tonight's food

Dinner tonight consisted of a dozen fat blueberries, picked straight from the bushes that line our driveway, and one plump peach that whispered, "Pick me." The tree that bore it looks too delicate to hold 31 peaches, but I did the counting myself, and that's the truth.

Dinner tonight consisted of a walk along the woods, with only the fading sun and a merciful breeze for company. The sky above held cottony clouds, with just the barest flicker of gray, which I know God scattered there for me.

Dinner tonight consisted of the happy sight of our puppy, Hunter, who had returned home when I told her not to follow me, and who sat straight and tall waiting in the driveway when I walked back to her an hour later.

Dinner tonight consisted of a stab of pity, when I found a robin who had flown just an inch too close to one of the cats, and who drew her last breath on the green carpet below the apple tree.

Dinner tonight consisted of a sad thought--that while I was dining on blueberries and walking under the clouds, praising Hunter and mourning a lost bird, my son was having his dinner among strangers, 1500 miles away--where he's no doubt scanning those faces for a friendly look, and wondering about this new adventure, and missing home.

We're missing you right back, Zachary.

chick wisdom

She came out of the woods one day and sauntered around the corner of the house with four unexpected fluff balls in tow. She'd never let on that she had a nest out there. She'd been holding out--and this day was show-and-tell. If ever a hen exuded pride, she was it.

She had a right to that pride. Those chicks are perfect little hen-lets. Teensy eyes, stick-figure legs, miniature bodies so downy-light, the yellow seems to hover about them like an aura.

That first day, they followed her across the sea of gray concrete with their tiny hearts beating madly in their mini chests. Where was she taking them? Why? When I spoke to them (in practiced Chickese), they skittered to the far side of Mama, cocked their heads to this side and that, and stole quick, quizzical glances at the scary Womanzilla who is me.

I was patient. Those first few days, I tossed crumbs of toast or leftover cheesy bread at them from a far distance--but always with a spoken invitation in a quiet voice. After that, when I'd hear their little chirps and Mama's more persistent cluck, I'd open the sliding glass door and wait them out. They'd come nearer with cautious, scratchy steps ... closer, closer ... until they couldn't bring themselves to move another inch. At the edge of their courage, they'd wait for the handful of leftover brown rice or muffin bits I'd lob at them, again, while speaking. "Hello, babies," I'd say.

This morning, I looked up from the couch to see four small faces peering at me through the slider. They'd made it all the way to my door.

I opened it with a slow nudge and said, "There you are." At the sound they'd memorized, they hopped and fluttered and chirped. And they stayed right there, waiting for me, while I slipped out to join them on the step. I let a handful of quick oats drop through my fingers, and they dined at my feet.

Call me back, Lord. Draw me away from all that leaves me empty. In that voice You use--the one that soothes and lulls and comforts--draw me to Your feet. I need to dine today.

sad news; glad news

It's best to say the sad things first. We lost one of the baby goats yesterday. The little thing just kept getting weaker and weaker. It didn't help that his mama wouldn't let him nurse, and actually kicked him every time he tried to get to her. He took a bottle from us eagerly at first, and then with a bit less enthusiasm, and then he just wouldn't take it at all. When he died, he was up in the house with us, lying on a soft cushion, covered up with Tera's favorite jacket.

I hope heaven has an endless, emerald pasture.

The glad news? My close friend, Sonya, opened a yarn shop this month and started a yarn-shop blog just this week. If you're crafty (and I don't mean wiley ... although she'd welcome you wiley ones, too), take a minute to go say hey.

times two

I had other plans today. But just as I set my briefcase in the backseat of the car and mentally drove myself to the coffee shop for a final day of editing, I heard not one, but two tiny bleats coming from the goat pen.

Mama goat had her twins this morning. We'd been waiting for what seemed like weeks, watching her rub her bulbous sides against the wire mesh of her pen back and forth, back and forth, as if rubbing might somehow trigger the big event. She looked miserable, waddling around like that. But this morning, we got the payoff.

One little guy (they're all little guys to me until I learn otherwise) greeted me with a questioning head tilt and a wag of his barely-there tail. But the other little guy couldn't stand--not when I coaxed him from my side of the mesh, not when I got down on my knees and lifted him carefully on all fours. He just couldn't summon the energy.

Mama had her hands full trying to keep the stronger kid away from her teats. One is plugged (we'll be dealing with that later) and she just didn't feel like sharing the other. This second kid had me worried. Wet, tired, and shivering, he kept laying his head against the straw.

We've been through this before--plenty of times--but I never get used to the initial hesitance of the mother to let her babies feed. I never get used to watching those tiny beings struggle to keep their head above the straw. So I worried.

Tera worried, too. She's been reading "Raising Goats the Modern Way" in preparation for a vet career (she doesn't yet know there's a bit more to it than devouring one goat book) and she was itching to get in there and swipe at the birthing fluid that clung to the weaker baby's fur. I let her wipe for a minute until I couldn't stand the gentleness of it any longer.

"You've got to wipe like you mean it, honey."

She gave another loving feather-swipe.

"Like you really mean it," I said.

She looked at me like I'd just run over a squirrel. "I don't want to hurt him."

I took the towel and the baby and set to scrubbing in earnest. His black fur glistened under all that slime (I hope you're not enjoying dinner while we have this discussion), but after ten minutes of rubbing, I got him cleaned up and warmed. While Tera tried to hold him up to the mother's teats, I went to the shed, got my supply of "emergency lamb milk replacer" (which we keep for just such occasions), and made a tiny bottle of warmed milk. I just wanted the little guy to get a sip--just enough to put some energy in those skinny little legs.

The long and short of my day is this: both kids are up and dancing in the straw. "Boing" is a better term, actually. They're boinging. They've downed two bottles between them (Mama still won't let them drink) and they've taken to sucking on Tera's t-shirt sleeves for comfort.

My editing has had to wait until this moment, but I'm not complaining. When I finish here, I get to go home and take in another eyeful (and armful) of new life.

2:00 a.m.

I'm one of those people who can't go back to sleep once I've awaken. And so tonight, just 45 minutes after first nodding off, I'm up in my office answering emails and perusing knitting patterns.

What woke me? Zac got home and did three things: he dished up a big bowl of our friend Cindy's fought-over fettucine, he popped in a DVD, and he let Larry out. Just as the microwave dinged, Larry took to howling right outside our bedroom window. Where else would he go to make noise?

I awoke hopeful. I'm optimistic that way. Deep down, though, I knew the truth. I knew my sheets and pillowcase would be long gone cold before I hit them again. But the Pollyanna on the surface said, "You'll just shoot out there, ask Zac nicely to turn down his movie and let the dog back in, and hop right back in bed."

I did all that. And as usual, Pollyanna was wrong. Though I tried, I couldn't shut out the sounds of the night. The clink of Zac's fork against his plate didn't bother me--not even when that clink turned into scraping as he endeavored to collect every last atom of Cindy's sauce. And the murmuring of his movie could have been ignored. What kept my eyes scanning the dark outlines of my bedroom were the sounds of maniacal howling down on the trail below our house.

Those coyotes are running again tonight.

We've been spotting them all week. One ran across the driveway as I was heading out a few nights ago. My headlights bounced off his scrawny torso as he leapt into the bushes. Another watched me with open nonchalance from the neighbor's pasture as I drove back home. When Tera, Dave and I went out for a long walk yesterday, we spotted another skirting the edge of the woods on the trail. And now tonight, the gang has regrouped for a night of mayhem. Their cries are the sounds of a gathering storm.

My opinion of those critters hasn't changed, nor has my reaction to their middle-of-the-night partying. They still make me shiver. But I discovered that the sound of my laptop's fan and the mindlessness of Spider Solitaire helps to drown out the memory of those raucusy cries. I think I'll stay up here just a bit longer ... long enough for the woods to absorb those 2:00 a.m. echoes.

prowlers

I suppose it's all relative. Little prey, little predators. Big prey, big predators.

Felix (the cat) runs around the outside of the house all day long, waiting for one of us to open a door. He wants in. And when he finds that one crack, that one split second when our legs are scissoring through the doorway and he sees his opportunity to leap through that whirling space, he dashes inside and races up the stairs. He's a blur of black-and-white urgency, a cat on a mission. There's only one thing on that savage little brain: my chick.

