No Good Deed

Leaving William at his gym workout, Murphy and I began walking along a familiar path. At the gazebo, I was started to see a small woman curled up on the bench inside a gazebo surrounded by meager belongings. I wondered if she was hungry. Well, there, that's what I'll do with my time waiting for William: Murphy and I would walk to McD's and buy her some lunch.

Passing the car wash, a yippy dog surprised us with irritating barks. Murphy swung out on her leash but kept going. We'd done so well this morning in our "Wallflowers" class and in general, Murphy has been getting less fearful. (Note: work on small yappy dogs) At McDs, an older woman asks if she could take me home with her, confusing me. She then blessed me for the "work" I am doing with the dog. I don't bother to correct her (I am selfishly training this dog for my own son) because it would invite a long conversation. I accept my blessing. 

Placing my order, I go to get a drink. Murphy is used to establishments where I need to check out, and I made the mistake doing a sit-stay and letting go of the leash. At that very moment, two young girls emerged from the restroom located for best sanitation right near the drink station. "P-U-P-P-Y!!" they shrieked.

Murphy paused, her ears back. Then, she bolted. Without thinking, I stepped on her leash, a trick that usually works. The tile floor was slippery and my right leg slid and I went down on my left, hitting the base of my nose on the chair in front of me. I did successfully hang on to Murphy and I luckily was not holding the drink.

Tears streaming down, I wondered if blood was also shooting out of my nostrils. "I'm fine," I protested as I opened the door of the men's room. The women's is always on the right, isn't it? I noticed before breaking all the bathroom laws recently enacted to keep us all safe from people that need to pee.

Just then, my phone rang. I answered, promising to return the call in five minutes. My nose appeared unbroken, no blood, so I straightened up, marched out and got my chicken nuggets, not looking at anyone. We passed the yippy dog (teach your dog manners, for God's sake!) and got to the gazebo. It was a small man, not a woman at all! Murphy would not approach, so I asked if he was hungry and left the food on one of the benches. I got another blessing as Murphy pulled me away.

Sigh. Maybe next time we'll go sit at the library. 

Treasures

Shells from the beach sit in boxes in my closets. I am the keeper of these small mementos from vacations past. Each year, more are added. Pinterest is mentioned occasionally (by others), but I'm saving crafty years for when they put me in "the home" along with crocheting kitchen wash cloths. I mark the box "SHELLS" and return it to the closet.

In cleaning out some closets, I found I had more than one stash of this precious commodity. It was time to cull some of the less desirable shells, some chipped, some completely broken. ("I found a piece of a sand dollar!") I gathered these shards and thought it such a shame, carried a thousand miles to home, to relegate them to the landfill. I decided to dump them in our creek. 

My husband objected, "You'll throw off some future archaeologist!" Perhaps ruin the local ecology? Pffah! The idea of puzzling some future human only adds to my the fun of it. Our creek has long been a treasure trove of finds. We also have hundreds of pounds of horn coral in my keeping. 

Horn coral is pointy rock in the middle

As our creek has widened and the banks eroded, many of these horn coral lay as proof that millions of years ago, our land was underwater and a sea was home to these creatures. We also often find broken glass, washed from upstream and the occasional virus. 

This bend in the creek which used to be the only "swimming hole" is no longer the only deep place in the creek now and itself, is much deeper. It is home to frogs, tadpoles, and some small fish - oh, and of course, those little skimming water-walker insects. It is flanked by the "elbow tree".

The creek was one of the strong attractions to moving here. There is so much to learn just laying there.

Imperialis

My breath caught when I first saw it from the other side. A Luna Moth! I thought from the size. I was confused when I saw all the brown. I'd not seen this type of giant moth before. I Googled on my phone "from the silk moth family". It is an Imperial Moth, or Eascles imperialis of the Saturniidae family. Her wingspan is 4.5 inches.

Immediately, I worried that perhaps our elementary school experiments had ruined the local ecology and released silk moths in our neighborhood. We used to mail order the eggs and grow them to caterpillars, feeding them the mulberry paste or gathering leaves from our own mulberry tree. I don't remember releasing the moths, in fact, I do remember the caterpillars forming a cocoon - we watched them spin it - but I don't remember any moth ever hatching.

I was relieved to learn that this particular moth is indigenous to our area. I am seeing so many moths these days because I've been leaving on the porch light at night as a deterrent due to some robberies in the area. My niece asked me to look for caterpillars or cocoons, as she wanted to hatch some moths, but in this particular subfamily of moths, when the caterpillars are ready to pupate, they burrow underground. I have been keeping an eye out for the dead moths (they live only a few days after mating) but they have all flown off.

