Still a Farm

When we pulled into town Friday night and saw the lights of the Navajo County Fair, I was so excited, and I immediately was thinking of the photos I'd take so I could share all about how we'd come up to the farm for our county fair/ birthday week tradition, complete with kids getting ride wristbands from Grandma and Grandpa, the legendary Jose's Green Chile fries, Open Class Exhibits (more on that soon) and lots of run ins with friends and family.

Only, when I thought about saying we were up at the farm, all the excitement deflated in a whoosh when I had the stray, unwelcome thought, "Should I really call it a farm anymore when there is no life left there?"  No chickens. No ducks. No farm dogs or barn kittens. No turkeys. No pigs. No Gertie the Goat banging on the door or munching fall leaves.

The thought made me a little forlorn and brought a mix of emotions I decided not to try to sort through right then and there. I pushed this sad little question aside and determined to reclaim my joy for being at our other home, and quickly regained my excitement about the fair, where I knew in just minutes I'd see my sister and my Sweet Ell.

The fair delivered, as it always, always does, and after a late night of canasta with Mom, Dad and Mike (during which Mom and I WIPED THE FLOOR with Dad and Mike...), Mike and I came out to our place and stayed the night in his Mom's camper behind our house. (Have I told you we're pre-remodel in the house itself, so it's full of redwood planks, piles of stone tile, and new windows stacked everywhere? Not a bed in sight.)

Anyway.

I woke up early this morning and while Mike slumbered, Sadie and I went outside to start watering the trees and rose bushes that we're trying to keep growing by watering every couple weeks when we come to the property. (Low-tech auto watering systems are high on the project list, but not yet conquered.) Thank heavens it was a particularly rainy summer up here, which helped keep things alive when our absences stretched weeks apart.

As I looked at our weed covered property while I was moving the water, I thought again about that mood dampening thought I'd had about whether this is really a farm anymore. By my production farmer and rancher friends' measures, no way. Adam's dad, John, is now married to a wonderful girl who is the daughter of a true-blue Minnesota farmer with many, many acres of verdant farms. John enjoys my writing about our farm antics, but one day laughed as he told me, "What you call farming, we call gardening."  And he said that when we still lived here and we still had chickens! AND ducks!!

I laughed along, though, because I knew he was right. By many standards, this isn't a true blue farm. Still, this is our tiny farm, and I've been happy to call it that all these years. The thing is, though, if there aren't any critters or gardens growing here right now, what about it? Is it a farm or not?

As I continued to think about it, I moved the water from the globe willows to the apple tree, then Sadie and I strolled down the lane to the chicken coop so I could check whether we had plenty of straw and old poo to throw on the garden bed since it's preparing to slumber for the fall and winter.

And I looked down to watch my step and saw this.

Look closely.

Do you see them?  Those are somebody's prints in our lane.

A sure sign that something living has been wandering the place since the last rain.

Then I looked closer, and saw these. A smaller critter than the first -- a racoon? a porcupine?

Then there are these.

These tire tracks are from the farmers who drive back and forth on our lane to their well, which is right behind our property. They park behind our barn to tend the alfalfa fields off the back and side of our land, too. We bought this little 3-acre slice of their land, which they hay around us. (Around here, "hay" is a verb as well as a noun.)   Those farmers moving on and around are property -- they are life.

Next to the tire tracks are Sadie prints.

Hey there, Sadie.

A few seconds before she sat for me, I saw her over at the corner of the summer kitchen, alertly investigating the spot where once there was a monster bee hive, dripping with honey, and where occasionally, traveling bees pop in to hang out for awhile.

Bees qualify as life. Heck, bees ARE life, in so many ways -- their value to our living systems can't begin to be overstated.

I stopped in my tracks about this time; just pulled up still, held my breath, and listened.

I heard the grasshoppers rustling the grasses and chirping; the birds perched on the power lines and outbuildings singing my favorite morning songs; the lizard scampering across the tin panel by the shed, and the pigeons cooing atop the weathered grey barn.

I thought about the very act I was engaged in -- I was pulling water from our deep, cold well to water peach trees, almond trees, an apple tree, globe willows and mulberries. The towering poplars are drinking from the puddles surrounding the rose bushes.  And that well? When Mike went down the stairs into the well house, which doubles as a cool, damp cellar, he encountered a very startled tan and white rat. The fat fella had brought in fresh alfalfa from the field and made a nest on one of the shelves that used to be heavy with canned goods preserved, no doubt, by the woman whose husband farmed this land long before we bought this place.