Most times, he finds a closed door between him and the chick. But that doesn't stop him from trying. He'll stretch himself out as flat as he can, splay his white paw out until it's a thin furry paddle, reach beneath the door, and make a valiant attempt to span the twelve feet of space between the door and the chick's box. As this is real life, and not a cartoon or comic book action movie, he's yet to reach that far.

But one day, Tera forgot to close her bedroom door. As God would have it (I credit Him with all miracles), the chick had just learned to fly himself over the top of the box. None of us saw the actual chain of events, but my guess is that the chick heard frantic cat steps darting up the stairs, figured out that the owner of those cat steps was the same owner of the white, beneath-the-door claw, and reasoned to himself that this might be a good time to try his wings. When Zac came up the stairs, he saw Felix stretched out in his usual position, only this time, inside the bedroom and next to Tera's shelf. Backed against the wall, tapping his little chicken feet and checking his Timex, was the chick--safe between the shelf and a night stand.

Tera is more diligent to close her door now.

And then Tuesday, we saw another predator. Tera, Heather (a friend), and McKenna (her cousin) were out in the back pasture looking for the goats. Dave was in the greenhouse and I was in the garden weeding a patch of Brussels sprouts.

McKenna's voice, when she called me, had an excited tone. "Aunt Shannon! Come here!"

I walked around the rhubarb and peered over the fence at her. "What's up?"

"It's a bobcat!"

That brought me running. And sure enough, when I darted through the pasture gate and joined the girls, I saw a cat-like critter lounging in the shade of a pine tree just on the other side of the fence, not forty feet from us.

I called for Dave. And then there were five of us staring at the cat. Watching his demeanor--the way he stared back at us with a nonplussed, "What?" kind of expression--I surmised two things: one, he wasn't a bit scared, and two, he looked settled in his spot, as if he'd arrived at a favorite destination. I had the distinct feeling that he'd whittled away many an afternoon from that perch.

After the girls got a good eyeful, I sent them up to the house. And then I did something I can't explain, something that was probably a habit born of years of cat ownership ... I said, "Here, Kitty."

Dave gave me an odd look. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry."

The cat watched us watching him for five minutes more, and then he stood, turned, and sauntered into the woods, swishing his tail in a purposefully nonchalant manner.

I was thinking about that tail last night, and it dawned on me that maybe we hadn't been looking at a bobcat.

"Dave, do bobcats have tails?" I asked.

He didn't think so. So we got online and looked up pictures of bocats. Ours had not been a bobcat. Knowing the history of our area, we then looked up pictures of cougars. And there it was--our visitor.

It wasn't full grown and it wasn't a cub. It had been a teenager cougar, which meant that a mother cougar probably hadn't been far away. The last time we had a cougar presence in our area, our neighbor lost one sheep and we lost our last three.

Since then, I've been making the girls stay up near the house. I count our goats several times a day. I keep looking at Felix, and looking toward the woods, and thinking about predator schemes, and predator claws, and predator eyes.

And I can't help but wonder ... who's watching me?

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)

on hens and pharisees

We had another rescue this week.

And again, it was the chirping that drew me to the chicken coop. I'd been out behind the greenhouse weeding between the cosmos and sweet peas when I heard that little distress call. At first, when I rounded the greenhouse and the chicken yard came into view, I thought maybe I'd been mistaken. There was a chick, all right, but it looked safe enough standing there with its mother. But right then the baby tried to get underneath the hen, and I saw a peck.

You don't expect that from mother hens. They're supposed to be the protectors, the shielders, the ones who huddle over those tiny bodies and keep them safe from all harm. I've seen hens do that to each other--focus in on a weak or sick chicken and peck it to death--and it always infuriates me. But I'd never seen a hen do that to a baby chick. Could I have been wrong? Was she, perhaps, simply trying the help the chick get underneath her?

The chick took a few wobbly steps backwards and looked up at the hen. Just as it was dawning on me that the odd discoloration on the side of its little head was blood, it stepped forward to try again to burrow beneath the hen's wing ... and she reached down and gave it another vicious peck against the head.

Right then and there, I understood the fury that drove Jesus to overturn the money tables in the temple. He saw His people walking long miles with their sacrifices and mounting the steps to the temple, only to hesitate as they approached the door. Their need to worship brought them to that door, but it was their trepidation about what awaited them that slowed their steps. The Pharisees--the religious leaders--should have welcomed them in with open arms and made their arrival a time of celebration. Instead, they fleeced the sheep. They pecked at their offerings. "You think that's a worthy dove? I beg to differ. I see a mark there. This one won't do--you'll have to buy an acceptable dove from my friend over there."

The temple should have been a place where sojourners and worshipers were safe. It should have been a place of giving. Instead, it was the abode of thieves, who seemed to take great delight in pecking the defenseless.

If you want to know what the barnyard equivalent to the overturning of the money tables is, it's this: I screamed "Hey!", threw my trough to the ground, raced through the garden and around the side of the chicken yard, yanked open the door to the coop, dropped to my stomach (and I won't describe what I laid on to do so), and reached out the open door and beyond the ramp, scooping up the dazed chick just as the hen was readying herself for another bloody blow.

He didn't protest at the feel of my hand. I think the poor thing was in shock. He let me inspect his head on the walk up to the house, and let me wash both sides with hydrogen peroxide when we got inside. The hen had pecked him so fiercely that his little baby feathers were completely gone on both sides, right down to the skin, and both sides had suffered gaping wounds. I'm sure he would have been gone with another blow or two. After dabbing the cleaned wounds with neosporin, I gave him a sip of water from a teaspoon and called Tera in to help me set up another box. She brought up the heat lamp and enough wood chips for a thick, cushy layer. We filled an orange gelato cup with water and a green gelato cup with a combination of rolled oats, farina and quinoa, and then set the little guy down in the box. Despite the drama of the day, he seemed to like his new surroundings. He walked the four corners, pecked at the wood chips, and stepped in his water. But I didn't want to let him go just yet. And when I reached down to scoop him up again, he hopped right in my hand.

I cupped him, first, making a dark cave. He liked that for a good long time--ten minutes, maybe--and when he finally poked his beak between my fingers to see what was happening outside the cave, I stroked the back of his head with my thumb. He gave a soft, chirpy purr at that, and in short time, just like babies everywhere, his teeny eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. He lowered them halfway, and then I watched them dip, dip again, and close.

It's been almost a week now. His feathers are just starting to grow back in. He eats out of my hand. When he's lonely, he chirps to get my attention, and when I respond and open the door to his room, he quiets down and waits for me to come and get him. He still likes being cupped but what he likes even more is when I hold him up against my cheek and drape my hair over him. It's a substitute for hiding under his mother's wing. Maybe it's a poor substitution, but it's all I have. What that mother failed to do, I will do. He needs it. He has an inborn need to be enfolded in softness.

Much like people.

bittersweet

It worried me when that hen wouldn't let the little guy in.

The chirping drew me down to the hen house last Monday night. The sound drifted through the hen house walls, up over the lawn, and through my open window. I've heard it plenty over the years--a sound that is part confusion, part fear. Usually it means that a newborn chick has jumped her nest. And normally, by the time I can slip on my shoes and run to the rescue, the mama hen has already gone after her baby. Instinct drives her from her nest, even if it still contains just-hatched chicks. She'll leave the rest to save the one.

And that's what happened this time. The barely-here chicks still in the nest hadn't had time yet to understand they were abandoned. They were still looking at each other and all the sudden extra space in their box when I opened the door and stepped inside. I knew they'd stay like that, alone and shivering, if I didn't orchestrate a reunion.

Being as new-to-life as they were, they didn't yet know to question my featherless hand. Picking up each little cotton ball, I said hello and set them down next to their mother. One by one, the babes burrowed under her feathered side. But then I set the last little guy down. He chirped once and then poked his minute little beak beneath one feather. I assume he found a wall of steel beneath that feather, because he backed up and gave the white wall a quizzical look. He tried again, retreated, tried again, and sat down. I scooped him up and set him a little closer to the back. Apparently, the back side was standing room only, because he couldn't get in there, either. At this, he started chirping insistently. His mother ignored the sound, but it caused me to scoop him up again and set him down closer to the front. He tried to burrow there, found just enough space under her wing that his shivering little back was covered, and stopped trying. I worried at the sight of those two toothpick legs sticking out below, but I trusted that he'd eventually find his way to warmer parts.

Tuesday morning, I thought of that chick when I woke, and told myself that as soon as I got dressed, I'd check on him. But then I forgot. It wasn't until sometime after lunch when I felt a very strong urge to get myself down to the hen house. This time, I heeded the nudge.

