Someday

Dec17

Today we burned Piper’s couch. No question about it, the couch was Piper’s. The other dogs didn’t use it, people didn’t use it. It was essentially one gigantic dog bed. Once she was gone the empty couch was too much of a visual reminder of the big hole in our lives. Nobody wanted to sit on it, and nobody wanted to look at it, we replaced it with a Christmas tree, thew it outside and decided that burning it in honor of Piper was the only thing to do.

I’ve never burned a couch.

It’s impressive.

And just so you know years of dog drool do nothing as a flame retardant.

As we work on getting along without our big dog we have of course not forgotten our other two. But Uncle Weasel puts it something like this; once you have that super, special, great, fantastic dog, there is a really good chance that no matter how wonderful the next one is, it won’t be worth more than a pimple on the butt of the first. He’s eloquent isn’t he? Eloquently stated or not, it’s a truth that even Ivy recognizes. Or as she said to me just minutes after we said goodbye to Piper: “It’s OK Mom, someday Trip will be a good dog too.” I’m sure she’s right. Currently Trip is a goofy, loveable, trouble making puppy but someday he’ll grow up into a good dog. He’s just not quite there yet, for instance look at this picture:No, you’re not supposed to be looking at the fact that I have an open Allergy Free Cooking With Ease cook book and a box of spice cake mix on the counter at the same time. It’s the puppy on the other side of the window I’d like to draw your attention to.

Notice how he’s in the window?

Yup, that’s a window box he’s standing in.

Notice how you can’t see his head and his butt is suspiciously high in the air?

Yup, he’s digging a hole in my window box.

Someday he’ll be a good dog.

Someday.

Saying Goodbye

Dec13

We had to say our final goodbyes to Piper today.

She was the best snow loving,

pheasant hunting,

kid tolerant,

bed hogging,

couch loving,

Great Dane in the world.

We’ll miss her forever.

Where Mom, Where?

Dec8

Clara has always been very concerned about where people are. It’s not unusual for us to run though a long list of family and friends throughout the day identifying who is at work, home or elsewhere. If those people have dogs we have to do a run down of those too. Tonight we picked up our friend Jessie’s dog Finley and that started Clara off.

Where Jessie Mom?

Where Cooper Mom? (Jessie’s other dog)

Where Ivy Mom?

Where Dad Mom?

Where Piper Mom?

Where Storm Mom?

Where Trip Mom?

Where rat go Mom?

-Wait what?! How did a rat get in the list of family pets?!!? Well, as much as I would like to feign ignorance of our rodent issues, Christmas is coming and if Santa isn’t a fan of pouting and crying I’m thinking I better not lie either…

A few weeks ago I heard rodent noises under the kitchen sink, I opened the cupboard but didn’t see anything other than un-tripped empty mouse and rat traps. Then I heard rustling in the drawers next to the sink. Irritated that a mouse was boldly rummaging around when I was right there I opened and slammed shut multiple drawers in some odd misguided attempt to either scare it away or squish it. Instead a giant rat leaped out and almost landed on my feet. What followed I’m ashamed to admit was that girly scream that I seem to reserve just for rats – which then caused chaos to break out in the house. Clara stood up on her kitchen chair at the table and start crying, the rat disappeared, Piper tried to knock down the pet gate into the kitchen to follow it and John yelled down from upstairs wondering if everyone was OK.

In my defense I had bare toes.

Anyways, I’m not surprised that Clara is still talking about the rat.

Clara -” Where rat go Mom?”

Me- “I don’t know where do you think it went?”

Clara- “Pantry…. You shoot rat in pantry Mom?”

Me- “No. We don’t shoot things in the house.”

Clara- “Uncle Tyler shoot rat Mom?”

Me- “Not in the house.”

Clara- “Where Uncle Tyler Mom?”

Me- “At his house.”

Clara – “He cut up deer Mom?”

Me – (shit)

Fortunately I was able to derail Clara from rats and cutting up deer by talking about Uncle Tyler’s truck he was fixing. Now if I could just keep her from ending every sentence with “Mom” I’d really be getting somewhere!

Five Under Five

Dec7

When my friend Sarah and I started having kids, we started at just about the same time. We’d get together, have fun with our two babies, take piles of pictures and go home rested. Then we each had another… and then she had one more. Now with five kids under the age of five we take no pictures, think that we possibly had fun and go home exhausted. Last weekend we saw each other for just a few hours and I was determined to get a picture. The kids were clearly unimpressed by my efforts and I don’t blame them – these are not my best pictures ever.

But crazy monster faces and stick to the forehead aside no one is actually crying and we do now have proof that they’ve all been together – I’m calling it a success.

Uncle Tyler

Nov30

The girls have many uncles but the one they spend the most time with is my brother, Uncle Tyler.

