to be corn field I kept imagining James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner. I could envision baseball players tossing the ball around my new cornfield. “Plant it and they will come. Plant it and they will come - I keep hoping.

       After a while I thought I should make the most of my time and I did tummy-tightening exercises, kegals, meal planned and in general thought about what else I could do to make something happen out here. My idea for a corn maze grew. We could have music and and Tom could paint cut outs. We could have every one here dressed in colonial and we could put trivia cards in the maze, then have a trivia quiz after the maze. Like "What was George Washington's dog's name" etc. I thought about a pumpkin patch. I’d considered growing Cinderella pumpkins after reading an article in Hobby Farm™ Magazine. I figured I’d need to grow a couple varieties. We could do cider pressing, and kids could buy little bags of food to feed the goats, cows, sheep but I don’t think Miracle will play ball. She’s awfully shy. I continued to go back and forth over and over again. Irish got tired and went to a small hill to watch me. The cows came over to the fence intermittently to investigate my shenanigans. A raven arrived. I started considering scarecrows. I bet Tom could make a fabulous one, maybe with a tricorn hat. Back and forth. I watched the raven as he walked through the tilled soil completely unafraid of the tractor. When I got closed he sort of half flew and half hopped a few yards away. I kept watching him, he was looking through the soil and suddenly reached in grabbled a snake and flew off with it wriggling in his talons. I ducked afraid he might drop it on me like in some sort of horror movie.

        I ran out of gas. So I drove the 10 miles to the gas station filled up the diesel can and drove the 10 miles back and started again. Every pass over the field I thought, it ‘s really starting to look good now. And then I’d do another pass and think the same thing. The grass was about 18 inches high when I started and it needed to be all chopped up kind of like chopping onions. You just have to keep going until their minced or you’re recipe isn’t going to come out right. I wanted to have pretty fields. I noticed as I went back and forth that every time a car did pass by I saw brake lights. Every one was curious which is why I didn’t pee in the field as was suggested by some -too many potential onlookers.

Toby arrived, but I wasn’t done so she waved and went in the house. Henry came out and helped for a while Mike and I took measurements to see how much more I had to do. I’d tilled a little more than an acre. It looked like a huge expanse to me, but I’d done research on corn mazes and many of them are 12 acres or at least 3-4 acres. Of course many of these people live in Iowa. And after all, what else is there to do in Iowa? I’d have to be happy with an acre; it was already 7:00. But I didn’t think I could plant my pumpkins in the same space as I’d originally planned. So I hopped back on and started to punch out another field for my pumpkin patch. I was hauling. Up and back, up and back – as I was quite experienced by this time. Suddenly, the tractor sputtered and stopped. The tiller was smoking and wouldn’t lift. I sat there stunned. I got off looked at the tiller and found that I’d gone over a some wire buried in the grass left there from who knows when. Worried I’d not only broken the tiller but the tractor too I went inside to tell Toby. She’s a farm wife she’d know what to do and I thought I should just let everything cool down. Just then my dad walked in as did Mike, collectively we all agreed farm equipment had to be designed for these sorts of mishaps and we got our coats back on, a couple of flashlights as we were starting to lose light, it was 8:30PM.

    Luckily, the tractor had cooled down, started right up and the tiller lifted. I was done for the evening like it or not. We disconnected the tiller and were amazed by the size of the cable.

    “You could practically support a bridge with that thing.” Mike said in disbelief.

    We loaded it up on the truck and I went inside for a much-deserved glass of wine and chat with Toby. Bless her heart she had dinner ready. We talked laughed, researched corn mazes discussed pumpkins and laughed about all the changes in our lives. We’d come a long way from Calabasas High. She said when they called her for “Monk” they’d asked for that “organic farmer”. Exhausted we talked until we couldn’t keep our eyes open and said good night.

    In the morning, Toby was up drinking her chocolate almond milk when I got up. I took one look at her and glanced down at the floor.

    “A mouse.” I stated. Living with the assassin, Emmett, this becoming a daily occurrence.

    “Where!?”

    “It’s right there by your foot. A severed head, and over there is the body.” My dad walked in. “Dad can you get that?”

    “Sure,” he got some toilet paper and picked it up. As he was just about to put it in the kitchen garbage. I yelled.

    “Not in there! Outside!” He looked at me like I was a kindergartner and went out side.

    After things had settled down Toby noticed I was walking kind of funny.

    “Are you all right?”

    “Well, I can’t believe it, because I didn’t hurt on the tractor, but my back has been killing me since I stepped off it.”

    “Oh, there’s a name for that, you have what’s called ‘tractor-back’ it’s a condition farmers get.”

    “You mean like carpal tunnel from too much time sitting in an office at the computer?”

    “Exactly.”

    “Huh.”

May 19th Farmer In The Dell

    When Chris came over yesterday, I talked to him about my vegetable garden; telling him about my plans to roto-till the area near the barn.

    “Denise, if you’re not six-feet and two-hundred pounds, you’re going to have a hard time. If you are, its kind of fun.”

    “Really.” I said in my most insightful way.

    “You need to rent something for the tractor.” He said authoritatively. Authoritative is something Chris does well. And in this case he seemed perfectly justified. “Absolutely. There’s no other way.” he added, in case I was at all in doubt.

    Knowing I’ve gotten in over my head countless times, I called Scholten’s in Lynden where I got my tractor. I spoke to a very friendly woman on the phone who told me exactly what I needed. She understood I didn’t know the model number of my tractor off the top of my head. I asked if I could fit the tiller in my truck. She said yes and that she’d reserve it for me if I wanted to come get it this afternoon.

  I took Henry to school in my newly clean car, and my dad to The Woods, a fabulous coffee shop in Boulevard Park, where he had chosen to read a book and wait the morning while his car was being serviced. The Woods is kind of modern looking with huge windows directly over-looking the bay. You can sit up stairs and read or downstairs by the duel fireplace – or even on the other side of the fireplace out on the patio. The only place other that close to the water I can remember was Alice’s Restaurant in Malibu. Oh, how I loved to go there for the view, a bloody, and eggs "benny". Memories. Why, at a time when I’m trying to reduce my food intake (a little too much winter insulation) do I continuously associate food with fun? Not a good sign.

    Anyway, I did some errands, dashed home and got the farm truck, Daisy. Heading back to town, I got stopped at the one-lane bridge. They were doing some safety work and I had no choice but to wait. Seconds later, my trucker friend, Todd, came up behind me. The guy with the “Stop” sign, Todd and I waited in the drizzle as we watched the giant machine check all the supports. We discussed bridges in a global manner, the future of this bridge in particular and how many more loads Todd would have to do today. It was very neighborly.

    I dashed back to town, grabbed Henry, as it was a half-day, and swung by to pick up my father. He told me to scoot over, he’d drive. From the moment he gets in the car, the classical radio station turns on. Henry gave me a sideways glance. It isn’t so much the classical music as it is music. I know this isn’t compliant with most social moray’s, but I don’t’ listen to the radio all that much. Henry and I like to talk without background “noise”. Maybe it’s because we’re musically inept. My friend, Laurie, thinks this is a dark view into my personality. She’s all about music. She won’t date anyone who has my musical deficit. It’s not that I don’t like music. I like everything from Bing Crosby to Ozomatli and many things in between. I have a full jukebox. I just don’t play music in the background all the time like so many, including my sister and Chris, who also think there is something wrong with me. They site many more unrelated examples, however.

