Itsy Bitsy, Mary and the Dream Crusher

We all (except for Kean) went out to an "off, off, off Broadway" play

this evening.

Our friends daughter (she'll be a senior in high school) writes and

directs a play each summer.

This year it was a musical with a new spin on your favorite

nursery rhymes.

Greer had a solo-- playing the Itsy Bitsy Spider 

who was so sad and lonely because she scared everyone away.

 Reese played Mary (who had a little lamb).

 It was darling-- and we all can't wait to see what the director

makes of herself.  That's her on the right passing out awards to the cast.

We all hope we can talk her into doing "just one last year".

 The other "drama" of the night came from this little kitten

the girls have named Butterscotch.

They've petitioned, begged, cajoled and pleaded to let us let them 

keep this little girl.

It is so not going to happen for several reasons.

So they've resorted to calling Byron Dream Crusher.

And I swear they've called him that at least 40 times over the past two days.

It's so bad, I've had to stop myself from calling him that.

Ay yai yai.

What drama.

Wild Kingdom

Kean started off his morning with a ride on Romeo

for horse therapy.

Our boy has really turned a corner-- he now

loves to ride.

Today, we tried trotting for the first time

and he was all smiles-- big ones.

(my camera skills, however, won't make you smile.

I haven't quite mastered holding the phone up and out,

holding onto Kean's britches

and running alongside a horse).

After therapy, we took a short walk through the neighborhood.

We were stalled out for a while after we came across

a big ol' snake slowly making his way across

Grandpa Bodily's driveway.

I was too freaked out to get a picture.

But we did get a picture of this wild little bunny in the neighbor's yard.

That wasn't the end to Kean's day of wildlife...

we saved the most ferocious one for last...

the untamed, wild Harley.

If you won't count that, the boys

did see a dead snake on the road.

Today, Jeff had us grab one of Kean's 

favorite C.D.'s to jam to as they rode...

These two guys are about as cool as they come.

The Bite Sized Bully

Oh you should have seen the boy tonight.

He showed us a side we've never seen--

mischievous mad man, domestic terrorist, dog stalker extraordinaire.

 It has been horrifically cold here and our ancient, elderly dog, Zoe

has been spending a little time indoors.
Tonight Kean took it upon himself to teach her a lesson

on herding- which is quite ironic, since she's an Australian Shepherd

and was bred to herd.

 Around the table, down the hall, up the hall--

 it is by far the most get up and go I've seen from ol' Zoe in months.

In the end, she chose the 15 or so degrees over

the bully on the Harley.

Actually, the bully and the Harley have been retired and the dog is back inside.

Peace reigns once more.

Do Two Naughties Make One Nice?-- Updated

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of Kean and his new "therapist" today.

Actually, Chelsea is not a therapist but she's getting paid to come work with Kean

above and beyond his therapy-- more time working on walking and speech while Momma

gets some things done.

It is beautiful.  She and another - home-from-college-student, Lindsay

will be coming for a few hours a few days a week.

I'll say it again, it is beautiful.

 Kean was a bit of a pill tonight at dinner.

He flung his dinner plate across the room--

picture chicken, sauce, peas etc. dripping down the wall, on the furniture and the floor.

Ug.

So, I must admit, I was about as naughty as he.

I let the dog in the house-- I let old Zoe lick up the mess and take care of

the majority of the gunk before breaking out the 409.



 I can't say I'm proud of myself for that little stunt.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Giddy-Up!

Our quiet Saturday turned out to be quite exciting for Kean.

A friend of ours owns a ranch where she boards horses and gives lessons.

She's decided to offer free horse therapy lessons one Saturday out of each

month for special needs kids.

I helped her out by sending out a press release and by hooking her up with

the Treasure Valley Down Syndrome Association.

Today was the first offering and there evidently was a miscommunication.

One of the local TV stations showed up at 10 but the Down syndrome kids weren't coming until 11.

Since the photojournalist could only stay for half an hour, my friend Teri called me in a panic

and asked if I'd rush down with Kean.

By the way, Kean has been cleared by his doctor (with some special rules and circumstances)

to start private horse therapy lessons next month.

So this was a good test to see if he'd like it.

And guess what-- he LOVED riding the horse.

 I actually was the one holding onto him as he rode on his maiden voyage for the news guy.

(I just wanted to get some pictures of him here).

The moment he got on, he broke out in a huge smile and was

trying to push my hands away-- he thinks he's ready to go on his own.

 Here's a super short video clip.

By the way, our little "Hollywood" was on the 5 and the 6 o'clock news.

