My Forest Friends...

I'd like to share with you today about my cute little forest friends. We have a special relationship, really we do. I'll tell you about it but you have to promise not to laugh at me. Deal? Ok here we go....

We were camping near Anthony Lakes in our big wall tent with the nice warm woodstove. Thankfully we brought the stove because even in mid summer it gets really cold at night up there! Anyway we were all sleeping that first night we were camping and I was awoke by something. The strange part was I could feel something had went across my face, whatever it was had claws or scratchy something because I could still feel the sting that something had been on my face!

When the realization that something had been on my face and actually made a sensation that stayed with me even after I woke up was quite scary. Thoughts of giant spiders or cougar claws started to come to surface. What? Don't laugh, nothing is rational in the middle of the night with just canvas between you and the night!

My first reaction was to wake Mr Wonderful up. He stirred, but I could tell he wasn't fully awake. "Honey! You awake?" All I got was a mumble mumble noise from him. "Honey! Something just ran across my face!" I said. He wokes a little more "What?" "Yes, something ran across my face!" Then I heart it. I said "Shhh, do you hear that?" He says "No, what?" "It's still in here!!!" I could hear it scurrying around the tent on the tarp floor! He said "Must have been a chipmunk".

I heard it jump on Munchkin's cot and run around her sleeping bag, then she started to squirm in her sleep.....(I think it went into her sleeping bag for a bit) then I heard it plop back onto the tent floor! Mind your our dog is sound asleep in the tent during all of this. Lazy dog, supposed to be protecting us.

Anyway, I begged Mr Wonderful to save the day, I mean night, and get it. He replies "What am I going to do, shoot it in the tent? It will be fine just leave it alone." I can't believe he just said that! "What? I can't sleep knowing something could shimmy in my sleeping bag or claw my eyes out at night! Not to mention the children!" I thought to myself how I was sure he'd feel differently if he had had his face ran across instead of me. Just as I was prepared to remind him of his duty to protect his family, the noises were gone. The chipmunk had left the tent.

My Forest Enemy

Would you believe I have two stories about assaults from chipmunks? I can hardly believe it myself.

It was my first hunting season shortly after Mr. Wonderful and I were married. I was completely new to hunting. Not only had I walked what felt like a million miles that day, but I had to carry this really heavy gun. It just didn't feel comfortable any way I held it. I tried carrying it by the sling but Mr Wonderful said I wouldn't be ready to shoot if we saw one, plus it dug into my shoulder anyway. I tried switching hands but pretty soon both arms felt 2" longer than normal from carrying that darn gun. I was ready for a rest but I didn't want to stop hunting either. So Mr Wonderful decided I should rest under this huge tree in a clearing. He would loop around the surrounding area and see if he could push some elk out into the opening for me. How chivalrous.

There I was, sitting under this big tree, minding my own business when I hear a very angry chipmunk chattering overhead! Great, now he is telling all his forest friends including the elk I am here under this tree. For quite a while this went on and I could hear that chipmunk climbing around in the tree overhead and little pieces of bark would flitter down from the upper branches. The chipmunk was getting lower in the tree and lower and finally it came out onto a branch just above me and chattered loudly for me to leave his domain. I was not going to be bossed around by some chipmunk. We actually had an exchange of angry words let me tell you! It was a verbal fight.

As a new hunter I knew I was supposed to stay put so I wouldn't end up lost.....like a small child I obeyed. I just tried to ignore the forest siren telling on my location every time it chattered it's warnings at me.

I don't think the chipmunk could relate to my desire to not get lost. He was angry as ever and not backing down in the fight! Then I felt it, the wet drops showering down onto me, into my hair, and on my coat. That chipmunk peed on me! I could not believe this had happened to me. I felt so assaulted! Then you will never guess.....he pooped on me too! Several times in the matter of a minute!

By this time I am trying to find the little sucker in the tree with my rifle scope but of course he is buried in thick branches and I can never get my cross hairs on him.....which makes him a very lucky chipmunk I might add.

Needless to say there never were any elk that came withing view of me.....one because of the siren in the tree I am sure and two if there had been any elk I am pretty sure I was busy aiming the rifle in the tree and never would have seen them anyway!

Oh course when I told my horrific story of chipmunk assault and his warfare tactics to Mr. Wonderful he laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes. When we got back to camp he told everyone all about it. To this day he still tells my story all the time!

Well I have declared war against these little guys. What? They started it not me!

How To Get Kids to Help...

If you really want kids to help sometimes you just have to let them use their toys to do the job!

Amazing what you can get the kids to do when you let them use their toys! We get all kinds of help with yard work and gardening thanks to the thrill of hauling anything in a Tonka dumptruck!

Then there is this beauty.....well I wouldn't call it a beauty but it is rough, tough, and industrial for a reason.

This wagon is built from a great kit we found in the Northern Tool Catalog. This wagon makes it so easy to get the kids to help with things like hauling firewood, hauling animal feed from the car to the feed storage, toting around yard plants for spring planting, we've even use it as a way to move heavy appliances, and so much more.

The other cool part is how much fun they have with it, they love this wagon. It goes pretty fast and it is QUIET, I couldn't stand how loud the old fashioned red wagons were when you tried to take the kids for a walk in it.....oh and the handle is nice and long for adults too.

We have went through about 3 wagons before finally settling on the idea we needed something tougher than the typical red wagon could hold up to. This one has an 800lb load capacity and I don't think it is going anywhere. The cost of the wagon kit at about $70 has been far outweighed by the many uses we have found for this workhorse of a toy!

So there is one of our tricks to getting kids into helping more. Oh and the other trick is they don't have a choice if they help or not.:)

A New Direction For This Blog...and our kitten adventures.