I don't have to water the grapes winding along the fence line or the overgrown asparagus patch, because the water from the hay farmers keep these remnants from the previous owners growing wild. The lilac bush is nurtured on the fence line, too, and the runoff from summer rains have kept the honeysuckle bush under Adam's window green and strong.

I turn from the honeysuckle and see this. A "mano y metate" -- ancient grinding stones, used hundreds and thousands of years ago by Native Americans to grind corn and grain to sustain life. The side of the small stone you see is smooth and flat, from the years and years it was gripped by Native women making food for their families, firmly pressing hard kernels into the flecked, hard surface of the stone basin below. These prehistoric tools were here when we bought this place -- I don't know if the previous owners found them on this land or while out herding their cattle on the surrounding high desert prairie.

As I looked around me again, I came to a realization. This place may be temporarily missing goats and chickens, turkeys and ducks, pigs and barn kittens; and we may no longer live here full time. But we return often to nurture the life that is still here, with dreams of returning for good some day, when we'll delight in our grandchildren and great grandchildren who will tumble out of the just-opened doors of their parent's SUVs, racing to find their favorite kitty, or check the chickens' nests for eggs, or grab a handful of straw to offer to nervous goat kids. They'll toss a distracted, "Hi, Grandma!" over their shoulders as they disappear around the side of the house. We'll find them later, hidden under their grape arbor forts, munching an apple they stole from the tree as they ran past, and picking up where they left off with their interior design projects of the last trip.

Their last trip to Grandma and Grandpa Walker's farm.

Because this IS still a farm.

There is still life here.

I am still here.

And forever will be.

Overflowing with love from the farm,
Teri

The Promised Christmas Mystery Tale

It was on Christmas Day that I promised to share our very own Christmas mystery tale, but I was derailed by the great turkey slaughter. I am breathing and eating normally again and the involuntary shudders have abated. I can now share the Christmas tale.

'Twas the night before Christmas and on McLaws Road.....

Nope, sorry, I'm not adept enough at literary adaptations to tell this story in the verse and rhyme of that familiar prose. I'll just give it to you straight.

Mike and I were up late Christmas Eve, as parents often are. In fact, it was the wee hours of Christmas morning before we crawled into bed - about 1:30 a.m. or so. After a wonderfully exhausting Christmas Eve with family, we fell quickly off to sleep.

At 2:21 a.m. I was awakened by the soft tinkling of a bell. I startled, because in spite of the many childhood (and grown up) years of wishing to hear sleigh bells, I never, ever had. I leaped out of bed and padded to the dining room, which is really the entry to the house, and saw that Santa had already arrived. The stockings were stuffed and laying on the table (odd location), the presents were crammed under the tree. While I was tempted to snoop, I did not, believing the 1st glimpse of Santa treasures should be enjoyed by the kiddos in a few hours. I looked to the table one more time and noted the jingle bells knitted to the toes of Adam's and Tanner's stockings. "Hmmm," I thought. "That faint jingle sure sounded like the jingle I recognize from the boys' stockings."

I tottered back to bed and waited for sleep to come. Just as I was drifting off, I heard the soft jangling again and immediately the image came to mind of our beagle-esque dog Mia standing proud as punch on the table top rooting through one of the stockings for the chocolate that Santa surely left. For the 2nd time within in an hour (and, let's face it, probably the 2nd time in the last 25 years), I leapt from bed, this time in terror because Mia is a vomiting dog on the best of days; I surely didn't want her tanking on chocolate and ruining Christmas by up and dying on us. I returned to the dining room and found everything exactly as I'd left it not a half hour before. I looked around for a possible culprit and went back to bed.

I lay there tense and expectant - I knew I didn't imagine the tinkling bell. I don't imagine things (when outside the grip of a particularly entertaining migraine, that is). What could be making that....? There it was again - the tinkling. Just as I cottoned on to the obvious answer and the thought was forming in my head, "Crap! Is it a MOUSE in the stocking? I haven't seen evidence of a mouse since last year...how did a MOUSE find the stockings already?", suddenly, a crashing, clattering thumping shook the walls.

