So obviously I have been neglecting this blog lately... It's just that my whole allergic reaction to Amoxicillin thing lasted almost two weeks. I only took the medication for a day and a half - I'm really glad the reaction started so soon after I took that first dose. Who knows how long I would have been rubbing my palms together to alleviate itching if I had taken more than 3 doses? And I don't even want to think how much worse the joint pain would've been if I had more medicine in my system. Holy cow! I felt like a 96 year old woman for about 4 days there. Every joint hurt...I had to enlist Mr. Cracker's help one morning just to finish getting dressed. My shoulders, wrists & finger joints just would not cooperate enough to allow me to get my bra fastened. This whole experience has given me a new found respect for anyone suffering from arthritis. Seriously, it takes a lot of grit to keep on moving when all of your joints are telling you to kindly sit still for the rest of the day. I'm telling you one thing now, if I get arthritis in my shoulders, I'm spending my golden years bra-less. I just wanted to warn you now, so it will be less shocking later.
Enough whining.
Both C and K finished up their final days of school last week. Somewhat cruelly, Vacation Bible School at our church is being held this week. So C has spent his first full week of summer vacation right back in his school again. He really doesn't seem to mind though. In fact he was a little disappointed to learn that VBS was only 1 week long. I think he assumed that he was getting an early taste of what first grade would be like. I had to break it to him that this was a special program that only lasted 5 days and that after it was over, we wouldn't be returning to his school for awhile. I'm not sure yet he really understands that he has no school for the next 11 weeks. I'm sure it'll sink in once he's tasted a little more summer freedom.
In other news, I have to report a rather distressing trend around our house in the past couple of weeks. Mr. Crackers & I keep stumbling on small dead critters around our property. About 2 weeks ago I had the misfortune to discover the king of the moles dead in my backyard (I assume he must be king because he was the largest mole I have ever seen and trust me, I've seen a lot of dead moles). I'm not sure if our dog Sadie was responsible for his death, or if he met his end in some kind of mole coup d'etat. The end result is that I had to use my poop shovel (the small spade I use to pick up the remains of Sadie's dinner once it's traveled through her digestive system) to fling what had to be a 4 pound mole into the woods behind our house.
Dead moles, sadly are not too unusual in our back yard. I end up flinging about 4-5 dead moles back into the woods every summer. I'm really at the top of my game by August. If there was an Olympic event in dead mole tossing, I think I'd consider trying out for the U.S. team.
What is unusual (thankfully!) are other dead rodents. So, it came as quite a surprise when I came out into the garage on Friday morning to hear K screaming with delight, "Look Momma it's a baby mouse. Awww...he's sleeping. He's so cute!" I sprinted out to the driveway before she could pick him up. K is not at all squeamish about touching anything. One of her favorite pastimes is to walk down to the neighborhood pond with Mr. Crackers. Our pond is chock-full of frogs and Mr. Crackers uses a net to catch tadpoles and polliwogs for her. K loves to hold them in her hands for a minute or so before flinging them back into the pond. (Like me, C watches the whole tadpole flinging experience with a mixture of reluctant interest and horror. He enjoys watching his dad catch the tadpoles, but he wants nothing to do with returning them back to the pond.)
Sure enough, there was a small mouse in the driveway. Only, instead of being asleep he was clearly dead. Before K had the chance to scoop him up & hold him, I ran to the back yard to retrieve my poop/dead animal shovel to dispose of the remains.
This morning though was the final straw. I looked out my bathroom window as I was about to get in the shower when I saw a bunny in our backyard. We have lived in our house for 5 years & I have never seen a rabbit anywhere near our house. I have always assumed that the hawks and feral cats that live in the woods behind our house kept the population of rabbits very low. I was so excited about seeing the rabbit, I called out to Mr. Crackers so he too could witness the cute furry animal feasting on fallen leaves in the back yard. I think my ooo's and aahh's were too loud for the rabbit though, so he hopped off through the fence and into my neighbor's yard just as I was getting into the shower.
As I got out of the shower I heard Mr. Crackers shout "Sadie! What did you do?!" I peeked out the window to see (much to my dismay) 6 dead baby bunnies strewn around the base of our dogwood tree. Neither Mr. Crackers nor I are exactly sure what happened, but the large bunny I saw earlier was still in my neighbor's yard feasting on leaves. All we know is that Sadie was outside doing her business for a few minutes while Mr. Crackers got her breakfast ready. When he called out to bring her back in, he noticed her sniffing around the tree. Since she was so intent on sniffing, he went out to investigate and found the poor dead bunnies.
While Sadie is the sweetest dog ever, she is still a dog. A dog who loves to bark at and chase all of the small birds and squirrels who dare enter into our yard. It seems clear that she didn't try to eat them or anything. I'm not sure what happened. My guess is that she thought they were stuffed toys and played with them a little too roughly.
Honestly, we'll never know exactly what went down, but I have been trying to come up with alternate reasons for the bunnies death all day...Maybe they ate some bad mushrooms...Perhaps they were innocent victims of the ongoing mole coup d'etat that is raging in our backyard...
No matter what the reason, it's clear that I have to add Sadie to the list of reasons why we haven't seen more rabbits in our backyard for the past 5 years. Oh well. I'm just glad Mr. Crackers was on deck to clean it up. I'm not sure I want to add bunny disposal to the list of things I did on my summer vacation.
2 comments:
Fling-a-mole. Anything like whack-a-mole? Who knew Sadie was so vicious. Maybe they're all having heart attacks! Seems like your yard is the land of endangered species.
I like the heart attack theory! Mr. Crackers told me this evening that apparently the mother bunny had set up a fur-lined nest at the base of the dogwood tree (That tree that is the smallest tree we have- it's so young that it is barely 3 feet tall. It looks like someone planted a large dogwood branch in our lawn). With so many other good places to build a nest, we have no idea why she'd choose a tiny tree in the middle of a large expanse of grass inside the fenced domain of a large dog. Clearly she will not be winning any mother of the year awards at this year's bunny convention.
I like the fling-a-mole concept. I may have to market it as a new carnival game!
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