Curveball #2 - Wilson

Sweet baby Eden is one month old today! Today is a sadder milestone as well, though - four weeks since we've last seen Wilson. Four weeks ago today we brought Eden home from the hospital, home to my parent's house anyway, and Wilson was with us. He'd had a rather boring and confusing couple of days while we'd been in the hospital. Among the many things we did not have figured out, hadn't even considered figuring out, when I went into labor was what to do with Wilson at 3 in the morning should we be heading to the hospital, so we just took him with us. Over the next couple of days, he continued to stay in the car in the hospital parking lot being checked on and taken for walks by Joe and his mom. So, when we got to the familiar, wooded, wide open expanses of my parents' property, he was pretty happy to be free. He'd had a brief introduction to Eden, but he mostly seemed interested in food and adventure. It never dawned on me when we turned him loose at my parents' that it might be the last time we ever saw him. Unfortunately, he wasn't wearing his collar. Joe had taken it off so as not to cause him any discomfort during his days in the car, and we just didn't think to put it back on right away.

When he missed his midday meal that first day, we just assumed that he was still burning off steam, hunting rabbits in the surrounding woods. But, one missed meal turned into the following morning with still no beagle. At this point, we have posters in five counties, listings on multiple websites, even a spot on a local radio station and newspaper, and still no luck.

It's amazing how much you can notice the absence of a dog who mostly spent the whole day alternating naps between his favorite sunny and shady locations. How can it seem so quiet when he hardly ever made noise to start with? Almost every night Joe or I dream that we find him and every day I find myself glancing out the window as if I'll just happen to catch him trotting down the driveway like any ordinary day.

At this point, I can imagine four possible scenarios as to what happened, and it is the reality that I'll probably never know exactly what happened that is one of the hardest things to deal with.

#1) Wilson is off to the great hunting grounds in the sky, a casualty of an encounter with some wild animal. This is a very sad scenario, but at least I like to think of him dying while off on a grand adventure, having the time of his life.

#2) Wilson is currently some little boy's best friend or an old lady's calm, steady companion. In this scenario Wilson is kind of like an angel who had served his time with us and moved on to another needy soul once we had Eden in our lives.

#3) Wilson is currently tied to a dog house or in a barren pen in someone's back yard eating dog food flavored cardboard. This is the scenario I most fear.

#4) Wilson is on his way home. He may have had a seizure while out on his post-Eden grand adventure, got disoriented, and temporarily lost his way. He's made the journey from our house to my parents' house and back numberous times, albeit in a car, but he's a smart beagle. He's currently trekking across the countryside, following an innate sense of direction and a longing to be home with his favorite people. Along the way he has various mini adventures and interactions with people who help him and are in turn touched by his gentle, quiet ways. Any day now, he WILL trot down the driveway, as if he's never been gone, and be showered with ice cream and cheese. This, of course, is my favorite scenario.

It has been a crazy month processing both life with Eden and life without Wilson at the same time. Wilson has been a fixture of all but the first few months of our marriage. I was so excited about Eden getting to spend her early childhood with one of the best dogs ever. I was determined that Wilson would grow old with us, dying in his sleep at a ripe old age curled up by the woodstove or lying in his favorite sunny spot. But, in the end we trust that Wilson's life is following its perfect path, and we were blessed to be a part of it for a while. And, I'll keep looking out that window...

Curveball #1 - Eden Loraine

So, I haven't been posting much on here lately, but I have a good reason - and her name is Eden Loraine. Just over three weeks ago, I was 36 weeks pregnant and we were busily attempting to get things in order for the upcoming birth of our child. We went to bed on the night of May 8th assuming we'd be spending the next morning getting the yurt tidied up for when our midwife came that afternoon for our homevisit. I'd been spending the previous weeks washing cloth diapers, washing and sorting baby clothes, washing spare towels and sheets for the homebirth and emailing people on Craigslist looking to purchase a bed for the yurt. Just days before we'd cleared out the "nursery" corner of the cabin and set it up with a dresser full of baby clothes and a bassinett.