As I approached the coop, I could see the mama hen out in the yard with little moving bits of fluff around her. She'd already taken her brood out for a meet-and-greet with the other hens. I watched from over the fence and counted babies. When two tries still yielded only five chicks, I knew my little guy was in trouble.

I went into the hen house and checked where I'd last seen him. He wasn't there. I looked in every corner of the house and behind the feed can, but he wasn't there. And then, bending over and leaning out the half door that leads to the yard, I found him. He was lying prone against the dirt, with his legs splayed out behind him and his head turned to one side. Don't be gone, I thought, my heart pounding. I leaned down a bit further and blew as hard as I could. That little breath against his back caused him to open his beach just the tiniest bit. At that, I hit the ground, reached down, and snatched him up.

He was barely there. I cupped my hands and blew a slow stream of warm air inside. He didn't move. I blew again, and again, until finally I felt him stir. All the way to the house, I kept blowing. Once inside, I sat us both in front of a space heater and let its warmth drive the death chill from his little body.

I held him for two hours. His return to life was a slow process. At first, all he could muster was the slow opening and closing of his little beak. After awhile, he turned his head just slightly. Then, I saw one wing tremble. Awhile later, he opened an eye ... kicked his foot ... rolled over. When he started chirping, I started breathing again. He'd live.

We made him a little nest and set a heat lamp over top. Tera wanted him in her room, so we obliged, but he kept her up most of the night with his chirping. The next day, when I reached in to scoop him up, he hopped into my hand as though he'd missed it. I held him and stared at him and thought about his rescue. I'd had to lower myself and lie in the dirt to snatch him up. And even knowing that he'd spend his little life pooping and pecking the other chickens and probably pecking me occasionally, I wanted him to live. It made me appreciate God all over again. He knew all about lowering Himself to the dirt and scooping up we dying critters, and even though He could look ahead and see that we'd each spend our lives making a lot of messes and hurting each other--and hurting Him, too--He wanted us to live.

For three days, my chick stayed inside. He'd drink water if I offered it to him on a spoon, but we never saw him drink from the container in his nest. If I rubbed a bit of chick starter (tiny crumbles of chicken feed) on his beak, he'd try to shake off the particles. If one or two specks slipped in, he'd swallow them, but we never saw him peck. I'd wait with him for a half hour at a time, trying to get him to eat something, but he simply wouldn't--or couldn't. It crossed my mind that he'd never witnessed pecking before. Maybe some things have to be learned.

It was that concern that finally made me take him back to the chicken coop. I didn't want to, but I knew he'd die if he didn't start eating like a chicken. In my wanderings down to the coop, I could see how much stronger and more mobile his siblings were. They pecked at everything. If he could just get back in the brood, he'd learn. I knew he'd learn.

I think he was scared when I set him down on the ramp and nudged him in the direction of his mother and siblings, who were pecking at the ground below. He didn't move for several minutes, but he did start chirping. His mother looked up at him once. I prayed she'd recognize that sound, but I've found that mother hens can be a bit capricious with their affection.

He took a step and slid a few inches down the ramp; took another step and slipped off the side. It wasn't a far drop. I held my breath again as he took three tottering steps in the right direction. Mama hen watched his approach. If she didn't take kindly to his return, I'd dive through that half door and reclaim my baby.

But she did. It took him about five minutes to cross four feet and find a good burrowing spot, but I took comfort from watching that massive white wing lift slightly and envelope my little guy. And even when the others wandered under her and away from her, over and over, she stayed put and didn't abandon my chick. All he wanted was the warmth of her body, and she didn't let me down.

But he died. I found him the next morning, lying under the hen house. And this time, no amount of blowing or pleading made a difference. He stayed in that spot, unmoving.
I don't know what happened. Maybe all those days of not eating had stolen his strength. Maybe he couldn't keep up with the others. Maybe he didn't have the energy to burrow to safety when night came.

Spring, for me, is a bittersweet time. Spring brings life ... but it also brings death. Lambs die. Ducklings die. Chicks die. And no matter how insignificant those lives may seem to anyone else, they matter to me.

I have no deep insights today. Today, I'm simply sad.

peep

Oh, how I love spring.

How can you not? I don't care where you live, spring looks like the earth yawning and stretching its arms. It smells like hope, and new beginnings, and the promise of soon-to-be-cut grass. It tastes like a long-awaited picnic. It feels like bright yellow fluff. It sounds like the peep of two-legged babies.

That's what's filling my ears right now ... the sound of chicks trying out their teeny vocal chords. Yesterday was "chick day" at the local co-op. Dave and I trotted down there and picked up a half-dozen Golden Sex Link chicks. Supposedly, they've been bred to only produce females, but I don't quite follow the logic (or feasibility) of that. All I know is that they're adorable ... and very noisy.

We tried hooking them up with an adoptive Banty mother, but the two hens we tried didn't cooperate much. Both ignored the chicks huddling in one back corner of Larry's outgrown dog carrier and tried to beat their way out by flying repeatedly into the wire mesh. We took pity on both and let them go, but that left the dilemma of how to keep those six chicks alive through the night. The only reasonable thing to do was to invite them up to the house.

When we first brought them inside, they shivered together in that same back corner. But Dave's crafty. He rigged up a 100-watt bulb and shone it down on the front half of the wood chips. In two seconds flat, those chicks had tippy-toed their collective mass over to the lit side, and basked in that 100-watt delight.

There's a lesson there. We're good together, we humans. Scrunched up tight, we might even eke out a bit of shared body heat. But there's nothing like gathering together under the Light. His warmth goes straight to the bones, perks us up, and makes all our fluff stand on end.

I reached in to snap a close-up of the noisy brood, and as soon as I came at them with that camera, they turned, retreated to the dark side, and gave me the cold shoulder.

But when I left, they went right back to their sun-bathing.

rescue me

That Felix.

If he were a human boy, he'd be losing himself on hikes in the mountains, or falling into wells, or ever-working himself into creatively dangerous tight spots. But he's not human. He's a cat.

And so he shadows Dave like a bobcat, following him into the shed and out back to the wood pile, and down to the car that doesn't run anymore. When Dave opens the door and rummages in the glove compartment to find whatever he went looking for, Felix hatches a plan and motions to Mittens to follow his lead. They slip unnoticed into the back seat and press up against the darkness, pretending they've found themselves a cave. It's all great fun for twelve minutes, and then Felix thinks, Rescue me.

It takes Dave four days to narrow his search to that burgandy cave, but it's his hand that opens the door, finally. And after the desperate duo emerge and slurp their fill of water and eat themselves sick, it's Felix who plants himself at Dave's feet and licks a thank you on the hand that saved him.

On another day, he imagines himself a jaguar chasing prey across an African plain, and bounds his little black and white body across our front yard, eyes gleaming with hunt-thrill. When the imaginary prey takes a left at the end of the driveway and shoots up the cedar trunk, Felix follows ... and follows ... and follows, until the mirage disappears and he finds himself to be nothing more than a very lost, very un-jaguarish teenager cat--stuck in a tree. Rescue me, he thinks.

Dave hears. He calls and coaxes and climbs--the ladder, first, and then a dozen tree limbs. Felix is content--purrfectly so, actually--to ride a humble descent in the folds of Dave's jacket. He's content to be carried into the house, and petted, and eased to a carpet spot in front of a mellow fire.

And Dave, I notice, is content to watch the object of his rescue. When he stokes the fire, he strokes the cat. When Felix turns occasionally to check if he's still there, Dave smiles and speaks his name in a tender voice. I watch the encounter, and watch the way Dave's eyes return again and again to that warming black blob on the floor, and I have to wonder.

Was this how you felt, Lord, when you rescued me?

feed me

Today I am the Provider.

The ruckusy call of seven goats tugs at my ears and walks my feet toward my brown garden clogs. I slip them on and step outside, and though I've seen this same view for a week, I still draw in my breath at the beauty of our white-coated lawn. The snow in town melted days ago, but our farm is insulated by towering pines. We're still white and beautiful.

The goats hear my steps on the porch and whine all the harder. "I'm coming!" I say, which turns the tone of their cries and laces the ruckus with a shiver of anticipation. I pick off a fat tab of hay and balance it on my left arm while I release the latch on the first of two gates. The goats can't see me, but they know the particular slide of that metal latch. They urge me to walk faster.