    The drive to Lynden was picturesque. The landscape was littered with huge dairies, modest farms, cute little houses and empty fields just waiting for crops to be planted. Screaming red rhododendrons, shy colts and curious calves were everywhere. I could tell my viewpoint was changing as I passed the farms and started examining how straight their crop rows were. I appreciated the dark rich soil free from weeds. It looked beautiful to me, suddenly. I think I’ve gone over the edge into some sort parallel farmer universe.

    We drove through a coffee kiosk on our way, my father grousing about the turning radius of this %#@!$ truck to the smiling woman at the window.

    We finally arrived at the tractor place and I immediately felt as if I was in the shoe department of Nordstrom’s. I wanted everything. I couldn’t believe my intense case of tractor envy. There were all sorts of implements I didn’t even have an idea what they did, but I was sure I could put them to use. Toby and I learned early on, as we struggled through so many home improvement projects, that there is a tool for absolutely everything. There are strange little gadgets that twist and lift and pull and, Lord knows, what else. The trick is you have to know what it is, which at times can be impossible for the nubie, and once you’ve identified what tool it is, you then have to find it.

    Lickety-split, they got the tiller in the truck and we were crawling down the 9 on the way home. The tiller is incredibly heavy and because there are so many curves we didn’t want it to shift our weight too much. We dropped my dad off at Mount Baker Automotive. He gave us a wave that all was well. We turned off the radio and headed for home.

    “Mom, do you think Miracle is lonely?”

    “Maybe. I’m not happy with her enclosure. Your daddy and I want to move her and the goats down with the cows. I think she might like them. She knows Anna from being in the barn.”

    “Maybe we should get another donkey.” Henry suggested thoughtfully.

    “Well, Daddy thought maybe she should have a baby.”

    “How long does it take for donkey’s to have a baby?”

    “I have no idea. Maybe you could do some research on it when we get home.”

    “OK. I can do that.” Good I thought. He can turn his evil ways into something positive. I know he needs to practice researching and this seemed like a great way to start. Practical. I was more than a bit surprised to learn that the answer was 11-14 months. We’d have to get her pregnant now for next summer. Talk about your planned pregnancy.

    When my dad got home a few minutes behind us, he promised to help me get the tiller hooked up when it stopped raining. I think he’s the only person in Washington who waits for the rain to stop. Knowing it wasn’t going to stop, I got changed and braced myself for the “Could it rain any harder.” “Jeez this is comfortable.” “What a great day this turned out to be.” “The sun is shining somewhere.” Barrage.

    First, we tried to shove the tiller out the back. It wouldn’t budge. Next, we got the tractor and tried to pull it out the back. We broke the tailgate on the truck. Wonderful. This project was getting more expensive by the minute. At this point, my dad wanted to hook a cable to the bucket and try to lift it out, but I was terrified of breaking the tractor. The thing is not cheap and he’s not going to pay to fix it if it breaks. He’s been my father a long time. I called the tractor place and, this time knowing my model number, I asked them if it had the capability to lift the thing. They said my dad was right and the tractor could indeed lift it with a cable. We parked the truck downhill of the tractor to give the tractor some extra height. We hooked it up and realized the tractor still wouldn’t be able to lift it high enough, so at his sign, I drove the truck out from underneath the tiller while my dad lifted it with the bucket and the cable.

    Once out, we tried to hook the thing together. I thought I could do it. After all, I’d done the backhoe plenty of times. Not so easy. It didn’t make sense. Something was wrong it looked like a physical impossibility. We looked and looked and studied the thing, but couldn’t figure it out. I called Scholten’s again. They were now closed, but magically a man answered. I told the guy the model number and explained the problem. I felt like girls do when a mechanic is speaking to them like an idiot. “Yes, I did that, yes, I know that’s what is supposed to happen, but we can’t get it close enough to hook it up.” Knowing, men like to talk to men, I put my father on the phone. My father will be the first to admit he’s about as mechanical as a jackrabbit, but men like to talk to men. After chatting up the guy, he handed me the phone.

    “Listen, I’m going to send a guy out there if I can get a hold of him.”

    “Really? It’s 6:00PM.”

    “He lives out that way off the 9. He won’t mind.” I want you to be able to use the thing.

    I hung-up.  “A guy’s coming out here to help us.”

    “You are kidding? Tonight?” My dad said wide-eyed and incredulous. “Well, that’s what we need or this isn’t going to happen.”

    The phone rang again. “Yep, he’s comin’ out just as soon as he finishes supper.” Duane said.

    And he did. It was the same guy who serviced the tractor last month, Wayne. He took one look at it and said there were missing pieces. “Lots of missing pieces.” He looked around, went to the barn where I keep the tractor and took the pieces off the mowing implement. He said, when the tractor came they weren’t on and you don’t use them for the backhoe, so I wouldn’t even know they exist. He walked back to the tractor, flipped the seat up to reveal a secret storage compartment full of little rings and things to keep implements in place. In a few minutes, he had it all put together.

    He turned to me and said with pride “ I’ve got to brag a little. My corn is already coming out of the ground. First time in twenty years I’m ahead of everybody else. I’m no farmer. I planted my garden where my donkeys used to poop. You know they always poop in the same place.” I nodded. I did know that.

    “Did you know it takes more than a year for a donkey to have a baby?” I thought I’d dazzle him with my bit of newly acquired knowledge.

    “Yep. My jennet had a baby once. Cutest thing I ever saw. She wouldn’t have anything to do with the baby after a couple of days.”

    “What did you do? Bottle feed?”

    “Nope. Called the vet, he came out and spent the day with her. Trained her on being a mom. She was perfect after that.” Housecalls are not something I’m used to.

    After he drove away, I started thinking. I looked out into the field. Now that I have the tiller hooked up, I can plow anything, even the big field in the pasture. I can plant corn. I can plant a big giant corn maze. Maybe some heirloom pumpkins and sunflowers and do a whole fall-apple-cider-thing if I get my permits. What’s the worst that can happen? I plant some seeds, after all, that’s what farmers do.

May 17th Phoebe Dolittle

         

   

  I woke up to “bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, Bang! It sounded like construction, but we're so far from anyone that didn't really make sense. I heard it again, so this time I got up. Now awake, I had a pretty good idea who was causing all this racket, so I tiptoed down the stairs and crept out the back door past Irish, the sleeping giant. Bang, Bang, Bang. I went around the side of the garage, looked around and there he was, one of my noisy neighbors - the woodpecker hammering on the metal roof of the tractor barn. An industrious if misguided little fella, on par with Wally as far as work ethic. He sounded like a jackhammer as his head bobbed up and down. I have seen a lot of woodpeckers in my time, but I can't quite decide which kind he is. I thought at first he was a Pilated Woodpecker, but he doesn't quite match. Then I thought he was a Red-headed woodpecker, but again he doesn't quite match that description either.

(now positioned on a tree)

    I'd just gone in for coffee when Phoebe came trotting down the stairs, still groggy from sleep. She’d konked out during the movie last night and was up much earlier than I’d planned.

    “When are we going to see the geese?” she inquired with some amount of urgency.

    “Good morning to you too. Well, why don’t you get dressed or at least put some shoes on and I’ll drink my coffee.” Reluctantly, she went upstairs as I sipped. Grateful I’d kept her at bay for a few minutes. Before I’d finished my cup she was back downstairs, wide-eyed and ready to go.

    “Did you brush your teeth?” I asked, hoping to buy a few more minutes of quiet.

    “Yes, I brushed my teeth,” she answered with all the seven-year-old attitude she could muster.

    “Are you lying?”

