Everyone, Meet Cora

Cora, meet everyone.

Yes, we have welcomed yet another animal onto our little sheep ranch, and it's another free horse.

Cora came from the same place as Bill the pony. She was a working ranch horse that was deemed too lazy for regular ranch work, but her placid disposition meant she would be a good kid horse. The kids she was kept for didn't end up riding her, though, so we got a call from the boys' former teacher--from whom we got Bill--asking if we would like to take her.

This was very good timing, as all the children were lamenting the fact that we no longer have a full-size horse to ride.

Her name had been Dottie, which none of us cared for much. When I was talking to the lady about her, it was mentioned that she has a white mark on her rump that looks like a heart. "Corazon" is Spanish for heart, so I suggested calling her Cora. This was met with unanimous approval--something of a miracle in our household of rampant individualists--and so she is now Cora.

You can kind of see the mark there if you look closely.

She hasn't been ridden in about a year, so she'll need some re-training. She does seem quite calm, though, which I appreciate. She didn't even flinch at the dogs barking a foot from her face when she was drinking from the water trough right next to the fence.

The dogs remain alert for any misbehavior.

I went out this morning to find her and Bill just standing there in the corral staring at each other, and she came right over for her hay.

Tucking in.

She's a bit plump, so she'll be on reduced rations and an exercise regimen for awhile until she gets a little more svelte. Luckily, we have four young equestrians who are more than happy to make sure she gets all the exercise she needs. 

No horse on earth will be as safe around children as good old Samson, but I think Cora will do nicely. We're happy to have her, and I hope she'll be happy to be here.

Farewell To a Good Old Horse

Sadly, today we had to say good-bye to Samson. 

He was the horse all our children learned to ride on. He was extraodinarily well-trained, and had a remarkably gentle and steady temperament. I trusted him with my children, even when they were toddlers, and he never hurt any of them.

                                        

However, he was very, very old. We don't know exactly how old, but he was probably in his mid-20s, which is notably old for a horse as large as he was.

He came to us because his old teeth were no longer up to rangeland grazing. He spent his final years with us eating hay and senior horse feed, taking the children on rides, sometimes herding sheep, and hanging around with Bill the pony.

A pretty good horse retirement. But it had to end sometime, and now it has.

So long, Samson. You will be missed.

House Progress . . . and Rabbits

 

So! When we last left our intrepid house-rehabber, he had pulled down the ceilings and was slowly and arduously wheelbarrowing the detritus into the dumpster parked outside the house. He also continued removing paneling from the walls to expose the original stone or plaster, revealing all the many colors the house was painted inside at one point.

He definitely filled that dumpster, which was picked up last week, but he did not quite finish the clean-up. Even absent that handy dumpster, however, the work must go on, so he started filling trash cans and old feed tubs for transport to the dump.

There are still a couple of rooms that need to be cleaned up, but it's beginning to look more like a house that can be worked on, rather than a house that should just be razed.

It's a long time before we will be inhabiting this house, but we've moved in some new tenants in the meantime.

Hasenpfeffer!

We have, in the past, discussed getting meat rabbits, but I'm always reluctant to add yet more animals to our menagerie. Unlike A. and the children, who want allll the animals. 

However, when our neighbor asked us if we would like to take his granddaughter's 4-H meat rabbits--she's no longer doing 4-H, and he's a cattle rancher, not a rabbit-fancier--I couldn't really say no. He wouldn't even take any money for the rabbits. Or the home-built hutch he insisted we take, as well. Or the half-full bag of rabbit food he likewise bestowed upon us.

So now we have six meat rabbits. Two bucks, and four does. 

Our neighbor had them all in the hutch, but we felt bad having them in such a small enclosure.

Jasper sat here by the hutch for HOURS the day we brought the rabbits home. He wasn't the least aggressive, interestingly, he just appeared fascinated. Maybe he thought they needed herding.

Rabbits can actually be somewhat difficult to keep in, due to their habits of digging and gnawing. That's why we put them on the concrete porch of the casita next door. No rabbit is gnawing or digging out of a concrete-floored room with concrete walls. 

We were originally going to separate the bucks with two does each by having the white ones in the casita and the brown ones in the hutch, but we decided instead to put a divider down the center of the casita porch so the brown ones have more room, too. A. is going to do that today.