Which is good because little princesses need a healthy dose of Uncle Tyler every now and then. As much farming and hunting that we do we just can’t compete with the fascination of Uncle Tyler. For starters he’s not us, so therefore he is automatically cooler in the eyes of his nieces. Second of all he shoots more stuff and happily shows the girls what he’s doing as well as finds them cool things to see and trees to climb. He also is fascinatingly dirty while he’s hunting – that’s really here nor there just a good side note. Grime aside they were excited to see him so many days last week. Since all the time spent with Tyler was the middle of the gun season it involved an extra amount of grime and plenty of opportunity to check out the hunters successes. The girls happily went with him to see dead deer while he showed them who shot which deer and what he was doing when he helped butcher them.

Clara told everyone “Tyler shoot big buck” with her arms in the air for emphasis just in case anyone missed his bow deer of a few weeks ago. Then after John shot a very nice doe she added “Dad shoot done” (rhymes with stone) to her deer hunting talk. She got rides from Uncle Tyler and anyone else who would carry her to and from the shed to see the deer every chance she got. Ivy took her friend in to see all the deer and was perhaps a little miffed when she wasn’t interested in identifying carcasses with Ivy and instead bolted for the door. In short my girls are not afraid of dead things and they love their Uncle Tyler so I was more than a bit taken aback by Clara’s bedtime conversation with me the other night:

Clara: Uncle Tyler shoot big buck!
Me: Yup.
Clara: Dad shoot big doe! (we worked on pronunciation since last weekend)
Me: Yup.
Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up dad doe.
Me: Yup he helped. (A clarification to pacify those who did cut up Johns doe (Thank you!) Tyler did not in fact cut up that deer, but he cut up some others and I was trying to get the girl to go to sleep since she was up and talking far past bedtime.)

Then there was a thoughtful silence, followed by a very worried:

Clara: Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

Me: No Clara, Uncle Tyler would never cut you up. (shit… and excuse my language but there is really no other phrase that better suits the fact that at 8:45 at night your two year old is suddenly worried that her beloved Uncle is going to carve her up like a deer.)

Clara: Uncle Tyler have big knife….. Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

So we talked about all the fun things that her Uncle Tyler likes to do with her and the conversation was going well until I mentioned that he likes to climb trees with her.

Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up trees!

Me: (shit!)

Fifteen minutes and one futile phone call to Uncle Tyler later(Tell me please – is there anything more annoying than a brother who falls asleep before your daughter, who is awake because of him???) I had her mostly convinced that her Uncle was not going to cut her up because she is not meat, and he wouldn’t do that even if he does have a big knife. She finally fell asleep and I haven’t heard any more about it since.

This weekend we will again be spending time with Uncle Tyler. The girls are already excited and I’m just crossing my fingers that we’ll all be able to sleep when we get home!

Thanksgiving Miracles

Nov28

We have Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad’s side of the family every year. I know Christmas is supposed to be the time for miracles but I think in this family the miracles come early.

Most of the miracles revolve around the fact that 45 people gathered at my aunt and uncles to eat dinner together. This means that not only is it miraculous that my aunt can seat (that’s right, you heard me – seat) 45 people in her house at once but that we have that many family members willing to show up with a side dish for the evening! The house, I feel I must mention, is a very normal house. IE: it’s not actually made to seat 45. Instead I’m pretty sure they are somehow able bend the natural occurring laws of space in order to fit enough tables and people inside it once a year – miracle. The turkeys (you need a lot of turkeys to feed this crowd… and a ham) are delicious and left overs usually go to feed a slightly smaller contingency of the family lunch the next day after they finish butchering the years deer harvest. A mere two days later and a giant feast has been mostly reduced to crumbs and turkey carcasses.

No one else was interested in the remnants of the turkey (or perhaps it was that we excitedly jumped up and down and called dibs on it) so we came home yesterday with a giant bucket of bones, giblets and necks… mmm mmm mmm! John pulled out our turkey fryer in order to find a pot large enough and spent the night making turkey stock. Today after picking bones for an hour (did I mention it was a really big pot???) he had it all ready to go. Normally we would just divide and freeze all the stock but our freezer space is limited this year. I’m not sure what happened but apparently one pig, two deer, 7 chickens, a turkey and assorted fruits just fill the thing right up. The Thanksgiving space making miracle unfortunately does not seem to apply to my freezer so after dividing up and freezing about a gallon of it we pulled out … the pressure canner.

