Farm Animal Friday #3

Did you read about the time I showed the donkeys in a donkey show?

Well, here is one of those two donkeys.  This is Roxy.  I miss this dear face (she's alive and very well, in case you're wondering).

Hee-haw, and Happy Friday.

Fall in the Country

If you live in Texas, you like Fall.  Because it means NO MORE SUMMER.

It's mostly Fall-ish around here these days, but the ladies over at SITS - with their Fall Back Into Blogging event - have given me a bout of Fall Fever.

Day 2 of their blogging challenge is a photographic challenge...the prompt is to show a picture of what Fall means to me.

To be honest, I barely even remember last Fall.  We were in a new house, in a new town, with a new baby.  The newborn haze was thick and I don't really remember much for the first few months seasons of Claire's life.  My memories don't start to sharpen until sometime in the Spring.

But!  I remember the previous Fall.  When it was just me, Charles, and Jack.  Living in the country.  Claire not even a figment of our imaginations yet.

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The Donkey Show, Part 2

Did you read The Donkey Show, Part 1?  If not, I'll save you the trouble with this quick synopsis:

I had a few half-wild miniature donkeys sitting around and thought it would be fun to take them to a donkey show at the State Fair of Texas, thinking that because I had experience showing horses, donkeys would be a piece of cake (Do you know donkeys? Do you know horses?  Or, do you just realize how ridiculous that sounds?  Go ahead...laugh!).

And that brings us to Show Day.

Charles and I arrived at the showgrounds nice and early.  I had a lot of work to do to get these guys ready for their big debut.

I would be showing the donkeys in several classes - I'll break it down here so it hopefully makes sense.

Roxy and Donkey would each be shown in a "halter" class - this is a competition judged on manners and conformation, in which the donkeys compete against similar donkeys (for example, Roxy was a baby and would be competing in the Yearling class, against other donkeys who were all roughly a year-old, and Donkey was a "jack," meaning he had not been castrated, so he would be competing in a class against other jacks).

After the halter classes, they would be shown in performance classes.  A performance class requires some sort of skill and the donkey is judged against other donkeys on their ability to perform said skill with precision and obedience.  Some classes include riding, pulling a cart, log-pulling, or in our case, obstacles. Because the donkeys were too small to ride, the class was called Trail in Hand - meaning I would theoretically lead them through a course of obstacles they might encounter in a "trail"-like environment (crossing a bridge, walking over poles, etc.).

I took both donkeys out of their stalls and groomed them (pretty easy when they are 34" tall and have no hair, even if they were not as cooperative as I would have liked).  And then, I polished their hooves.

Hoof polish is like nail polish.  Only, it dries in a matter of seconds and doesn't come off.  Ever.  It's made to stay on the hooves of a very large animal that drags those very polished hooves through sand, and it does its job well.  I'm guessing it's made from some Super Chemical that is outlawed for human use, because I could only wish my nail polish had this staying power.

Whether or not hoof polish is used depends on the type of show you are attending, and in the case of the donkeys, hoof polish was a must!

This particular type of hoof polish is applied with a spongy brush.  You simply dip it in the polish, run the brush around the top of the donkey's hoof, and watch as it spreads down over the hoof, drying almost immediately.  This should have been the easiest part of the day.  But instead, it ended up sending me into a tizzy.

It turned out Donkey was ticklish.  And every time that little brush would even lightly glance against the long hairs right above his hoof (which I clearly neglected to see when I was clipping him...), he would stomp his foot.

The first time he did this, he bumped the brush and black polish splattered onto my hand and all over the concrete floor of the barn aisle (which was marked with rings of black paint from all the hooves that had been painted before us on the same surface).  So, I got smart and told Charles to pick up a hoof and hold it while I polished the other three, knowing that he couldn't stomp his feet if one was already off the ground, right?

Right!  He couldn't stomp his feet!  But he COULD REAR.  And rear he did, straight up into the sky, hitting the brush and splattering polish ALL OVER HIS WHITE BELLY, my shirt, and knocking the bottle over onto the ground.

I said a bad word.  I picked up the now mostly-empty bottle and said another bad word.  Donkey eyeballed me out of the corner of his eye.  He now realized the polish smelled funny and was 100% sure he was not going to participate in this ridiculousness from this point forward.  And he had black paint all over his belly.

The plan changed.  Before I could finish painting his feet (and oh, yes, I would be painting those feet!), I first had to remove the paint from his stomach.

Of course, it had already dried.  And no amount of water/brushing/soap/scraping would remove even a smidge of this dastardly polish.

So, to the tack store (a place that sells horse equipment) we went.  Because I happen to know that hoof polish remover exists.

But you know what?  They didn't have any.  And the clock was ticking.  It was getting closer and closer to showtime, and all those thoughts I'd had about just having fun were nowhere to be found.  I wanted my donkey to look good, dammit.

And this, my friends, is where Charles shines.  When I am a panicky mess, he is a rock,  He told me to get myself ready and that he would fix this problem, and off he went.  Where to, I have no idea.  But I trusted him, and quickly changed into clean clothes and braided my own mane and found my hat.

I should tell you now how someone is supposed to dress for a donkey show.

The proper attire includes western pants (plain old denim need not apply!), a nice shirt, a sports coat, boots and a hat.  The look is polished, simple, and professional.