However, I think the girls were more excited about his new found fame than he was.

Here's a link to the news story.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/Horse-therapy-volunteer-program-helps-kids-with-special-needs-208021771.html

Pajama Time

The girls and Greer's friend, Celeste took about half the day to get out of their pajamas.

 Can't say I blame them.

They were having too much fun.

 That is, until we noticed someone left the rabbit hutch door unlatched.

We then spent a good hour hunting for Thumper and Mimi.

It is an absolute miracle-- first that they weren't eaten by the coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls etc.

that haunt our land.  Second, that we found them-- in the back pasture near the cows.

The girls said a prayer and their prayer was answered.

What could have been a tragic day turned into a great day.

One that was filled with lots of playing and time outside in the sun doing yard work

(of course a storm is supposed to come in tonight and put an end to our warm weather worship).

Kean was one tuckered out little guy by bedtime.

 He still sleeps all folded over in a ball.

I used to "un peel" him but he'd just go back to his yoga position.

So I've learned to let him be.

Just hoping by letting him "be", he will sleep through the night.



Swingin' Saturday

Somehow our little miracle boy is still hanging tough.

I don't want to jinx it... but this second half of this worst phase hasn't been too bad.

Kean ate a great dinner tonight,

he took a decent nap today

and he's been moderately happy.

Who wouldn't be... with three sisters to play with him.

Don't worry, there was adult supervision at all times with the swinging.

I have to mention that this afternoon, Holland's fabulous 6th grade homeroom

teacher picked her up for the afternoon.  Holland and a few other students

raised money for our local Humane Society.

In just two weeks they raised nearly 150 bucks and stacks of

supplies and treats for the animals.

At the last minute, the other students couldn't go... so it just

ended up being Holland and Mrs. Ramirez.

Our girl came home wanting to adopt all the animals

at the shelter.  She has a soft heart, that one.

I'm so proud of her.  She gathered up a dog bed and an igloo

dog house from a couple of our neighbors.

And even though it was wicked cold, she cleaned up the dog house

so it would look and smell its best.

I love that my kids love to help others (two legged and four legged).

Now if I could just get them more excited about helping around the house.

Guess that is every parents challenge.

Mad Cows and Crazy Boys

Kean was up with the sun this morning.  Make that well before the sun.

I tried getting him back to bed, finally gave up and headed downstairs to

make a big breakfast.

Crazy kid.  At 5:15 this morning, he kept pointing and grunting-- telling

me he wanted to go outside.

 Something must be in the air at our house.  Our one remaining cow, Sadie

(the other two boys have gone to that big freezer in the sky), went on a bender,

broke through our fence, headed down the road and broke into another

neighbor's corral to join his cows.

By the time Byron and four others got a rope around her and dragged her

home behind our truck-- she had pulled over about a thousand pounds

of the neighbor's fence!  Poor Byron came home covered in mud and manure.

 Mr. B sent Kean and I out to buy a harness for Miss Jailbreak.

Since Kean can't be around germy people and places, the lady in the store brought out

her harness choices to the parking lot and let me pay for one right there.

I swear, only in Idaho!

I felt like a virtuous drug dealer... trading money for a big baggie while sitting in my car.

By the way, tomorrow two new little boy cows are due to be dropped off at our house.

Hopefully, Sadie won't feel so horribly lonely and we won't have a repeat of this great escape.

As expected, Byron was too tuckered out to get the Christmas decorations down

from the attic... much to Reese's dismay.

To make up for it, the girls (including our neighbor Jaymie) each

decorated giant gingerbread men...

and as you can see... themselves.

As for Keanut, he's hanging in there.  He had a slight fever today

but it was gone by the time he woke up from his nap.

We are ten days into Phase four.  Fifty more to go.

Our Uninvited Guest

Byron dropped by for lunch today... and found this little guy trapped in our garage.

 The youngster hawk was too exhausted to fly out so had to get a bit of help from Mr. B.

Too bad the girls weren't home to see this.

I tell ya, there's never a dull moment at "Barker Park".

Kean had a pretty good morning but unfortunately went down hill as the day progressed.

He is sounding a bit hoarse... so I'm trying to not stress and hope he continues on his

rock star path.  Today is day 9 since we started the evil Phase 4 of Chemo.

The doctors told me it would take about 7 to 10 days to knock him down....

and since yesterday he had his best day in weeks... I'm hoping he'll keep

bucking the trends and continue to be Mr. Miracle.

We'll see.

No matter what, he's my hero, even when he looks this miserable.