I’ve only had the pressure canner for a few years, and up until today it had been used solely to can venison – a lot of venison– but just venison. While regular hot water bath canning doesn’t phase me much anymore the pressure canner always seems a bit intimidating. Our brief history together has been a rocky love/hate relationship. First there is the fact that I always have to double check the instructions, how long to vent the steam, how much water to add, stuff like that, which then turns me into a neurotic instruction checker even though I know the basic steps. Suddenly I can’t help but consult my instructions every five seconds, which of course makes everything take twice as long, except when I lose my instruction booklet every ten seconds… then it takes three times as long. When I actually get everything going and the steam is spitting out the top and the little pressure doohickey is spinning round and making crazy noises and I’m crossing my fingers I haven’t screwed anything up and if I did that the 50 thousand safety release valves this canner seems to have will save me, ( I have a vivid memory of Granny making chicken soup in a pressure cooker that involves a stained ceiling that I should endeavor not to think about when using the canner.) and I’m worried that even if we survive the pressure it might all be a broken catastrophe inside when I open it up again, that’s when I’m afraid I really sort of hate the canner. Then just when I get in the groove, remember how things work, force myself to leave the instruction booklet alone and push my fear of the giant spitting pot to the back of my mind I start worrying that I’m going to screw up and poison my whole family with botulism or some other fantastic disease like that.

But so far – so far – it’s always gone well. Things have not exploded and burned body parts have been kept to a minimum. I’ve only ever had one jar break and my family is still alive and kicking. Today when I finally got to pull out the still bubbling jars and only sort of burned my thumb I looked at all 16 pints of turkey stock lined up on the counter ready NOT to go in the freezer and had a change of heart. I stared at the still slightly boiling jars, I listened to the seals pop closed, I marveled at the fact that I could put it all on the floor of the pantry and nothing would get damaged by rodents and that’s when I had my own mini Thanksgiving miracle and re-fell in love with the pressure canner.

Pink and Blue

Nov21

Just in case you missed it I’d like you to know that Ivy loves pink.

In case she wasn’t the one to tell you that I”ll just quick clarify that her favorites are dark pink and dark purple, she wouldn’t want you to be confused about that.

She also loves, horses, fairy’s and princesses.

Ivy is my daughter who goes to pick pumpkins in an outfit like this:

I love the girl but ~~some days~~ most days the girly girl stuff completely baffles me. (Skirts in November? Why Ivy, why?)

Then there is my bug lover Clara.

She also loves dogs, shopping and her “pink blanket” which is green.

Clara is baffling for other reasons. (Shopping?!? Real shopping and pretend?)

Love of shopping aside I must say that it warmed this mothers heart more than reasonable when Clara and I were looking at a book together and she said:

“Me wike boo Mom.”

After four years of all pink all the time, I think I’m ready to add a bit of blue!

The Unappreciated Cat

Nov18

I was thinking about the cat today and how she’s really rather unappreciated in my blogging world. I double checked and discovered that there are five tags on posts with “cats” and 41 for “dogs”. It just so happens that I took this picture of her the other day so I thought it would be a great opportunity to share a little Fiona story.

That’s when I came to the realization that she’s not under appreciated.

She’s just boring.

In addition to boring she is also frighteningly outperformed in her cat duties by one large Great Dane.

Cat duty: Spend the day sleeping in the sun in an inconvenient place.

Fiona – check

Piper -Sleeps in an inconvenient place but takes up 20 times more room and when you oust her from that place sighs loudly and often farts in your general direction as she moves off.

Cat duty: Kills rodents or other small animals.

Fiona – Doesn’t know what to do with a mouse when given to her on a silver platter.

I know I’ve tried.

Piper- Kills rats with relish. Also death on possum, skunk and other small creatures that invade her kingdom.

Cat duty: Being a general cuddly animal.

Fiona – Waits until you are almost settled in your chair/bed/what have you and then sits on you. If you attempt to remove her she will somehow sink her freakishly sharp back claws into you on her way off.

Piper – Such a good cuddler that I actually kicked John out of bed late in pregnancy with Ivy in favor of Pipers back warming skills.

Fiona also is worse about stealing food off the table and pukes in the house more than Piper does.

To top it off I prefer blogging with pictures, while Fiona is a beautiful cat her coloring makes taking a good picture of her very difficult. This is exacerbated by the fact that she is a cat so immediately looks annoyed and haughty while turning her head away from me while I try.

I’m no longer confused about why the dog posts have outnumbered the cats.

Oh Teddy!

Nov16

Last night Clara’s toy of the moment was an old beanie baby style stuffed teddy bear. The bear has seen better days part of an ear has been mostly chewed off by Storm, it’s got the distinctive slobber crusted fur of an animal that’s been loved by Piper and Clara has gotten into the unappealing habit of sucking on one of it’s paws.

But looks aside, Clara loves her Teddy.

(Pretend there is a nice cute picture of Clara holding her Teddy here because that is really what this post should have. While you are at it pretend I’m a computer whiz and am not still arguing with my computers.)

Last night I listened to her talking to her Teddy, it went a little something like this:

“Oh Teddy!!!” Translation: Oh Teddy I’m so happy to see you!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Yes I love you too.

“Oh Teddy?” Translation: Are you cold?

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Here I have snuggled you under blankets is that should be much better.

“Oh Teddy!” Translation: Come on out and play!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: I love you.

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what she was saying!