It does not include jeans and a hokey button-up western shirt...which is exactly what I had worn.  I knew the required attire, but if you hadn't noticed, I left my "A" game at home.  I wasn't sure if I would continue showing donkeys or not, and the show had been expensive enough as it was...so I made the decision to save some money and just wear what I already had with the exception of a few things I needed to purchase.  This was all fine and dandy, except I stood out like a sore thumb (as if I needed anything else to make us stand out at this point).

So there I was, wearing boots a half-size too large because they were the only ones I was able to find in my price range and a hat that didn't quite fit right because I couldn't justify the expense of a nice hat, holding a donkey who was wearing a cheap halter I'd bought off of eBay with a bunch of holes punched in it to make it fit and who had one painted hoof and a belly covered in black paint, waiting for Charles to magically save the day.

And like a beacon of light at the end of a dark tunnel, Charles appeared...armed with a can of...WD-40?

Apparently he had asked everyone who would listen how to remove hoof polish and finally...FINALLY...someone had an answer.  Just put a little WD-40 on a rag, apply to the offending polish, and VOILA...polish is removed.  Just.  Like.  That.

A few minutes of spot-cleaning and sneaky polish application later (maybe with a little help from a couple of capable bystanders), Donkey had sparkling black hooves and not even a hint of polish elsewhere.

He was ready.  I was ready.  To the warm-up area, we went.

Now, this is where things go from not-very-good to much, much worse.

Donkey rebelled.

He didn't want to go to the show anymore.  He started rearing.  Balking.  Striking out at me with his little front hooves.  Rearing and striking at the same time, even.  He quit, and we hadn't even started yet!

All of the other donkeys waited patiently, swishing their little tails in annoyance while their well-dressed handlers deftly maneuvered them out of our way as Donkey unleashed his fury.  Some of the donkeys gave him the stink eye (who did he think he was, anyway) and others ignored him completely.  The handlers, owners and spectators all watched quietly and many made sympathetic faces when I told them - between rears - that it was his first show.

And then it was our time to enter the arena.

There were seventeen people there to cheer us on.  SEVENTEEN.  For some perspective, there were probably about twenty people in the entire audience, and this included the seventeen from our Pep Squad.

And these seventeen spectators we brought?  They.  Were.  Loud.

As the other donkeys filed into the arena, my cheering section was already cheering for me - and we were still in the warm-up area, because Donkey didn't *want* to enter the show arena.  He reared, he backed up, he nearly ripped the lead rope from my hands...and then he burst forward, dragging me into the arena, much to the delight of the roaring crowd.

And so it went for the next ten minutes or so.  The other handlers put their donkeys through their paces.  I was lucky to have Donkey stand in one spot.  I believe the saying "full of piss and vinegar" would accurately describe Donkey's demeanor at that time.

It was no surprise when they called out the results, from last to first, and we were the first ones called.  Despite our last place finish, we still got a ribbon (this is the benefit to only having three other donkeys in the class!), and this brought great satisfaction to my cheering section, which was having great fun at my expense and growing rowdier by the second (and the louder they got, the less cooperative donkey became).

Two things about this picture.  First, do you see the judge standing there watching us?  She's dressed the way I was *supposed* to be dressed.  Secondly, do you see how donkeys feet are all splayed out?  Yeah, they weren't supposed to be like that.  But they do look shiny and black, don't they?

So as you can imagine, I didn't have much hope for Roxy's halter class.  Especially because it was the most competitive class of the day, with sixteen donkeys entered!  The *only* thing we had going for us was that because it was full of young donkeys, the judge was lenient towards their juvenile behavior.  It was easy enough to pretend that Roxy was well-trained and just acting like a baby rather than just being wild.

But still...as I dragged Roxy into the arena (she didn't seem interested in participating, either), I was kind of ready for the day to be over, already.

We went through the paces as well as we could.  There was some rearing, some bucking, some balking.  The usual young donkey fare.  There were a lot of donkeys and many misbehaved, and it took a long time to get through the class.  Roxy and I were both over it.

It seemed like this class would never end.  The judge walked up and down the rows of donkeys, stopping here and there to inspect one more closely.  She stared at Roxy for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time, and I thought to myself it was a kind gesture (judges will often know their top horses/donkeys from the moment they walk into the arena, and if you are being inspected closely, it likely means you are being considered for a prize).  I was pretty sure she felt sorry for us and wanted to make me think she liked us, but I could see what we were up against!  Fancy, well-bred donkeys who arrived in expensive trailers and had several generations of winning show donkeys in their bloodlines.  I was under no false impression that we were going to be competitive.

When the judge handed the final results to the announcer I stood up and breathed a sigh of relief.  My knees hurt from all the squatting, and I was starting to get sweaty as the day warmed up.

After some discussion between the announcer and the judge, the results were read.

"In sixth place," he announced, to an arena of complete silence (every one of my cheering squad was on the edge of their seats!), "is Short n' Sweet Roxy!"

O-M-G.  I looked up in shock.  It was...us!

The crowd WENT WILD.  They were screaming, stomping their feet, whistling...in general spooking every single donkey within hearing distance.  Even the other competitors were cheering (it was pretty obvious it was our first show, and everyone was very supportive), as their own donkeys danced around their legs in response to the sudden outburst from the audience.

I gave Roxy a tug and headed towards the exit, the other competitors congratulating me as we walked out, a giant smile pasted on my face.

In fact, it was so loud that I could barely hear the announcer trying to gain control of the crowd and be heard above the melee.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"  he was saying.  The crowd hushed.