    “Noooo I'm not lying. I brushed my teeth. Get up. Let’s go. C’mon I want to see the geese and the goats and walk to the pond and give the cows some cookies. You can bring your coffee” I’ve learned in these situations to just pour another cup of coffee and get with the program or you’re fighting a force of enthusiasm that will eventually overcome you.

(Phoebe waiting for me to finish my coffee) ( Emmet climbs on)

(Phoebe & Mabel) (Phoebe after being goosed)     (Phoebe & the barn animals) (Phoebe & Christina)

    

    After our morning escapade, Phoebe followed the recipe for Krusteaz™ Belgian waffles, deciding not to add nutmeg and hint of cinnamon like Henry. She’s a purist.

    Henry finally stumbled downstairs  a couple of hours later and smelled the waffles.

    “She didn’t add the nutmeg and cinnamon, did she?” Henry has loved his waffles this way ever since he saw Billy Ray Cyrus put cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg in his waffles on "Hannah Montana". He corrected the problem before pouring the batter into the waffle iron. By this time, Mike had finally gotten up. Despite his belief that sleeping late is some kind of mortal sin, he manages not to come downstairs on the weekends until almost 11:30AM or sometimes even as late as 1:00PM. He rationalizes this by explaining he was awake in his room. How this differs I’m not at all sure, but it makes him feel better. I, on the other hand, have no problem with lolling about. I just can’t seem to relax when I see so many darn unfinished projects, but I’m the kind of person who has a hard time staying home sick when the house is a mess. I don't necessarily clean up them mess, rather I go to work sick. I feel as though I’ve got to clean it up and, if I don’t I’m out of sorts. Given this, you’d think my house was immaculate. It isn’t. At the moment it’s what I like to call in flux. The spice cabinet is just this side of alphabetical, but there are still boxes and papers in the office that need to be filed. The missing drywall doesn’t help. My room has a pile of clothes that rivals the pyramids needing to be given away and I don’t make my bed as often as I should. Although I know I’d be happier if I did.

    Once everyone was fed, the syrup wiped up, the dishes loaded and another pot of coffee was brewing, we all went out to tackle the flower garden fence. Much to my surprise, the cement we’d poured a week ago had not truly hardened. Reportedly, it had poured for two days straight while Henry and I were at Mountain School. As a result some of the posts had sat in wet cement for so long they’d sunk down an inch or so. My dad, Mike, the kids and I tried to fix the fence, but after a while it was evident we’d have to pull out some of the posts and start over. “If you don’t do it right it’s not worth doing” rings in my head every time I want to take a short cut. That man haunts me through any sort of construction project.

    “You’re going to pull the post out? #@#$%! Deal me out,” my father predictably grumbled, lowering his head. His opinion is negated by the fact that he thinks everything is good enough and anything can be fixed if you pound it hard enough with a hammer.

    “Yes, because I’m not going to look at this fence for the next ten years and hate it. And I don’t want Tom to come home and be disappointed.”

    “Let Tom fix it then,” he growled. Mike laughed nervously in some sort of complicit agreement. I started pulling out the post without any further discussion. It slipped out of the ground with frightening ease. The cement did not even adhere to the post. I continued taking out the incorrect posts and after some coaxing and cajoling my dad, Mike and the kids all helped get the fence done right. We couldn’t do everything, because we had to wait for the posts to at least harden a little.

    The kids spent the afternoon walking back and forth to the pond several times and splashing in the water. They came back with their boots soaked. But they were all smiles talking very fast of their adventures. They went inside and made a pitcher of lemonade before they took the goats out for a walk. Only Rachel and Christina were on lead ropes. Riley and Alexander just tagged along due to their herding instinct. Rachel is the herd queen so they’ll all eventually go wherever she goes. Riley and Alexander scampered about racing up and down the hill nibbling on bushes and butting heads.

(Phoebe the goat girl) Although the pine trees did distract the boys, they stayed together beautifully. I hope pine isn’t harmful to them because they seemed to love the needles. Unfortunately, they also had a penchant for my blueberry bushes. So I ran over shooing everyone away as I have visions of blueberry crumble dancing in my head.

    Watching them I felt like I should hear yodeling. Henry actually yelled “Riiiicoooolaaaa” at one point.

    After that, they moved on to calling the geese and intermittently helping build the fence. I gave a couple of lessons in power tools and everyone worked with the level. Phoebe loved the cement mixer just as much as Henry. (Phoebe goes solo)

(Henry shows how it's done)

    “Are we ready for cement?” she asked hopefully every few minutes. She got the same boring we-have-to-do-this-and-that-first-before-we-pour answers.

    Late in the afternoon, Lisa and “Nana”, Chris’ mother Anne came out to fetch the Pheeb. Anne hadn’t been here before so we took a tour of the property and discovered the snakes have come out from hibernation. I jumped a mile every single time we saw one. Lisa kept saying things like “Isn’t he dashing.” “This guy is really quite handsome, look at his yellow stripe.” She suggested that if she caught one and I held one I might feel better. Now, I know they can’t hurt me, they’re small and there isn’t a poisonous snake in Western Washington, so it’s not like they’re rattlers, or Water Moccasins, (which is why no one in their right mind should live in Florida) but let’s just say I’m not wearing sandals anytime soon. I’ve got to figure out how to keep the grass lower because I’m afraid of my own yard. Lisa suggested the next logical step was a heritage mongoose. On our walk we found a bird’s nest with a broken egg, five snakes, a small field mouse in the last throes of life as well as countless frogs and toads. Taking a walk to the pond is like a mini-camping trip. I don’t think we saw this much wildlife except the deer in the North Cascades.

    When we got back to the house, Lisa went in and had a heart-to-heart talk with Henry. He’s had some trouble lately following directions and is making quite a few bad choices. He is ten after all, but I don’t like to chalk things up to “he’s a boy”. I’ve seen that go wrong too many times. So Lisa talked to him. She has a way of making you spill your guts. The two of them have a great rapport and he told her things he’s been afraid to tell me for fear of disappointing me. Crying he told me he needed to tell me a few things. A kind of cleansing of the soul which is why we have confession. I'm grateful Henry has Lisa to talk to. It's hard on all of us with Tom so far away, but with fathers in Iraq he isn't the only one who doesn't see his daddy every day.

    (Grandpa Horn & Phoebe give the geese a much appreciated shower)

     After Phoebe lost the battle of “Can I spend another night at Tante’s?” (German for aunt) Lisa, Anne and Phoebe went to her van to leave. They had to get back in time to take Quinn to her next party. She has a very full social calender. Leaving less than a minute and a half to spare - verging on late (as usual),  Lisa gathered her things and her child and finally got to the van only to discover somehow her keys had been locked inside. Why did she lock her car? No one knows.

    “Mom, we can call the dealer.They'll come.”

    “Honey, that will take a long time and it’s not the dealer it’s Triple A.”

    Reluctantly, I offered my Odyssey. Not that I mind Lisa taking my van, but I was completely embarrassed at the state of it. I had papers and PopTarts™ littering the floor. Coffee cups were strewn about. My initial resolve to keep it clean had waned. I handed handfuls of shirts and envelopes to Henry and gave the keys to Lisa shamefaced. As they were driving off, Anne offered to come out and help me clean. I should have said, “No, you don’t need to do that,” but I didn’t. She’s a great cleaner and I’m in no position to deny needing help.

    Mike, Henry and I cleaned up our construction mess, put away Tom's tools, herded the geese who’d been mowing the lawn all day back in the garage and settled in for the night. My father had already gone into Bellingham. It was, after all, Saturday night.

