Looking Back and an Addendum

I was under the weather this morning, so, after chores, 

I took a nap. 

There, I said it. 

I took a nap! 

I can't believe I am free to do that on days when I am dragging a little! 

It is beastly hot out right now, and high humidity.  I know, because I made a run to Walmart to get some photographic paper.  I am making a surprise for Keith for his birthday. 

I am sitting down to do the post and then going out to refresh water for everyone. 

Here are some sunflowers blooming this morning...how they cheered me up! 

That picture was actually taken last night... and this was behind them: 

Unfortunately, we didn't get a sprinkle. 

We need it. 

Here are the three little chicks this morning, now about half-grown.  They have all turned out very well, and I think the two pullets will be good replacements.  I'm even happy with the cockerel! 

I am working on a project at the moment, and  have been looking back through the last five years of photos for it.  It's hard to just run them by, because each brings up a memory.  I think women are more prone than men to let things like this slow them down... but I sure am enjoying remembering the days past. 

This is our tenth summer here at Calamity Acres. 

Look at our gorgeous Ranger Boy five years ago, in 2008.  Wasn't he absolutely a beauty?

To us, he still is. 

My heart breaks when I think about what is to come with Ranger... but he has had a wonderful life here at Calamity Acres, and we have valued having him so much. 

Here are Roosters One, Two and Three as young cockerels!  My gosh, they look so tiny! 

Three actually had a brother, Four, who looked just like him.  Four did not make it through the very cold winter three years ago. 

That picture was taken November 2, 2008.  Almost five years ago!  

They are five year olds already! 

(Gosh, I use a lot of exclamation marks.) 

Here is our first pug, Addie Mae (right), and our second, Hannah Jean.  Hannah was almost blind when we adopted her.  Addie came from the Leavenworth Animal Control facility, and Hannah, from Second Chance rescue, a wonderful organization from whom we also got Abby. 

Addie died of heart congestion... and Hannah had glaucoma and complications from her enucleation (eye removal) with glaucoma starting in the second eye. 

These two little girls sold us on pugs, and we loved them so very much.  They rest here at Calamity Acres now. 

Here's a picture also near and dear to my heart... My sister Kathleen with the sweetest smile on her face, and my dear mother, Mary Catherine.  Both gone now, and both so deeply inbedded in my heart.  How I miss their smiling faces.  

This picture was taken before Kathleen was diagnosed with cancer... her future was bright and sunny, and she was married to a wonderful man who treasured her.  I love how pictures freeze that place in time. 

My mother's housedress from this picture is hanging in my closet this very minute.  I just could not donate it. 

This grainy picture is son Brandon, stopping to adjust his shoe during a basketball game in high school.  How this picture froze him in time... in a season when he played so very well, and was such a joy to watch.  I am so glad I took so many pictures that year.... and short films, that we still have.  

His loss is a hard blow to handle. 

We just don't know how many years God is going to give us... and we need to treasure each and every day that we can! 

I added a new blog to our blog roll today, one you might think is unusual.  If you read it, you will see why.  No... it doesn't have fancy pictures (yet)... but the writer is very, very witty... she has made me laugh and cry and I treasure each and every post she has written.  

I hope you'll enjoy "The Three Little Pugs" as much as I do! 

Here's the Addendum: 

That's a big one.  I did NOT change this waterer! 

A wasp in the goat barn got me. 

War is declared. 

Looking Back

Waxing nostalgic tonight, and looking back over the time since I started blogging about our lives here at Calamity Acres.  We have had so many animal members of our family in the seven years we have been here, that it seems like we have lived here much longer.

Here is our dear old pony Beau, and his goose friend, Samantha.

Samantha had a mate, Timmy, who was killed by a coyote attack, and all we found of him was his back and wings against the far fenceline.  Samantha loved Beau, and ate and drank with him daily, following him around the pasture.  She would pick straw from his coat as he laid in the sun, and I caught her doing it with the camera one day.  Sadly, something attacked Sammy and she suffered for days while I kept treating her wounds with iodine and salve... but missed a wound under a wing, and that got her. She was a lovely goose.

The brave Mama Llama, who came here to guard against coyotes after Sammy and Timmy died, with her then-little cria, Tony.

What a wonderful old girl she was!  She taught Tony and Inca well, and that's why Aztec is growing up so well today.  Sadly, Mama Llama has since died... inexplicably, in her home pasture at my friend Joni's. As Joni said, when you buy an animal at auction, you often do not know how old they really are. 