"Sixth place actually goes to Little Donk, owned by..." but I didn't hear the rest.  I only heard enough to understand that we hadn't received sixth place after all.

The announcer had made a mistake.

There was a collective groan throughout the warm-up arena, the bleachers and the show arena as everyone realized what had happened.

Embarrassed, the announcer apologized again as we re-entered the arena, red-faced me dragging one reluctant little donkey as I looked at the cheering squad and shrugged.

We had barely returned to our place when the announced said, "FIFTH place goes to Short n' Sweet Roxy!" and if I thought it had been loud the first time, I was in for a surprise because they were even louder the second go-round...they brought the house down.

We walked out of the arena with our heads high to what pretty much equaled a standing ovation.

Roxy's owners were excited, her breeders were excited, our Pep Squad was excited, the casual observers who had witnessed my embarrassment were excited, and maybe most of all - I was excited.

Fifth place out of sixteen was not a bad showing at all, especially considering our company, my half-ass (hehe!) preparation, and the drama leading up to the Big Win.  It was a good day for Donkey Showing.

I'll be honest, it could only go downhill from there.  And downhill it went, fast.

We had two more events, remember?  Performance classes, that required actual...performance...from these disagreeable little donkeys.

Well, we never actually got a chance to perform.

Both donkeys were disqualified before even getting over the first obstacle.  Donkey refused to even enter the arena, letting me know loud and clear that his days as a show donkey were over.  Roxy entered the arena (high off her win, maybe?) and promptly planted her little hooves in one spot and refused to move forward.  At all.

But I was okay with that.  The little fifth place ribbon we had won earlier more than made up for the failures of the day.

And this was the show that kept on giving.

Several weeks later, after the excitement had worn off and I had decided to shelve donkey showing indefinitely, I received something in the mail from the State Fair of Texas.

It was a check. For $10.  Which, for the record, is about $390 less than we spent on attending the show, but that's beside the point.

It remains the one and only time I have ever won actual money from a horse (donkey) show.

That check has yet to be cashed.  In fact, Charles recently looked up my name at a website for unclaimed money and found that I had $10 from the State Fair of Texas waiting for me.  Maybe one of these days I'll cash in - but for now, that unclaimed money serves as a reminder of the time I decided to enter a donkey show with two nearly-wild miniature donkeys.  And that, my friends, is priceless.

The Donkey Show, Part I

You know that awful "icebreaker" they make you do at work events - the one where they go around the room and everyone has to share something interesting about themselves?  It's been awhile since I've worked, but I hated that.  I really, really hated that.

But it didn't matter that I hated it, because everyone had to participate.  What mattered was, did I have an interesting fact to share?  Because everyone else had something fascinating to say ("My parents are from Germany!"  "I drive a 15-year old car!" "I have a dog named Darth!").  And when they rolled around to me, every head turned my way and I could feel every pair of eyes boring into my soul.  And I delivered.

"My name is Carrie, and I won money in a donkey show with my show donkeys."

BOOM.  Just like that, I was officially the *most* interesting person in the room.

Most people laughed.  They assumed I was kidding.  I was business casual in a north Dallas country club at an insurance professional's continuing education event.  I was not a donkey-showing country girl in shit-kickers.

And that, I suppose, summed me up at that time in my life.  I was all of those things.  Insurance professional by day, donkey showman by weekend.

It should be no surprise that I showed donkeys to those who know me best...they are, after all, the ones who grew up with me in 4H and FFA...yet, everyone thought it was funny that I was showing donkeys.  Me too, even.  The thing about donkeys is, they require a sense of humor.  And right now, I am tapping into that sense of humor of mine to bring this story to light so one day my kids will know about the time Mama took her country donkeys to the city for the Big Donkey Show.

It started innocently enough.  My husband's aunt gave us a miniature donkey, aptly named Donkey.

Donkey and Goat-Goat, shortly after arriving at our place (the Saga of Goat-Goat is a tale that also needs to be told...).

Shortly after, my husband's uncle decided he wanted to get a couple of these little critters for himself and we found ourselves boarding two additional donkeys, Roxy and Bella (this is when we lived in the country, in case you were wondering how they fit into our current suburban lifestyle).

So there we were, with three miniature donkeys.  And somehow or other, I discovered that the State Fair of Texas was hosting a Donkey Show!  It didn't take long for me to decide that a donkey show with a couple of mostly untrained donkeys was a great idea!

Now, I should say here that I know a thing or two about showing animals.  I have been showing horses since I was a wee lass, and I know what it's all about.  And donkeys have four legs and tails, so surely a donkey show couldn't be *that* different from a horse show, right?

Ha!  Hahahahahahahahahaha!

The first thing I did, after signing up, was attempt to train the donkeys.  Because mine were far from "trained."  Oh yes, they were tame, and friendly, and all up in your business 100% of the time, but they weren't really trained.  They were little, and like little dogs, I just kind of let them do their own thing, and if we really needed some proper behavior out of them (for example, when the vet came), they were small enough that we could just muscle them around (not that it was easy, or pretty...but certainly easier than actually training them proved to be).

Training went...okay.  They would usually walk properly once haltered, and occasionally put their feet where they were supposed to (like the dogs you see in dog shows, they are supposed to stand a particular way while they are being shown so the judge can inspect their conformation).  Sometimes they would walk over the obstacles I set out, even.  And by the Grace of God and All That is Holy, I managed to body clip them both on my own (that means, shave off their fuzzy coats) and trim their manes based on some pictures I had googled of show donkeys (I knew they were supposed to look a certain way, I just didn't know how to get them that way, ok?).