    We decided to watch “Sleepless in Seattle”. Of course, I’ve seen it many times, but it was like watching it for the first time, watching it from Washington. We laughed like only people in the Pacific Northwest do when we saw Tom Hanks carrying an umbrella. No one carries an umbrella. Only dorky tourists from California carry "dumbrellas" (as Tom calls them). And then there were several scenes where it wasn’t raining at all and some were actually sunny – in the winter. We weren’t even sure it was actually filmed in the Northwest at this point. Exhausted, I was moisturizing in my blue strawberry PJs and fuzzy socks. and just about in bed at 11:45PM when the phone rang. It was my father’s cell; when I answered I could hear music and a lot of laughing.

    “Hey, I just thought I’d let you know, we finished and I’ve been invited to a party, so I’ll be home late. Hey, I met a nice young shy girl who's name means harmony and beauty in Vietnamese.”  What? Honestly, This must be what it’s like to have a teenager. All I can say is at seventy-one, the man has a joie de vive.

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May 15th The Sound of Music

   

    The first time Lisa and I came to Bellingham, we went to see a real estate agent. He wasn't in, but the receptionist said, "Well, he's out. It's sunny - he'll be back later. He has a kayak." We thought this odd and made a few jokes about it.

    "What he's out every time the sun's out?" We laughed.

    A few gazillion raindrops later I'm not laughing. I realize now when the sun shines here its like music is playing and the entire community starts to celebrate. This morning I was in Fairhaven walking down Harris Street doing some errands headed toward the ocean when the sun suddenly peeked out from behind a cloud. It was like I was in a musical where everyone suddenly starts dancing. People looked around to share the experience and I literally heard gasps. Next there was smiling, exclamations and mini celebrations all around.

    "I can't believe it - sure has been a long winter."

    "But it's spring now."

    "I heard it's supposed to get warm today and it looks like it's going to happen."

    "Nothing can go wrong today."

    As I drove home I drove into trumpet blaring sunshine, I couldn't help but smile. For the first time, Deming was warmer and sunnier than Bellingham. Driving down Mosquito Lake Road, I noticed puffy yellow dandelions dotted the sides of the road and grass was almost visibly growing in the fields. It was so bright, my unaccustomed eyes actually ached from the light. It was magnificent. The road was dry and I could see dust. Dust! Dust blowing in the wind. I haven't seen dry dirt in 2008.

    I was deciding what outside chore I could do next, when my friend Barbara called. I haven't spoken with her in absolutely forever. But she's one of those friends from college that it doesn't matter how much time goes by, we just talk as though we spoke last week. She asked how I was doing and she didn't mean I want to hear "great". She really wanted to know how I was doing. We caught each other up on our lives, the good, the bad and the donkey. We discussed the difference between making a living and making a life.

    Barbara swears she's bringing her daughter up for a little time on the farm. Kaylee can go fishing with Henry while Barb and I sip margaritas on the front porch. I've always wanted to sip mint juleps on the veranda, but after being a bartender for a while, I found that mint juleps are really quite nasty in my opinion so I'll stick with margaritas on the back stoop if need be.

    After I got of the phone with Barb, I realized it was almost time for Crazy-Legs Quinn's first middle school track meet. Middle school is the big time. The track meet was held at the Bellingham Civic Field. Track meets are kind of odd events- even stranger than gymnastics. There is something going on all over the field, but it's really about hurrying up and waiting. You wait through the heats to watch your athlete and then in a blink it's over.  Quinn did the 400 and the hurdles. The fact that she did the hurdles at all completely amazed me. I couldn't believe little klutzy Quinn didn't fall. I guess she's finally growing into to those gorgeous mile long legs of hers. I would be terrified Ito try hurdles, I'm sure I'd land on my front teeth and require great amounts of dental implants, but she did quite well tossing those lanky legs over those large orange roadblocks.

 

When she was done, I left to go home and enjoy the rest of the day. It doesn't get dark now until after 9:00 PM, so that means we got foot tapping, head bobbing, tune whistling, laugh out loud sunshine for more than twelve hours. Now that's much better than singing in the rain.

(Irish at the pond)

May 14th Knotty & Gneiss

    Our journey began at school on the bus. We took what for me was a relaxing and sleepy two-hour bus ride to The North Cascades Institute. Tucked into the mountainside near Ross Dam (built circa 1927) , it is an amazing facility. The compound includes a library and a lab, a dining facility, classrooms, an amphitheatre, staff housing, student lodges and a remarkable composting system (and I can really appreciate a good composting system) The architecture is incredible and the modern facility is complete sensors so kids won’t have to ever be in the darkness.

    For the three days we were divided into day “learning groups” as well as evening “lodge groups”. The kids did skits and songs, kp, and went to the lab and examined bugs. We learned about animal tracks from latex molds and actual bear scratches on trees.

(note climbing scratches)

We saw a lot of deer, squirrels, alpine flowers and a multitude of cascades.   We went on night hikes by the light of the moon, learned about echolocation and the chemical rodobson which allows you night vision -we learned that pirates wore patches to create night vision in one eye - they simply lifted their patch when they entered darkness - better for pillaging cabins. We saw Wint-o-Green Lifesavers™ lighting up the darkness in each other’s mouths and heard stories of of how hummingbird created the night sky and why bear and salmon are no longer friends by the moonlight.

    Most of the kids can now identify Trillium, tell you about Huckleberry and its square branches as well as the Oregon Grape and its leaves that mysteriously turn red - seemingly at random. Scientists still don’t know why.

    They learned about seismic activity and sedimentary rock turning into the metamorphic rock, gneiss, which is the most prevalent throughout the Cascades.

     I learned a tremendous amount about the running of the facility and how its programs function.  The  staff was  encouraging about Fort Flashback and let me take a peek behind the scenes to see  how they operate. We talked about staffing, programs and recruitment as well as evaluations and feedback. I got a great deal out of my time there in  a myriad of ways.

 

(the unselfish wish)

    The most exciting part for me, however, was the knot tying and shelter building classes. Tom can always tie a great knot and I am forever trying to undo them. Our electrical cords are all in what I now know are daisy chains. With the patient instruction of Corey, the director of the camp, I’ve now mastered the bowline, the trucker’s hitch and the clove hitch. I can tie both a proper square and a granny knot. And I’ve learned the true importance of the under-appreciated slipknot. I can compress a knot and decompress a knot. I, too, can make a daisy chain and now know how to clean my line, reef my highline and devise a shelter using a tarp, rocks and a rope.  Which all means I won’t screw up the electrical cords in the shop or leave rope lying around getting tangled, which means I won’t get in trouble, which means Tom won’t kick things, which means this could quite possibly save my marriage. Or go on Survivor.

May 3rd The Right Answer

   

    I woke up this morning to Irish barking his head off. I put on my slippers, wrapped myself in my green fuzzy robe from Costco™ and headed downstairs to find out the cause for alarm. Irish was outside in the semi-enclosed mudroom. And the minute I opened the door, I realized the problem. The sound was immense, like a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Tweeting, chirping and rat-tat-tatting. Irish kept leaping up and turning around, not knowing which way to look as the sound surrounded us. Amused, but tired, I went back to bed while Irish kept the house safe from attack.

    An hour or so later I woke up to a quiet house; all I could hear was the rhythmic sound of the rain on the roof. No Saturday morning cartoons blared from the family room as I came down the stairs for my morning coffee. Everyone was still sleeping. I checked the clock -  8:00 AM. Henry was already at the Math Olympiad in Mount Vernon. He’d slept over at his friend Kenny’s and Kenny’s parents had driven them and another math teammate, Noah, to the competition.