I do. And as I near the barn, one mama goat pokes her head through a hole in the mesh and welcomes me. Balancing the hay tab as I press in and push back the bar latch on their door, I hear, from the other side, the sound of hooves on straw, dancing the dance of the impatient.

They know the routine. They know that in about twenty seconds, I'll have the hay divided and spread into two slanted bins. But they don't want to wait twenty seconds. Instead, they rush me, trying to pull shreds of hay from my arms. "Hang on there, Jimmy," I suggest, but Jimmy just grins and takes another mouthful. "Back up, Blondie," I order, but Blondie presses in all the tighter. I have to reach over her horned head to toss one-half the bounty into a bin. By the time the second half is spread, hay coats the heads of three goats and clings to my hair and sweater. While they munch, I pick and brush the biggest slivers from myself.

They don't notice when I steal the two water buckets and slip back outside. I follow a well-packed snow trail past the duck yard and around the chicken coop and into the garden, where I raise the pump handle on the faucet. From beneath ground, I hear the water whooshing obediently to the surface. I fill the biggest bucket and bite my lip as I try to ease its weight off the lip of the faucet. While filling the second, a lone snowflake drifts past my vision and captures my hope. I scan the dark backdrop of evergreen branches below our meadow and see another flake, and another. I'm so immersed in my snow patrol, I forget about the water. It's only when a stream burbles over the edge and splashes my clogs that I pull my eyes from those trees and remember my task.

I'm so busy watching for snowflakes that the weight of two full buckets barely registers in my brain, though I'm huffing a bit by the time I reach the barn. When I secure the buckets and step back, I'm rewarded to watch S'More leave her hay long enough to take a long draught of ice cold water.

One more reward awaits me. Brownie, the baby goat, who only just recently learned to eat hay like the big goats, leaves the bin and walks over to me, still nibbling a tender, baby strand. She sniffs my hand and moves closer, then lowers her head and lets me scratch between her not-yet-there horns. In the language of goats, this is 'thank you.'

I leave them, but my task is not finished. The ducks want grain. The chickens want pellets. The dog is watching me from the front door and looking hungry. Six cats will soon be meowing and circling their dish. And in about twenty minutes, a sleepy-eyed girl will be wanting a steaming bowl of oatmeal and raisins.

Today, I am the Provider.

Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? --Luke 12:24 (NKJV)

here, kitty

Mocha came home two days ago. It's not that she ever really left, but before I heard and saw her scratching at the back window forty-eight hours ago, I knew her only as a hushed whisper that watched me from shadows and teased me from between the top row of hay bales. I'd sense she was up there and try to lure her out, but in the last two or three years, I've probably touched her only twice. She's old, and skittish, and much too independent for her own good.

But right now, she's napping under the love seat. I can see the bulk of her dark calico self peeking out from beneath the scalloped wicker edge; occasionally, I catch the flicker of her brown and orange tail.

We're anticipating the coldest days we've had in over a decade. In a few hours, winds from Canada are expected to swoop down and blanket this area with frigid, windy air. I have to wonder if Mocha--who will be fourteen in a few months--smelled the coming storm. I picture her lifting her head from atop her favored hay perch, wrinkling her black, triangular nose, and sniffing the breeze. I imagine her little quarter-pound brain scanning its files, pulling out a memory from ten or twelve years ago, and analyzing the remembrance with a growing sense of dread. Of her own choosing, she's always been an outdoor cat. Not long after we brought her home as a kitten, and three-year old Zac welcomed her with an exuberant cuddle and rub-down in the recliner ("Mama--she name is Mocha"), the cat searched for the nearest exit and skedaddled.

But she's here now.

Wise creatures scan the skies and smell the breeze and scrutinize signs. They take stock of their position, and when they determine that something ominous is on the move, they drop their weighty independence and seek shelter. They go to where they'll be welcomed, and stroked, and loved--where a bigger someone is waiting to offer bowls of warm milk with egg, and safety from the storm.

That we would all be so wise.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
--Luke 13:34 (NIV)

clean

The cat formerly known as Loose-y has regained the original spelling of her name. In fact, now that she's retired from baby-making, we could almost change Lucy's name to Prudence, or something equally puritanical. She's not happy with me. Seems she really enjoyed having four litters of kittens back to back. So to show her displeasure, she promptly let loose all over the laundry room the morning after being spayed. How she managed to hit the washer, three walls, her blanket, and a good portion of the floor and not get a single bit in the litter box is beyond me. I think she's gifted.

I smelled her message before I saw it. Emerging from our bedroom, I headed straight for the coffee maker, but before my hand touched the handle, my nose wrinkled in disgust. "Lucy ... you didn't." But she did. I nudged the pocket door open and peeked into the laundry room. Lucy sat back on her haunches, dusted her front two paws off, and sneered at me with a look that said, "There's a little 'Thanks for the surgery' gift--just for you."

Now, Lucy's not known for her love of the litter box. She's never had a kitten who didn't leave the womb knowing exactly where to squat, and for that, I'm grateful. But she herself has exhibited a great disdain for all-things-clumping. So I've cleaned up my share of presents. But yesterday morning, I just shut the door. I knew Dave would be up in a matter of minutes, and I was going to ask him a great big favor. Because yesterday morning, I faced a full day of cooking. A friend from church, Heidi, is recuperating from foot surgery, so I'd planned to make a double batch of everything and bring half over in the afternoon so Corey wouldn't need to finagle dinner when he got home from work. That meant two chicken pot pies, two Caesar salads, and a big pan of peanut butter bars. In addition to that, I planned to make and freeze a week's worth of breaded Italian chicken fingers for the kids' lunches, and if I could sneak it in after that, I wanted to blanch and shuck a big bag of corn another friend gave me Wednesday at church. So knowing I was going to be handling all that food, I couldn't, in good conscience, handle Lucy's mess. There's not a paper towel in the world thick enough to keep your hand feeling clean. And no amount of scrubbing afterward would remove the feeling of filth. I couldn't get past the "Ew" factor. You don't jump from poo to pot pie, you know?

Dave was wonderful. Sure, his shoulders sagged a bit, but I think the experience was balanced slightly by the knowledge that he'd have chicken pot pie for dinner. I saw him in there swiping a bit and grabbing the grabbable chunks with a piece of toilet paper. But all too soon--much too soon, for my comfort--he trotted out the back door to check out the doings down in the goat barn. I could still see partial Lucy residue on one section of the laundry room floor, and though I hoped he'd be back, Dave spent a good long time down in the barn. By the time he returned, the look on his face told me he'd managed to erase the distasteful episode from his mind. He had no intention of going back in there.

Fast forward to the afternoon (an ironic choice of words, isn't it? Have I ever "fast"ed anything in this blog?). Tera came home sad. I will definitely write another time about her experience in school this year. Suffice it to say, fifth grade girls can be snotty--and my girl was on the receiving end of the Queen of Snot's attention yesterday. To cheer her up, I suggested she ask her best friend, Jaimey, to come spend the night. Jaimey, of course, said yes. So Tera and I loaded the car with Corey and Heidi's dinner, made the delivery, visited there awhile, and then drove down the street to Jaimey's. When we pulled in, Tim and Kari were out front talking to a strange man (strange to me) in a van. So I said hi and walked up to the house to collect Jaimey. When I pulled open the back door, the most wonderful smell rushed forward and wrapped itself around me. I stood in the center of Kari's kitchen drawing in breath after breath. It wasn't food. It was the smell of "clean."

Tim came through the back door and noted the rapturous expression on my face and my curtain-ruffling intakes of air. "What?"

"It's that smell. What's that wonderful smell?"

He sniffed. "Who knows? Kari's been swiping stuff."

It was a husband-proper description; the gender equivalent of what I'd say if someone asked me how Dave fixed the car. “Oh, you know. He twirled some metal stuff and squirted goo on top.”

Kari came in.

"Kari, what is causing that heavenly smell?"

She pulled a bottle of Lysol All Purpose Cleaner (lemon) out from under the sink and gave me a quick commercial. "I just fill the sink with hot water, dump a generous amount of this stuff in there, and wipe everything down."

"I have GOT to get me some of that," I said.

She walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a second, full bottle. "Here."

I squealed and clutched the purity-endowing liquid against my chest. "Let me pay you!"

"No," she said. "Let me bless you."

I love my friends.