We might have to use the hutch to separate the bucks after the does have babies, because we're not sure how aggressive and problematic the bucks might become with the young. To be honest, we're not sure about anything, because we've never had rabbits before.

We'll learn, though. And isn't that what life is all about? Growing and learning every day?

Right. Or something.

Waiting on the World To Change

It is currently 31 degrees, dry, and windy. But when I get up tomorrow it will be snowing. And it will continue snowing most of tomorrow and tomorrow night.

I was not dreaming of a white Thanksgiving, if only because it makes animal care so much more difficult. They still need food and water, even if their hay is covered in six inches of snow and the outside tap is frozen. And even if the power goes out, which is a distinct possibility.

So I took some measures to ensure that no matter what happens tomorrow, I can feed and water our growing menagerie without too much aggravation.

First I placed a large tub in A.'s office--which has a door leading directly into the shop--and filled it with water. That way I'll have plenty of water to put in buckets for the horse, chickens, and dogs, with or without a functioning tap or water pump.

No one needs to go in and out of that door anyway, right?

I used some rocks to secure a tarp over part of Samson's hay in the pasture, because it's not under cover and if it snows as much as they think it will, he might have a hard time getting to it. I might have to dig the tarp out a bit, but at least once it's moveable, I can just flip it off to uncover the dry hay underneath.

For the chickens, I cooked a couple of the greenish pumpkins from the volunteer plants. They'll probably stay in their coop for a couple of days, and having food for them to peck at keeps them from pecking at each other.

And finally, for the humans, Poppy and I made chocolate chip cookies.

I suppose we could eat some pumpkin, too, but cookies sounded much more appealing.

Okay, Mama N. I'm ready as I'll ever be. Bring on the Thanksgiving snow. (But not too much, okay? Thanks.)

Some Pig

I spent my afternoon sitting in a chair with a snotty, snoring baby on my lap, because that is where she finally fell asleep and I was afraid she would wake up if I got up. I sat there for three and a half hours, getting up only once for about two minutes to let the dog in, take the meat out of the oven, and pee.

I could do this--and Poppy could sleep peacefully in my lap in the living room--because A. took the boys to the circus. It's a small traveling circus that does a performance every year in the school gymnasium. It's apparently a pretty good circus. Last year, Cubby and Charlie went with A. and came home with a picture of the two of them with a python draped around their shoulders.

Better them than me.

This year the python wasn't in attendance, but Roscoe the pig was. In a fun coincidence, today was Roscoe's birthday. He turned five.

He's big for his age.

Jack loved the pig and ran right up to it. Charlie was not such a fan. A. mentioned that Roscoe seems to relish his life as a circus performer, perhaps because of all the spilled popcorn he gets to eat.

I would have liked to have seen the circus, but I probably would have had a similar reaction to Charlie's when faced with a large pig on a pedestal, so I suppose it's for the best that I stayed home.

Good Ole Dog Mia

There is no denying that my baby dog Mia is old. She's almost twelve, which is not young for any dog, but is particularly advanced in age for a large dog.

She's stiff and gimpy, thanks no doubt to some arthritis in her shoulder. I suppose this is a natural result of being the World's Biggest Collie (seriously, she's 80 pounds and looks like a mastiff up close) and having a very active life. She takes a pill for pain every day, as well as a pee-pee pill for incontinence.

She's pretty shaky in the legs, and is particularly unstable on the slick wood floors in the kitchen. Too bad, since that's her favorite place to be. She still patrols the kitchen for dropped food, but then retreats immediately to the stability of the rug in the living room.

She has a benign tumor on her eyelid. Fortunately, it's so cold here that when she stays outside during very cold weather--which she will do, even if it's below zero--the tumor will actually freeze off. I find this natural cryosurgery hilarious and joke that we should open a cryosurgery clinic. It would be so easy: Just go outside and expose your mole to the weather! Done!

She can't take any kind of heat anymore and starts panting when the house gets to 70 degrees.

But despite all these things, she's still happy and amazingly active. She's been trudging through the snow in the back field lately to get to the beaver carcass A. put out there to draw wild animals and study their tracks. He thought it was too far for Good Ole Dog Mia to bother with, but she was determined.

She still goes on walks, though we have to shut her in the house for her own good if it's going to be a particularly long one or if it's too warm outside for her.

And she still watches over the hairless puppies:

Or maybe she just wants to steal the blanket. Either way, she's still a good dog.

