Two Weeks

If you've read my previous posts, you have an inkling of my last two weeks. My husband was gone on a business trip. It rained for most of the two weeks, and we had two nights of freakishly heavy rains. One evening we got 2.3 inches and the gutters overflowed for hours. Another night we got 1.5 inches in a very shot amount of time! The local creeks, rivers, fair grounds, park, and some roads were flooded. Our basement even flooded a bit! Luckily it is an unfinished basement and the only permanent damage was the destruction of my children's elaborate cardboard house. I mopped up the water and wrung it out into a bucket bit by bit every moment I wasn't busy with the baby until I had sore, red, and swollen hands. I hauled out the soggy cardboard and wet rugs. The water is now gone due to my effort and the help of a dehumidifier. 

The same day that the basement flooded, I noticed in the evening that our well water was cloudy. Although the clouding cleared up quickly, as a precaution I retrieved a sterile collection bottle from the county health department and collected a sample. I drove it to the nearest water quality lab (45 minutes away.) I was told at the lab that if any bacteria were found in my water that they would call me the next day and that written results would be mailed to me. "No news is good news," the lady informed me. "If you don't here from me, your water tested clear." Well, I didn't get a call or a message, but considering the week that I had, we continued to avoid drinking the water, brushing our teeth with it, or washing our faces with it. I even put off washing laundry and dishes. Five days later the results arrived and the water tested positive for E. coli.

A bacterial contamination in the well should not be a big issue. This can happen when flood waters affect the water table or ground water infiltrates a buried well cap. Treatment is relatively cheap and painless. You shock treat the well and the plumbing with household beach and then flush it out.  This is done by swabbing the well cap with bleach, adding a bleach solution to the well, running the bleach water to every tap, letting it sit for 24 hours, and then running water through an outdoor faucet until the bleach smell is gone. But, of course, our well cap is buried. So we need to have a pitless unit installed on the well before we can do this. So not only is the back yard recovering from our recent sewer line replacement, our front yard will now be torn up in order to install piping to elevate our well head above ground.

When we contacted the previous owners of this home (who had lived here for nearly 20 years) for information before making our offer to purchase it, they said that they had never had a problem with the well. And the folks we bought the place from had replaced the 40 year old well pump right before we moved in. In fact, my husband has JUST leveled the ground above the well and reseeded it with grass this spring. I'm assuming this is a freakish occurrence that may never happen again. But we still need to alter the well in order to rid the system of the current bacterial invasion. And it's an expensive modification that we didn't count on.

So we covered the kids and the water. Now I'm up to events. I had to manage choir rehearsals at bad times, a choir concert at the lunch hour (with a grumpy baby, wiggly pre-schooler, and aloof/bored teenager) a reception with a buffet at nap time, a First Communion Mass, and a First Communion party for 3 of Gianna's friends that included a buffet and basketball (also at nap time) by myself with 5 kids. Managing those two events with buffet lines with a writhing 16 lb. 10 week old on my shoulder, and two other kids incapable of serving themselves or carrying plates or cups without spilling was quite a task, despite the help I was offered at the First Communion reception. 

Then there was a snafu concerning my husband's birthday present. (His birthday arrived while he was in Taiwan.) I had placed an order for pick-up, but was never notified that the in-stock item was waiting for me at the customer service desk, as I was supposed to. The e-mail I sent to customer service  remained unanswered. And the call I made to the local store resulted in folks having no idea what I was talking about, and transferring me to a line that rang and rang with no answer. Eventually I just went to the store where there was a record of my purchase, but nothing was at the customer service desk and we had to wait for at least a half hour while the order was sorted out and the item brought to the desk. In the end, my oldest son and I wrestled the large box into the van while the baby caterwauled.

Speaking of crying, I had a grumpy baby who seemed to be teething and who continued to fight BMs. My four year old peed his pants on and off and refused to poop (and was therefore acting out due to his discomfort.) And I had two kids with fevers and sore throats in there too.