All the way home I delighted in the knowledge that Kari's smell would soon permeate my house. I couldn't wait to squirt, swirl, scrub and sniff. And later, while doing just that, I thought about how wonderful it is to be given the free gift of purity. Someone else paid the cost ... and handed me the solution to my mess ... and said, "Let me bless you."

Thank you ... Kari and Jesus.
*    *    *    

"Come now, let us argue this out," says the LORD. "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow." --Isa 1:18 (NLT)

the farm in july

"Well, life on the farm is kinda laid baaaaack!"

Really? Let's see now. How has my week gone ...

Two of our goats, Bambi and Jimmy, had a touch of something or other. Dave gave them a wormer and I gave them two doses of penicillin. It occurs to me now that I'm the family injector. Dave doesn't say, "I need to give the goats (insert: cat, dog ... hamster) a shot." He says, "We need to give the goats a shot," and then he waits for me to grab the paraphernalia and meet him in the goat barn, where he wrassles the goat into position and looks at me with patient, innocent expectation. On the second go-round of said medical procedure, the needle bent as I tried to insert it in Jimmy's skin. He's such a tough buzzard he just swung that whiskery head toward me, bared his lips, threw back his head, and laughed.

I saved a duckling, only to lose it later. Quacks-a-lot, the mother, sat on her second batch of eggs all month. When the one lone hatcher emerged from the nest (which Quacks had cleverly hidden against a fallen log and under a bramble of blackberry bushes) and wobbled after the mother to go meet her eight siblings and two fathers, I stood nearby grinning. It was the cutest picture you can imagine. The duckling was so new-on-her-legs that she'd take three flappy steps and topple to the side. Quacks would move a bit further away and urge Little Bit to keep trying. And try she did, though it took her a good seven minutes to waddle/flop her way to the waiting group. And they greeted her, as I'd expected, but not in the way that you welcome new members of the family. Those eight teenager ducklings rushed and pecked the baby, which pulled a fury out of me in about half-a-heartbeat. I swarmed the group, lecturing all the way, and plucked Little Bit off the grass.

Something you may not know about ducklings is that they imprint on you in about ten seconds. We've been through this before--one a trio of ducklings determined I was their mother and used to wait outside whichever window I last poked my head out. I'd see them on the lawn with their heads turned to one side, rolling that one eyeball around to snatch another glimpse of me, Mama Duck. It wasn't until our goose adopted them that they severed their emotional ties to me. So when I stood, earlier this week, holding that little taupe-ish fluff and whispering comfort, I knew I was in danger of stealing Quacks-a-lot's position.

With Tera's help, we cleared the chicken yard of ducks. She brought me three slices of bread and took Little Bit down to the pen. I stood up near the house and called out, in Motherese (you know, the language of mothers everywhere), "Here, Babies!" All eight teenager ducks--who know my voice and understand that those two words mean "bread"--skittered like the almost-able-to-fly critters they are and halted at my feet. If they were startled by my gritted teeth and eruptions of "I do NOT want to bless you," and "You are very mean siblings," they didn't let on. They cleaned me out of three slices of bread and waddled back to the pen, no doubt to further torment the newcomer. But by this time, Tera had shoved an old pillow into one of their fence holes, and an old tin can into the other--and the marauding ducks couldn't find a way into the chicken pen. With baby safe inside with its mother, I breathed easier ... but I shouldn't have. Two hours later, Quacks-a-lot was mysteriously out of the pen with the others, and Little Bit was nowhere to be found. I don't know what happened to her, but I suspect she followed Mama out and the teenagers got her. I'm still sick about it.

I hemmed two shirts for Zac, and played cards with Tera, and taught a friend how to knit.

I picked and ate the first blueberry of the season ... and it was bliss. Picked a bucket more so we can have spicy blueberry butter and blueberry muffins this winter.

I "supervised" as Dave demolished our rock hearth and wood-burning insert. I'll supervise again when he rebuilds the hearth and installs a free-standing woodstove. And come fall, I'll be busy making cocoa to go along with all the "sitting around the stove" we'll need to do.

I harvested my lavender, and brought it in to dry. Soon I'll have tiny bowls of pungent loveliness scattered throughout the house, and little baggies of the stuff tucked in Tera's dresser drawers, and mine.

I pruned the weakest grape vines, and trimmed my comfrey, and replanted the chives and Sweet Annie the chickens uprooted.

I took Dave and Larry for a walk along the trail, and tried my hardest not to scream when Larry found and sniffed a squished snake lying at the edge of the path.

I counted my roses, over and over. Didn't know I could count that high. When I could bear to do so, I cut three and brought them inside to stick in a Mason jar.

I made banana bread, and wheat bread, giant chocolate chip cookies, and eclairs.

I watched the birth of seven kittens, and the hatching of four chicks.

I read.

So the next time you hear, "Well, life on the farm is kinda laid baaaaack!", see it for the fib it is. Nothin' laid back here. But I can't imagine living any other way.

wild kingdom

Our home was a battlefield this morning.

I awoke to the sound of frantic fowl. It wasn't possible to distinguish between the cries of the rooster, the hens or our eleven ducks--I only knew that cumulatively, they were screeching for help.

On occasion, we've seen eagles overhead (we saw about a dozen flying together three weeks ago--such an incredible sight), and once, a lone eagle landed in our front yard down near the chicken coop--on the hunt, no doubt. Only the netting over the chicken pen saved them that time. Raccoons have left paw and claw prints in the dirt leading under the coop. But I don't usually think "eagle" or "coon" when the hens set up a ruckus. Our first thought is always, "coyote."

There may be people out there who find a certain beauty in coyotes. I'm not one of them. I think they're mangy, creepy, slinky, cowardly beasts. Even if I could get past the long, no-meat-on-them-bones legs and the ribby sides and the skinny faces, I'd still have a disdain for their characters. They're unredeemable. They run in packs, like woolly, woodland gangs, always looking for a quick steal. If they had opposable thumbs, you can bet they'd soon learn how to hold a can of spray paint, and would leave blood-red C's and paw symbols at the scene of each crime.

A couple of times a year, on nights when earth holds its breath and even the moon seems to be waiting for something, you can hear the pack running the trail beyond our woods. I've been lying in bed, near sleep, when the first cries ascend the treetops and shiver their way into our bedroom. Goosebumps rise on my arms and I shudder involuntarily to hear their hysterical, maniacal, yipping. There's a wicked glee to their yelping. It's the sound of creatures drunk with their own nastiness. That sound has never failed to scooch me closer to my husband.

This morning, on the heels of the frantic cacophony outside, I heard Larry pounce against the door. I jumped up and peeked out our bedroom window, not yet clear-headed and wondering who he was fighting out on the porch. Dave said, "He's inside," which instantly explained the sound of claws on tiles I heard from the other side of our bedroom door. He was in such a hurry to get outside and launch a counter-attack that he could barely stand to get out of the way long enough to let me unlock and open the door. I've never seen him run that fast. I didn't really know he had it in him.

As near as I can tell from counting, one of the hens is gone. Larry didn't stay away from the house long, and there wasn't a sign of coyote hide on his teeth, so I'm pretty sure no contact was made. But five minutes later, checking the other side of the house, I saw him freeze in step, stare at the woods below our patio, and take off again. He saw what I hadn't, before that moment--another coyote staring at us from behind a bush. I saw those lanky, hideous legs loping off with Larry in pursuit. I lost sight of them as they rounded a giant maple, just feet from where I hid myself yesterday with a book. Dave's prayer bench is out there, and sometimes I borrow it when I want a half hour of uninterrupted reading.

It's a wild place we've got here, in the middle of a wilder world. One day, our home is as serene a spot as you could hope for: gentle breezes whispering through the woods, ducks quacking at me for chunks of bread and bits of cheese, Larry and Lucy (our pregnant-again cat) sleeping in a companionable heap on the patio. It's all ice tea and sunshine and laughter. The next day, death visits.

Keep your eyes open today. And stay clear of the woods, okay?

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)

tails

I wish this story involved two cats because I'd love an excuse to title this, "A Tail of Two Kitties," but it's not to be. There's only one kitty involved in this little tale. Character two is a goat. Now that I think of it, if both were goats, this could be "A Tail of Two Kiddies." Still, the characters are what they are ... so we'll settle for "Tails."

Still with me?

As I type this post, the kitten in question is in her favorite spot. I can't see her unless I move my laptop to one side and look down. That's because her favorite spot in the world is the top of my feet.