In case you were wondering how hairy donkeys are, here is Roxy a few months before the show (and, obviously, pre-shaving - you can see the shaved version below).

And before we knew it, it was time to go to the show.

Weather in Texas is persnickety.  The show was in early October, but it was cold, cold, cold that day, and the donkeys were bundled up in their jammies (remember, they had no hair because I shaved it all off) and and off we went!

This is Roxy, in the horse trailer, waiting to be unloaded for her big show debut.

Once the donkeys had been unloaded (I'd brought Roxy and Donkey, since Bella was pregnant and a little on the wild side, still), I walked around and learned my first lesson of donkey-showing.

I hadn't done a very good job trimming their manes.

Apparently there's a technique involved, one that surpasses holding a donkey's head still in one hand and manning scissors with the other.  I had kind of guessed that as I was manning said scissors, but at the time google proved to be useless when I typed in "trimming donkeys manes for a show," so I just did the best I could.

Well, the best I could do was not good enough!  These other donkeys looked sharp.  Their manes were little works of art.  Mine was too, but...not in the same way.  Mine was more...abstract.

So, I freaked out.  And promptly went looking for Roxy's breeders (who were also at the show and had promised to assist us in any way they could).  One thing about Donkey People - they are a really kindhearted and pleasant bunch, and like to help their own.  And before I knew it, I had learned the mane-trimming technique, borrowed a couple tools of the trade, and trimmed my donkeys' manes to near perfection.

Now, the donkeys were staying two nights at the Fair, and showing the second day, so I had some time to wander up and down the barn aisles and check out the competition.

And it was fierce.

Not only were most of these donkeys bred for the purpose of competition, but they were actually trained, too (imagine that!).  Typical donkeys are a dime of dozen (just check Craigslist), but show donkeys...not so much.  They are little, and cute, and expensive.  I had brought with me one free donkey that had spent most of his life living with a goat, and one donkey that had been purchased by my husband's uncle on the low end of the "show donkey spectrum."  We were outclassed, and I knew it (hey, I didn't win the FFA State Horse Judging Competition in 1996 for nothing!).

Not only were we outclassed, but we were also unprepared.  And not even dressed properly!

I was just there to have fun and gain some experience for myself and the donkeys...it didn't matter if we were the bottom of the barrel.  And even if my donkeys were "backyard" at best, especially when sized up against these other fancy, big-dollar show donkeys, this was going to be FUN.

And that is the attitude I had (along with our cheering section of a gazillion family members, extended family members, and their friends, too) going into Show Day.

To be continued...

I Am Grateful for What I Had

I am all sorts of grateful for what I have.  I have a lot of new things in my life...things I wanted and ended up getting, things I am currently enjoying.  A new house, a new baby, a new town.

Getting into this house, in this town, was a long and bumpy ride down a long and bumpy road.  But no matter how bad I wanted OUT of the old place (and, um, it was pretty bad), I am still grateful that we lived there.

Our home in the country was just what we thought we wanted when we first moved to Texas.  In many ways,  it was exactly what we wanted.

But it was also more than we bargained for (and this didn't become apparent until we had Jack, and all of a sudden driving an hour to the pediatrician or forking out another $200 to mow the front pasture started to get...old).  We thought that raising our kid in the country was just what we wanted...until we tried to actually raise our kid in the country.  That fifteen acres of land and the pond in the backyard?  All of a sudden, I realized that it was less "free-range children playing in the forest and fishing in the pond" and more "snakes in the trees, scorpions in the bushes, and a giant drowning hazard surrounded by mosquitoes and more snakes in the backyard."

The time we once happily and easily invested in cleaning stalls and driving to the feed store with the best deal on grain suddenly became precious.  Who had time to clean stalls when the baby needed to eat (again)?  Who cared if we were saving $1/bag of alfalfa pellets when the baby was fussy (again)?  Literally overnight, the things we had enjoyed took second fiddle to the new little person in our lives.  Even feeding the horses was a chore, and I had always cherished those moments in the barn with my grateful herd.

Once we decided to sell the place and move, we didn't look back.  Some would even think that by the time we had packed our last bag, I hated it out there.

But that would not be the case.

I am grateful for our time in the country.  I am grateful for the balmy July night I went out back and jumped on my horse, bareback, and cruised around the pasture under a full moon.  I am grateful that my beloved Mo, a horse I bought not once, but twice, was able to live out his days in a pasture with his horsie pals rather than isolated and in a small corral back in California.  I am grateful for the donkeys, who I never expected to own (and who I never truly did own...I would say they owned US).  I am grateful for the sound of the cicadas (not the actual cicadas, those things are NASTY) and the leisurely strolls I took down our country road.

It was a chapter in my life that I will someday look back on fondly (once we finish paying off the foundation repairs on that house, most likely).

I am grateful for where we're at and for what we have, but I am also grateful that I used to have this:

I think Seamus pretty much sums it up here:

Once Upon a Time (my pledge to start recording memories so I can prove to my kids that I was cool...or not)

Once upon a time...it was just me and Charles.  And Janga, Cricket, Dinah, Twinkie, Mo, Seamus, Norman, Donkey, Harry, Rocket and Lando.  Our fur children.  That's right...we had lots of four-legged fur kids.  Dogs, horses, cats and...donkeys.

And how I miss my donkeys.