The North Country Larder

This morning I had to confiscate a rubber bracelet imprinted with "Jesus Loves You," because it was being treated as a giant rubber band projectile by my precious little gifts from God.

Jesus loves you, but not when you try to take out your brother with a Sunday school bracelet.

Anyway. That has nothing to do with the rest of this post, which is all about a beaver. Or rather, about another beaver*.

And here it is, with its eventual consumers.

That photo, by the way, is totally staged. Jack is holding a trap, which he is not normally allowed to handle. Cubby is holding a hatchet, which he is normally allowed to handle but which doesn't play any part in the trapping of the beaver. And Charlie didn't even go to check the trap, instead just running out for the photo op when the real trappers returned with the rodent and then going back into the warm house to continue building with Tinker Toys. He's holding the trap setting tool. What a fraud.

Anyway again.

Now that A. has trapped another beaver, I am required to make beaver tacos again. I can do without them, personally, but the kids love them. Like LOVE LOVE them. They talk all the time about the beaver tacos we had last year, so of course, when they saw this beaver, they were all, "YAY! Beaver tacos!"

A. and I are less enthusiastic. Beaver meat is okay, but it's awfully . . . red. I know that sounds weird, but it's really, really red, in an almost disturbing way. Kind of like liver, and man, I really hate liver.

No matter, though! It's not about me. A. did all the cutting and trimming of the meat for me, so all I have to do is cook it. Which I did by putting the meat in some water to come to a boil, and then forgetting it was on there when I took Jack down for his nap. I came upstairs to a stove covered in boiled-over beaver juice.

It is about as appetizing as it sounds, yes.

I got that cleaned up, though, and now have the meat successfully simmering gently on the stove. I also have a grouse in the refrigerator to cook. A. shot it when he was deer hunting. Grouse I can wholeheartedly recommend. They taste like really good chicken.

Beaver in the pot, grouse in the refrigerator. It's a northwoods kitchen for sure.

* I just realized I never responded to a person in the comments of that post who asked if we have a lot of beavers in our area and what kind of trap A. uses. The answers are: There are a TON of beavers here. A. is trapping them at a neighbor's hunting cabin, where there are so many that the cabin is in danger of being submerged in the ever-expanding beaver pond. And the traps A. uses are instant kill traps set under water, so they're very humane.

Fodder in the Playroom

Yesterday evening I was upstairs doing dishes when I heard the children shrieking from downstairs, "SHEEP IN THE HOUSE! THE SHEEP ARE IN THE HOUSE!"

I went downstairs to find the four remaining rams milling around in the kids' bedroom.

Super.

A. was moving their fence, so they were wandering around and apparently wandered right through the downstairs door that one of the children left open.

They were happy enough to follow me back outside, though. After all, it's not as if there was any corn in the kids' bedroom.

I did not run upstairs to get the camera to take a photo for you, because I really wanted them out of the house quickly.

I shut the door and went to find A. "Your sheep were just in the kids' bedroom," I said. "But at least they didn't poop in there*."

"That's a good story," he replied. "Good blog fodder, right?"

As if our whole lives aren't blog fodder without even trying.

Then, when the kids were picking up downstairs before bed, they discovered that while the sheep hadn't pooped in their bedroom, they HAD pooped in the playroom.

Even more super.

Luckily, sheep poop is relatively dry and inoffensive and easy to clean up. Easy for A. to clean up, anyway, because I certainly wasn't doing it. And the boys, of course, found the whole thing HILARIOUS.

Come on, cold weather. We need to do some more slaughtering.

* It's important to be cool when dealing with things like sheep. Otherwise you'd spend all your time getting hysterical about things like livestock in your house.

Hello, Neighbor

Yesterday as I was plating up dinner, I happened to look out the kitchen window to see a strange man in the spruce trees right under the window. He disappeared in the direction of the barn.

Uhhhh . . .

Luckily, A. was home. I informed him of the man wandering around our house and he went outside to see what was going on. Cubby wanted to go out, too, but I made him stay inside. Always best in an uncertain situation to not have a seven-year-old on the scene, don't you think?

Before A. found the man, I heard the man talking to something and I thought, "Oh, maybe he's trying to get his dog back." And then I heard a bell.

Ah. Cows.

Sure enough, there were two cows standing by the electric fence around the sheep pen. They were staring at the sheep. The sheep stared back. And yelled, of course.