Another of my worries this last week was a call I received last Friday from my sister, informing me that my father was sitting in an ambulance undergoing tests because he had an episode that seemed to be a heart attack or a stroke wherein he was dizzy, couldn't talk, and had tightness in his chest while he clenched it with his left arm. This caused all sorts of anxiety ridden rabbit trails of thought. Being states away, I could do nothing but tell my children to pray and inform other family members, asking for their prayers as well. In the end, he was taken to the hospital and all tests he underwent showed no detectable heart damage. (Heart-related ailments is all that he was tested for, much to his frustration.) He feels that the episode was blood sugar related, as his blood sugar was high, or perhaps potassium or magnesium related. I wonder if he didn't suffer a mild stroke. He now has to find a compassionate and skillful doctor to help him ascertain what he experienced and to help him decide how to proceed. I wish that there was some way that I could help him with this. I also wished it was easier to see him.

And finally, I met one of the non-local "clan" who owns the certified forrest behind our property.  He turned up at my door on Saturday. He had come with some friends to camp on the land for the weekend. They stopped by seeking a lost dog which had bolted when they lit a firework the night before. I helped them to get in touch with the local humane society and took names and phone numbers, but Millie never turned up.

While he was here I learned that the story told to us by some local huntsmen- that they were caretakers of the land in exchange for hunting rights- was bogus. We had suspected this, as I indicated in a previous post, but now it has been confirmed. I was informed that the family who owns the land has even sent them certified mail asking that they refrain from trespassing, and that other than the utilities, only one other person has permission to be on the land. So we'll likely have to deal with that sometime in the future.  

Now my husband is safely home. He's trying to adjust from having been in 3 different time zones in the last two weeks- the last one a 12 hour difference, involving something like 26 hours of travel time to return home. We celebrated his birthday yesterday. And although we are still without potable water and need to get the well alterations completed, we are striving to get into a new routine with the baby and my husband's new job. After all, the baby is only 12 weeks old tomorrow, and my husband has only been on the job for 6 weeks- and has been away for travel for three of those!

Wild Turkeys

This morning the 11 week old took his first nap at 8:45 am. (Two batches of muffins were already baked and consumed by then too!) It was overcast and raining lightly. As I stood up after laying him in his crib, I spied a flock of turkeys in the hay field. So of course I took my camera to the window to capture the moment- capture it for the children who I couldn't call to the window without waking the baby- capture it for my husband across the world this week in Taiwan- capture it for myself so that it wasn't just a split-second of soon-forgotten, fleeting dream during my day.

Then I snapped a picture of my little turkey or rather, sleeping beauty. I want to remember this moment too. He looks peaceful, but it didn't last long. He has been dubbed, "He of the lethal diaper!" He goes for long stretches without pooping and then will have either a big blow-out (like the proverbial dam burst- only the reservoir was full of mustard) or he will poo diaper after diaper for a few hours taking squirmy, grumpy, fuss-breaks in between diaper changes! If only I could have held him as he slept this morning! But other duties called... duties, and well... doodies. 

Morels and Bluebells

When I was a kid, my dad would take us "mushroom hunting" sometimes in the spring. We lived in a very urban area, so we'd head to a county or state park and follow deer paths through the woods looking for morel mushrooms. If we found some, Dad would take them home, wash them, cut them in half, bread them, and fry them in butter. I tried them, but in general, I never ate any. I didn't know anyone else who collected them or ate them besides my father.

Now that I live in the state that he grew up in, as well as near a small town, I see morels for sale at the cooperative grocery store for oodles a pound. The little newspapers that we get all publish stories about the "first morel of the season." They track the finds and run articles and stories about the biggest morels, the smallest morels, the most morels found by one person, etc. It's a big deal around here!

People have secret hunting locations which they will not disclose. But they do have certain tips they'll share: look for morels when the may apples are blooming. Look for morels under maple and poplar trees, etc. 