She creeps up on me throughout the day and brushes a light hello across my ankles. I don't have to look to know it's her. The other two say hello with a bite or a love prick with those scary baby claws. Sometimes, if they really want my attention, they'll set to climbing my bare leg. Coffee has nothing over kitten claws for opening your eyes first thing in the morning.

But this little gray tabby always greets me with a swish of her soft tail curled around the back of my legs, or maybe with a little grooming lick on a toe or two. I reach down and scratch her on that between-ear spot and she licks my hand in return. And then I go back to my typing and she goes back to her perching, content as can be to sit on the tops of my feet.

This kitten is a survivor. I wrote about her close brush with death several weeks back. In a nutshell, the mother cat moved all five kittens to a spot under the house. After Dave demolished the dog house (which stood in the way of his rescue) and dug a hole big enough to wriggle under, he pulled the kittens out and put them in a box to bring into the house. Two were nearly dead. It took me two hours of nurturing to return heat to those kittens' limp, icy bodies. Though one died two weeks later, the little gray tabby rebounded. And today she's a feisty, mischievous, fur-covered ball of "let's have fun."

I watch her chase, wrestle, pounce, swipe, leap and tumble all day long, but here and there she creeps back for a contented rest on my feet.

It occurred to me the other night what I was seeing. "Do you see this?" I asked Dave. "Do you realize what she's doing?" I caught him studying Hebrews and preparing his message for church.

"No. What's she doing?"

"I saved her ... and now she sits at my feet."

To some, she's just a cat lounging in an odd place--but to me, now, she's a picture of my relationship with God. He saved me. He rescued me from certain death. And in response, I should want, long, love to sit at His feet.

Now let me tell you about Buffy. When I wrote about her birth, I thought we'd end up calling her Nibbles but the kids thought she had the face of a buffalo, so they started calling her Buffy.

This little white goat is spring-loaded. Ever watch those cartoons where they show a lamb bounding through a pasture like a bouncing ball of fluff? Buffy has those beat all to pieces. She can jump like nobody's business and actually prefers leaping to walking. We'll sit and watch her jump right from a dead stand-still, for no other reason than that it pleases her to meet the clouds.

About five weeks ago, while leaving for a meeting at church, Dave heard crying coming from the pasture. He pulled the car over to investigate and found that Buffy had somehow wedged herself within the limbs of a multi-branched tree near the back of the pasture. We can only imagine that she leapt up there. When Dave found her, her head was twisted to one side and her left front leg was contorted up and behind her at a sickening angle. We don't know how long she hung there but it was clear when he freed her that she'd gone into shock. He called me on his cell phone and had me meet him in the pasture.

Now, before I continue, I have to tell you about the electric fence. Because he has legs up to his ears and can step over the fence the way you'd cross a speed bump, my husband saw no reason to put a gate anywhere along the fence line. Because I'm 5'5" and have normally proportioned legs and the electric fence comes to about 1/8 of an inch below my crotch, I see a big need for a gate. I despise electric fences. I have this fear that at some point, I'll be trying to get over the fence and I'll catch the top wire between my heel and my gardening clog and fall and get myself twisted up in those three hot wires and I'll just lie there pulsating every three or four seconds until someone wonders, "Hey--where's Mom?"

All that being said, I quit going in the pasture. Then Dave told me about a little spot near the goat house where the fence goes over a pile of haphazardly stacked planks. "You can get over easier right here," he advised.

I did that a handful of times until Dave thought to add, "By the way--a big snake lives under those planks, so keep an eye out."

Keep an eye out? How about we just quit going over the fence instead. Now I had a new element to add to my vision: I could envision myself lying on the ground in that same pulsating, clog-wire tangled heap, only now a giant woman-devouring snake was slithering in and out of my limbs, wondering which part of me to consume first.

I abandoned the goats ... until Dave's phone call. And in that moment I learned something: when you mix love and adrenaline, you get yourself a motivator so powerful it will catapult you right over snake-dwelling planks and electric fences. My legs grew right up to my ears and with no effort at all, I found myself on the other side of fear.

I took the goat from Dave and settled us both on a pile of fresh hay in the goat barn. I held her against my chest and tried to calm her shaking. Her eyes were unseeing; her heart beat a staccato against my arm. She didn't know I was there, I'm quite sure of that. She didn't know anything at all except that she'd been stuck and now she was unstuck, but hurting all over her little body.

Dave had to leave. I called Tera up at the house and asked her to bring me a big towel. When she did, I wrapped Buffy and held her as tightly as I dared. We sat like that for an hour and a half, until I was shivering as hard as she was. When I couldn't stand the cold any longer, I stood with her, retraced my steps to the fence, and hopped right back over. She didn't move, didn't blink, didn't cry--not the entire walk up to the house. That worried me immensely. Once inside, I set her down on Larry's green dog mat and tucked her in. She laid like that for another two hours--not noticing when I sat near her and stroked her head, not noticing when Dave came home and did the same, not noticing when we dragged her mat into our bedroom so she could be by us through the night.

She survived the shock, but she couldn't stand. Not the next day and not the day after that. She couldn't move much at all. Dave and I had to go out several times a day and lift her up so she could nurse from Whiney, her mother.

I took her to the vet. The first thing I was told was that it was amazing she lived through the shock. If Dave hadn't found her when he did, and if I hadn't warmed her, she wouldn't have survived. Another four minutes and $75 later, I was told it would be $300 for an x-ray--and if that proved what the vet thought, which was that she had broken her leg up near the shoulder, it would be another $800 for surgery.

I left with instructions to give her six shots over three days. We didn't have $1100 for x-rays and surgery for a goat. I told the vet that. She said she understood, but didn't give me much hope for recovery otherwise. Instead she gave me an unconvincing, "Good luck."

I prayed on the way home. Prayed again later when I returned her to the barn. "God, she can't spend the rest of her days dragging a useless leg wherever she goes. Please fix this."

It was all we had, but it was enough. I don't attribute her healing to the six shots I gave her. It was God.

Right now, I can watch her balancing herself on the steep slope of a rusty, dusty, decaying stump while she strains to reach a must-have leaf of a huckleberry branch. A moment ago I watched her take a joy-filled leap straight in the air--and land herself on four good, solid legs, tail waggling with pure delight. She's completely healed, and God is completely responsible.

But can I tell you the sad part of all this? I held her, warmed her, stroked her, worried over her, treated her, prayed for her ... and now she runs when I come near the fence. She's back to her independent goat ways, which include no tender thank you's or signs of trust. She doesn't need me anymore and I'll bet if I went in the pasture and tried all day to coax her near me, I wouldn't get within ten feet. And I have such a longing to touch her little face and scratch her between her horns and give her a loving pat.

One was saved and sits at my feet. One was saved and runs when she sees me. I love them both and I'd rescue them all over again ... but only one remembers.

When we were utterly helpless, with no way of escape, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners who had no use for him. Rom 5:6 (TLB)

lost and found

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Through it all, let us praise the Lord. - Job 1:21

First, the found.

An old friend tapped me on the shoulder yesterday after church. When I turned to see the owner of that hand, and took in the beautiful (and still very young-looking) face of my friend, Lynn, I couldn't help but shriek just a bit. I hadn't seen her in years, though we live in the same town. It's a mystery to me how growing up can change you so. When I was twenty, I'd think nothing of driving five hours to visit a friend off at college. Now, I don't have the energy or gumption to open the phone book, copy an address, and track down a friend in my same zip code.

But in this case, I didn't have to do a thing. God brought her right to me, along with an unspoken suggestion: Perhaps you two should catch up a bit. I liked that suggestion. We stood in a row of chairs talking for ten minutes or so, then stood in empty space for another ten or fifteen minutes after the set-up/take-down crew removed those chairs from around us. Then we moved outside and talked some more, above the pounding of a basketball and the giggling of a game of tag.

She introduced me to her new (of seven years) husband, Scott, and I re-introduced her to Zac. She hadn't seen him since he was hip-level to her; now, he's 6'1" and whiskery. She'd never met Tera at all, though she'd heard of her existence. So I pointed Tera out to her. Lynn then updated me about her daughter, Amy, and now-married son, Christopher. We talked about our shared shock over the sudden death of a mutual acquaintance last month. My sadness only intensified when she told me that Mike and his wife had been separated at the time of his heart attack.