The man was our neighbor from the trailer compound--three trailers, one clan of a varying number of related people that cycle in and out--about a mile down the road. His two dairy cows had gotten through his electric fence and decided to visit their ovine neighbors. Luckily, he found them before they ate my garden.

I've been on the other side of this situation enough to feel nothing but sympathy for the poor man chasing his livestock around the neighborhood. Though I will say that the cows seemed a lot more docile and easy to maneuver than sheep.

A. helped him catch the cows so he could put a rope halter around their necks and lead them home. Cubby and I looked out the front door to see him walking back down the road, leading his cows back home and presumably planning on reinforcing his fence.

Welcome to the north country, where a strange man crashing through your shrubbery just means that cows have gone walkabout.

Return of the Sheep

(I'm hoping at least one of you is close enough to my pop-music generation to start singing that title in your head to the tune of "Return of the Mack.")

A. has been inexorably moving towards getting some sheep for a month now. First he brought his electric net fencing up from Blackrock and used it to make a pen. Then he made a gate for the pen out of trees he cut in the woods. Then he bought some cattle panels to put around the sides of his trailer to make it safe for sheep transport. Then he got his trailer re-registered and inspected.

And then, this morning . . .

They're baa-ck. (Of course that was terrible. You expect anything less from me?)

He went to Vermont to buy five ram lambs. The white ones are a Romney-Texel cross, and the darker ones are a Dorset-Texel cross. (That's for those of you out there who know what those breeds are, and care. I must confess I am not one of those people.)

The sole purpose of these lambs is to eat grass all summer and then feed us all winter. We will not be overwintering animals in this arctic climate. A. originally thought he might sell some of the finished lambs at auction, but now he thinks he's just going to butcher all five of those. By himself, because I will be about 9 months pregnant with Child #4 and in no mood to be dealing with five carcasses.

Though I am not enthused about having sheep around again, I must admit these seem to be quite docile and quiet sheep, in direct contrast to my infamous nemesis, Bonnie the Cotswold. A. also reminded me that I should be thankful he only got rams. No one wants ram lambs around after they outgrow the cute lamb stage. Had he purchased any ewe rams, he would probably have been unable to bring himself to dispatch them in the fall, and then we would be right in the thick of sheep flocks again.

At the moment all five lambs are working away at the overgrown grass in their pen, unwittingly preparing themselves for their ultimate fate. And A. is a happy (if temporary) shepherd once again.

The New Dog That Wasn't

Do I know how to set up a cliffhanger or what? Not intentionally, though. I just got busy with our wild spring break at Blackrock* and never sat down to tell you about the dog.

Now I will.

A. took all three boys for a walk on Friday after dinner while I was doing the dishes, and when they came home, Cubby burst in to announce that a brown dog had followed them home. The brown dog was shortly thereafter in my house, because Charlie let it in.

Woah there, cowboys. What just happened here?

What just happened was that this lab/pit bull-ish mutt more or less moved into the family.

We assumed it was a stray. It wasn't wearing a collar. It had been running on a road near us literally on the Canadian border that's pretty unpopulated. We thought it had been dumped.

The dog certainly was happy to be part of our crew. It played with the kids as long as they were outside before bed, so we had the opportunity to note that it wasn't aggressive in the least, which was good. When the kids came in for bed, it sat on our front steps for a couple of hours, then started scratching at the door.

A. felt sorry for it--"it" was actually a female, so "she"--and gave her some dinner. When it was time for us to go to bed, A. decided to put her in his garage/office, because it was going to be near freezing and the dog didn't have much of a coat.

The next morning, I let her out hoping it would find her way home, if home was nearby.

She didn't.

I made up some "Found Dog" signs and posted them at the dump, the post office, and the general store. We knocked on a few doors on the road the dog had been on, but there was no one home anywhere. When it was time for us to leave at 3 p.m. for Blackrock, no one had called, the dog seemed unwilling to go anywhere, and A. didn't want to leave her to fend for itself.

So we brought her along to Blackrock. By this time, the children had named her Friday. Because she was found on Good Friday. Also, like Robinson Crusoe, though they didn't get the literary reference. What are they teaching kids in school these days?

Friday the dog seemed quite happy at Blackrock, as all dogs are. She and Sky became fast friends and played non-stop. She found some ancient deer bones to gnaw on and sniffed out some rabbits in the hollow.

And then, on Monday, her owner called.