Now I own my own bit of woods. You'd think that I'd go mushroom hunting. Someday I hope to tromp through the trees with my brood and teach them what I know about hunting for morel mushrooms. But right now I simply haven't got the time.

Today it didn't matter. I went outside for a few minutes to help my son with something, and I nearly stepped on some in the lawn on my way back to the house. 

I sent my girls out to comb through the yard for more before my son mowed, but they didn't see any. Instead, they came in with fistfuls of violets and armloads of bluebells.  These are now in vases spread about the house.

On my way to the barn to tend the goats tonight I went by the pasture with the bluebells.  It was sunset, the barn swallows and goldfinches were twittering, a soft and warm wind was causing them to bob and sway. It was gorgeous. I forgot for a moment about the possible well and water issues, my daughter's tick bite, the fussy baby, and the three year old's fever. I just stood in beauty and breathed it in. And now I have my own tip: hunt for morels after rain when the bluebells are blooming.

my picks thus far

Under Water

Today was "not so hot". I woke to the sound of water splashing in the basement. That's never good. 

We'd had rain on and off all week, and heavy rain the night before. In fact, it was such a deluge that the gutters overflowed for at least an hour and a half- maybe much more. (I went to bed at some point after that.) I DO know that a wash tub that we left on the sandbox for rinsing off feet was filled completely with rain water, and we got a record 2.3 inches of rainfall yesterday. So we definitely got an unusually large amount in a short period of time. 

Anyway, I figured that the hole through the basement wall where the well pipe came through was leaking. The previous owners had replaced the pump just before moving and the hole had never been sealed. It WAS leaking there, but that water was nicely going down the nearby drain. But to my surprise and horror, the whole middle section of the basement was wet. There's a hairline crack between the poured cement walls and the three rows of cement block on top of that. The water came in there, presumably due to the gutters overflowing. It had dried up already around the walls, but it had pooled in the low places in the middle of the basement, surrounding the furnace and flooding my children's GIANT cardboard playhouse under the stairs. 

This playhouse was very elaborate. It started with moving boxes and grew from there. My 14 year old son engineered it. It had lights, speakers, a carpet, rooms with doors, etc. The carpet was underwater. The cardboard was wicking up the water. The whole thing needed to be dismantled. Sigh.... the kids were SO disappointed.

To top it off, the baby was terribly fussy today. He would fall asleep, but wake up the minute I put him down. And he was drooly and grumpy and crying a lot today in an unusual inconsolable way when he was awake. For the few times I got him to be in bed, I was down in the basement tearing down and mopping and wringing out water. (I got at least 4 gallons out that way, as well as some lovely blisters from wringing out the mop.) 

Between the dehumidifier and my mopping effort, there is no longer standing water in the basement, just wet cement, a stack of dry boxes, and a pile of broken down and soggy cardboard. But by dinner time, my kids were a bit wild. The 5 year old and 3 year old, who fight naps terribly, but who can't make it much past dinner time without at least a short one, were not monitored during their naps because of my efforts. So I don't think they slept. In addition, the needy baby meant they didn't get much attention today. This resulted in over-sensitive tear fests, angry tantrums, and uncooperativeness. 

I ended up sending one to bed early for an out-of-control outburst. The rest I tried to ready for bed one-handed with a drooling, squawker on my shoulder. During our nighttime routine I discovered that our tap water was cloudy and yellow. Ugh!

All the recent rains have led to flooding. We live near a river that is supposed to crest on Sunday night or Monday morning. All the little creeks have backed up. And the tremendous rainfall last night caused temporary flash flooding. Now the water table may have been affected or surface water may have seeped into the buried well cap. Now the concern is about bacteria in the well. I'll have to figure out how to collect a sample and find a lab to test it. Wonderful!