Now, I'd had it -- that was IT!! THAT was no mouse! What the heck was going on?!? I knew that Santa was long gone - I mean, why on earth would he have been lingering on our roof after he'd already dumped the goods? Was Adam trying to psyche us out by playing Santa? Didn't he know his little sisters were firmly in dancing sugarplums territory by this time? With all this running through my head, I shook Mike awake and hollered something at him about someone or something being on the roof.

He grumbled awake just as I thought I heard that faint tinkling again, followed by a "Whummpp!!", again rattling the wall. Sitting up and focusing my senses, I could tell the rattling was the front of the house, not the roof.

Just as Mike leapt out of bed (we had lots of leaping in our life suddenly, truly a disconcerting notion when you're our age) and I shot out from under the covers one last time, it started to dawn on me.

And then I knew. Well, I suspected. And a quick glance out the front window confirmed it.

It was Gertie, the Christmas Goat.

Only, I don't think she was full of good cheer. She looked a little peeved. In fact, I'm fairly certain that her bleak little expressionless face was conveying something along the lines of, "Yo, Dilberts, it's stinkin' cold out here! What the crap kind of Christmas is this? You guys go off for the night, come home visibly fatter, stoke your little fires, crank your little heaters and trundle off to your nice warm beds while I'm stuck out here with these poopin' turkeys, who, excuse me, sleep in their own dung!! Explain to me just what the heck there is to ho, ho, ho about right about now. Oh, I'm sorry - I see you there....whassamatter, did I disturb your slumber? Did I roll you out of your toasty little bed and you had to pitter patter across the chilly cement floor to peer out at the source of the disturbance? Oh, I'm sorry - hate to bug you while I'm FREEZING my furless buns off out here. Yeah, excuse me for fogging up the window there!"

Really, Gertie, where's your Christmas spirit?

Not that I said that to her. Frankly, I was a little rattled by the scalding tongue-lashing so I hurriedly ducked my head behind the door and out of view and turned off the porch light. And then, on Christmas Day, before we left for another day of revelry at Grandma and Grandpa's, Mike rigged a nice, toasty warming lamp on the front porch for Gertie and the turkeys. And we avoided eye contact for a few days, so as not to awaken the sleeping dragon behind those mysterious amber eyes.

And that was our Merry Christmas tale.

Next year, ear plugs.

Love from the farm,
Teri

I Have Flunked Farmer

I have been traumatized and may never be able to eat or write again.

I've tried to write about my present horror twice already this evening and I simply can't. I can't relive the images in my mind, I can't overcome the quease in my tummy, and I can't find the words to adequately describe how I'm feeling. All I can tell you is:

• This sorry state of affairs involves the turkeys that used to roam our farm, and 12 roosters.
  




• No one should ever have to wash a turkey in a bathtub because the creature is too big to fit in a sink.
  




• A turkey should not weigh 37.8 pounds.
  




• A portion of a turkey neck should not weigh more than one pound.





• A pressure-cooked rooster should not forever ruin the savory aroma of rosemary for a person.





• One's 11-yr-old daughter should not delight in a headless rooster flopping around on the ground and should absolutely not command the poor dead rooster to "jump higher!"
  




• The poor dead rooster should not comply to such a tactless command. It shouldn't...it really, really shouldn't. Dear Heavenly Father, could you please tell me why, oh why, dead roosters are capable of leaping on command?





• Finally, one should not find out that one is in fact NOT an unflappable, sturdy farm woman, but is instead an easily traumatized, urpy wuss as a result of one, 3-hr experience on a bright, shiny, sunny winter's day.

Because I can't bring myself to write (or eat) after today's shenanigans, I'm just going to leave you with the below image of our little farm the morning after the first snowfall of the season this year (which occurred in October, but given the frigid weather, is still timely).

Yes, those are my garden remnants you see poking up in the foreground - guess who didn't till under the garden in the fall?

Between my untilled winter garden and my squeamish response to today's carnage, it's official:

I have flunked farmer.

I hope spring will bring the renewal of my farming spirit. And the ability to put food in my mouth once again. And, I hope I can close my eyes tonight without seeing a replay of all the sights and sensations of this afternoon's gut fest.

Love from the farm,
Teri

The Open Front Door

Coming home to an open front door can elicit a variety of emotions. In the city, coming home to a gaping doorway might bring the following to mind: Have every one of our valuables been stolen? Was this a gang hazing ritual or an even more sinister breach? Is someone still in there, lurking in a darkened closet? If I call the police, I'm telling them the place was viciously ransacked; I'm not copping to the fact that it looks like this. Always.