    My son is a card-carrying math nerd, just this side of a slide rule and pocket protector. He creates math problems for us to solve in the car on the way to school. I’m impressed and surprised that I have a math kid. It must come from Tom’s side of the family as I cried through fifth grade math the first time around. I have to admit I was terrified to teach math. I hadn’t enjoyed it in school at all and dreaded teaching it. But the truth is I loved teaching it. Aside from history, I think it is my favorite subject to teach. Oh, I liked science and all the drama it offered. I’m always one for blowing things up or lighting them on fire if I can. Cutting up cow hearts, etc. is always exciting and literature offers a chance to have wonderful discussions. But, if I could make kids understand a math process and keep them from going through some of the struggle I did then, I really felt great.

    The Math Olympiad is a big deal. Henry had to take a bunch of tests and show his standardized test scores from last year to get in. The kids on the “math team” go to a special class once a week and prepare for the competition. Henry loved it. I’d offered to go to the competition because I go to talent shows and gymnastics events; it seems appropriate to go to the academic events. After all, I am a teacher. But to tell you the truth, the idea of watching math problems being solved for five hours didn’t seem like much more fun than watching paint dry and that’s just about what Kenny’s father said as he told me for the 14th time to stay home. I just couldn’t. I didn’t mind sleeping in this morning, but I felt I needed to show my support. Henry thought the compromise was a good one.

    Just as I’d hung up with Tom, Mike stumbled inside yelling, “No, Irish. No! I said No!”

    “Where have you been? I thought you were asleep.”

    “No, I got up and picked up some of the trash outside and then I fed the animals and cleaned up the barn,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

    “Wow. And it’s not even leap-ye – oh, wait. Yes. It is. Uh, I’m going to Mount Vernon for Henry’s Math Olympiad, wanna come?”

     “Sure. We can return that movie Toby told us to watch, the one with Jennifer Anniston. You know, the movie we didn't like what was it?

    "Friends With Money" yeah, that's Toby's last recommendation I'm taking for a while."

    "Yeah that's the one, I rented it in Acme. What are you doing over there?" Mike asked.

     “Oh, I’m doing some research on the geese. I emailed a vet, and Dr. Walker who I got them from, but so far, I haven’t gotten much information.”

    “What exactly do you want to know?” Mike asked pulling up a barstool.

    “Well, someone told me goslings are not molting when they go from down to feathers. The term is incorrect.”

    “OK, what is the term?”

    “They didn’t say.”

    “Figures. Maybe they mean fledging. We can look it up.” So we did, but fledging refers to the acquisition of first flight feathers not the transition from down to feathers when they have bare pink skin. Checking every source we could think and not finding an answer, we decided to get ready to go we’d miss the awards.

    Our stop in Acme was brief. Acme is at the end of Mosquito Lake Road, just seven miles from my house. It’s one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of towns. Acme consists of the general store, which carries everything from propane to picture hangers to clothes to videos and, of course, ice cream. Next door is the Acme Café, across the street is the post office next door to the fire department and next to that is the church and, if you turn left at the corner, you’ll see the school.

(T-Shirt I think I have to get my father)

    As we wound our way down the 9 toward Mount Vernon, we couldn’t help but enjoy the quaint houses as well as the natural beauty. Mountains and farms divided by babbling streams. The pastures dotted with sheep, cattle and horses. At times it looks like the East and at other times it’s pure Midwest. The diversity is amazing. We did hit traffic. For several minutes, we sat behind a tractor carrying a trailer. The driver waved at us to pass and we finally did, but after sitting in umpteen sig-alerts I couldn’t help but be amused at having to wait for a tractor rolling down the highway.

    We got to the auditorium just as the kids were having lunch before the awards. We milled around a bit. I spoke to the math coach and met some of the parents. We took our seats and watched the awards. Henry’s team scored an "Excellent", which he was thrilled about. Afterwards, when we were about to leave, I noticed he was outside talking to a girl. I didn’t say anything. We all got in the car and headed home. Mike and I were babbling on as we sometimes do when I noticed Henry hadn’t said a word.

    “Henry? Everything OK?” I said with my antennae up and ready for action.

    “Yeah, I just have something on my mind. I’ll tell you later. It’s private.”

    “OK,” I said. Knowing spring is here and having taught fifth grade I wasn’t all that surprised. After all, the Puberty class was last week. Then I did what any mother would do. I pulled into Target™ and told Mike to go pick out a movie.

    “Mom?”

    “Yeah?”

    “Mom, I asked a girl to be a couple today.”

    “Is it the girl you said was really nice the other day?”

    “Yeah, she’s always really nice and she’s smart. She was in the Math Olympiad today.”

    “I saw her.”

    “I’m really nervous. What if she says no? She told me she’d call me and give me he answer.”

    “Hmm. I see. Well, there is a chance she’ll say no. But I think it was very brave of you to ask at all.”

    “Really?”

    “Oh yeah, When I was in fifth grade I liked Danny Bauch. Oh, I thought he was dreamy. I would never have told him or talked to him I used to just twist the top of my apple off and see if it matched his initials.”

    “Girls are strange.”

    “It’s good knowing that going in.”

    “I wonder what she’ll say? I wonder when she’ll call? Does your phone work here? Do you have reception? Is your phone on? Have you checked your messages?”

    “I guess. I don’t know. Look at my phone.”

    “Mom, it’s not on! You have a message.”

    “Go ahead, check it.”

    “It’s from Diane. They’re both from Diane.”

    The drive home was very quiet. Henry was in the back seat willing the phone to ring while I drove and Mike looked out the window. I couldn’t help but think of my mother when I was in fifth grade. I remember telling her that Leah Paulson was “going” with Bobby Crandall.

    “Going? Going where?” she said.

    “Mom, they’re not going anywhere. They’re just going.”

    “That’s ridiculous. They’re too young to actually go anywhere. So they shouldn’t be going.”

    “Mother!!! You just are trying to be annoying.” It’s funny, when my mother passed away, I thought she was gone and that the day she died would be the last time I’d really have any interaction with her. But through my memories of my childhood, I get to experience her in a whole new way as I parent. Certainly, I say many of the same things she did. Not all of them good, but I can imagine her trying to deal with the young version of me and I get an entirely different perspective of an old familiar exchange. God knows, she heard three years of Danny Bauch before I switched to Eric Fulton.

    Lost in my thoughts, I glanced to the side and saw some Toulouse geese. I pulled over to get a closer look and noticed a few sheep in the pasture with a donkey. Just then, a man walked out of the barn. He saw us and walked over. He introduced himself as Bob Baker. He seemed rough and tough, flying a US Marine flag in the yard as well as wearing a "Support Our Troops" button on his denim jacket. But two seconds into the conversation you could tell he was a sentimental fellow. Especially when it came to his animals. A great guy, he knew exactly where my house was, as he used to drive the school bus for twenty years. He told me all about his donkey and gave me the name of the guy who trims Diego’s feet. He said all sorts of Russians stop and want to buy his pet sheep for shiskabob. And there are also a lot of people from Seattle who want to buy Diego because he looks like Shrek. Bob said he's been offered over $1000.00 for him.

    “As if I’m going to sell my donkey. The guy follows me around. They’ve got to be kidding.”

    “Bob? What do you call the time when goslings are losing their down and getting feathers?”

    “Molting.”

    “That’s what I thought, but I was told I was wrong.”
When we got home, I decided we might need something to alleviate symptoms of possible heartbreak, so I started a batch of emergency fudge. Suddenly, just as I was melting the butter, I remembered I hadn’t told Tom. I dialed as fast as I could. Dang these rotary phones.