Turns out he lives on the road she was found on. He said the dog runs off a lot (which begs the question of why the hell he doesn't put a collar with tags on her). And then A. had to tell him that yes, we still have your dog, but, uh, we're 250 miles away. And we took her with us.

Kind of embarrassing.

Anyway. Friday's name was really Emma. The children were sad to hear that Emma-Friday would not be a permanent member of our family. I was not too sad when her owner came to pick her up after we got home today. I really don't feel the need for another dog at this moment. Although I'm afraid this whole episode may have accelerated our timeframe for getting another dog.

But at the moment, I'm enjoying the peace of having only one old dog to deal with. And the old dog is pretty happy about that, too.

* It really was wild. One night A. and I left the kids with the MiL and went to dinner at a Turkish restaurant. At this stage of our lives, that's equivalent to tequila shots in Rocky Point.

Unappetizing

I was planning on making meatloaf for dinner tonight. I made tuna noodle casserole last night, which I think means that I am a 1960's housewife, right? Except my tuna noodle casserole didn't involve any cream of anything soup from a can, and I had to use 100% corn pasta instead of regular gluten-laden noodles. It was still good, though.

Anyway. Meatloaf.

Meatloaf requires ground beef. The ground beef is in the big freezer downstairs. Also in the big freezer downstairs, unfortunately directly in front of the ground beef, is a garbage bag full of raccoon skins awaiting tanning*.

We had ham steaks instead. Because I could reach those without hauling out the raccoons.

Deer hearts in the car and raccoon skins in the freezer. This is life in the woodchuck lane.

* A. gets them tanned and uses the tanned hides to make hats and mittens for the kids. Fur mittens are the only thing that will always keep their hands warm. So I acknowledge the raccoons' utility, but I begrudge them freezer space nonetheless. 

A Canine In Memoriam

It seems appropriate that today, the eve of the day set aside to remember fallen soldiers, we should be saying goodbye to Otty.

Otty was, of course, a dog, but a fierce soldier nonetheless in defense of Blackrock. Possibly the fiercest of them all, as a matter of fact. She barked at ospreys and other large birds that she considered a threat, as well as those suspicious bicycles on the road and anyone who had the temerity to run or walk past the house. She attacked raccoons, woodchucks, and possums without fear. She was the one who dragged back so much delicious carrion in the fall left behind by hunters.

She was a good dog to have around.

Unfortunately, she got sick on Thursday. The MiL thought she had a fever and decided to call the vet in the morning if she wasn't better on Friday morning. She wasn't, so the MiL made an appointment to take her to the vet at 11 a.m. Friday, but at 10 a.m., Otty was nowhere to be found. We looked everywhere on the property, and the MiL even searched the gully, but we couldn't find her.

A. found her this morning. She was under the forsythia hedge in the back. The MiL had looked there, but I guess Otty had crawled in there after that. She was dead, and had been for some time. 

A. buried her on the edge of the garden by the blackberry bushes, the only spot where the ground wasn't too hard to dig. We'll put up a marker for her tomorrow and decorate her grave with flowers. A fitting Memorial Day tribute to a brave dog.

Good bye, Ottoline. Happy hunting in the sweet by and by.

Let the Puppy Games Begin

Okay, are you ready? I want everyone to take a deep breath before you view this photo, the better to make the appropriate exclamation. Here we go . . .

Awwwwww. 

That's Sky. He's a ten-week-old rough Blue Merle* collie puppy that the MiL brought home yesterday. He's her retirement gift to herself, but of course, she must share him with the small boys of the household.

Cubby has more or less not left the puppy's side since his arrival.

It's very cute.

Charlie likes the puppy, but is not so attentive.

Still cute, though.

Jack is mostly disinterested.

Puppies are okay, but not as fun as the ducks.

As for the older dogs . . . Mia is resigned to her fate as always, though doesn't go out of her way to engage Sky, and Otty tried to bite his face off within ten minutes of his arrival, so he prefers to hang out with the humans. Can't say I blame him.

At the moment he sticks close to the people and his crate, but I'm sure he'll grow into his natural role of raccoon killer and carrion chewer. He has plenty of time.

* This refers to his coloring and it means he has patches of black, white, and bluish gray. Rough means fluffy instead of short-haired like Mia and Otty.

Hey, Kids! Let's Play Hide and Heads!

