Healing Stink Bomb

I remember in junior high a group of pre-adolescent boys thought it was a blast to get a bathroom pass, sneak to their lockers, grab a stink bomb and inconspicuously roll it into a classroom while a teacher was teaching. This is a great example of why I believe a completely separate building and location is designated for the education of this special age of children. And the people who enjoy working with them? Often referred to as crazy. (Did I mention I used to teach 7-9th grade and loved it?)

Well, there is a stink bomb in my house. His name is Jack. He is as obedient as a 7th grade boy with a mind on malodorous clandestine contrivances. That dog knows how to get the worst essences of The Prairie to ingrain themselves deeply into his hide and linger for weeks. The Nephew and I actually coined a new color this week in honor of Jack: Dinge.

Although smelly and dingy, Jack is doing well. He has healed up so fast and I am relieved. The vet said he would lick that wound into healing and that he has. Here he is "self-medicating":

See how well he's healing? It's only been two weeks.

We have two cats. Fluffy, a big black Diva lives predominately in the garage. She is a whole lot of friend and fiest wrapped up into one huge ball of black hair. Once upon a time she and The Prairie Kid were friends. That ended a few months ago when they had a big fight and Fluffy's Fiest overshadowed her Friend and left The Prairie Kid's foot bleeding with nasty claw marks.

Our other cat is Spaz. She lives under the deck. Spaz is a cute little product of our old lovable cat, Tara. Except Tara was too busy looking for a Tom and forgot to teach Spaz that lovable part and Spaz ended up with Fear instead (see what happens when we don't train our children up in the way they should go?). She is so lonely and wants so bad to have companionship but she just refuses to let Fear go and let us love her. And it is super sad that Fluffy's Fiest gets bored and decides to go under the deck and torment Spaz. Poor thing.

Spaz has decided to try to fill her relational bucket through Stink Bomb though. I don't know, maybe that Essence is romantic and enticing to a feline. Gross. So I caught the two of them this morning on the deck. Jack isn't so sure about Spaz but he's tolerating her long enough that she gets a few good paces of contact as she rubs back and forth on his chest.

Look at her trying to get a good snuggle in!

If only she would know that we would love to love her. I would be much more apt to cuddle with her than Stink Bomb or Fiesty Diva.

Hawk On The Prairie

Now that you have seen the video I can show you cute pictures of the mohawk. The background on this is that The Birthday Girl's boyfriend just recently decided to sport a hawk.

The Nephew thought it would be fun to do the same to celebrate The Birthday in spirit.
I want him to keep it. I like it a lot. He doesn't like it a lot. He expects me to cut it off today. I don't want to. I guess we'll see who wins.

Concert On The Prairie

My sister's birthday is today. The Prairie People were feeling sad that we aren't there to celebrate with her in Seattle. The nephew typically would be around for her "family party." So we got to brainstorming and put together a special birthday video for her. If you don't remember, we did a really special dance for The Nephew for his 16th birthday last fall. (http://erinslittlelife.blogspot.com/2008/10/possibly-best-post-ever.html) Well, he's decided to join in the family tradition of making fools of ourselves to entertain someone on a special occasion. And honestly, I think The Nephew is the most talented! He is such a good actor and totally cracked me up when we put the video on the computer and watched it.
Even if its not your birthday, we are willing to entertain you too. Have fun! And Happy Birthday, Sister. I love you so much and consider you one of my best friends! SMMMMMOOOOCH!

Back In The Blogging Saddle

Hello again. I have not posted for a bit because I have been really under the weather. I am starting to feel like the end is in sight and at least today I woke up feeling a little bit better. Without getting into all of the details, this week has been both physically and spiritually challenging and exhausting. At some point I may feel inspired to share more in depth but for now all I can say is when you really cry out for the Lord to search your heart and reveal any wrong way in you then you'd better be ready to buckle down and deal. I have prayed this many times, over and over, asking and knocking, seeking and searching. God's timing is a mystery but perfect nonetheless and He revealed. I believe that He also has allowed my physical issues to parallel the spiritual.
But, like I said, I am not really wanting to get into the details at this point. My process is not quite finished. However, I was feeling better this morning; enough to get out the camera and "catch" The Prairie Kid being his cute self.
I was hanging out behind him on the couch while he got to watch Sesame Street. A scene came on that included a horse and The Prairie Kid went running to adorn himself with his cowboy hat. He stood up close and watched.