    “You won’t believe what happen at Math Olympiad.”

    “He didn’t do well?”
   
    “No. He did fine. Your son asked a girl to be a couple.”

    “A couple of whats?”

    “Oh my gosh, you’re just like my mother, cut that out, this is serious. We’re all sitting here waiting for her answer. I’m making fudge just in case.” BEEP. “Hold on. Hello?”

    “Is Henry there?” a young voice asked.

    “Sure, Just a second,” I said trying to sound motherly. “Pea?”

    “Yeah?”

    “It’s her! I’ll have to call you back. – Henry? Telephone!” Nervously, he took the phone and started pacing while he spoke. I went back to making my fudge. I was furiously stirring the marshmallows in the saucepan, when Henry walked back in the kitchen. I tried to read his expression. He didn’t seem too happy, but he didn’t look devastated either. Suddenly he broke into a huge smile.

    “She said yes!! She said yes!!!”

    “Oh, honey that’s wonderful. I’m glad you’re so happy. I guess now we need the fudge to celebrate. Call your father. He’s waiting to hear.”

    "I will, but, mom, she said she didn't like me because I'm cute. I mean she said I look OK, but that's not why she likes me. She likes me because I'm smart and she thinks I'm funny. And because I do gymnastics."

    "Well, she sounds like a pretty smart girl. I like her."

    "Why do you like her?"

    "She likes my son and she made him happy. What's not to like? Call your father."

    “Dad, I asked a girl to be a couple. -----Dad!” I knew he was pulling out that “couple of whats” thing again. I smiled, thinking my mother was with us.

    The rest of the evening, Henry would suddenly burst out with “I’m so happy” every so often. He had all sorts of ideas like "Miles and I can sleep at Zach's and then the three girls we like can have a sleepover and we can all talk on the phone." I cooked dinner while Henry planned and Mike did more molting research. We learned molting is actually the process of one set of feathers pushing out another set of feathers, kind of like when you lose your baby teeth because your adult teeth are coming in.

    Before it got dark, we went to the barn, did the chores, fed the animals and settled down with all the dogs and cats and Mike in the family room to watch a movie. Henry snuggled up next to me on the sofa and said, “Winter is cold for those with no warm memories. And Mama, I'm hot right now.”  Ahh, that’s my boy, he might have gotten his brilliant math skills from Tom, but schmaltzy classic movie quotes that’s all me. “Mom, she’s not my only girlfriend.” He said putting an arm around me as we started "Pirates of the Carribean - At World's End".

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April 22nd A Day In The Life

   

    This morning I woke up and was more than a little relieved to see green grass in the pasture. Most people are expecting green grass, but this weekend we had more than three inches of snow each day. It all melted by noon or so, but it looked like a Nordic wonderland. I tried to see the icy beauty, but I really want spring. I want to clean. I want to organize and I’m not even pregnant. I made lunches while I sipped on my coffee. As I was making cheese sandwiches I could hear the now unrelenting “thwack, thwack, thwack” from upstairs.

    My dad walked in from his house and wanted to know when we were leaving because he’s hitching a ride.

    “What the hell is that?” He demanded. “It sounds like you’ve got flamenco dancers upstairs. Who is that? Is that Henry?”

    “No that’s the goslings.”

    “That loud?” And when my dad who, like most musicians, is audio impaired from years of playing music says it’s loud, it’s loud.

    “Yep. They never stop talking and they never stop moving. I don’t know when they ever sleep. Seven will be asleep and one taps around and wakes them all up. That’s why Henry started sleeping in Maryruth’s room.”

    “Well, I guess so.”

   Just after we left the driveway for school I realized I’d left my coffee on the counter. So, after I dropped Henry off, I stopped to grab a quick cup of coffee with my sister and her new BFF, Diane, who is a sharp-tongued Carolina girl who keeps even my sister on her toes. I sat down and my sister reflexively started picking hay off me. I felt like a chimp being groomed. I drank my coffee as she occasionally plucked a piece of straw out of my hair. It was unusually sunny and warm by the window; unthinkingly I unzipped my very cute sweat jacket I purchased for just these sorts of social occasions. My sister and Diane got wide-eyed. I looked down and saw a quilt of hay spread across my shirt. My sister held out a parental  finger and pointed toward the door.

    "Shake outside. Now." Without a word I complied as the two hens cackled.

    I then turned in some work applications, because money is money and I need some. I applied for jobs at places that seemed happy. I went to Trader Joes™. I never knew you had to take a math test to work there. Very interesting. I have actually mastered 5th grade math so I felt confident. I could pass the “if there are supposed to be thirty six cans of peaches on the shelf and 12 sell a day” restocking quiz. They were excited about me until they realized I had a teaching credential. I was over qualified. They’d keep me on file.

    Next, I tried Starbucks™. They required a few essay questions. Once again, I was surprised but up to the task. They wanted to know about my relationship with coffee. Perfect, I took the application home so I could expound. After all, coffee and I are good friends and I didn’t want to make light of our long-term relationship.

    Once home, I let the goslings out in the sun for a while before I started on the barn. The veterinarian is coming out and is going to examine Pancho and Lefty. And it feels a little like I’m having company. You know how you have to tidy up the house before the housekeeper arrives just so she doesn’t know you really stuff your laundry down at the bottom of the closet. Same thing. I started rearranging shelves and hanging pitchforks in more efficient places. Mike didn’t work today, so he swept the hay that manages to get all over the floor. Henry and his friend Miles did the same thing yesterday, but need a bit more practice. I remember when my mother would tell me to clean the kitchen and I’d load the dishes. She’d come in and I thought I’d done a fine job and I was so proud I’d done what she’d asked, but she thought I should know to wipe down the counters and scour the sinks after I swept the floor. And perhaps I should have, so I cut Henry a little slack because Miles was over.

    Tom and I purchased fifteen bales of hay just two weeks ago, but Pancho and Lefty had plowed through it in no time. So, while Mike was puttering around muttering to himself, I went and got a round bale of hay. All by myself I moved that 500 lb bale. I couldn’t believe it. I did it. I actually used the tractor effectively enough to tip it, load it and carry it over without any assistance. I felt so Charley Parker. This was a huge leap from when we’d first gotten the bales. It started me thinking about how far we have come in the last nine months.

    Last night, my father walked in the house a little out of breath. I was cooking dinner while Henry, his friend Miles and Mike watched “Murder By The Book” on tru™ TV.

    “A couple that looked like Ma and Pa Kettle just drove up in a truck wondering if we’d lost any cows with black and white faces. I told them we hadn’t and they told me there were two calves on the main road near the logging road at the end of the property. The calves had been in the road and they’d gotten them to go down the logging road.”

   

We all looked at each other for a brief moment. My dad shrugged, Mike exhaled and I wiped my hands on a dishtowel. We all knew we were going after those calves.

    “I’ll get my boots,” Mike sighed.

    My dad nodded. “I’ve got to get to some leads from the barn.”

    “I’ll go with you, I’ll get some packer pellets, a bucket and I’ll grab Pancho’s treat dish in case we have to lure them. Boys? Look at me. Look at me. We’re going to try and catch some calves, so stay inside with the dogs. We’ve got to go before it gets any darker.”

    We grabbed our gear and hopped in the Odyssey.

    “At least they’re someone else’s cows,” Mike said what we were all thinking.