It seems over the years, I've written a number of blogs on moths and butterflies. You can find them by using the search box on this blog.

Grandmother Tree

If ever I leave this place, I will miss the trees. Kentucky is filled with trees but these are our trees. They are like old friends. Many I remember when they were much smaller. Some, we have planted ourselves. Two were transplanted from our first house. Two average sized oaks stood over our pool for over a decade, giving us shade but also causing yellow algae. The pool is now gone, the twin oaks are majestic and shade our house. We have an evergreen grove, baby trees planted by my husband when we first moved. He was going to transplant them around the property, but somehow, they got too big before he thought to do it. It makes a nice place for deer to sleep.

The tree I treasure most you would not see if you came to my house. It is on the hill in the back overlooking the creek. I call it our "Grandmother Tree". I often think about the history of our property, what it might have been like before Europeans arrived, who might have lived here before and since. We are only 5 miles by bird to the Ohio River, so it is not hard to imagine that natives roamed my creek, though I've found no proof.

This Grandma Tree is still healthy. She needs a few limbs removed, but shows no trunk rot. Measuring 177" or almost 15 feet in circumference, it is in the white oak family. I used "Leaf Snap", an app for identifying tree leaves, to determine that it was a white oak. Then, using a calculation for oak trees, I figured that this tree is 282 years old. This means it sprouted in 1735 or so.

The first main excursion into Kentucky didn't occur until 1750 when Thomas Walker came through the Cumberland Gap. Some of my ancestors would later follow this route to settle here. Many of my ancestors were still in Europe. This tree would have been 15 years old already when the first Europeans started infiltrating this land. It would have been a 34 year old tree when Daniel Boone led his first expedition and a full grown adult 40 year old tree when he founded the first permanent European settlement. Dan Boone was all over this land and could easily have sat under our tree. He wouldn't recognize the spot: the creek is much wider (due to runoff from development in the neighborhood) and I'm sure many trees weren't as hardy as our Grandmother tree.

If only she could tell me what she has witnessed...

Midnight with Paris

Last week, I woke, as I frequently do at night to look at my BG watch, but this time, sat bolt upright in bed. Paris was not at the end of the bed where I routinely put her before falling asleep myself. High up, she cannot get down by herself. I'd forgotten her! Well, she sleeps like the dead, both blind and deaf, and is old and small, so I often have to go looking for her curled under my desk or in Murphy's open crate (a much better spot than her own crate).

No! Did I forget to let her back in after going outside to potty? She sometimes will start wandering around the house if she loses her way. This is only in the last few days - she used to go out and come right back in, scratching at the front door. I panicked - we were having a new septic tank system installed. In the back yard, there was a hole, 8 feet deep, with the new, large tank in it.

I grabbed my largest flashlight and ran out in my nightgown. And there she was, at the bottom of the pit, circling the tank, around and around, looking for a way out of the vertical mud walls. Thank God, she was all right by appearances. But, how to get her out?

I woke my husband and had him hold the extension ladder, conveniently nearby due to my painting jobs. I climbed down and scooped her up. The hole was filled in the next day. Thank goodness I found her because the next day, I told the contractor the story and that he was lucky to not have found a skunk in the pit. He replied that he would have just filled in the pit on top of it. Paris' coloring - well, he might have thought her a skunk.

I can't figure out how she fell without any injury, but she was without a scratch. From that day forward, I take her out and wait until she does her business and carry her back inside. Other than she can't smell very well (she's brachycephalic), see or hear, and apparently can fall without injury, she'll likely live forever. She is otherwise in excellent health.

Death by Paris

Well before my children learn to drive, I throw out pearls of wisdom on safe driving. "If you see a deer cross the road, slow way down. There will likely be another deer with it." This week, I added another pearl of wisdom: "If you see poop on the floor from a toy breed dog, look for pee." 

Early yesterday morning, no coffee yet, I walked into our sun room where I store the dog food. I see that Paris, a 14 year old blind and deaf Japanese Chin, left me a "present". I fill my container with kibble and turn to go to the kitchen. In cartoonish fashion, my foot hit the pee puddle and I went down hard. Kibble flew up into the air. Bruised but not injured, my back was soaked in dog urine. 

I fed the dogs as fast as I could so that I could get out of those clothes and into the shower. Bright Spot: my husband did not slip in it, which might have ended poor Paris.

I'd like to say that Paris leaves such presents because she can't find the front door, but despite letting her out many, many times of the day, she seems to have a bladder the size of a thimble and when crated, has a screech that would rival fingernails on a chalkboard and a face only a mother could love.

