Batty

(All bat photos except <---- that one are from the bat conservation website. Most of our pics didn't turn out well, as it was too dark to get a good shot.)

Friday night we went to see bats! M, L, H, and I went and met Dej and her friend, April there. We also met my friend, Orinda there, with her two boys. The program and bats were from Bat Conservation. I always attend these things with a slightly critical eye, as I don’t want to participate in anything that is attempting to exploit or make money at the animals’ expense. I was immediately relieved, as it was apparent from the beginning that the speaker’s primary concern was the bats and their needs that were his primary focus. It was clear that they really are doing these programs for the bats, not for the people. The speaker was very bonded to and protective of the bats, who clearly trusted him. That allowed me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show—no action necessary.

The presentation was very informative (and I knew a lot about bats going in), fun, and full of cheesy jokes. It reminded me that our bat house fell apart a year or two ago, and I don’t think we ever got around to replacing it. We will definitely get another one up this spring.

I’ve always loved bats and found them cute and intriguing and kind of wished I could meet one and spend some time getting to know more about them. I'm proud to say I have a couple of bats on my left arm tat, as my friend and artist, Allegrea, knew I loved them. I left there thinking maybe I could get into bat rehab, so I could frolic with them. Unfortunately, I could not hand feed them live bugs/grubs, so I don’t think I will be able to move to Michigan and start a new career. I will definitely be planning a trip to Michigan to visit the sanctuary!

For now, I’ll have to just be happy with enjoying them in my garden in the evening. It is very cool to sit outside after dusk and watch them dive and swoop through the garden doing pest control. If only the bats could eat Japanese Beatles! I may never have nice roses again, because of those nasty little bastards. I won’t kill them, but I don’t have to love them! Oooh…I could start hanging out in my attic during the winter. I think we probably have some that hibernate in there. I don’t know for sure, but with a nearly 100-year-old house, it’s pretty likely.

We’ve never had one within our house, but I grew up in a house where we got occasional visits. I’ve grown up knowing all too well the swift breeze they generate when flying over my bed at night, the subtle little squeaks, the sound of their thin rubbery wings flapping overhead. I got to see them up close, and they are damn adorable. I couldn’t understand why people found them so repulsive! I still don’t! I’ve been lucky enough to touch them on multiple occasions. I wasn’t hurt and certainly didn’t get rabies. They are cute, cuddly, scientific wonders!
Their echolocation abilities are phenomenal, and the evolutionary process by which this skill was perfected is absolutely breath taking!

Saturday was a full chore and errand day. We had H this week from Thurs. night until Sun. night. M worked Sat., so I had to take the kids out with me to run errands. Because I know they would have a lot more fun playing at home than having to run out with me, I let them pick one stop, but they had to agree on it. Miracles abound, and they came up with a store they agreed on: Hobby Lobby. UGH!

While I like some of the stuff at HL, I HATE shopping there for many reasons—the main reason being their very religious roots. I try to be very careful with where and how I spend my money, as that’s really the only vote that the citizens of the U.S. really have at this point in time. The kids like HL, because they carry the Schleich cat figurines that the kids collect and play with. As soon as we got into the store, they made a beeline for the Schleich aisle. Right after that, I was reminded of why running errands with one child is exponentially easier than running them with two.

H is my little calculator and keeps very close track of my spending, as there must always be equity between them. Though he tends to focus on $, she makes sure everything else is equal, too. When he is with us, he is a member of our family and is treated as such in every way. That means if L gets something he gets something, too, and it also means that when necessary, he is disciplined as a member of our family as well. So once the kids were done with their cat figure shopping, they had certain other sections in the store they wanted to check out. That’s where it started to go to hell.

They each wanted to look in different areas, and so we had to negotiate the order of walking through the store. After L had thrown a couple of things in the cart (a sheet of stickers and a compass/protractor set for her school work this week), H became sulky and informed me that it wasn’t fair that she already got a lot of stuff ($7 dollars worth) but he didn’t have anything. He hadn’t found anything he wanted yet and hadn’t even asked, but it was apparently showing favoritism, which isn’t allowed. He was sulky until he found a calculator/notebook/clock set that he wanted for his office. Once things were even for him, he was happy.