Remember the ducklings? They are now fully grown ducks, and six of them are drakes. And that means that today was Doomsday for the drakes. Or Decapitation Day. Or Death Day.

Whatever alliterative name you want to give it, those drakes were going down. (Hey look! There's another!)

So A. went out and sharpened his hatchet at 7:30 this morning and unceremoniously whacked the heads off of five drakes on the pile of wood awaiting splitting outside the duck pen.

The children were, of course, present for this. Cubby was mad that we didn't let him do the decapitating, actually, but we'll give him another year before he gets that job.

He did get to help, though. After the deed was done, the MiL was standing there with both hands clutching the feet of all the dead drakes and she asked, "Who's going to pick up the heads?"

Well, I know who isn't going to be picking up any drake heads. Hi!

But there were two very willing head hunters. Allow me to present Cubby and Charlie, the totally unsqueamish butcher helpers. And hunt they did, because some of the heads had fallen kind of in between the chunks of wood and weren't all that easy to see. So I told Cubby and Charlie to start searching for five heads. At which point Cubby exclaimed with glee, "It's like hide and seek, but hide and heads!"

Right. Carry on, my small country bumpkins.

This and That

A. spent almost all weekend dealing with the giant garbage can of sap--plus some buckets--that the maple trees flooded us with last week. He made his signature woodchuck evaporator out of cinder blocks and old stovepipe and spent many hours standing around it.

Sometimes the children stood there too, but since watching sap boil is about as exciting as watching paint dry, they mostly ran around fighting over sticks or whatever. Fun for all.

The MiL spent the weekend sneaking poultry into the cellar.

Welcome to the duckling red light district.

Okay, not all weekend. Just Saturday. She went into the Small City to run errands and when she got home started ferrying things into the cellar. Like a big bale of wood shavings. And the heat lamps. Cubby helped her get it all set up and then came running into the living room to announce to a wailing Charlie (due to post-nap trauma), "Charlie, there's a BIG SURPRISE in the cellar!"

A big surprise, indeed, in the form of a dozen Khaki Campbell ducklings. Not sure of their eventual purpose (although extra males never last long around here, since we, uh, eat them), but A. is already happily plotting dams and ponds in the hollow and the MiL is planning all the custards she can make with duck eggs. And, of course, maple syrup.

So that was our weekend. How was yours?

Giddyup

Cubby has been badgering the MiL for about a month now about riding a pony. The MiL, being a regular horse rider herself as well as a woman with a large circle of acquaintances, knows not one, but two people with ponies. So she finally set up a time last night to bring Cubby to a friend's property to ride.

Charlie and I went too, of course. You think Cubby is going to go visit a pony and leave Charlie behind? HAHA NO, said Charlie*. So off we all went after dinner last night in search of adventure in the shape of a small pony.

Ponies don't actually look all that small when you're only four years old, however.

Meet Cheney the Pony.

And I bet they really don't feel that small to a four-year-old when he's perched on top of one, wearing a helmet "just in case you fall!"

Also wearing his sandals with socks under them because I couldn't find his shoes. Appropriate footwear? What's that?

The lady who owns this pony--who is, incidentally, the sister of the MiL's riding instructor and has great-grandchildren she is teaching to ride on this pony--led Cubby around the arena for awhile, instructing him to sit up straight, look right between the pony's ears, and sing.

I think the singing was just to keep him relaxed. In any case, it was pretty funny to watch him very seriously clutching the pommel of the saddle, singing "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" as he rode around.

"Old Macdonald Had a Farm" might also have been featured.

Cubby seemed to enjoy it, but he was ready to get off after about fifteen minutes. And then, of course, we know what had to happen next.

"Anything you can do, I can do better . . ."

Charlie only sat up there for about thirty seconds before the pony decided she was done and started stomping irritably. So that was the end of the riding.

But there was more fun to be had! While the MiL was in the house having a glass of wine with the pony's owners, the resident dog decided it was time he had a little attention. He was a really good dog.

And Cubby totally lost their game of tug o' war.

Tearing Cubby away from his new best friend Mack the Dog was not without drama (read: enraged screaming), but we did eventually get back in the car to go home to bed. 

Cubby is already asking when he gets to go back. That's kind of up to the MiL. Maybe I should find his shoes before then, though. You think?

* What he actually said is, "Charlie? Pony?" over and over and over ( AND OVER) again. And then again, in case I was so foolish as to think of leaving him behind.