Juice Box

I was shopping alone one day (a rarity) and the store was playing "Mama's Got a Squeezebox" by The Who. When it got to the part "in and out and in and out" I could not help think of the night before when my son was dropping low all night and I pictured a harried, tired mom in red light going in and out of a bedroom to treat T1D kid. I was laughing about that with my husband, that it could make a great video, and he suggested "Mama's got a juice box" as we often treat lows with juice boxes many kids will sip in their sleep.

 So, I rewrote the lyrics. Here they are. I think it would be a fun video but I don't know how you'd get around the copyright.

Juice Box

Mama's got a juice box
She’s always doing her best
And when the BG’s dropping low
She never gets no rest
'Cause she's testing all night
To get the BG just right
Mama's got a juice box
And she never sleeps at night

Well the kid’s sound asleep
When the Dex starts to beep
There's no escaping the ‘betes
Sucking down something sweet
'Cause she's testing all night
To get the BG just right
Mama's got a juice box
And she never sleeps at night

She goes in and out and in
And out and in and out and in and out
'Cause she's testing all night
To get the BG just right
Mama's got a juice box
And she never sleeps at night

She goes, please me, come on damn BG,
Come on and rise so I can sleep.
But child, I do love you.
Mama's got a juice box
And she never sleeps at night

If you are unfamiliar with the song, what rock have you been living under?, you can listen to it here.

Apples and Oranges

Because it's normally maintenance. Because it normally is not an emergency. Insulin prices are messed up (I would use a stronger word but this is a family friendly blog). Because of that we should not save a life of a drug user? Because drug users are not worthy of being saved? Because the drug user did it to themselves? Let me set you straight: I know people saved by Narcan. People having a hard time that went on to get their world together and become loving, productive, and oh, what would the world do without them? So, don't use my son's diabetes to judge people.

Maybe this meme was meant to decry the injustice of the price of insulin. On the list of the ten most expensive liquids in the world, people living with diabetes have no choice but to buy it at any cost. A one hundred year old medication, the patent sold for $1 for the common good because the goal was saving lives, not profit. Somewhere out there, someone is going to burn in hell for funding their Maserati or mansion at the expense of children and adults with diabetes.  Worse yet, children in under developed countries die for lack of it. Yet, I've not heard any T1D parent or adult expecting to get insulin for absolutely free, just affordably. First responders usually have IV glucose and insulin for those emergencies. "They" do give drugs to save the lives of  those with Types 1 and 2 Diabetes.

So why shame the drug users? Let's find out who's getting rich off of our kids and post memes of them and their golden toilets.

Anticipation

Murphy makes this face when she is so very excited that something good is about to happen. I try so hard to capture it on camera, but she quivers with anticipation and doesn't sit still very long. In my hand was a prized dried roll of codfish skin, her favorite treat.

Today, Murphy and I went for a short walk while William worked out at the gym. The path I chose took us along gravel edged with brush and trees. I was pleased when a small rabbit darted across the path and Murphy drew to attention but did not give chase, taking my arm with her. (I've had the unfortunate images of Monty Python planted in my brain by my husband who thinks that's hilarious.)

A little farther and I hear a woman yelling, "LEAVE IT! LEAVE IT!" Oh, no! Another dog must becoming our way and you just never know if the dog is friendly, on a leash, and/or under control. Murphy is a little too eager yet to meet others of her kind. I listened. "COME HERE NOW!" she continued loudly. "I said COME!" She went on more but I couldn't make it out.

Thinking to myself that this dog is not going to come or leave it if she is yelling in such a mean and mad voice, and surely it must be off leash. I prepared myself...but then heard small voices and laughter. I realized the geography of where we were and that, yes, that is about where the daycare would be next to the public library...on the other side of that brush line. She was not talking to a dog, but to a child!

There are times when I hear an owner talking sweet to their dogs and think if only people could talk to friends and family with the same joy and enthusiasm, this world would be a better place. Perhaps though, we might not forget the phrase, "I wouldn't treat my dog like that" when choosing daycare.

Daily Finds

We are considering moving closer to the city. We endlessly mow grass, waste gas, that does nothing other than to look pretty. Dh drives down a highway that wasn't designed to handle the traffic and semis that now crowd it, resulting in daily wrecks, many fatal. He spends hours a week just driving. We are not near any of the parks we like for bike riding, or for that matter, not near much of anything to do or places to eat. And let's face it, I'm not getting any younger.

That said, it will be hard for me to give up this place where I can go outside at night and stand in my yard, looking up at the stars and late night plane flights and think. I will miss finding nature's surprises. For example, this bird nest is at eye level in the barn. It now has three eggs. My niece helped me determine it is a wren. I see the mom at night when I put the horses up.