Then we had to have arguments over who would push the cart. Being brilliant as I am, I solved that one by having them take turns. That wasn’t quite enough though, because then they had to argue over whether the non-pusher could touch the cart while it was in custody of the approved pusher. FMR!! I was ready to smack their hard little heads together! New rule: Only the cart pusher can touch the cart. Seemed like that should have done it, but no. Apparently the current cart pusher was touching the cart during the previous cart-pusher’s reign, so they had to touch it just one more time to pay them back. I took the cart back and nobody was allowed to touch it.

We finally got out of there and back home, where I spent the remainder of the day on animal chores and housework. The kids took over the entire living room and the front stairs with one of their very elaborate and huge cat towns. They kept busy with that until bed time.

Here's our very tired, Chloe, dreaming away, with her adorable little tongue sticking out.

Tulips

I can still find some pretty flowers between the weeds. I don't think I've ever seen so many big dandelions so early. I really need to find some help in the garden this year. It's ridiculous that neither of my daughters is willing to weed for any amount of money or for more than an hour a year! Yet anytime I mention cutting back the garden, because it's more than I have time to keep up with, both girls throw a fit. Most of the daffodils are finishing up for the season. Some of the tulips are done, but there are still many in bloom. We even have a trillium in the front (not the ones in back yet) that is in full bloom! It's really early for that.

The Last Recruit

What a great LOST! It was also a very nice Jin/Sun reunion. Who was the last recruit, though? Jack? Claire? The plot's really picking up momentum now, but holy crap!! I still need a lot of answers! The bad news is that there are only four episodes left (though the finale is two hours). The worse news is that there is NO epi next week. I have to wait THIRTEEN more days for my next fix!

Cats are complicated. They are much less predictable than dogs, and I’m perpetually intrigued and surprised by their behavior. Carrie was our last adoption, up until the recent return of the twins. She’s a bit of a diva and has issues getting along with several of our cats. She appointed herself keeper of my bedroom door soon after she moved in with us, and has since tried very hard to control who can and cannot enter our bedroom. She and Petey have had a bitter feud going on since we got her. She gets along with Oliver (but then most do), sometimes Tica, and sometimes Jasper. That’s it. I assumed that when the twins came, she would stick to her usual hostile approach.

I was surprised to see that she allowed them into our bedroom without a headboxing or even a growl! She likes them. She makes this cute little squeak when they come up for mutual face sniffing (or butt sniffing). I’ve observed their interactions closely, and I absolutely cannot identify anything at all about the twins that is noticeably different from the other cats in our home that she decided to hate for no apparent reason. I’m constantly working to improve the strained relationships in the house, and I would LOVE to know what makes these two okay with Carrie, because it would help my sleep problems immensely if I wasn’t awakened several times a night to the sounds of Carrie and Petey having a hissing & growling contest two feet from my head, or even an outright fight now and then. They followed the same feline etiquette that the other cats in the house follow with her, but she doesn’t respond the same. I’m frustrated by my inability to figure this out!

Carrie and Charlie do have a couple of strange quirks in common. They both are very human-face focused. It is very important to both of them to thoroughly sniff faces, concentrating on the hairline (on the forehead), then each eye, the nose, and the mouth (which they insist upon having me open, so they can really sniff my breath). They are also the two cats in the house who most frequently use their vomeronasal organ for smelling. It’s located in their mouth, so they must open their mouth to use it (Flehmen response). They make such a funny face when they’re flehming—I love watching them.