The (Abbreviated) Life and Times of Mr. Goby

A. and his dad took Cubby and Charlie on an adventure to Lake Ontario on Sunday. While they were fishing on the pier, they saw a man catch a goby. Gobies are an invasive species of fish in the Great Lakes. They are caught with some regularity, and are not supposed to be returned to the lakes. So A. gave the fish to Cubby to examine.

He does love to examine fish.

After about fifteen minutes of close study, A. suggested maybe they could take it home and keep it in a fish tank in Cubby's room. Cubby, of course, was all for this idea, so the goby was placed in A.'s rinsed-out coffee cup with some lake water and transported home.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to see it.

Also needless to say, that was sarcasm.

But who can resist the excitement of a boy with a fish tank? We fortuitously had a 50-gallon fish tank in the cellar, which A. hauled up to Cubby's room, put on his dresser, filled with water, and deposited the goby into.

And then the goby sat. Or rather, hung out there on the bottom of the tank. He didn't eat the worm A. dropped in for him. He didn't swim around. He just . . . sat. This did not prevent Cubby from running back to his room every five minutes to check on Mr. Goby.

When Cubby went to bed that night, Mr. Goby still hadn't eaten his worm. An hour after he should have been asleep, I found Cubby in his room with the lights blazing, checking on Mr. Goby. When Cubby came down early the next morning, he told me he got up early to make sure Mr. Goby hadn't died.

He hadn't. But he also hadn't eaten the worm.

Yesterday Cubby collected some stones and shells from the lake for Mr. Goby's tank, as well as some of the dried corn that had been used to chum for carp on the beach. Mr. Goby didn't seem interested in these offerings, although he was at least swimming around in a more lively manner.

Then, this morning, Cubby came downstairs and told me he thought Mr. Goby was dying. When I asked him why he thought so, he said Mr. Goby used to be gray, but now he was white.

Ew.

I told Cubby to go find his father and show him. Better him than me.

Mr. Goby was indeed gone. But he is not forgotten, oh no. A. made sure of that by popping him right into the jar on Cubby's dresser that contains the pickled lamprey eel. How touching.

And thus ends Cubby's first experience as a pet owner.

I Hate It When They Do This

I was sitting in a chair on the lawn this morning watching Cubby and Charlie complete the ruination of their first set of clothing in the muddy garden when Otty came trotting up to me. She had the top quarter of a woodchuck in her mouth.

It was dead, obviously, and had been quite well-chewed. Pretty much all that was still intact was the head and a little of the pelt. It was, needless to say, incredibly disgusting.

So of course she dropped it right at my feet and then lay down next to it for a well-deserved rest. And so, also of course, I got up, put on one of A.'s work gloves, and carried the grisly remains of the woodchuck over to the fence, where I threw it into the gully.

Because the only thing worse than a dog carrying around a chewed-up woodchuck head is a child carrying around a chewed-up woodchuck head. And you just know that would have been the next scene in this little comedy.

Ah, the romance of country life.

Little Lambs

Let's start with my own pathetic little lamb, Charlie, who looked more like the sacrificial lamb after falling off the arm of a chair and face-planting directly on the wood floor. He bit through his chin. Or right below his lip. Whatever that spot is called.

At least, I think he did. There are definitely teeth marks on the outside of his face, and there was a whole hell of a lot of blood pooling inside his mouth, so I can only surmise that particular injury is a result of the teeth going through.

I don't know. It was gross and bloody and what with his habit of sucking on his fingers when he's upset, there was a lot of smearing around of drool and mucous and blood on his face by the time the fireworks were done.

I read once on someone else's blog who has three boys--and thus has a lot of experience with bloody boo boos--that unless you can see light through the wound (OH GOD GROSS), no stitches are given for this kind of thing. A quick Internet search while holding the bloody baby on my lap confirmed that only "gaping" wounds (STOPIT) of this sort are deemed stitch-worthy.

I never, ever want to see that kind of wound.

Moving on.

Lookit what I got a picture of!

LAAAAMB! You can kind of see it, right?

The reason I don't have a better picture is because that sheep ass to the right there belongs to the ram. Charlie and Cubby were with me at the time, and Charlie was determined to charge straight for that lamb. And the ram. So I had to take the picture quickly and then vacate the pasture, because charging at a ram will get you a lot more than a fat lip.

Kid's got a death wish. Or is just a year and a half old. Yeah. That.