    “The couple that made Ma and Pa Kettle look like Jolie and Pitt said they got them to go down this road.” My dad remarked thoughtfully, as he considered the logistics. As we drove slowly down the road, I couldn’t believe the three of us wrangling cattle without hesitation. Not long ago, we’d have looked up and said, “What can we do about it?”

    We got out at the metal barrier that’s been put up to prevent cars from going any further, but we clearly saw tracks that went around it. We walked and walked and looked and mooed quite a bit actually, but no answer. These cows don’t wear bells. I could really understand the importance of bells right at this moment, standing in the near dark mooing for a lost cow. After driving around and around in the hopes we’d spot them we gave up.

    “Well, it’s not like they’ll go hungry. There’s so much grass now and streams all around us so they’ll have water,” My dad conceded.

    “And if they’re yearlings they’re not really coyote prey unless they’re injured.” Mike also tried to make peace with our defeat.

    “Maybe they’ll find our little herd; they will want to be with other cows,” I chimed in, feeling disappointed.

    “Well, at least we tried; we’d want someone to help us,” My dad said.

    “Yep,” Mike and I agreed in unison.

    “Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t find them. What if we had and we couldn’t get them. Then we’d really feel terrible,” Mike said, rationalizing, a bit of the past emerging.

    Now, as I drove the tractor to the compost heap with the stuff Mike had cleaned up, I felt as though I was at Disneyland™ on Autopia™. The tractor had carved deep ruts making this trip over and over during the rainy months. The center between the ruts rose quite high, keeping me on the strange track. It made me uncomfortable and out of control. I didn’t realize it was like this because Henry usually does it. While driving out there with my pile of cow dung, I passed my little Miracle and you know how your mind jumps around. I started thinking about my friend, Dawn; she used to teach with me and I had received a little note from her. The reason I thought of her during this particular moment was that she, Noelle, Kristina and Bruce (Mike Brady & Reporter Number 1) would purposely and unmercifully tell crude ass jokes at the lunch table. Now, I don’t consider myself a prude, I simply would say I am not one who finds humor in bodily functions. Gas is what I put in my car. To Tom it’s his life’s blood. Give me a little decorum please. Yet, here I am no longer hearing their ass jokes, but instead I’m covered in excrement from my own hairy ass.

    Two hours of cleaning the barn later, I decided to finish in the morning. I started dinner and read an email from a couple who are interested in my dad’s place. They said it sounded great and  thought they’d really enjoy the relaxed laid-back style of farm life.

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April 16th Tip Toe Through The Tulips

   

   

 

    I woke up early this morning had my coffee and showered. Clean. A feeling I used to take for granted.
I say this because, the other day when I went to Starbucks™ I had a wake-up-call. I ordered a grande drip per usual, the woman glanced at me the way women do when they take in your whole appearance and asked me if I worked at the refinery. Excuse me? I had on my spring ensemble, navy coveralls in a natural fiber with just a smattering of hay set off by well-worn leather boots with a hint of cow puckie,  my hair finished the look with a wind-swept ponytail.

    “I thought you might work at the refinery down the road.” Stunned I walked out in an emotional fog climbed in my car and sat for a moment. Distraught, I called my friend and designer extrodinaire, Julie. She did not offer any sympathy instead she laughed with complete abandon until she couldn’t breathe.

    "The refinery? I wish someone thought I worked at a refinery.”

    “What? Why?”

    “It’s just so different.”

     "Different? Different! It means I look like a complete wreck.” Without hesitation I immediately drove across the parking lot with my coffee hot in hand and walked in for an emergency pedicure. Pink,pink,pink. It gos without saying I got the flower.

    Today, lemon-verbena-clean with gleaming toes I was ready to take on the world. I dressed in my going to town pants, used product on my hair, wiped of my shoes of any stray grass and drove into town. I did my myriad of errands including driving down to Anacortes to get fingerprinted. You must be fingerprinted to work with children in any state and no state trusts another state to do anything. Each state it seems feels that they alone can investigate crime and educate children. No other state’s tests, credentials or curriculum are worthy when speaking to people in another state.

   

On the way, I saw Spring. Everywhere I looked the promise of new things and new ideas surrounded me.

    Henry called me from school and told me not to rush back he was invited over to a friend’s house. They were going to make up a dance or something or other for the talent show. So I stopped and smelled the flowers.   

When I picked Henry up, the most surprising thing happened. I made a friend, Zach’s mom, Tracy. For the next couple of hours we chatted, drank wine and laughed while the boys played.

    On the way home, I wondered just how much people get paid to work at the refinery.

March 29th Comes From Behind

An Icy View Of My Dad's Place And Our House From The Road - Today

(below) Grandpa Horn and Irish before the UCLA game

    Its a snowy wonderland from hell. I woke up this morning to as much snow as we’ve had this year. Enough is enough.

    Henry and I spent the day indoors mostly. We’ve been watching TRU TV. “Forensic Files” and “Murder By The Book”. We were watching one when an episode came on about the murder of Mickey Thompson. My dad was happening by and said, “Geez, you know that was so sad, Mickey was a great guy.”

    “Grandpa? You knew Mickey Thompson?” Henry was agog.

    “Yes, He was going to fund a film I was making, but he was killed before we put the deal together.” My dad replied seriously.

    “Do you want to watch this with us Grandpa?”

    “No. I know enough about it, and to tell you the truth UCLA is playing in just a few minutes. See y’guys later.”

    During commercial I happily went out to the car to get my brand spanking new vacuum cleaner. It’s the little things that brighten a girl’s day.  I don’t need jewelry I just want a DirtDevil™.

    That’s when I found them Pancho and Lefty were out again. The game. Drat. I was on my own. I didn’t even call, I didn’t want to hear the word no at this moment or I’d scream.
“Henry get your coat, put on gloves and I mean it, put on gloves. We’ve got to get the boys. They’re out again and I am going to have to fix that fence. I can’t take this happening every two and a half minutes.”

    Sensing I was on the verge of finding fault with just about anything right now, Henry put the show on pause and quickly got his gear on.

    We went and surveyed the damage.

I thought I’d fix it properly and went to get the DeWalt™. “If you don’t do it right it’s not worth doing” pounded in my head. I found the screws, drill bits, a hammer just in case and went down to mend my fence. Henry alternated between holding rails for me, trying to drill, keeping the cattle from going into the street, hammering and playing with Irish.

    While the snow fell like something out of a survival film I started pulling the rails down so I could get the thing together. Once done, I placed my drill bit in and started drilling a pilot hole so I wouldn’t split the wood. I wasn’t strong enough to get it all the way through. So I put the screwdriver tool on and put a screw in to finish it off. It split the wood. Henry came running when he heard all the yelling.

    “You ok?”
    “I’m fine. I’m mad at your father.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s not here and I need him and I’m cold and UCLA is playing that’s why. Now go keep Lefty from eating the rhododendron.”

    I went back to work. I put the rail back in place and tried nailing. I split the wood. I tried again. I split the wood. At this point, I got a spool of the not shiny wire and began weaving the rails together one after the other. I looked over toward the gate when I saw it move and couldn’t believe Henry had gotten Pancho in with the help of Irish.

    “Henry, that was amazing. You didn’t even have any treats.”
    “Thanks Mama, it was Irish. He’s a real cattle dog. He stayed behind him and seemed to understand what I wanted him to do.”

    Hmm. One in and the fence was done. Well, it might not be right, but it was done. Tom can fix it when he comes in a couple of weeks.