Tica is another one who I thought wouldn’t take to the twins. She’s so tiny and disadvantaged by her leg/hip and had such a rough early life as a street kitty, that her first response to anything new is to hiss as ferociously as a five pound cat can and then run and hide. I figured if nothing else, the twins’ gingantic size—they are almost three times as big as her—would make her especially fearful of them. She initially acted as I expected that she would, but at some point she made friends with the boys. I just noticed one day out of the blue, that Tica was playing chase (not unusual at all) WITH BASIL (shocking!). She has also made friends with Charlie and has been allowing him to sleep in L’s room with her at night.

la fashionista

L has always had a strong sense of what she considers fashionable and I’ve tried to allow her to express herself through her appearance. I don’t always understand or agree, but I like that she has the confidence to do her own thing. Here we have a statement in black and pink. She’s gone with the black leggings and a tank, black & pink flip flops, accessorizing with a black belt , and the always stylish black fingerless skeleton gloves.

She again lobbied for a cell phone, while we were doing our nightly chores in the herbivore room. I pointed out that she didn’t need a cell phone, as she’s always with someone who has one. She countered that she needed one to call her friends. I pointed out that she could do that now with our home phone. I was then educated to the fact that it isn’t cool to call friends on a regular phone. I told her they didn’t have to know it was a regular phone rather than a cell. She then dropped the knowledge that she really needs a cell phone so she can text her friends. Texting is really the only cool way to talk to friends.

After our bedtime reading, she decided to bring up a new topic. This involved in-depth questioning as to the mechanics of tampons and mooncups…(how do they stay in and not end up floating around inside?; where does the blood go?; etc.) one question after another. I pulled out the items and gave an impromptu tutorial on how they both work. You can’t properly comprehend a tampon without seeing it in action, though, so I opened one and stuck it in a glass of water. I flashed back to being about the same age, learning similar things (no mooncups, though) at a “menstrual tea”. Seriously, it was called that at my private school. Anyway, she reacted that same as we did at our tea, when we dipped a tampon into a glass of punch—a giggled, “grooossss.”

Then she asked the question I hoped she wouldn’t yet, because I knew the terror that would strike her if I answered honestly. L: “How do I know when my first bleeding time is coming?” Me: “Uh, you don’t.” (Wait for the full impact of the statement to sink in… there we go…the expression of horror I knew would be coming). “But at least your homeschooled, so you won’t have to spend every day of your adolescence in fear of a humiliating school experience.” I don’t think she found my optimism helpful. What can I say, though? “It’s only the first of many humiliating and inconvenient experiences of womanhood you will survive.” I think I’ll save that little bomb to drop on her during our next deep womanly conversation.

She also came to me with a proposition to switch names with Delila (our cat), because she likes the name Delila better than Luciana. I told her it would be too confusing for Lila, but maybe we could discuss it after Lila passes on.

Our warrior marches on

L & M left early Friday morning to Barron County, where M was a presenter. It's a nearly five hour drive! My schedule didn’t allow for me to go, so I stayed home with the animals and focused on cleaning and grading. M’s presentations were on Saturday, so they had all of Friday to themselves. They hiked for hours, got Chinese takeout for dinner, and returned to the hotel to watch Aliens in the Attic, which they took to watch on M’s laptop.

Saturday wasn’t nearly as fun for L. Mark’s presentations were divided up over the course of hours, which meant that L had to sit through the other presenters’ talks. We explained to her how the day would be if she went with daddy, and she chose to go. The minute she returned home, she started telling me about one of the presentations she had to watch. She was furious!

I’m not sure where the guy was from or even the topic of his talk. He spent a good portion of the time addressing garden ‘pests’ and the various sick and twisted ways they have come up with to kill them. She was seething throughout the talk and was sharing her disgust with M. She had a small sketchpad with her (to keep her busy), and she drew a picture of the speaker, Tim, which M tells me is really very accurate, except that he was not wearing a bra and panties. The bubble says, "We tell the rat labs to breed stronger rats for pesticide testing...to Kill." Here’s a note she wrote to M while the critter killer was talking. ("I hate these people, seriously! Pests? Creatures that are animals like humans, feel pain, can think, and even if they are annoying, they are special in their own way!"