No time like the present to dive back in, right? I am rusty at blogging so hopefully with time I will find my style and develop vision of this blog as I go along.

Oh My! It has been a while since I last blogged. It was fun to look over all the pictures I had featured on this blog and revisit some memories I documented here. I can't believe how much the kids have grown! With that in mind, I want to blog more in the coming year. In a sense it will be a way to create an online keepsake of our family happenings to look back on as well as a platform to share with family and friends.

I figured I could start with the most memorable story from the recent months (ongoing memorable, trust me!). I hope you enjoy this little glimpse of what we've been dealing with for the last few months! Here it goes...

~Kitten Adventures~

We had been wanting to get another kitten pretty badly for over a year. We had been seriously looking for a particular type of kitten starting in about May of this last year. We really love cats with extra toes and we also love calico cats we hoped by some miracle we could find one with both traits. Also we enjoy manx cats with the bobbed tails, they tend to have interesting personalities. We were prepared to have to settle for just one of the 3 traits we wanted either extra toes, calico color or the manx breed. We had been keeping a look out and getting the word out that we were wanting to adopt a kitten with one of these qualities. We didn't go into this lightly and wanted to make sure to get at least one of the qualities we were looking for.

A friend had told us about these kittens she got with the extra toes and gave me the name of the gal who had them. She said she might have another batch by now we could see about. So I called the gal and she had a calico kitten just a couple weeks old and she had extra toes and was a manx! Oh my we felt like we hit the kitten JACKPOT, she had all 3 of the qualities we were looking for! We were so excited. We asked the gal when she would be ready to adopt and she said in another 2 weeks. So I told her we'd call back when it got closer but that we were pretty sure we'd like this kitten.

We called back a couple weeks later asking if the kitten was ready for her new home or if she needed a little more time to be weaned or ready to come home with us that week. She hymned and hawed for a while and asked me if we were used to baby kittens? Well yes, we've raised a lot of kittens so I was really not sure what she meant aside from them whining at night or needing to have their food softened a little or something. I said I was sure we'd be fine caring for it (she said it was 6 weeks old so there should have been no problems in theory). She had asked if I could find a home for another kitten with extra toes as well, because she was getting ready to be on a trip. I agreed we probably could place the other kitten easily since I knew of other people wanting the extra toed kittens. We have two other cats with extra toes and people are always asking where to find a kitten like that.

We arranged to meet at a local McDonalds because she lived a ways out of town and so did we in the opposite direction. She was on her way to work after the drop-off so it worked out well. *Prepare yourself a little before you scroll down and see the picture.

This is what we were greeted with when she took them out of her car....(there just aren't words for the shock we experienced when we saw our little kitty for the first time!)

I wanted to throw up, cry, yell at the lady, and reject them! We shed quite a few tears on the way home that day. We felt so cheated and let down after all the waiting and excitement and fun of anticipating the new arrival it was a sobering experience to say the least! I felt so sorry for these two little kittens I couldn't handle thinking they'd go back home with her and it wasn't even an option because she was headed to work next, she couldn't keep them with her either. We HAD to take these kittens and save their lives, we just had to!

They smelled soooo bad! They had poop-balls hanging from their backsides, canned catfood caked all over their bodies and one had really goopy eyes. I have NEVER seen anything like this. For the life of me I could not figure out why anyone would bring kittens to their new owners looking like this! The kids couldn't even touch them they smelled so bad. I was seriously afraid they'd catch some serious "cooties" by handling them. I cried the whole time we cleaned them up.

While we were getting them cleaned up and noticed some bald spots but we thought maybe the canned catfood being caked on so long had made the hair fall out. We fed them about an hour after we gave them baths with the canned food she had sent home with us. First of all they climbed into the bowl of food and got it all over each other and were frantically eating like they were starving. Poor babies. We realized quickly how they had gotten so dirty the way they ate! We also think the food was too rich for their little systems, as they had constant diarrhea. We switched them to some softened kitten chow and things went much smoother. Here is the calico kitten cleaned up and taking a nice long nap! Can you see her extra toes?

Before long we realized the bald spots were growing, the goopy eyes were worse and the sneezing was a problem. We took the worst one to the vet and figured we could treat the other one too. So the orange one we took in and he was diagnosed with a respitory infection (FURS), worms, ringworm (mange basically), and fleas. Poor kitty. We came home with antibiotics, ringworm meds, and wormer (they weren't old enough for flea treatments yet).

We treated them both, but before long we realized the orange one wasn't going to make it. So we had to have that one put down.:( The kids were so sad! The calico one was stronger and less affected by all the ailments. She responded well to treatment and improved over time.

Here she is a little bigger in a custom hammock the kids made her.

Here she is snuggled up with our dog, Maggie.

Weeks went by, the kitten's ringworm cleared up and we thought things were finally smooth sailing! Only then we realized we all were coming down with ringworm! Uh oh! Weeks after we were first exposed. So we began treating it as directed and just when we thought everyone was cleared up we'd find a new spot! It has been a very long process. You have to treat it for 2-4 weeks CONSITENTLY before it clears up! I should have bought stock in Lotrimin company we used so much.

The worst part is we went on a trip with some friends of ours. We thought before we had it all cleared up and just days before we left it came back on one of the kids! Then their child caught it too! Talk about embarrassing! So this little kitty has quiet the story so far...hence the ongoing memorable part!

Soon after the weather started to turn cold she started getting her "big girl" fur coat in. She turned almost completely grey! She went from completely calico to almost completely mottled grey!

This kitten has had more surprises for us than we ever expected! Her coat eventually grew in and returned to her former darker calico colors.

Here she is today much healthier and happier! Her name is Betsy.

Welcome to the family Betsy!