All this "nesting" was supposed to get us ahead of the game, well prepared and anxiety free when the big day actually came. I must have sent the wrong signal to my body though because at 3 a.m. on the morning on May 9th, while attempting to roll over in bed, my water broke, and there was no turning back. We missed our homebirth window of 37-42 weeks by just one week and ended up at the hospital. While not the homebirth experience we had planned on, we really couldn't have asked for a better hospital scenario. We were well cared for and allowed to take a very natural course, attended by a pair of competent and caring midwives, and at 7:05 am on May 10th, Miss Eden Loraine made her debut. She was a tiny one at 5 lbs 4.5 oz, but fully functional and pretty much perfect.

Chickens have cooties

Apparently, no one wants to drink after a chicken. I keep a generic, outdoor animal waterbowl by the rain barrels in back of the house. I clean it out and refill it regularly. The chickens and guineas frequent this water dish often. However, Foxy would rather drink out of the frog pond and Wilson will drink out of mud puddles and any murky old water that collects in random buckets and containers we leave sitting around. Both Wilson and Foxy will sometimes beg to come inside and drink from the indoor water bowl as if they haven't seen water in weeks. I don't get it. Do chickens have cooties? Are they notorious backwashers??

Mystery wildflower

I almost weedeated this flower in my yard the other day. I've never seen anything like it. I haven't been able to find it in any of my wildflower field guides. It looks very columbine-y, and I'm thinking it might be in the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) family. Anyone got any ideas?? I've scoured the internet for a similar photo, but no look yet. After it is done flowering I intend to transplant it to a safer, weedeater proof location.

My New Woodstove!!

Yesterday, with the help of three very generous and strong friends, Joe and I went and collected our new (to us) wood cookstove that will heat our yurt and cook our food this winter. I found this little beauty on Craigslist and couldn't pass it up. The stove is a Waterford Stanley, from Ireland, only about 10 years old and in excellent condition. It is currently sitting in the yurt, on a dolly that Joe made so we can scoot it around as necessary, awaiting its final installation in a few months. I'm really looking forward to learning how to cook on this thing!

This photo was taken in the kitchen of its former home, prior to being dismantled and loaded up for the journey to our place.

 

The guys all made their "heavy faces" but didn't even grunt when picking it up! We tried to take as much removable weight off of it first as we could.

In addition to the stove, we were able to dismantle and take the chimney as well, a very important component we will reinstall at the yurt. I missed the photo op of cousin Wesley up on the peak of the roof dismantling the very top of the chimney.

Introducing "The Upcycled Chicken"

As if I don't have enough endeavors already, I've opened up another Etsy shop, this one featuring the tote bags I make out of empty feed sacks, mostly from my chicken feed. Check it out at "The Upcycled Chicken" . I'd appreciate any feed sack feedback (haha!) anyone has to offer.

Irony

I've mentioned before on this blog how I've discovered a good use for those pesky stink bugs that invade the house in the fall - capturing them and feeding them to my chickens! For this use, we always have a "bug catcher" nearby, and I've found that an old prescription bottle does the job quite well (leftover from the antibiotics I had to take after contracting Lyme's disease a couple of years ago, an unrelated tidbit of information but an additional connection to the peskier side of the insect world). Often, the last thing I do before heading out to work in the morning is to take the previous day's captives to the chicken pen, and because yesterday I was in too much of a rush to toss the pill bottle back in the house, it ended up in my purse and went to work with me.

A few hours later, I was sitting in a doctor's office with my boss' mother, waiting on the doctor to make his appearance. Even in this sterile environment, I heard a very familiar buzzing noise, and moments later a stink bug landed right on me. Luckily, I had my pill bottle stink bug catcher right there in my purse! I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure the doctor wouldn't mind my stealing his stink bugs, so I captured the bugger and put him back in my purse to take home with me. Stink bugs are not your ordinary prescription to be leaving a doctor's office with, but they are going to be turned into fresh delicious eggs for me to eat, and as it has been said before...

"The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison." - Dr. Ann Wigmore

"Let food be thy medicine...and medicine be thy food." - Hippocrates