 

Now for Lefty and we could go get warm. As Lefty came toward me for the bucket of grain I was holding, Irish went into action. He thought he could come from the side and get Lefty in the gate, but it didn’t work. He scared Lefty and he ran full tilt toward the pond. Hungry, he turned around and came back. I scolded Irish and he seemed to understand what he did wrong. It was like hundreds of years of genetic programming had kicked in. He circled around Lefty’s side and came up from behind him slowly. I walked in front with the bucket yelling in my teacher voice “Step Up Boss! Step Up Now! Haw! Haw!” while Irish quietly but closely walked at Lefty’s heels lest he get any ideas. Henry manned the gate and in he went. Huzzah!!!

    Henry turned to me and said, "Mama, you need a shower." Covered in mud from head to toe, we put our tools away - or face Tom's wrath later. Fed the goats and Miracle. Gave them fresh water and closed up the barn for the night.

    After almost three hours we went inside and watched Mickey and Trudy Thompson get justice.

(my helper)

March 25th Dressed in White

Once again we woke up to light smattering of snow covering the landscape. While it is beautiful I’m ready more than ready for spring.

March 5th Signs

    Henry and I rushed to get in the car this morning headed for school, carrying our morning essentials: milk, oatmeal and coffee, just like any other day. Alas this was not to be like any other day. Instead, we were attacked. Suddenly, and without warning robins ambushed our car like Kamikaze pilots they flew at us without fear from all directions. It wasn’t until the very last moment they veered away in some game of – dare I say- chicken? I was completely unprepared. They were everywhere as we went down one long stretch of road. Thoughts of Tippi Hedren crept into my head. Then in a more rational moment I decided to settle down, I would ignore them and just keep going. They’re birds they’ll get out of the way for Heaven’s sake. No. No they didn’t. The car in front of us hit one and we watched as it bounced off. Not a great start to the morning watching the symbol of spring killed in front of you.

    Years ago, Chris and I were driving along Mulholland Highway in the very early morning and a crow hit my windshield. It was not a good sign of things to come. What does this mean?  Is this the end or the beginning of spring?

When I got home and started doing things around the house I counted twenty-seven robins a-bob-bob-bobbin-along. They looked so harmless. There was not a hint of the malevolent treachery they were capable of earlier. I walked outside and most took refuge in my apple trees above the pasture. They sang to me while I sipped my coffee from the porch. Then I heard a toad chime in. The toads are back. Spring has sprung.

(suspected felon in apple tree)

February 17th Wish You Were Here

    Anyone who has ever lived with a basset hound knows that basset hounds are silver-tongued master communicators, rivaling Reagan, when a basset hound starts aroo-roo-rooing, he will not be ignored. He is relentless; you might as well just give in and do what he says. They might be telling you a variety of things, from “I’m hungry”, “I need love”, “I want to ride in the car” to “I would make a good blanket if you’d hold still” to “You don’t really love me, if you really loved me I’d be sleeping on your bed”.

    I woke up to Luther moaning about needing to go out for his morning constitutional. For some reason, I popped up. Maybe because there was light in the sky and usually that means it’s 10:00AM, but I glanced at the clock and it was just quarter of eight. I laced up my boots, rolled up my green flannels with the pink on them and zipped up my new black down jacket with the fur-trimmed hood that I got for 70% off. Zapped a cup of coffee and was about to take Luther outside when I noticed the little boys, the Devons, were laying in the field. One looked odd and I thought something might be wrong so I headed for the barn to get some grain. If he didn’t get up for grain, I’d know there was a problem. I stepped outside and was amazed. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And the sun promised to come up from behind the hill. With a song in my heart, I walked to the barn. While I was there I fed Rachel, Christina, Alexander and Riley, as well as, Anna and our girl Miracle, who is kind of sulky these days since I haven’t gotten her packer pellets. I filled a bucket of grain. I started thinking of my mom. It’s her birthday. She passed a way a while ago, but she is still so present in my life, that I always want to celebrate her day. The dogs came with me as I grained the boys. They were all fine. As I was about to turn and go back to the house, I thought of my mom again and I just knew she would want to go on her birthday and have coffee by the beaver pond and just enjoy the beautiful morning. I turned back and started for the pond. When I arrived I couldn’t believe my eyes. There swimming in the pond were Canada geese. I counted them and as I got to eight I realized these were the eight goslings from last year when we first looked at the property. At least I think they are. Geese come back to the site of their birth so; I hope it’s them. The dogs were fascinated but never seemed aggressive. We all watched each other for a while and then headed back, drunk on sunshine.

   

When I got back, Henry was awake and watching “Myth Busters”. I made a fresh pot of coffee, went out on the porch in the sun and chatted with Tom for a bit. While I wasn’t looking Irish came up next to me and took a big gulp of coffee out of my cup. Unbelievable. Next, I called Dan Cramer about that hay. I’ve decided against it, money’s really tight and we have enough round bales to make it until the end of April even if we use two for the barn animals. Dan understood and told me he’d loan me a cart for the fifth grade movie we’re shooting in May. He proposed marketing a two-day wagon train excursion between his place and here. He told me his son was going to do a workshop on driving horses Tom and I should attend, he mentioned he still has 30lbs of hamburger for sale and finally he asked me if I knew anything about receiving grants. I told him I knew you had to be a non-profit and smart guy replied, “Well, from where I sit Denise, you’re about as non-profit as you can get.” Oh he laughed a belly laugh then pleased with himself. I had to admit, it was funny. I consoled myself with my clean car. I’m a Virgo.

   

Then Mike, Henry and I headed outside to clean the barn, brush the goats and enjoy being outdoors. I took Tom’s camera and snapped some shots.

(Henry enjoying the sun while he waits for us to fill the tractor)

    We walked to the pond to get some pictures of the geese, but to everyone’s disappointment they weren’t about. I’ll try again tomorrow morning. Henry skipped some stones and we walked along the edge of the pond.

You could see the pristine bottom which was wonderful, because we’ve been worrying about what discarded old junk might be lurking down there that might hurt the kids if they stepped on it, but not a thing except the rocks Henry’s been skipping. And some beaver poop. It’s not often you see beaver poop, because it’s almost always in the water. The poop is very light because it’s the color of wood shavings after all it’s just little compressed wood pellet. So we all just stood there on the dock looking at the beaver poop awhile wondering if we could poke it with a stick. This made me think of my mom again. I suspect beaver excrement is not something that reminds most people of their deceased mothers on their birthday. However, my mother was the best of “Auntie Mame”, when she went to Africa on safari, she took pictures of animals pooping. In fact, she really quite proud of an action shot she got of a cheetah doing her business.

My mother said this one of the things nature shows always left out and kids should see. She taught second grade. Yes, my mother would have loved the beaver poop examination.

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January 22nd Time Flies

    This is the kind of day of children’s fantasies. Our first, “Snow Day” not to be confused with our first day of snow. This means to the delight of children throughout Whatcom County that school is canceled. Henry couldn’t have been happier; he grabbed his sled, Luther and headed for “Coyote Hill”. It is the undoubtedly the best sledding around. Up and down, up and down, up and down he went. The dogs racing around after him.

Sometime later he came in for a change of clothes and some warm Chai tea, my son likes the finer things. He hadn’t banked on my  teacher-side kicking in. I told him that some time this afternoon he’d have to sit down finish any homework he still had and do some reading. Cold, frosty and soaked to the skin he actually didn’t mind, but insisted I come out for a while after I finished doing my research.

    I didn’t feel like going out into the cold snowy day, but I didn’t know when we’d get the chance to spend this kind of time together - time goes so fast. I put on my jacket and trudged up the hill with my saucer. I have to admit, we had a great time. We laughed and rolled in the snow. Up and down, up and down, up and down we went.