As far as drinking and cooking, I always use filtered water from the kitchen tap, so we probably won't get sick. But Some of the kids rinsed their teeth before I noticed, and we'd been washing our hands in it all day too. Hopefully that won't cause problems. 

Tomorrow I will be extra careful. I'll have to buy some jugged water for that. And until our water returns to normal, I can't wash dishes or laundry. Of course I have a day's worth of dishes already waiting. And I have a whole pail of cloth diapers that need tended to. I don't want to let them sit until the water is confirmed to be safe, but I can't exactly take the diapers to a laundromat either. Great.  

Did I mention that although it was 86 degrees earlier this week, there is a freeze warning tonight and a chance of snow, or that I'm at the end of the first week of my husband's two week business trip? He'll be in Asia all next week. Thunderstorms have disrupted the family's sleep for two nights. The little ones missed naps for several days. My daughters also have a choir concert tomorrow at lunch time to which I am supposed to bring a homemade treat for the reception that follows. I don't know how I'll manage a grumpy baby, getting everyone in their choir duds, etc. making a dessert, AND keeping a bored, hungry three year old and his tiny brother quiet at the concert. The rehearsal was hard enough to swing. Let's hope the baby doesn't scream for the half our trip there or that the three year old doesn't go nuclear when it's time to get buckled into his car seat- a thing that has suddenly become habitual for him. Sigh.

Oh well, that's tomorrow. I had better go disconnect the hose now and get some chores done. :)

Giant Hornet

Today a giant bee-like creature was in my house. Presumably it came in with my son when he returned from the upper barn after tending the goats this morning. I was walking down the hall past the living room on my way upstairs when I heard this banging sound in there. I looked over and a giant something was beating itself against the lights and windows. It was HUGE! It seemed nearly the size of small hummingbird. 

On closer inspection is appeared to be a bee, wasp, or hornet. It buzzed, and loudly. It was at least 1.5 inches long, but seemed longer- pinky sized! It had brown wings and a brown head and thorax. It had a thick yellow and brown striped, hairy abdomen that was about as big around as my index finger. It looked like it could take down a bird, and one of substantial size at that!

I'm no fan of snakes. They move so creepily. And I dislike spiders, despite their benefits, because they are a bit intimidating. Bees, wasps, and hornets have never bothered me before, but this thing beat out the spiders and snakes! I mean, it flew, and fast! And it was LOUD, and seemingly mad.

I don't like to kill bugs. That exoskeleton crunch gives me the shivers. And most wasps and bees are very important for things like pollination and bothersome insect control. So I tried turning off lights and propping open the nearby door- no luck. I tried opening a window that it finally landed on. (That took bravery, by the way.) Slowly it crawled to the top of the frame. Slowly it crept over the edge of it and out of view. I waited. 

I wanted to see it fly away. It didn't. Then I started to worry that it would fly or crawl BACK IN. That was not desirable. I had a vision of my 10 week old getting stung and that made up my mind. I raised the window, hoping that the ugly thing was completely on the outside of the frame. CRUNCH! Nope. Shiver. Now I have that mess to look forward to when I next clean the windows- yuck.

Later today I wanted to find out what that creature was. Based on its size, it has to be either a European Hornet or a Cicada Killer Wasp. I looked through pictures of each, and neither is really striped, and neither seemed hairy enough. I think bees are hairy, not wasps. Perhaps bee-things are hairier in the spring than in the summer? 

Part of me wants to lower that window and take a closer look to satisfy my curiosity. Part of me is afraid that the armored creature will still be alive and angry and I should just leave it alone for a few days. Given my busyness lately, I'm thinking it will be the latter by default. Plus, it will be squashed (gross!) so probably not very helpful for identification purposes. But my curiosity will fester.

By the way, I tried to take some pictures of it, but as I was ducking the thing and with back light. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the baby's room, so I can't see if any of them turned out right now. If one did, I'll post it later for all of you amateur entomologists. :)

Home-made Foaming Hand Soap

People often ask me after visiting, "What hand soap is that in the bathroom?" And I sheepishly tell them that I make it. Some have asked for the "recipe". Someone on Facebook recently did too, so I figured that if I am going to type it up, I might as well make it a blog post. Here goes!