The adventures we had when we first moved to Texas are something else.  In fact, people often tell me I needed to write a book about our experiences (I take this with a grain of salt since most of these people are relatives).  But it's true that we've had some amazing adventures (misadventures?).  And it's also true that we had a whole lotta animals (animals = all kinds of drama).

How many of you have had your poker guests have to leave because they were volunteer firefighters who received a call to impound a horse from a drunk guy riding down the road? How many of you have come home to a herd of buffalo in your front pasture?  How many of you have received an email saying you have unclaimed money from the State of Texas and it turned out to be LEGIT because you never cashed the check for $10 you won in a donkey show at the State Fair??  

These stories need to be told.  For my children and for every person even thinking about selling a little condo in Southern California and buying 15 acres of land in rural Texas on the same road as all of their husband's family (who's that dumb, right?!).  And also, for me - so I don't forget these things.  Already, the memory of pulling into my driveway after a long day at work (in Dallas, in an office) to find wild buffalo destroying my fences and terrorizing my horses as two strangers tried to load them into a trail is starting to fade.  

I DON'T WANT TO FORGET THAT KIND OF STUFF.  

So, the next time I'm waxing nostalgic over the "good" old days, I'm going to take it a step farther (further?) and actually record said memory in my blog so I can one day show my kids and say, "SEE???  This really happened to your good ol' Mom and Dad.  We were invaded by buffalos / won $10 in a donkey show / called 911 on three separate occasions because there were loose cows in the street at night and we almost hit them / etc."  

I know the image is blurry, but I'm totally not lying about the donkey show.  

Oh, yeah.  I got more where that came from.

Perks to Country Living

Tonight Charles and I were discussing how this could (and should) be our last Saturday night in the country.  And we are really living it up, let me tell you - it's 9:00 PM and I am in bed, typing this, and halfway watching Charles and Jack struggle over taking off Jack's clothes for his (very late) bath. 

But really, as we realized this actually might be our last week in this house, we started talking about the things we would miss.  Not the obvious things, like pretty trees more than a century old surrounding our house or baby cows in the pasture next door.  No.  Those are not the things we are really going to miss, when it comes down to it.

We are going to miss the little perks to isolated country life - the little things we take for granted but enjoy on a daily basis.  For Charles, this means things like peeing in the back (and front!) yard and being able to walk around naked - even outside - without anyone seeing you.  For me, this means things like tossing the rotten fruit into the back pasture (and, umm, even tossing a turkey into the pond once that went bad when the power went out for several days - enjoy, fishies!) and not having to pick up dog poop.  The dog poop thing is huge...I am going to have to buy a pooper scooper and USE it (or at least Charles is)...it's been years since I last owned a pooper scooper or have had to bring little baggies with me when I take Janga out on walks. 

I don't think they'll let us light our Christmas tree on fire in the front yard in the big city (yes, we did that here, with several volunteers from the local fire department on hand - their idea - and OMG let me tell you, those things are SUPER DUPER EXTRA FLAMMABLE and burn up in no time!!).  I am pretty sure the neighbors won't let us set off fireworks at any hour of the day and night we choose and I am also pretty sure they won't be happy if we collect our weeds and other junk in a large "burn pile".  And yes, I realize that the entire last paragraph involved all of the things we won't be able to light on fire once we move.  Ha!

These things are small and the trade-off is huge (no fire ants, a Super Target and Starbucks!) but I know, even now, that I will miss pieces of our country existence every now and then.  Especially when there is rotten food in the fridge.

:::Oh...and in case you are wondering...STILL NO BABY!!!:::

It's Safe to Say I Am Sick of Scorpions.

I am so sick of scorpions.

I even promised myself I would stop blogging about them. 

But I can't.  The Scorpion Nest we reside in is almost so unbelieveable that *I* can't even believe it, and I live it every day.  And that is why I must share the latest Scorpion Escapades.

Someday, my memory will be foggy or I may be lucky enough to live in a place that is scorpion-free and I will think back on this house and wonder if I imagined it all.  Or maybe I will tell my children tales of the scorpion-kind and they won't believe me (because seriously...who has THIS MANY SCORPIONS IN THEIR HOUSE!?).  Won't it be nice to direct them to this here blog, pictures and all, to verify my stories. 

So anyway, here it goes.

As you know, the Orkin Man came out earlier this week.  Oh, what a welcome sight he was as he pulled that big old cannister of poison out of his little white truck.  And what high hopes I had as he left us a stack of sticky bug traps ("We won't need those, they are all going to be DEAD!" I thought).  And how I disregarded his comment about how the scorpions might be "mad" and we might see a few the first few days after he sprayed ("Mad? Who cares if they're mad as long as they die!").

It didn't take long to see our first survivor of the Scorpion Apocalypse.  Not long at all.  And guess where I saw him?

On my shoulder.  In bed. 

Yeahhhh...not the best way to wake up.  Of course, I screamed, ripped my shirt off and got lucky I wasn't stung.

Fast forward about, oh, 12 hours.  I am washing laundry that was on the floor of my closet.  I throw it in the dryer.  I return to take it out and find another one (stuck in the dryer vent, like the last one I found in the laundry).  But this one?  He was NOT. DEAD.  He survived a washing and a drying and was still trying to thrash around.  I took a picture of him and will get that posted soon (because I know that everyone wants to see pictures of half-dead scorps). 

At this point I am thinking that the poison actually has made them stronger and that we have mutated their race and created a special sub-species of Super Scorpions.