Sweet little Addie Mae, our first little pug.

Our beautiful geese and ducks.

We are hopefully going to have waterfowl again later this year. 

My little doll, waiting for me as I cleaned house.

People have come and gone too, stepson Brandon finished high school here with us, and is now living and working back in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  Grandson Chris comes and goes, helping out, and Nathan comes frequently to visit us, including this weekend.  We are hoping that once I am retired, we can frequently have family over for cookouts.  It seems now that the weekends either fly by with errands, or we are so tired that we just don't put forth the effort to have company.  I think that will change with this coming summer.

It seems like just a short time since we moved here... I had had surgery on my knee and couldn't walk, and Keith, God bless him, moved us BY HIMSELF.   I don't to this day know how he did it!

He actually painted the whole interior of the house before he started moving us, and moved me in a pain-medicine daze after he got the furniture moved.  And yet, we have had so many adventures since we moved here... Keith has built so very much.... the place has gone from a plain house sitting on five acres to a house with a pasture, with a barn, with fencing, with a garden, an arbor, flowerbeds.... it's a different place than what we bought and moved into.  It's a family place, it's home.

Almost the End of the Year

Yes, tomorrow will be the last post of the year... it seems like it just started and now here we are, at the end.  Tomorrow morning I'll take down the Christmas decorations and put them away until next year, God willing.   We have so enjoyed seeing the house all dressed up this year, and even Keith was loath to take them down early.

Here's a shot of the "main" tree this morning... my prim tree was decorated, and a small two foot prim tree on the chest in the bathroom was decorated, too.

As you can see, it was sunny out again.  Two years ago today, here is what we had:

There is Lilly horse, and Beau is to her left after the Great Blizzard of Christmas Eve, 2009. They would NOT go in their shed.

And last year:

Looking south down our road, last year this week.

We are so grateful the weather has been milder this year.  It got up to sixty yesterday, and in the fifties today.  Though it will only reach the forties the next few days, at least it has not been in the  single digits so far this winter. 

I know you can barely see it, but this is water rushing out of our well house about 3 hours ago, today.

As you can see, there was quite a bit of it, and it shows how high the water table is now, after our dry summer.  The sump pump has been pumping water out daily.

What a difference a year makes!

I got some sad news yesterday, that I did not write about last night.

Mama's Little Doll, my little Hannah, must have her bad eye out on Monday.  I wish I had been told this at the beginning of this week, while I was home.  She will spend a night at the vet's, and then Keith will bring her home on Tuesday.  I am very worried about her making it through the anesthetic, and then going through the surgery itself. 

Here she is four years ago, the day we brought her home when we adopted her.  We did not realize then how blind she already was, but she still could see a little.

Our dear little Addie Mae knew, and adopted Hannah immediately, becoming her eyes and ears.

And after Addie Mae was gone, Abby and Gertie have taken care of her.

Oddly enough, Ranger does not like Hannah, and does not like to be near her.  He will get up and move if she comes near him, and growl at her if she stumbles into him.  That is one reason we crate her, to protect her.  He is old and arthritic, too.

I am praying this weekend that we do not lose our good little girl yet, who wants only to be loved and be near us.

End of the Year lessons learned tomorrow.

A Pugtunia

Addie Mae

A Year Ago

I didn't want to make Farm Friend Friday a bummer, and it has been a long week here at Calamity Acres since we lost little Jenny.

A year ago yesterday, March 18, we lost this one

Our first pug, Addie Mae was a princess in every respect

And the apple of Daddy's eye

Part of the gang

and Hannah's eyes

We have a secret you and I

That no one else shall know

For who but I can see you lie,

Each night, in fireglow?

And who but I can reach my hand

before I go to bed

and feel the living warmth of you

and touch your silken head?

And only I walk woodland paths,

and see ahead of me,

your small form racing with the wind

so young again and free.

And only I can see you swim

in every brook I pass

And when I call,

no one but I can see

the bending grass.