Foaming Hand Soap

1 foaming hand soap bottle (You can recycle a foaming hand wash bottle or buy a new bottle like this.)
1 cup warm water, approximately (avoid "hard" water if possible)
4 teaspoons Dr. Bronner's liquid Castile soap (Don't freak out about the hippy label :) and add more if your water is super "hard" or you like a thicker foam.)
15 drops grapefruit seed extract (edible and has antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal properties)
3 drops tea tree oil (has antiseptic and anti-fungal properties)

1. Fill the bottle with the water.
2. Add the remaining ingredients.
3. Replace the pumping top and agitate gently to mix.

For those with sensitivities, or who dislike strong-smelling soaps, I recommend the unscented castile soap.

For those who prefer a pleasant smelling soap (also a way to tell if your child has washed his or her hands) you can either use the unscented and add a few drops of your favorite essential oil, or you can simply purchase a scented liquid castile soap.

I hope you like my concoction!

Hawk and Crow

Sometimes I think of bird calls in phrases. You know what I mean, right? The cardinal often says, "Peter, Peter, Peter!" "Pretty, bird! Pretty bird!" and "What cheer! What cheer!"  The robin sings, "Cheerio, Cheerio" during the day or "Sleep! Sleep, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck!" in the evening.

For the uninitiated, the barred owls cry, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" Last night their noise cut through the stone walls and glass windows of this house to hinder my sleep. However, it didn't disturb my children. I guess they know who cooks for them. They feel no burden of responsibility nagging them as they hunger for sleep. :)

Early this morning, as I rocked my nursling in the dismal dawn, I witnessed a hawk trying to catch a crow for breakfast. They swooped and dived and flew at ungraceful angles no bird flies at willingly. The aerial "dog-fight" maneuvers were amazing, set off by the steel gray sky, the emerald hay, and the dark vertical tree trunks that seemed to connect the two at the horizon line. Eventually the battling birds flew out of my field of vision, which was bounded by the window, so I do not know the outcome. I think it's best that way. 

I was beset by hungry mouths too. There was the greedy, suckling baby, as well as my three year old to contend with. The preschooler resents the delay of breakfast that our new one often causes at daybreak. And yet despite his perpetual hunger, I find myself often "fighting" with him over food these days, as his continually fluctuating whims and ideas rule the food he fancies. Thankfully, he threw no fits about the rice pudding I made, just the wait for it, and the temperature of it, and the lack of enough of it, and who sat by him while he ate it. :)

All day long it threatened rain. It was perpetual twilight. Rain fell at intervals. At midday, I noticed that two deer had bedded down in the hay, seemingly oblivious to the water. I wondered why they didn't seek shelter under a thick bush or in the lee of some tree or building. I envied their naps, despite wondering if water was getting in their eyes and why they didn't mind.

In the late afternoon, there was a deluge, our gutters overflowing, and a gray curtain of water shrouding the lake and woods on the other side of the hay field from view. Or maybe it was like a heavy blanket for the deer. I'm a little nap-obsessed. :)

This evening in the twilight, as I was rocking in the baby's room again while three of my children frolicked in the room above me, the newly-greened grass seemed to glow with its own light. The rainfall was light and misty. It seemed more like a fog. And it humored me to think of the weather matching my circumstances all day. There were my young children upstairs- vibrant. There I was in a sleepy, mental fog.

At bedtime, the thunder kicked in. I made a bed-tent for my three year old on the floor next to his sister's bunk beds. His fourteen year old brother was gone to an evening event in a neighboring city, and my little one had complained of "sleeping alone." Despite my husband being gone for two weeks on a business trip, I couldn't comfort him in my bed due to the fact that I'd be up and down with the baby and would disrupt his sleep even more. Hopefully he sleeps well, because the forecast for tomorrow is the same as for today- and probably in more ways than one. :)

Fox or Coyote?