Last night, something banged on my bathroom window. A Luna Moth!! I, of course, opened the window to get a closer look and he (I think, larger antennae) came in! I have raised one before so I was not that startled. They are the size of a small bird. I did get it back outside. 

Maybe I'll discover similar things in the park that we hope to live near, but I fear it won't be the same.

The Eyes Have It

Don't give me those sad eyes. I wrote two blogs here and here for you today.

Just Saying

William sent me a text from his bedroom (because that's communication in modern parent-child relationships) asking me about "that horrid smell"  and several animations of people offended by or dying of a bad smell. I was cooking, but not just any old thing. I was making dog treats. Liver to be exact.

He thundered down the stairs, gagging. Really, it wasn't that bad. "It smells like a mixture between burnt brownies and meatloaf," he whined. Well, brownies are good. Meatloaf is good. I don't like liver, but this was not an offensive smell to me.

The dogs go through a lot of treats to train and I don't want fatty treats with sugar added. Some treats have loads of chemical preservatives and ingredients or cost more than steak per pound. Chicken liver is very cheap. In case you want to offend your own children, here is how I make them.

Pre-soak some of your dogs kibble in water until all the water is absorbed and the kibble is soft. Using a food processor, blend two cartons of chicken livers until liquid. Add in the kibble to give it more body. I also added in some gluten-free flour to make it nice and pasty. I added a small amount of flax seeds. I spread this goo over silicone baking sheets on a cookie sheet and baked at 350 for half an hour. This cooks the mixture but doesn't completely dry it out so after cooling it, I cut it into squares and dry them on a cheap Rival dehydrator. Then, dogs will love you forever for the crispy treats that can be broken into small pieces. The treats, once dry, have little to no smell and it makes a lot of treats. Even the cats like them. In fact, Luna, William's cat, tore open the plastic bag on the counter to get to them.

There was the one time that I decided to clean by boiling the opossum skull I found out by the road for our natural history collection. Now, that, that was a smell I don't even intend to repeat. (Next time, clean bones by burying them for a while in the backyard.)

I'll take the smell of baking liver treats any day over a teenager's room. Just saying.

Throw Back Thursday

One day, ten years ago, my children and I helped a mama miniature horse birth her baby. She still lives here with her brother miniature horse born the year before. The mama and daddy returned to their original owner and were later sold. You can read about it here.

Don't Blink

"I am going to be homeschooling my kindergartner. What curriculum should I use?"

If only I had one day to have my little ones little again. Just one day. Blink and they are graduated from high school. Blink again and they finished college and are starting careers, getting married, moving away. Looking back, I have no regrets because I know we made memories. We played in the dirt. We were present in our days.

What curriculum? My advice is no curriculum. Go to the library and get out all the books you can carry and that the library will let you. In our county at the time, that was 99 books per person in the household, so I brought crates on wheels and filled them. It was like bringing my kids to the candy store and telling them everything was free. We read and read and read. I read aloud so much my throat would hurt and I would have to quit.

Go to the zoo. Go to the woods. Play in a creek. Dig a hole as deep as you can. Collect and identify leaves. Turn over rocks. Look at bugs under a good stereoscope (dissection) microscope. Go out into the world on field trips. Go to concerts and theater. Have a picnic under a tree. Paint. Play the piano. Blow on pieces of grass and dandelions. Raise chickens and hatch eggs. Find all the wildflowers you can. Use lots of paper and markers and paint. Make cookies and measure things. Count marbles and pennies. Play classical music all day as background. Sing. Dance. Go out in the rain. Get dirty. Get really dirty. Make forts out of blankets. Have lots of play time. Make ice cream. Laugh. Do messy science experiments like dropping eggs out of windows. Roll balls down an incline. Make a pyramid out of sugar cubes. Grow a garden. Go to a bird blind or put out bird feeders. Lay in the fresh spring grass. And above all, watch the joy of learning in your babies eyes.

I know you are anxious to get started, to not let them get behind, to make sure they keep up with their peers, but I'm telling you, your time with them will be very, very short or so it will seem when you are old like me. There is no curriculum that can instill in them the joy of learning like exploring the world with you. You will have years to nag them about their homework but the time will come, if you don't make those memories now and cherish every minute when you'll be wishing you had just one more day....

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight."

In typical Kentucky style, it is cold again after unseasonably warm weather but it is sunny. Driving home from the gym, I relished the sunbeams coming in through the car window and heating my black leather GAP jacket I got for $12 at the resale store.