Coming home to an open front door in the country fosters a whole different set of responses: How long have those doors been open? Am I the idiot who left them open? Dang it, I am. Is there a chance on this Great Green Earth that the animals didn't notice?

To the kids I was ferrying home from school, scouts, Grandma's and Grandpa's, I said, "Do you see something standing there in the doorway?" It was dusk. I wanted to believe the black shape about 2.5-feet up from the floor was simply a shadow. Then the shadow moved, and the kids started chiming in, "Yep, that's a turkey." "Oh, there's another turkey." "Is that the duck? Yeah, do you see her behind the tom?" "Where's the 3rd turkey?" Oh, don't worry she was there, too.

Sigh.

I weakly asked, "I don't suppose Gertie is in there with them?" No sooner had I uttered that last syllable then her little white horns popped up behind the black turkey backs. "Yep, there's Gertie," stated Captain Obvious (I'm not sure which kid it was, but their declaration was an unwelcome addition to the conversation.)

I kid you not, each one of those animals was craning its neck to see who had just pulled up; Gertie the Goat in the back, standing on tippy-toes to see over the tops of the turkeys heads. The duck finally had enough of the crowding, vista-blocking poultry and squeezed out between the turkeys to get a better view. It seems at the very same moment they all realized they were busted and slunk out of the house in a cluster, just as Mia came bounding up behind them from somewhere deep in the bowels of the house, ready to gaily greet us. It didn't occur to her that bringing up the rear behind a bunch of gate crashers is the walk of shame for a guard dog worth its salt.

By my calculations, those dang doors had been open since I got the call from the school nurse at 2:47p to come pick up a sick kid until our arrival home at 5:25p. Roughly 2.5 hours they could have been in there. I wasn't ready to face it. I resolved to stay in the car and just text Mike all about it.

The kids went in to inspect the damage and Tanner came out to report the results. "It's bad in there. You probably don't want to go in," he said as he dropped into the passenger seat, shut the door and fiddled with the heater vent. So, I didn't. It was warm in the car. I was disinclined to move.

Tanner and I sat there a good five minutes before I silently turned off the car, turned to look at him and said we'd better go in. Tanner was seriously surprised. He said, "Aren't you going to have us clean it up? Really, you're going in there? Mom, I don't know if you realize how bad it is."

Oh, I was so tempted. There're 4 strong yahoos around here that I'd labored to carry a total of 40 months (we may address the 9-month pregnancy fallacy at a later date) and who were responsible for my stomach looking like a cantaloupe rind - they owe me; I'm fighting the crud; it's been a long day - I can let them clean it up. But, then that stinking sense of fair play raised its perky little obnoxious head. I'm the one who didn't check that the security door was shut when I know darn good and well that our dogs Mia and Sadie can't resist their 'Starsky & Hutch' kick-in-the-front-door routine. It was my fault. It was my mess to clean up.

In case you were wondering, 3 turkeys, a duck and one goat can produce a colossal amount of poo in 2.5 hours. Eleven piles of bird poo and 2 smatterings of goat berries, to be exact. Of course, to make it all extra special, the goat will do one pile of bidness on the living room rug. I spent 45 minutes taking care of the 11 piles of poo and one goat deposit. Then, Macy and I rolled up the living room rug and took it outside. I have my limits and there was just one pile of poo too many.

I truly love our life in the country. I do. But, it just isn't right to have the farm critters greet you at the door. From inside the house. It's just not right. I have no profound or clever manner of wrapping this one up. It's simply not right.

Tepid affection from the farm,
Teri

Cozy Day on the Farm

So, we're hunkered down on our first chilly-all-day day on the farm this fall, and I thought I'd give you a completely mundane overview of the happenings at We Don't Know What We Are, But I Can Tell You What We Are Not, And That's Harmony Farms:

• Last night we had our first fire of the season. It was a controlled burn. In the fireplace. (Sorry, it's fall, which is prescribed fire season in the Forest Service and sometimes I hearken back to those days with some longing....Not necessarily the burning part, just the overall working with people who were dedicated stewards of the land part. Me, I just wrote stories about them and talked to reporters. The guys and gals in the field building trails, mending fences, protecting archaeological sites - those were the real heroes.)
• Anyway.
• The return of fires is lovely and it's so cozy this morning to be wearing Adam's sweats, someone else's socks, and to have my feet tucked under me on the couch with the fireplace warming the room. Yum.
• The duck's eye is back. Anyone want to explain that one? Here's my stab at it. I think those mean ol' turkeys pecked at it so much it receded a little bit, the surrounding tissue swelled and closed up, making it appear the eyeball was gone. Poor little duck. She's twitchy and nervous and both eyes are now showing signs of peckage. She's even more skittish at the moment, but we're hoping to coax her into the hen house this evening, with fingers crossed that the girls will be nicer to her. And, we've been putting some antibiotics in her water in the hope of tackling any infection that might be trying to take hold in and around her poor wounded eyes. Poor sweet neurotic duck. She is still nameless, but no longer one-eyed, so it's doubtless her name will be anything clever. We're accepting suggestions.
• Tanner and Macy are home, keeping me company. Tanner is on a great protein producing quest (that's euphemistic speak for spilling copious amounts of protein, which we don't like to see but doesn't mean immediate danger to his kidneys, just requires vigilance and an effort to stem the spillage), so we're keeping an eye on him. He's happy as a clam and feeling pretty good, so he doesn't mind hanging out. We're measuring protein and hoping it'll resolve on its own rather than having to add back in those stinkin' steroids that are just so dang invasive and fraught with side effects. (I'm saying words like "fraught" - blech.) Macy isn't doing so hot with this season's approach to asthma control so we're enjoying her sweet if coughing presence while we mix her meds up a bit to see if we can't get her back in the strong oxygen readings category. It'll be well in hand soon, I'm sure. In the mean time, I've taken to calling the schools early in the morning so I catch the answering machine to tell them which Walker child is blowing school off for the day. This practice offers the same kind of relief you get when you get the boss' voicemail when you call in sick - I don't know why I instinctively dread those calls so much. The kiddos have legitimate, doctor documented health issues. Why am I such a pleaser? Good grief.
• I washed my car last week. Then, I drove it to Mike's work earlier this week so I could cover the clean surface with a nice, thick layer of salt-laden dirt. Then, I looked out the window 2 days ago and saw Gertie the Goat licking the dirt off the car and the wheel well. While this is an inexpensive if time-intensive alternative to the car wash, I think it also is a cue that Gertie's lacking a little something in her diet. We stopped by the Feed & Seed yesterday to pick up her own little Gertie-sized mineral block. She licked it exactly four times, then wandered back over to the car and resumed her hub cap licking. She's all about the chores, that girl. Gotta love her.
• While at the Feed & Seed I mentioned our non-producing freeloader hens and the wise feed store owner, Karen, who I adore, said it's time to throw 'em in the stew pot. I did not prompt her on that statement, and she's the least homicidal person I know, so I'm feeling a little more like my farming instincts are starting to develop, rather than that I have become a cold-hearted maniacal killer. Thanks, Karen. You unknowingly helped me through a terrible identity crisis with your suggestion of a bubbly pot of chicken and dumplings. Now, I have to learn how to kill and clean a chicken. My resume just keeps growing and growing.

Well, that's about all for now. I'm going to go warm my tootsies by the fire that Tanner's presently stoking. Then I'm going to go do chores. Or, snuggle on the couch with my cheerful wheezy, leaking children and then do chores. We'll see how it all unfolds. We've got time.

Love from the farm,
Teri

The Nameless One-Eyed Duck

WARNING: GRAPHIC FARM CARNAGE - NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Why, oh, why would something peck the eye out of a perfectly nice duck? Has there ever in the history of the world been a one-eyed duck? Why do sweet children have to get out of the car after school and say,"What's wrong with the duck? Wha...whe...where is her EYE? What happened to her EYE? Did they peck it OUT? They DID! They PECKED OUT HER EYE!!"

"They" presumably being the turkeys, who peck at anything that's shiny. And who, as I've already mentioned, don't seem to give a hoot about the duck, but she longs for their company and follows them everywhere.

"Why is she still hanging around them if they hurt her?" "Why would they peck out her eye when she's nice to them?" "Why is she still with them?"

This little string of questions brought all those domestic abuse stories to the fore in my mind and I wondered if this was one of those moments where I could use the story of the turkey and the duck as a parable to explain those terrible patterns that emerge in an abusive relationship. Then I decided no. Nope. Not gonna do it. There's probably a time and a place for those discussions that will come sooner than I want in their sweet, innocent lives. But this is not the time or place. Ain't gonna happen.