And oh, how I wish that was the last one I've seen.

But then there was this morning.

Half asleep, I feel something (think maybe I am even dreaming) tickling my cheek.  I open my eyes and see, quite literally out of the corner of my eye, something scampering around my temple.  I sit up and see it fall off my face...ANOTHER FREAKING SCORPION.  I start pulling back the pillows and sheets to look for it while hitting Charles and hissing "Scorpion!" at him (because as horrified as I am here, I do not want to wake up the sleeping child!).  We look for it, can't find it, and then Charles says, "Don't Move. Straighten your arm out slowly..."

I oblige.  The little bastard is climbing down my arm.  Charles flicks him off, beats him with a shoe, and sends him to the burial grounds (aka the septic tank). 

So, a couple of notes here.  Our beds (we have a king-sized bed and Jack has a full-size, and they are right next to each other) are on box springs on the floor.  They are not on frames.  They are also pushed up against the wall.  Apparently the Orkin Man said that having the beds against the wall can be a problem but WHO THE HECK DOESN'T HAVE THEIR BED PUSHED UP AGAINST A WALL???  And the first two times Charles and I were stung, both in bed, the bed was up on a bed frame, so it's not like this can be entirely blamed on having the bed on the floor.

This evening Charles pulled the beds back about an inch from the wall and circled them in Scorpion traps.  He covered the air-conditioning vents on the floor with plastic.  We stuffed traps in every corner of my closet.  A week since the house was sprayed, the poison should be kicking in now (Charles claims the last two we found were "not quite right" and appeared to be affected by the poison and dying slow deaths...ummm...yeah, I'm not going to agree with that theory seeing as they were both ON ME when we found them!!).

If this doesn't do it, I don't know what will.  I am just thanking my lucky stars that Jack has not been stung and that Charles and I have only been stung three times between the two of us. 

Join me in praying to the Bug God to remove his subjects from our house.

And...here's hoping I do not ever need to write another post about waking up to a scorpion in my bed,

My New Boyfriend is Here Right Now! RIGHT. NOW.

And guess who my new boyfriend might be.

No, he doesn't actually *know* he's my boyfriend (I would be wary of any guy who gets into a relationship with a 31-week pregnant girl who is also married).  But I love him anyway.

It's...

The Orkin Man!

After three more scorpion incidents since the last one I blogged about (one involving Charles' back, our bed, and the middle of the night, one involving a scorpion corpse under the high chair, and one involving the bug trap in my closet) and one very frightening Brown Recluse spider incident (I caught one on my bug trap...in my CLOSET), Charles rang up our old pal The Orkin Man and he is here, spraying glorious bug-killing poion as I write this.

Now...I would normally try to avoid things like, you know, POISON, when I am pregnant and have a toddler and pets in the house...but I am also not too keen on being hospitalized for a Brown Recluse flesh-eating wound while pregnant, or comforting a scorpion-sting-suffering two-year-old.

So poison it is.  And I'll say it again: Die, BITCHES!!!

The Scorpion Ranch, Part Five (this is getting old, fast...)

We have been training Jack to avoid scorpions since he was eighteen months old.  I am proud (very proud) to say that all of this training seems to be sinking in.  The two main rules of scorpion-avoidance are: DON'T TOUCH and TELL A GROWN-UP.  Sort of like a "Stop, Drop and Roll" for dangerous bugs.

So the other day, Jack comes running up to Charles and telling him that "the scorpion got the spider!"  Charles asked where the scorpion was (sometimes it's hard to tell when a two-year-old is telling the actual truth, or just telling us about some great fantasy he is currently living in - I mean, I *know* when he tells me that a giant monster truck got a fish out of our pond and a tow truck had to come rescue it that he's telling me a little story...but when he tells us a scorpion and spider are fighting, the line between reality and fantasy is a little grayer...it's certainly possible that a scorpion and spider were fighting in this house).  So Charles followed Jack to the scene of the Scorpion/Spider battle and there was, indeed, a scorpion (maybe the spider crawled off to die somewhere?).

YAY for Jack alerting us to the whereabouts of a scorpion. YAY for Jack for not touching it.  And YAY for ONE. MORE. SCORPION. GOING DOWN.

Country Roads...Take Me Home...

I talk a lot about the walks I go on and I realized these last few days that it's very possible my walks down these country roads might come to an end sooner than I had thought. 

For one thing, it's getting hot ("hot" means 85 degrees to this perpetually overheated pregnant lady).  I don't know how much longer the decent weather will hold out, and I can tell you for sure that I won't be traipsing around in 95 degree weather down a hot stinky road (yeah, the parts of the road that are actually paved reek of melted asphalt when it gets hot) dodging grasshoppers and snakes when I am nine months pregnant.  It's possible that we might sell our house soon and by the time I am ready to start walking again, we will no longer be here and I'll instead be walking down sidewalks and under streetlamps rather than down dirt roads and under oak trees. 

This past week has been especially beautiful.  75 degrees, breezy, blue skies.  The kind of weather that reminds me of California.  So I decided to take my camera and capture my walk (camera = iPhone that crashes constantly and had a dirty lense which resulted in much frustration on my part and blurry pictures, to boot).  I had planned on editing the pictures in my favorite iPhone app - Instagram - and making them all pretty and bright so my walk would look *extra* exciting, but that was not meant to be.  My phone is two years old and apparently the bug that Apple implants in all phones to self-destruct when they turn two years old so their owners will be required to buy a new one has been activated.  So, no fancy Instagram pictures to make my walk look better than it really is.  Just the real deal.