I simply can’t comprehend why someone would attempt to garden outside, in nature, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to eradicate the nature that WAS ALREADY THERE when the garden was started. A true gardener is able to make the garden flourish by paying attention to the natural world and working within the constraints one has. If one needs the complete eradication of the insects/animals that naturally occur outside, one should just stick with houseplants and terrariums.

Before they started the trip home, they squeezed in a little more nature time. They had found and removed several ticks the night before after that adventure. L was very concerned about her dad’s ability to properly check her scalp for ticks, so during our Friday night phone conversation, she informed me that she would need me to check her again, because daddy might miss some. They had to stop on the way home to remove a tick she had just found on the back of her neck. Eeeww, those things are just so nasty! The minute she walked in the door Saturday night, she stripped down completely and wanted me to check her again for ticks. I didn’t find any more. She told me that if my job was to check people for ticks, I would be really good at it. I’m not sure what criteria she used to evaluate my tick-checking skills, but it’s nice to know I have career options.

a very good night

Getting LOST in an hour!

I came home from class tonight to:

1. a bouquet

2. an experiment (she loves to put flowers in water with food coloring)

3. a little taste of heaven from Sweet & Sara

Everybody loves Hugo

Last week, L came running into the room shouting about boycotting Nestle for cutting down the rain forest. I was on the phone, so I whispered to her that I didn’t know anything about it but would look into it with her later. Shortly after that, she reappeared with this note written on the backside of the top of her tissue box. I forgot about it. The next day, she asked me very urgently if I had researched the issue yet. We talk a lot about the veracity of web sources and the importance of checking everything with a reliable source. I didn’t have time to get to it that evening, so the same thing happened again the next day, so I realized I had better put in on my high-priority list, because it was important to her.

After I researched the issue and explained the whole thing to her, she was very satisfied that she was correct. She now takes great pleasure in telling people that they should boycott Nestle, because they are getting palm oil from a source that destroys rain forests to get it. So, we are boycotting Nestle. Its L’s first completely self-initiated political action, so I’m very proud of her. And even though we don’t buy any products from Nestle, we are boycotting them in spirit! ;)

She’s been spending time online debating and arguing with hunters. I watch very closely, but I haven’t had to interfere at all. While I want to completely shred these adults that are arguing with my baby, it’s important for her to be able to handle it on her own, so I keep my mouth shut and my fingers off the keyboard. I really, really wish these vile adults who get off on killing knew that the person who is holding her own and making them look kind of stupid is a 10 year old little girl. Can you just imagine their ugly, murderous faces when their ignorant little caveman-like brains realized that they have been bested by a 10 yr old girl?!! Their already tiny, underdeveloped little penises would shrivel even more. I guess for the first time in my life, I can say that these hunters do serve a purpose (though the world would still be infinitely better off without them). They are providing wonderful training material for my little warrior to sharpen her teeth on. They are also confirming to her that people who hunt really are ignorant, cowardly, and absolutely a waste of space. It’s so nice when they serve as a perfect example for what she’s been taught about them! They are a very obliging group of killers at least.

L and Mark went on a hiking adventure Saturday morning, which gave me time to clean. It was a nice day, though still quite cool—especially the water, but that has never slowed her down. She caught seven frogs. That’s one of those issues I feel very ambivalent about. She is very careful and gentle with them, and I don’t worry about her hurting them physically. She just likes the contact with them. She catches them and immediately lets them hop away. BUT I can’t help but thinking it is frightening to the frog. They don’t know her intentions are kind, and are probably quite afraid. She has always adored frogs and turtles, and loves the chance to interact closely with them. I do believe that close and frequent interaction with all forms of nature, from an early age on, benefits both the child and the natural world. I believe there is no long-term damage whatsoever to the frogs. As a child who grew up very ‘different’ from those around me, I am acutely aware of how easy it is to carry one’s personal beliefs to the extent that the child resents those beliefs. I kind of feel like this could be one of those issues, and it’s certainly not the hill I am choosing to die on. This falls into that huge bucket of judgment calls I’m not totally sure are right. I hope that it proves to be the kindest, least harmful alternative, but I just don’t know. I hate things like that!