"Oh," I remarked to William, "this feels so good I ought to wear a suit of only black leather."

"That," he responded, "makes me cringe. I mean, (sputter sputter sputter), not cringe because of you in black leather.....well, yeah, maybe, but....(sputter), I mean it would be hot and sweaty! (sputter) Just forget I said anything."

Not known for my fashion sense, my kids do have opinions and always warned me that if EVER I wore anything animal print, they would swear they didn't know me. My careless fashion sense would have made Phyllis Diller proud. And if you don't know who she is, you should.

Tasty!

I was careful to warn the guys, "Don't eat what is is the dehydrator." Daughter #2 has not forgotten the day she came into the kitchen, reached out and popped what she thought was a small square of brownie into her mouth. She claims I watched her do this without stopping her, though perhaps my lack of memory on this detail is in my own self-defense. That batch of dog treats had been made with calf liver so it was darker. It is not the first time that I've cooked for the dogs and it was mistaken for people food.

This batch looks like blonde brownies as I used chicken livers pulverized with dog kibble and a few eggs. First baking the mixture for thirty minutes in the oven to brownie consistency, I then put the squares on a dehydrator to completely dry. I broke them into small bits and refrigerated in plastic bags in case any moisture remains. The dogs are wild for this treat. People, not so much. It did, in my opinion, smell pretty good baking and not unlike a brownie. 

1984

A lifetime ago, I remember my grandmother telling me that on the 700 Club, it was reported that the government was watching us through our televisions. Puzzled, I asked her how they could do that? (Remember this was in the 1980s, pre-Internet.) She pointed to a round circle on the front of her television. This was the light sensor that automatically adjusted the brightness of the screen. I assured her that it was not a camera. Silly me.  Little did I know that she was right!

If the government is watching through my microwave, I can only say that the person assigned to our household must have the most boring job on the planet. Surely, they have better things to do? Now, I need to go work on my aluminum foil hat.

Different Times

Many thanks to my mom who always
was generous with my book order

Memories came flooding back as I pulled to a stop at a traffic light. The Scholastic Book Truck was in the parking lot across the street! My son, always homeschooled, puzzled over my exclamation. What are Scholastic Books?? Well, when I was growing up, one of my happiest moments was when my Scholastic Book order arrived. Four or five brand new paperback chapter books with that new book smell! I couldn't wait to get home and devour them. (Yes, I was a nerd.) I read many books from the library, so I can't really tell you why the order appealed so much to me.

The flimsy paper order form would come weeks ahead. We lived in a time when Amazon didn't bring things the next day. You had to think hard on what you wanted, wait a good amount of time for it, and the anticipation was part of the joy when it finally arrived.  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE my Amazon Prime, but I think in exchange for the convenience, we've lost a little of the magic.

Bosch Posh Revisited

Husband always says if you have a problem, someone, somewhere, has already had that same problem and put it on YouTube. He is right. I found a "work around" on my dishwasher and can run it now, though it is not fixed. It involves starting it, waiting for two particular pauses, turning it off, turning it back on, all while saying the "Hail Mary". It worked.

The true fix is replacing the turbidity sensor, which is like taking the engine out of a foreign car to change the oil filter: it isn't easy. I can do it, though, and have ordered the part. William gagged as I explained that turbidity meant it was sensing soil or gunk in the dishwasher. The sensor wasn't necessarily sensing turbid water; the sensor isn't working. 

Still, I wouldn't be surprised. For many years, I have instructed that great chunks of food and slathered sauces must be scraped or rinsed before putting in the dishwasher. Not washed, but at least scraped. And here we are: turbid. 

My dad instilled in me the belief that most anything could be fixed and that I was capable myself of fixing it. I remember he finally had to replace our dryer, not because it wouldn't run, but because we'd worn all the porcelain off the tub and it had begun to rust, getting on the clothing. This dishwasher is almost 8 years old, so we still have a few good years together.

Twilight Zone

By way of group email, my family chatted how weird it was that middle daughter spoke her desire of one day owning a dishwasher and as soon as she left to go home, mine didn't work. My husband has watched too many sci-fi movies and said, "I think this is the part where the machines start to think independently before they rise up and kill us all.  She has inadvertently stepped into a strand of unfinished consciousness." 

In our family, we have long marveled at these coincidences, how I'd picked up the phone to dial my mom and she was on the other end without it having rung because she was calling me. This has happened with my daughters as well, sometimes getting a call from them just as I was typing a text.

Middle daughter sent me a SnapChat of the gluten free brownies she had made. I'd just pulled the first batch I'd ever made out of the oven. It's just spooky. We are all more connected than just by blood.