Spring is really here now. The snow is gone. Thunderstorms are predicted all this week. The snowdrops have finished blooming.

The crocus are nearing their end. 

The Carolina Anemones are dotting the front lawn.

The forsythia are starting to bloom,

and so are the daffodils.

In the animal world there is more activity. The spring peepers continue to sing their tinkling love songs. And some birds are already busy finding nesting sites. For example, there's a barn swallow's nest on the stone siding under and eave that I failed to knock down last year. It has been visited by a pair of birds all week. 

Other animals have been more visible too. Just yesterday morning, during breakfast, I spotted a coyote out hunting for rodents in the upper hay field.

I called my family's attention to it, but there was some dispute as to whether it really WAS a coyote. My husband thought it was only a fox, since he didn't think the legs were long enough. In the middle of a rolling hay field it is hard to gauge size when there is nothing nearby for reference and the hay is at various heights in various places in the field.

I KNEW it wasn't a red fox. I had just watched a red fox doing the same thing the coyote was doing only a few days before, albeit at dinner time. 

This animal was colored entirely differently. It was suggested to me that it could be a gray fox. I was pretty sure that it wasn't. The ears weren't big enough, the nose wasn't narrow enough, and the tail wasn't bushy enough or long enough for it to be a fox. In fact, the whole animal seemed larger to me. So I snapped some photos for reference and decided to double-check later.

That afternoon I looked up pictures of gray foxes... not even close. I pulled up the pics. of the red fox I had snapped just to double check. Nope.

Sure enough, it was a coyote. 

It wasn't as big as the one we had spotted several times before, 

so perhaps it was a juvenile or a female. 

I was worried when we were contemplating moving here that what with all my duties as wife, mother, teacher, home-maker, etc., I would never get to enjoy the outdoors and it would be a "waste" to purchase a home like this, especially considering how much my husband works and travels too. I figured I'd be mowing when I did manage to get out, which would keep the beasts at bay. Or I would be tending squealing children or working on the land, not sitting around enjoying it. And I knew that there would at least be periods when I wouldn't get out much- like now, when I have an 8 week old and the weather is still cool. But in the end, I have found that the wildlife comes to my door, sometimes literally, and I enjoy it more than I ever imagined would be possible. 

Just this morning, leaving in the dark, a raccoon sat 2 feet from the drive as I passed it. It stared at the vehicle placidly- or should I say defiantly- eyes all aglow in the headlights. Upon returning home in the twilight of the morning, a bare-tailed possum scurried across the drive right in front of me. It's undulating rump vanishing in the bushes as I passed. And later, as I sat nursing my young son as he snuffled and snorked due to his cold, I saw geese splash down onto the pond.

It is neat to be so surrounded by nature. It keeps things in perspective. I live on the critter's turf really. All the pollution we humans create, all of the noise, all of the bulldozing and paving and restricting... it hasn't stopped all of the creatures. I live 5 minutes from town. I can hear the highway, train, and quarry equipment when the wind is right. But there are still wild things about due to the woods all around us. It's both comforting and intimidating.

But one thing is for certain. I need to figure out how to build a chicken fortress instead of a coop, and have to let go of the idea of chickens scratching in the lawn, perching on the porch, or taking dust baths in the flower beds, as they did at our old home. This coyote was spotted at 8:30 in the morning in full daylight. The fox was last seen at 5:30 in broad daylight. (The time before that, the fox used our sidewalk! Heck, a coyote once stood at the end of the walk to our front door too!) And of course along with the raccoons and possums, there are always the owls, hawks and snakes too!

 (Those links are to previous posts. If you're interested in posts about my earlier coyote spottings, here they are: Coyote Chase, Lone Coyote, Look at the Deer, Dear! )