Anyway, she was really annoyed that several of the frogs completely ignored her and kept on doing what they love to do in the spring (see last post if you’re not clear on this ;-) and didn’t even try to hop away when she got close. She probably could have picked them right up, but she didn’t want to touch them. She really doesn’t like when animals do that. She also gets pissed about the box elder bugs that like to hang on our door for days mating. She finds it all quick ‘icky’.

Frog porn

Hurley Bird

L & I decided to have a 'craft day' today. Actually, L decided and so that's what we did. :) She finished up a project that she had started last night, and I finally finished up those damn bird houses I started weeks ago. I had a little creative block with the bigger house. I got the sided and roof done, and couldn't decide what to do with the front. So it sat there on my desk until last night (which she also declared to be a "girls' craft night"). The bird houses are both done and reassembled, and I like them much better this way. I wish I had taken 'before' pics, but I didn't think of it.

The blue & white houses in the middle are perfect, so I didn't change a thing. Dej made those for me many, many years ago.

This is my sweet Hurley bird, preening me. L took a picture tonight while Hurley and I were doing our nightly herbivore room cleaning, feeding, etc. Sometimes his preening is a bit vigorous--OUCH! He isn't trying to hurt, though, and he will learn to be more gentle.

He's such a handsome guy!

Feeling squirrely

How cute is this little guy, enjoying some seed treats in our squirrel & chipmunk feeding station (otherwise known as our back deck)!

I have a few minutes before Dej arrives for our LOST fix.

I was up from 2:30 this morning on. I lay there stressing out about the outdoor cat enclosure I want to build. As much as part of me wants it, I'm terrified of it. I have friends who have them and have not had any problems. I envision my cats finding a way to escape, someone cutting the wires, a tornado blowing them away...all kinds of crazy things that scare me. I am admittedly on the paranoid side when it comes to my babies and their safety, but I take my responsibility and commitment to them very seriously. The other thought that jolted me was the huge expense it would introduce. Currently, we treat the dogs with Revolution, but since the cats are always inside, I don't need to treat them. If they are able to go outside, I will have to treat ALL of them for several months of the year with Revolution. That would run somewhere between $700-1000, depending on the weather. UGH!

I am now walking around with a meth face. It’s disgusting, and I feel a little bad leaving the house and making people look at the grossness. It started with a tiny, little pimple on my chin. Eeww. Things on my skin bother me, and I pick at them constantly until either it’s gone or I’ve made a much bigger mess of it than I started with. I really needed to get this disgusting pimple off, but squeezing as hard as humanly possible about 25 times in a row didn’t do anything but make it bleed and hurt. At this point, it became a matter of principle, that after all the pain, I was not about to leave the damn thing there to win. So I got the tweezers, and a pin and dug it open and cleaned it out. Now I have an absolutely huge, painful, repulsive, giant sore on my chin.

Everyone in my family has pointed out how gross it is, just in case I hadn’t noticed. M said it looks like I have a big bloodclot on my face. I don’t even know how my students could focus on the material I’m teaching, with the giant red sore staring at them! I wore a red shirt today. It is nicely accentuating the wound. So now that the repulsive thing is about 50 times worse than when I started picking at it, I keep picking at the scab. It’s just so wrong. Still, even though it looks worse, it’s somehow less offensive to me to have the nasty scab than to some kind of gross bacteria under my skin making a pimple. Nonetheless, it's still a constant distraction to me, knowing I have something on my skin that doesn't belong there. I will, almost certainly, unconsciously pick at it again and make it even worse before this week is over. Maybe a bandaid would be best at this point.

I got home late from class tonight, and it seems to be impossible for me to leave the building until 30-45 minutes after my class has ended this semester. I have the requisite 10-15 minutes of student questions after class, but then I have three geeks who are planning to go into IT. They have so many questions about the career field, majors, schools, programming languages--things they bring up that I am incapable of walking away from. After every class, after I've answered all of the class questions, one, two, and sometimes all three of the guys are waiting for me. I love to see people excited about this career field! It is an awesome career in many ways. So we talk, and I answer lots of questions, and then I realize 30 minutes have passed and I need to get home to my waiting chores and little girl.