Here it is, from start to finish (minus my panting and wheezing self, of course). 

This is my driveway (well, actually I was about a 1/4 of the way down it already).  It bears noting that it takes me like ten minutes to walk down the driveway and get the mail.  Much, much longer if I take Jack.  The little brown head in this picture is Janga, my trusty walking buddy (mostly trusty...I enjoy her company until we see a rabbit or something else of that nature and she tries to pull me off my feet to get it - amazing how much torque a 55-pound pitbull with a bunny or squirrel in her sights can produce!).

This is a part of the road we walk down.  Most of it looks a lot like this.  This is all very nice when it's shady and cool.  Not so nice when the sun is directly overhead.  The little black blob in this picture (and probably a few more to come) is Cricket.  Cricket was a "dump dog" - when we first moved out here someone dumped an emaciated mother dog and her ten mange-ridden, hairless puppies (TEN!!!) and we rescued them.  Hundreds of dollars later the dogs were well and we found them all homes.  We kept Cricket, but a couple of years ago she deserted us to go live with the neighbors who let her sleep on the couch and feed her sandwiches.  So I really don't consider her "our" dog anymore, but she does occasionally join us on our walks.

I kind of feel like I might see a leprechaun running through this pasture when I pass it.  That would be neat.

Another potential leprechaun hiding place.  If leprechauns lived in Texas, that is.

I love this pasture.  I walk past a ton of trees and there is suddenly this little opening in the trees and I get to see this pretty picture.  There are some really nice horses who live here and enjoy it as well.  The other day they were down by the fence so I picked my way through the brambles to go over and visit with them.  They are actually pretty fancy and nice to look at, and within seconds all seven of them were pushing up against the fence to get scratches.  This was all fine and dandy until one particularly pretty palomino mare decided to start kicking the tar out of everyone around her (as in, making some serious contact) and they all started tripping over each other and trampling each other trying to get away from Evil Mare.  A few of them of course went into the fence (barbed wire) and I thought, "Oh, shit, this is what I get for trying to visit with the pretty horsies!" and I pulled Janga away from the fence.  As I looked down I realized I was standing in a bunch of suspicious-looking green plants that immediately brought to mind the trailriders/hikers mantra, "Leaves of Three, Let it Be" and again thought, "Oh, shit, am I stepping in Poison Ivy?????"  It all turned out ok.  Horses returned to grazing peacefully and I, as of today, do not have any weird/itchy rashes on my legs.  Yay.

Lots of sky and pretty clouds blowing in the breeze this particular day.  As Jack noted, "Clouds are movin', Mama!"

This lovely landmark tells me I am about 1/4 of the way done with my walk.  And also reminds me that I do, indeed, live in rural Texas.  This has been there for about 6 months now.  I was hoping to see how long it would take to biodegrade.  In case you can't make it out, it's an empty case of Coors Light on a reflector.  Nice, right??

This fellow poked his head out of the bushes and surprised me about halfway through my walk.  He had a harem of lovely ladies laying at his feet, actually.  They were enjoying the nice day as well.

I think the lense was foggy (hence the weird blue streaks) but I wanted to include this one anyway because this road (which I never take, too creepy and isolated to walk by myself) has great memories for me.  I used to ride down it (feels much safer on a horse) and one day when I was pregnant with Jack (in the late summer), Charles and I walked down it and saw, literally, hundreds of fireflies flashing all around us.  I have never seen anything like it since.

Thistle!!  You know, like Eeyore eats!  I don't think I had ever touched thistle before.  I expected it to be...prickly, I guess?  It wasn't.  It was soft and I was tempted to bring some back to see if the donkeys would eat it.  But then I would have had to carry it for 30 minutes and that did not appeal to me (I have, on occasion, brought "treasures" back to Jack - a golf ball once, and an actual heavy metal hook another time...hmmm...maybe I need a fanny pack.  Ha!).

Sorry, snake-phobes.  But this is a daily part of my walks.  Today, the little bugger was dead.  The previous day?  Not so much.  It is kind of sad, these are harmless snakes, but I really, really, REALLY don't like putting my foot down and noticing a half-second too late that I am about to step on a snake...harmless or not. 

Trotting along, on high alert for squirrel sightings.

This is our driveway again, from the other end.  The homestretch!  Cricket is patiently waiting for us.  I am reluctant to leave the shade (seriously...it was 75 degrees out but my pregnant-self feels about 10 degrees warmer and I was sweating at this point). 

So there you have it, my friends.  I am sorry to not have more wildlife pictures for you (one of the reasons I wanted to take the camera that day was because I had come across armadillos, a skunk, several snakes and a pasture full of llamas in the last week and thought surely I would run into more of the same on this beautiful day, but I guess they were all in hiding). 

It is a beautiful place, most of the time, and I will miss it.  Please remind me I said that in about, oh, two weeks when it's 90 degrees outside and I can't even make it down the driveway!

Dah-ling I love you, but give me Park Avenue!

About four days a week, I walk for an hour or so all by myself in relative peace.  Although these walks are major Restorers of Sanity, the real reason I walk is because I need the exercise.  You would think it would be a nice time to just sort of relax, put the brain on hold, and enjoy the surrounding countryside...but that never happens.  Instead I find myself thinking about Jack, my future daughte (holy cow, I'm having a girl!), the horses, the house, where we are living, why I hate it, why I love it, etc.  The theme I most often find myself coming back to is "Country vs. Suburb - Which is Best?" 