The questions that immediately followed were, "WHEN are we going to kill those stupid turkeys?" "I HATE them." "They're awful. We need to kill them NOW." Great. Now we're back to murder being the answer to everything.

Heavy questions. Heavy emotions. How did I address these important questions?

I came right in here and committed it all to writing so we won't lose this important moment, that's what I did. And I'm going to hide in here until they're past the horror of it and I can dodge this situation.

Except of course, I won't. I'll go back out there. Dang it.

But first, here looms the biggest question of all for this poor wobbling duck who won't let us approach her so we can't offer her any form of aid for what has to be a dreadfully painful injury prone to major infection: Since she has never had a name, would it be really tasteless and insensitive if we went with any of the obvious choices that a biker gang or pirate crew might come up with?

Oh, I feel a little urpy even joking about it. Poor little duck. It's just wrong. Is it just us, or are all farm animal experiences so ruthless and cruel? We will never be able to call this place Harmony Farms. Ever.

The duck isn't the only thing needing an appropriate name around here.

Love and horror from the farm,

Teri

....and by the way, it STINKS in here! (Email Classics)

Written May 22, 2009

I was actually just going to leave you all alone, but I walked through the front rooms on my way to toss a Diet Pepsi into the freezer for a few before I dig back into my massive paperwork project this morning and I was again assaulted by the STENCH in my house! It's true - my house STINKS and truth be told, it has for some time, on regular intervals. You know why? Because I'm a SUCKER and a SAP, that's why.

It's because there are presently 12 young chicks and 4 NOISY turkeys under brooding lights in my dining/living room. The chicks are in a big wooden box, with a lid (oh, don't ask me how many times I've been tempted to shut that lid.) The turkeys are in a toddler pool, surrounded by 4-ft orange plastic netting with an infrared lamp keeping them toasty, the fragile little hot-house lilies. There's a light bulb over the chicks keeping them warm, too.

See, you have to keep the young things warmed to 95 degrees. On sunny days, we transfer the turkeys to a pen outside for the day and just bring them in at night. But their pool and their "bidness," if you know what I mean, stay in the house, so the pew-factor is still about the same. But, it's too cool and rainy to put them outside today. So, for the sake of fun, let's add humidity to the equation, shall we? See, it's rainy outside, and the lamps make it warm inside, so we have that great swamp factor going on. And we all know what warm and damp does for smells, right? (Can you just imagine how nice my house looks with pools and netting and such? And a tub of fresh straw, and a 50-lb bag of turkey food? If my mud room wasn't filled with laundry, I could shove it all in there.)

Did I mention that in spite of the rain, the old hay farmers still watered the alfalfa fields surrounding us yesterday and swamped our leach field, so we added sewer stench to the equation late yesterday afternoon? It's dissipated now, except for a lingering aroma in Adam's room. Poor Adam.

I want the creatures OUT, OUT, OUT!!! OUT of my house, with their chirping and their pooping and their STINKING! And, by the way, while I'm in here silently hating them, they're having the time of their lives! See, the chicks? They're almost 3 weeks old, which in chicken life is about like an 11-yr-old boy. And what do 11-yr-old boys like to do? Climb and jump. Well, these silly chicks have taken to flapping their little wings to "fly" themselves up out of the box, onto the ledge of the lid, then they leap back into the box. Flapping and leaping, flapping and leaping. It's an annoying little cadence. Not to mention, when I went to put that Diet Pepsi in the freezer a few minutes ago? I heard a big ruckus. Well, that's because Junior leapt off the ledge onto the floor instead of back in the box and didn't know how to get back in. I had to catch him/her/whatever.

I won't have the little poopers walking around my house. I won't. Mike is off the next 3 days and he will find a solution. He will clear room in the one outbuilding that has non-scary electrical wiring and will remove these cute little stench factories from my home. Or, I'm moving into my mom's house.

Mom, I'll take the newly redecorated room, please, with the 1,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, please, and the glowing wood floors. And, please have a cool, damp cloth waiting for me to apply to my eyes. And, fresh, mild pot pourri. Please.

For now, I'm going to go take a bubble bath. THEN I'll get back into my paper project. And I won't add Benadryl to their water to make them sleepy. I WON'T.

Oh well, it could be worse - it could be two weeks ago when the 3 ducklings were in here, too.

Seething resentment from the farm,
Teri