I got a phone call today from an old friend who I have always admired.

Ross Farnsworth Jr. told me something that made me stop in my tracks.

I love it--- he said when you hear someone question why bad things happen to good people.

You tell them because good is not enough.

And he's right.

The main way we grow, progress and become better people

is when we are stretched and put through the refiners fire.

I have already experienced so many beautiful moments on this

painful journey.  I hope someday I can look back and be grateful

our family was given this trial. 

My Nemesis

Ohhh, yessss. 
There is nothing sweeter in the morning than

being awoken by the neighbor at 5:30 a.m

to tell us one of our cows is out and

standing in the middle of the road.

And did I mention it was pouring rain?

Good times, I tell ya.

There is something unnatural about that cow.

He's too smart, calculating and shifty.

He watches me when I go outside.

The other guy.. .just eats and once in a while looks up.

But no, not "Jailbreak"... he's just waitin' and waitin'--

a bovine opportunist.

Well, he doesn't have much longer to wait (and jump over fences, and push up against the electric wire)...

He'll be in the freezer in about a month.



Giddiup

Our good friends have brought their horses back.

They lived on our property last Spring and Summer - right up until about two weeks before the

fire swept through here and burned everything up.

I often think back to that day and thank my lucky stars I didn't have 3 horses

to try and evacuate, on top of trying to get my children, the rabbit, the dog and my friends

out of the way of the flames in the five minutes that we had.

Holland is horribly allergic to horses - but she loves them and wants to be a Veterinarian.

So we load her up with Benadryl so she can survive a little spin on the horses.

 It's nice to have them back.  I don't know about you, but there's something

calming (and majestic) about looking out your window and seeing horses grazing

in a field. 

Holy Cow!

Really it should be Un-Holy Cows!

This evening, Byron and I slipped outside to quickly herd our two cows from the front acreage

to the back acreage (the 11 acres that burned up last summer-- the fence is finally fixed).
(click below to see the fire story)
http://reincarnatedasamother.blogspot.com/2010/08/our-too-close-for-comfort-close-call.html

Sounds easy, eh?

That's what we thought too.

45 minutes later...

45 minutes of us running around, or shall I say, getting majorly out-run by two

teenage cows that have now been nicknamed "Jail Break" and "Houdini"

because up until today they were constantly breaking through or jumping over the fence...

the same fence we couldn't get them to go near tonight!!!

 Byron either had a light bulb moment or a moment of desperation.

He went and got his trusty ol' motorcycle.

And Yee-haw... it was pure comedy.

He came soooo close to colliding with one of the cows.

 But it finally worked.

Phew!

While we were out communing with nature... we saw a momma Killdeer and four little babies.

Byron reached down and scooped up one of the little urchins... to the delight

of Reese and Greer.

 I'm happy to report, he released "Fuzzball" who was quickly reunited with his/her family.

When I was a kid growing up, we used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Who needs TV at our house?  Our kids can get their sitcom fix watching mom and dad

unsuccessfully chase after cows... and get their wildlife fix walking outside.

Love it.

Party Central

Today was the last day of school for the girls until 2011.  And I don't think there was much learning going on.  Greer came home and said her day was "AWESOME"...  between hot cocoa, a party, watching a movie and on and on... I'd have said the same thing.
Elly picked Reese up this afternoon.  On her birthday back in July, she had promised she'd take Reese out for a movie-- and finally, one came out that was just perfect for her.  They went to see Tangled, the new Disney flick about Rapunzel.  Reese loved it!  And I got lots of presents wrapped-- so I loved it too!

 I attempted to get a picture of Kean's front tooth making its debut.  Sorry it's so bad.  Greer says it looks like I'm picking his nose.  I'm not.

 And finally, we'd like to introduce you to our newest family members-- Greer and Reese named this one Comet-- because it's Christmas time.

And Holland named this lil' boy Skid Steer, Skid  for short.  I, personally, was hoping they'd go for Sir Loin and Sir Ribeye.

So if you are counting, let's see, that brings us to a mom and a dad, three girls, one boy, one dog, one rabbit, two cows and 20 thousand bees.

Life on the Farm

It sure feels like that sometimes! Between the dog, the rabbit, the owls and hawks in the trees, the fox on our back property, the occasional skunks, raccoons, badger, coyotes, deer and way too many gophers-- take a look at the uninvited guest that showed up in Zoe's water dish!

We also have quite a bit of "wildlife" inside the house. Holland has lost another one of her "fangs".

And not to be outdone, Greer is proudly holding (no it's not a tooth gone wild)-- an out of control radish.