After all that first-layer chatter, we got down to the reason for Lynn's appearance. She hadn't been in church the last six months, not since leaving her church of several years. She'd felt disconnected there though she was firmly plugged in. Her feeling seemed to be legitimate, since no one has yet called to see where she'd gone. She knew she needed to find a new church home. And a series of unconnected events led her to us: Scott had a job interview last week. This was a must-get job, so Lynn started praying. And though I don't advocate making deals with God, in this case, I'm not unhappy that Lynn added "And if Scott gets that job, we'll find a home church" to the end of her prayer. While they waited for an answer, Lynn picked up my book--which someone had given her daughter--and started reading. She finished Saturday, and when she was done, she felt that not only did she know me better, she also knew a fair bit about the people in our church. That, combined with a "yes" on the job, cemented Lynn's conviction that God was leading her to Calvary Chapel. I'm so glad--and so looking forward to watching the rest of my church family discover this delightful woman.

We came home, changed clothes, and went to the home of some friends for lunch and a preview of a parenting series we're about to begin next month. With the business end of our meeting behind us, we then moved to "snacking and laughing" with the Kellys and the Hilts. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

Later, when we arrived back home, I said to Dave, "This has been a perfect day." I'd felt God's presence during worship. And Dave's message, on Hebrews chapter 6, had been powerful. He made me think, laugh, jot frantic notes, and re-appreciate my Father. The fellowship afterward--both at church and at the Kellys--had been wonderful. I couldn't ask for more from a day.

But then, I checked in on our kittens, and discovered I was about to lose my baby.

I wrote about the kittens in this post a few weeks ago. Since that mishap, while the lighter gray kitten grew stronger, the darker gray kitten grew weaker. She seemed to have something structurally wrong with her, which confirmed to us that Lucy probably dropped her when she moved the litter. She never could walk properly and she couldn't fight off the others when trying to nurse, so I took to feeding her with a dropper to try to supplement. For awhile, I thought I was winning.

But yesterday, I could see it was just a matter of time. I held her in our usual spot, under my chin, and then gave her a little milk, which she drank weakly. And then, because I knew she would never chase butterflies or scamper after her siblings or lie and sun herself on a cushion of green, I took her outside and set her gently on the grass. We didn't stay but two minutes, but it mattered to me that she met the world just once before she left it.

Dave had tried to protect me. Just days ago, he said, "Don't get too attached to that kitten."

But my heart was already long-gone. "Too late," I told him. And when she died in my hand last night, I kept stroking her little head. Long after her last tiny gasp, I kept loving her.

We wrapped her in a soft cloth and laid her aside so we could bury her properly today. But last night, I dreamt that when I went to get her, she had crawled out of her wrapping and was waiting for me and my dropper.

Of course, when I opened my eyes this morning and rushed to her, it wasn't so. Today we'll say good bye.

Life is a sprinkling of salt and sugar, of tears and laughter, good bye and hello ... of lost and found. I'll endure it here, because I know it's what makes a life full and gives a soul depth. I know it's what makes us who we are. It softens our rough spots, teaches us compassion, and "gentles" us so we can reach out to one another. But I'm looking forward to heaven. When these lessons have run their course, I'll be glad to give a final nod to salt, and tears, and good bye, and lost.

And I won't look back--not even once.

gus

We called him Gus, in part because he looked like a Gus, and partly because that seemed like a good name to go with "The Grouse."

Dave met him first. "This huge bird attacked the car this morning," he said.

I asked for clarification. "You mean it swooped closely?"

"No. I mean it attacked the car." He described how he was just crossing the creek at the bottom of our driveway when this winged mass struck the side of the car.

"Freaky," I said.

When he came home the next day with the same story, I asked if he had witnesses. Unfortunately, he did not. No one could validate his report. But he lucked out the next morning when both kids were in the car with him during the early morning creek crossing.

“It’s true,” Zac said. “This big bird was waiting for us in the bushes. He saw us coming, starting running alongside the car--you know, to get some speed--then he took flight, and ‘bam!’--smacked against the side of the window.

I like the way Zac tells stories. He always makes you feel like you were right there. But in this case, that wasn't good enough for me.

Call me Doubting Thomas if you like. I really needed to see this car-eating bird for myself. So early the next morning, saying I “needed a latte,” I headed to Starbuck’s. And sure enough—just as I approached the creek, I noticed a sprinting, brown blur out of the corner of my eye and then heard a tremendous smack of head and feathers against my side window.

I screamed.

While swapping scary bird stories later that night, Dave showed me a picture he'd found on the internet that looked just like our bird. Of course, I had to squint and imagine that picture taking flight and opening its hideous beak and coming at me like a hungry, ferocious, tree-dwelling shark ... but the resemblance was there.

"It's a grouse," Dave said.

The grouse needed a name. One of us (I can't remember which one of us it was, and besides, bragging is so unbecoming. Let's just say it was the adult in our house who knows how to sew curtains and knit and make a mean chicken pot pie, okay?) cleverly suggested "Gus." And so he was christened.

Gus battled our car for about two weeks, and then one day, instead of waiting for us down by the creek, he settled in a tree next to the house. We came home from somewhere and there he was, up in the branches, looking down on us. When we piled out of the car, he swooped close--just to show us he wasn't afraid.

We got used to seeing him up there. We expected him. And so it wasn't a big surprise when he left the tree one afternoon and landed on the back patio while I was out there having lunch. I was a little startled when he walked right up to me, and a little unnerved when he reached over and took a bite of the sandwich I stretched out toward him. After that, though, very little about Gus surprised me.

He'd follow me--on foot--when I walked out to the garden. "C'mon, Gus," I'd say. "We're checking the grapes."

Once, when I was washing the jeep, he waltzed around the back end like a bird-on-a-mission.

"Hey, there, Gus," I said, but he brushed aside my pleasantries with an impatient nod of his head, reached out his beak, and pulled on my pant leg. He repeated this urgent tugging again and again, but I couldn't get any more information out of him. Only later did I realize he was probably trying to tell me that Timmy was tied to the tracks and the train was just coming around the bend--with faulty brakes. Sorry Timmy.

The last time I saw Gus, I was outside lifting weights with Dave. He (Dave, that is--not Gus) had set up his bench and bar bell and all the hand weights, and had invited me to give it a try. After repeated assurances that three sets of ten reps wouldn't burst the seams in my sleeves (I mean, firmness is one thing ... but I don't want guns or pipes or whatever you call them), I took a five-pound weight and started doing curls. I hadn't done three whole curls, when I felt Gus's little claws on my shoulder.

I laughed and shivered. His claws tickled. I laughed some more when he reached over and tugged on my hair. But then an image of Gus poop dotting the back of my shirt made me shiver for a different reason.

"Can you get him off?" I asked Dave.

"C'mon, Gus," Dave said. He slipped his hand under Gus's claws and transferred him to the bar bell, where he sat and watched us work out for several minutes.

When the time came for me to try my hand at bench-pressing, Dave moved Gus again. But he didn't want to perch on the cradle. He wanted to perch on me. So he hopped down and landed on my stomach.

I laughed again. "Gus! Get off me!" I swept my hand under his feet and watched him take flight. Up he went, over his favorite tree. For all I know, he's still flying.

We watched, and waited, and hoped--but we never spotted Gus again. I can't even tell you how often, while crossing that creek, I've waited to hear that familiar "thwump" of feathers against my window. I miss that little guy something terrible. I wish I'd been just a bit more gracious that last time. I wish I'd stopped what I was doing, looked over at that beautiful bird and said, "You just sit there as long as you like, Gus."

As a writer, I'm aware that Guses are gifts. They're those little flits of inspiration that wing their way across your mind while you're staring at the trees. They're the ideas you couldn't have conjured on your own. If you're wise, and you're alert, you learn to hear the far-off flutter of those wings. You tune in. You wait. You welcome--and appreciate--those heaven-sent gifts.

Henry Ward Beecher had this to say about the Guses in our lives:

"There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away."

The next time someone's name pops into your mind, don't shake it off. They might need your prayers. The next time a door flies open and you see a perfect opportunity to share Christ with someone, don't shut the door. Walk through it.

And when those ideas arrive from out of a clear blue sky, make sure you grab a pen and capture them. If you don't, they may never come your way again.

Oh, and if some morning you're driving through the woods and you hear a big thump and notice a smattering of brown feathers splayed out all scary and intimidatingly against your window ... would you point Gus toward home?