My Pajama Clad Prairie Cowboy

The scene progressed and The Prairie Kid decided he needed his horse as well...


He likes to knock his own hat off as he rides, as if the bronc was going so wild and fast that he loses his hat in the arena!

And then, it was time to add the chaps and "buck out" that bronc!

Who knew that Burt and Ernie could bring out the inner cowboy so readily?

Sportin' Some New Bling

It has been a great week on The Prairie (even though it feels like October with cold weather). The Prairie Kid has been getting to go to VBS at the local church in the mornings. He has had fun and seems to be at an age where he can go along in the institutionalized fashion that we hope our preschoolers can manage. We will go to the VBS at our church next week so he'll get plenty of VBS before summer is over!

On Wednesday night we had a family dinner at Mom and Dad's place to wish a nephew a great journey to Japan. He graduated from college this Spring and has accepted a job teaching English in Japan. Grandpa got out some special presents he's been collecting over the years for each of his 15 grand kids (and I told him that we'd try to produce some more to keep him collecting!)

The Prairie Kid was thrilled with the special present...here he is showing it off

Here is the special present...

And he just recently inherited the sweatshirt (which is from Grandpa's ranch) from a cousin

Check out the attitude!

Two weeks ago I was mourning the loss of nap time. All of a sudden The Prairie Kid was no longer napping. I have decided that it is healthy for everyone (okay, for me) that he have some "room time" when he used to nap so that I can be a sane mom. So, yesterday he played toys in his room and 45 minutes later I slowly opened the door to the room, which had silence on the other side, and found this...

I like VBS...it wears out my kid!

The Universe Declares Your Majesty

Here, hit play if you'd like before you read on...

God Of Wonders - Third Day

The sky did something strange the other night. I love how God arranged the atmosphere, jet streams, clouds and light to show His power and creativity. He is a God of order yet loves to surprise His children.

This was a picture taken straight off the back deck

And I literally turned my body 45 degrees to the north and this was the next frame...
Amazing.

Thank You Lord for showing Your majesty through Your creation. What a treat.

Prairie Vet Clinic

We didn't want to open for business today but we had no choice. Okay, we had a choice, we could have taken the business to town but we saved $200 to do almost exactly what they would have. I am not stomached for this though.
So, I am blissfully making Eggs Florentine for lunch when The Prairie Daddy came home. "How long has Jack been untied?" "All morning. He came and went and brought in a dead prairie dog earlier." "He's all cut up." "WHAT?"

I went out with The Prairie Daddy and saw the injury. Yikes! I mentioned the vet first and then we decided we could doctor him on our own. It is handy to have a barn with animal medical supplies. The Prairie Daddy called the vet and went over with him what to do. After lunch we all headed to the barn.

WARNING: The following pictures are graphic!

This is what Jack looked like before:

You cannot really tell but at the bottom there was a lot of loose skin and it was a huge flap.

We figure he was running (maybe chasing a rabbit) and caught something like barbed wire or a nail when going through a fence. It caught at the top left of the wound and just ripped a huge chunk of hide, obviously. Thankfully there wasn't any damage to the muscle or even the membrane over the muscle...except hoards of grass seeds that had to be plucked out.

I started to get light headed and a bit upset when he was really fighting the work being done. Thankfully The Prairie Daddy had lidocaine and was able to numb the whole area to get everything cleaned up.

We had to cut the flap of skin off, so the wound looks bigger but will heal up now without major scarring. That's why they wouldn't have left the skin or stitched.

There is some spray that makes an artificial scab and will help the healing process. It won't matter if he licks it either. We gave him some baby aspirin and he's happy that we're done messing with him.

It's raining like crazy outside this afternoon so Jack's happy to be curled up on his pad taking a nap. I think he'll have to be inside or tied up for awhile now. I sure hope this will slow him down a bit.