This usually stems from the fact that I rarely see a car on my walks and instead enjoy views of cows laying by a pond and a pasture of llamas (love!) but that I occasionally step on a dead snake I didn't see or get hit in the face by a large grasshopper that jumped up right as I tripped over a rock on our dirt road (hate!).  So in the course of five seconds, I can go from thinking "Wow, I really love it here!" to "OMG I FREAKING HATE IT HERE GET ME THE EFF OUT!!"  Then of course, I start thinking a little deeper - weighing the pros and cons of country life vs. an easy life in the suburbs (it has to be easier, right?  I mean, when the grocery store is closer than 15 minutes away and your plumbing doesn't drain out by the pond and occasionally get backed up so the whole house smells like the sewer and your bathtub fills up with pond dirt and water bugs??). 

So without further ado, here is my list of Pros and Cons of Country Life With a Toddler (because it would be/was way easier and more manageable without a child and if I were still childless I doubt we would move):

1. It's Expensive (con)
You wouldn't think it's expensive.  When we moved out here from California we thought "Wow!!  15 acres for less than we sold our condo for!  We must buy this!"  But we didn't look at the whole picture.  Unexpected expenses of farm life?  Massive homeowners insurance payments (apparently, if you do not live within a mile of a fire hydrant you will pay for it), foundation repairs (appears the soil is not even remotely stable and foundation issues are normal out here, and it also turned out the warranty that came with this house on the last foundation work that was completed wasn't honored), land maintenance (yeah, someone has to MOW that 15 lovely acres and trim those giant trees when they get too big and snakes start falling out of their branches onto your porch and their roots starts wrapping around your plumbing etc. etc.), gas (if you work in Dallas and need to commute 100+ miles each day and also if you want to, you know, eat - nearest grocery store is 15 minutes away).  You get the idea.  It's not like having a little house in the city.

2. It's Remote (pro and con)
I love having our house off the road (you can't see it from the road).  You can walk around naked and no one would ever know (well I hope so, I guess there could be some creepy Forest Creature sitting outside the windows peeking in but I prefer not to entertain that thought), it's peaceful (right now all I can hear are birds chirping), it's safe from Al-Qaeda, it's a place peeople like to visit.

On the con side?  If there's a fire it's going down (remember the whole fire-hydrant-more-than-a-mile-away-thing?), if the Forest Creature snuck in and got me it could be a while before anyone noticed I was missing, it's so far out here that the few friends we do have in Dallas aren't likely to visit without planning a whole weekend around it, we drive - a lot - for work, and it takes an hour to get anywhere!!!!  Do you know what an hour in the car is to a toddler?  A Very. Long. Time. Which means I spend a lot more time staying home than I would like.  In fact, sometimes I go batty because I haven't lef the house in so long...but the alternative is to plan two hours of driving around naptime and my work schedule to go do something in Dallas.

3. Bugs (con)
I don't think I even need to elaborate on this one.

4. It's beautiful (pro)
There is something very soothing for the soul about being out here (when the weather is nice and the bugs are hibernating).  Right now is a prime example.  Everything is turning green again - so green it almost hurts to look at it, if that makes any sense.  Our road is lined with trees that make a giant canopy overhead...I walk down most of the road in complete shade, even when it is sunny outside.  I see cows chillin' in their green pastures, bunnies, sparkly ponds - all on my short walk.  The trees and brush are so dense in parts I can't even see into the pastures I am passing but occasionally I will hear a horse making snuffling noises and see glimpses of him moving through the trees.  And speaking of horses, how awesome is it to look in our own backyard and see my horses grazing or scratching their backs on a low tree branch or cooling their feet in the pond?  Yeah...I will miss all of that.  I hope I will appreciate it even more when we come out to visit, which brings me to my last reason for loving/not loving the country...

5. I have lots of family here (pro and con)
I'm a girl who didn't grow up surrounded by more than my immediate family and who pretty much only saw extended family on holidays and special occasions.  Well, guess what?  I now live on the same road as my in-laws, my mom and her husband, my husband's cousin and her husband, his other cousin and soon-to-be-wife, and his aunt and uncle.  Holy Family Overload, Batman!!!

Now, this is quite a lifestyle change.  On the one hand, there is a whole lot of fabulousness to it.  For instance, both of our moms like to feed us and play with Jack and will help with the animals or things around the house if we are gone.  Sometimes it's just nice to go let Jack play in someone else's house...also, Jack love love LOVES his Grandmas! 

But there is also a downside.  It seems like someone knows what I am doing every second of the day.  I try to go for a walk in peace and the next thing I know someone drives by and sees me and alerts the press and the next time I am at a family dinner everyone is asking me how my walks are going, where I walk, how often, etc.  Even worse, sometimes I am trying to bust my rear and actually exercise and a family member will see me walking and want me to stop and chat (I'm not a chatterer).  We occasionally get unnanounced visits, and everyone reports to each other what is going on so everyone knows everything (seriously).  It's safe to say, this got old fast.

**********

OK, this is getting long so I am going to stop myself.  I didn't have time to include the schools, people, road-that-used-to-be-paved-but-is-now-dirt-and-covered-with-large-rocks, wildlife (umm, buffalos tearing down your fence and running loose in your pasture terrorizing your horses, anyone??), etc.  I will save those for a rainy day.