* * *
We got Gus on video, but we never got a still photo of him. My thanks to Ann Cook of Birds of Manitoba for allowing me to use her photo of this ruffed grouse.

nibbles

Miss Scah-lett, I don't know nuttin 'bout birthing goats.

And YET ... yesterday I became a goat midwife. Here's the scene: I had just gotten out of the shower and dressed around noon yesterday (readying myself for yet another doctor's appointment), when my cell phone rang. It was Dave, who I knew would be coming home soon to pick me up. What I didn't know was that he was already home and calling from the pasture.

"She's having the baby!" was his greeting to my "Hello."

"Who is?" I'm still thinking he's at church. Perhaps some pregnant woman had wandered in ...

"The goat! Come out here!"

We'd been closely watching Whiney, the mama goat, all week. It was clear she was very close to giving birth, so we had fresh straw spread out for her in the goat barn. But she didn't go in there. Instead, for reasons known only to her, she found the most difficult-to-get-into brush in the whole pasture and settled herself there on the dirt.

When I arrived, the kid already had her face and two front hooves out. Mama had been on her side, so baby's little snout and mouth were covered in bark and dirt. I cleaned it off as best as I could and asked Dave to go get warm water, clean scissors and an unused, white cotton shoelace ... wait, scratch that. That wasn't this birth. That was a birth I attended back when I lived in that little house out on the prairie and my name was Laura ... No, I asked him to go get the goat book in the house. I'd remembered the camera, but forgotten the book, and since I have to try to hop over the electric fence to get in and out of the pasture and it scares the life out of me to do so and he has much longer legs and hops that fence like it's the curb on a sidewalk, he obliged.

Those hooves didn't look right snugged up tight around the kid's face. I worried that she wasn't getting enough air, and sure enough, as I stood there, her breathing became more labored and her little "baahs" turned to gasps. That really worried me, so I tried to push her hooves back in so they wouldn't strangle her. Whiney didn't like my plan. Even without a "Goat to English" translation book handy, I could tell her bellowing meant, "Knock it off." So I quit. I tried to maneuver my hand in past the kid's head to give a little tug on her shoulders--and did manage to pull her out another inch or so before Dave returned with the book.

He took over while I read. At this point, only the tips of my thumb and index finger on my left hand and index finger on my right hand were NOT covered in ... you know. We'll call it "goat birthing delight." This was just enough clean finger useage to turn the pages of the goat book and take pictures. Lucky for the goat AND you.

The book said that having the head and front hooves come out at the same time is what you want, so I felt simultaneously relieved and ridiculous. Dave talked Whiney through the rest of the process and, as you can see by the picture, helped to pull the baby out.

I'm just amazed at that whole thing. What's ironic, to me, is that just before my shower, I finished a chapter in my next book. For those of you who don't know, I'm writing a book entitled: Inconceivable: A Journey to Peace After Infertility. I'd reached the chapter where I had to describe the overwhelming grief I felt when we lost yet another adoption (we lost thirteen altogether). This time, I was holding the baby in the hospital nursery when the call came telling us the mom had changed her mind. I'd already bonded with that child, and I couldn't let go easily. At the end of the chapter, Dave had found some peace over the situation by being reminded that God is worthy of worship anytime He creates something, and that this child was a miracle ... just not our miracle.

Maybe because those words were so fresh in my mind, I found myself worshiping as I looked at that newborn miracle, wobbling there on its skinny little newborn legs. God had created something amazing, something with the instinct to pull her little hooves up close to her face to make it easy on her mama, something with the instinct to know where to go for nourishment, and the determination to nibble her way to just the right spot. (I'm thinking that if Dave and the kids approve, I'd like to call her Nibbles.)

If we humans put all our little pea brains together, we couldn't come up with one newborn goat. We couldn't make the dirt she was born on, or the air that filled her lungs, or even the brambles that surrounded her birthing spot.

Oh, God ... You are amazing.

The God of glory thunders; The LORD is over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a calf ... like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness ... The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple everyone says, "Glory!" ~ Ps 29:3-9NKJV

of clocks and chicks

Lately, Tera has developed a not-so-precious habit.

Whenever we're readying ourselves to go somewhere, and she beats me to it, she takes it upon herself to push me along.

"I’ll be in the car," she'll say. Those may be the words that come out of her mouth, but I can read the subtext in her tone. She's really saying, Boots and saddles, Mother. Put the brush down.

Maybe I'm the only parent on the planet to react the way I do, but I'm not easily motivated by the pushing of nine-year old children. In fact, I have a tendency to dig my heels in whenever they try that tactic.

Yesterday morning I was locked in the bathroom, hating my hair and urging one of my flips to behave. Tera decide I'd been in there long enough and it was Go Time.

"I’ll be in the car," she announced through the closed bathroom door. I pictured those little lips all pursed and irritated.

I felt a beginning twinge of annoyance myself. "Did I tell you to go to the car?" I asked.

"No."

"Then why do you feel you need to go to the car?"

She couldn't very well say, "Because it's time to hit the road, already. And I'm hoping to set an example for you." So she thought for a quick second, and came up with a safer answer. "Because I have to put my suitcase out there."

She’d been invited to a sleepover after church at Madison's house. (Madison is a quirky, funny friend I’ll most definitely be writing about in the future.) Tera and I had already had an altercation about the suitcase; she wanted to bring her clothes and pillow and blanket in a series of recycled plastic grocery bags; I argued that we bought her that mini red suitcase-on-wheels for occasions such as this and she didn’t need to show up at Madison’s looking like a hobo.

She took the suitcase to the car and came back. I heard her pacing in the hall, her footsteps screaming out, Your hair looks as good as it's possibly going to get.

After two minutes of loudly walking the three-foot square area outside my door, she asked, with poorly hidden exasperation, "Can I go out to the car?"

I decided to grant permission. Sometimes I'm benevolent like that. If the child wanted to sit out in the frost-covered car and wait, I’d let her. Now, if I thought she was in any danger out there--if I thought she might lose a toe to frostbite or slip into a hypothermic coma--I would have denied her request. But this is not Alaska in January. This is the Northwest in late February. My lilacs are budding. Just five feet from the very car in question, petunias are popping up. She'd be chilly, all right, but she'd live.

"You can if you want," I said. That's what my mouth said, but I had my own subtext, and it went something like, I'm the mother here, little missy, and the keeper of all clocks and timetables. I'll saddle up when I'm good and ready.

She doesn't always catch the hidden meaning in my tone. I just know, as Tera stomped her way down the walkway, she thought she’d won.

Oh, when will they learn?

I am a rock, a fortress of determination, a wall of bigger-than-yours stubbornness. My children should know this. But it's uncanny how often they forget.

I finished my hair. She'd been right; it was as good as it was going to get. And then, looking at the clock and realizing we didn't have to leave for another forty minutes, I made myself some Orange Chamomile green tea and drank the whole cup while checking my email and reading the obituaries. Then while putting my cup and tea bag-squeeze thingy in the dishwasher, I noticed the kitchen table needed a good swiping, so I cleaned that. And then, with a good twenty minutes to go, I picked up my knitting.

She was remarkably contrite when she finally walked back in. "Let me know whenever you're ready to go," she said, trying to squelch a shiver.

"Ten minutes, Hon." I said.

Right on time--with a whole 45 seconds to spare, in fact--we locked the door and walked to the car. I was sliding into the front seat when I heard a surprising sound. I heard a peep.

I knew the sound. I'd heard it a hundred times before, but never in February.

"It can't be," I said to Tera. But it was. We stood together in front of the chicken coop and watched a tiny yellow wing wave at us from under the bottom boards of the coop.

I bent down and moved some dirt, freeing the chick from his prison. He shot out--right into my hand.

It's far too early for chicks. They need warm sun and bugs and water without ice floating in it. But apparently one of the hens had her own schedule.

I cupped the little guy close and breathed slowly on his feathers to warm him. He thanked me with a kiss right on my lips. Sure, some would call it a peck--but isn't that just another word for kiss?

We brought him some water, which he politely scooped into his pencil lead-sized beak and swallowed. We crushed some layer pellets for him and scattered them on the ground, then set him down nearby and waited to see if he'd eat.

I worried about him all the way to church, because it's a cat-eat-chick world out there, and our cat Kipper, pacing outside the chicken yard, had looked just a little too interested in the new tenant.

We ended up arriving at church five minutes late. If I'm not mistaken, God was teaching me a lesson. I think He used that little chicklet to remind me Who really keeps all the clocks and timetables. It would seem it's not me after all.