Old Dogs Do Not Die

Author Unknown

Addie Mae, March 18, 2010

Our Dear Little Addie Mae

I should start this story by saying that once, there was a little Min Pin named Oscar, dog of my heart.... and he lived with us in Leavenworth, where he escaped from the yard with the ease of a ghost, and pulled us around the block and along the river bluff with his harness, pulling us off our feet he pulled so hard! He had feet of springs, and could jump two feet off the floor, and if bacon was in the air, three. He hated the woodchuck who lived under the porch next door, and stood upright at the window to watch for him, going nuts if he ventured out to eat the grass. At night, he growled under the covers if we tried to move our feet... and we laughed, because he was a Heat Seeking Missile. When we came to Calamity Acres, we found he could get through the 4 inch x 4 inch livestock fence, and he ran around the neighbor's yard. A sheepskin harness stopped that for a while, until he learned to turn sideways and get through. We feared he would get hit by a car or truck on our country road, as he began to chase them up and down the fenceline, inside the yard. And one night, he got out the gate when it was left open accidentally, ran down to the highway, and was hit by someone. Keith found him there the next morning, after we had searched for him in the dark. We buried him under the tree in the yard forever after known as "Oscar's Tree".

Ranger was alone then, and we decided to get him a companion, since he and Oscar had been such good friends. Two males, they never fought over anything, including bones. We went to the shelter, and there we found ... a puppy, the last thing we wanted. Lilly Ann chose Keith though, that day, and was the boss from the time she was two months old.

After a few more months, when it became aware that Lilly was truly Keith's dog, we argued over the fact that I had lost "my" dog. After the argument one day, Keith called me at work to tell me to get him through our guard shack, so he could show me something in the car. I went down to the front door, and there, in the seat next to him in a crate, was a tiny little pug, happy to see me through the gate of the crate, wagging her little curly tail. I said "Who's this?" and Keith said "This is Adeline Mabel, and she's coming home with us!". So Addie Mae came home. She was my first pug, though not Keith's, and she was sweet and winsome. She also became our protector, and did not take anything off the big dogs, who did not bother her. When a stranger came in, she got between the person and us, always guarding. If there was a noise in the night, her bark was right behind Lilly's and Ranger's. At night she would snuggle in bed against Keith, burrowing under him almost, and in the morning, switch to my side, resting against my shoulder and pushing her little behind against my pillow. In the evening, we would sit on the loveseat, and she would rest her forehand on my lap, and i would stroke her back and sides until she fell asleep on her red blanket. On the nights I didn't sit right down after supper, she and Hannah would worry until I sat and they could arrange themselves, coming up the dog steps to the loveseat. She loved to share my popsicles.

She loved the farm, she liked to wander around the yard, a little fawn-colored spot moving around on the fence-line. Oscar had been attacked by a young eagle one day, so we always tried to keep an eye on her... but she loved to go down in the pasture or into the hen-yard. One day a goose nipped her on the behind, and after that, she was not so interested in the birds, but she loved to be outdoors. Winter was hard on her, pug's bellies drag close the the ground, and the effort to get through the snow was great.

We got Hannah finally, to keep her company during the day while we worked, and she and Hannah bonded closely, Addie was Hannah's eyes. Hannah was content to follow her lead, and often rested her head on Addie's back. We marveled at the fact that two dogs that did not know each other until they were 8 could be so close.

Tuesday night, Addie coughed, some hard barking coughs. Since I was off work yesterday, I took her to Dr. Tom to get checked. The vet listened to her abdomen.... and then asked to take an exray. He came in to show me that her abdomen was filled with fluid, causing the hard breathing. He gave her an injection and then sent me home with medicine and a request to bring her back Monday, but he mentioned that she would have been gone in another 48 hours if I had not brought her in. She rode quietly back, looking at me through the carrier door as I talked to her. She got home and breathed very hard, panting and gasping. Keith looked at her when he came home and shook his head, then got his blankets and pillows and slept on the living room floor with her. She got on my lap for a minute, but could not breathe, and got next to me, where she was a little more supported by the couch cusion. During the night, Keith put her in bed, and this morning, she put herself next to me. I stroked her, she had gasped all night, and I was going to take her to Dr. Tom again. Keith put her on the floor so she could get a drink, and we heard her lap.... and then she was gone.

We have cried all day, and we buried her in the pasture, under the mulberry tree, next to Nickie. We will miss her little happy barks as we come in the door... and we know she's waiting with Oscar and Nick at the Rainbow Bridge when we get there. Goodnight, Little Addie Mae, Little Monkey Face, Daddy's Little Girl.

Dreaming of summer

Dreaming of summer
Originally uploaded by ksredhead

Addie Mae and Lilly Ann decided to stay in and stay warm!