So I scrambled into the house tonight, greeted everyone, and headed right into the herbivore room to start chores. I forgot to remove my jewelry first, and I don't usually wear jewelry in there. Birds LOVE shiny things (as do I) and are capable of destroying any piece quite quickly. Usually Hurley-bird flies to me right away, sits on my shoulder and tries to chew on my nose ring while I do chores. He was beside himself with glee, chewing my necklace, pulling my earrings out, yanking on my nose hoop. It was hard to be productive while trying to avoid his crazy little beak. The jewelry and I made it out of there intact, though I took it off halfway through my chores.

Many, many years ago, I made the mistake of leaving a beautiful ruby ring on my entertainment center. I returned home to find that the ring was still there, but the marquis ruby in the center was missing. The surrounding diamonds were there, but the ruby--gone. One of my cockatiels at the time(Romeo, Lily, or both) decided to neatly remove the ruby from the setting. I searched the floor for hours but didn't find it. I even watched and checked their little poops for months but never found the ruby. I still have the ring, as I intended to replace the ruby someday. Ah, the joys of living in a zoo!
___________________________

Obviously, I typed the above last night, but the kids arrived to watch LOST before I had time to add pictures or post. I've added the picture, and now I need to go. I was actually planning to type a little more, but Daisy just learned that Basil is not a cat that she should prance up to and sniff. He smacked her in the head, so now I need to go soothe both of them. The twins haven't ever been exposed to dogs, so I am still trying to get them comfortable with them from a distance. Maybe next time I tell Daisy to go out of the room she will listen! Yeah, right.

Happily Ever After

Spring has finally arrived in our garden. As always, the hyacinths, scilla, daffodils, and species tulips are the first to open. The magnolia is full of beautiful pink/violet buds, and the garlic is huge. I had lavender planted by the door, so when we go in and out, we could enjoy the scent of lavender (one of my favorites). Since the garlic grows much more abundantly than the two lavender plants I put in, the smell of the garlic always beats the lavender scent. Since I love the smell of garlic, walking in and out of my house just makes me hungry—no invigorating lavender for me! I am SO excited this year for my lilies to come up. I still have a couple of months before I’ll get to see any flowers, but I’m eagerly checking the garden to watch their progress. The roses are leafing out but no buds yet. I think we have enough color in the garden now that L can take down the big Obama sign she put up in the contorted filbert tree.

We have so many outdoor spring projects that we need to get done, but I don’t know how or when I will have the time to work outside. The animals, homeschooling, and my inside chores now take up all of my time. I am trying not to panic and the thought of the chaos that will make up my yard and gardens this year, if I can’t come up with about 10 extra hours per week (at the bare minimum!)—there has to be a way. M has been plugging away at the spring cleanup, which is a huge task. I have to get seeds sown, build a coldframe for three-season greens (which will hopefully help shrink our exorbitant produce expense) for our herbivores, put up the solar path lights, hang the patio ‘mood lighting’, find a place to start composting that our dogs cannot get to (because they eat all compost & compost-like things), select a location and draw up plans for the outdoor cat enclosure, move and redo the rock garden (and add a scree garden), redo the big front garden (I have a very ambitious plan, but maybe not do-able this year), and of course…endless weeding. The weeds are already threatening to take over certain beds. I've freaked myself out now, so I have to stop thinking about the garden!


We are working on socializing and integrating the twins. I let them out while we're home, so they can explore territory other than their room. They are really intrigued with L's room, which is where they stayed on the weekends when they were kittens. I wonder if they remember the room or are picking up their old smells. I just hate the whole socialization and exploration period so much! I can see the fear in every twitching muscle in their bodies, but despite their fear, their curiosity pushes them. I know they will get through it and eventually feel comfortable, confident, and safe here, but it makes me physically sick to watch them struggle. I also get very annoyed with my spoiled pampered cats being rude and naughty to the newcomers. They should remember how they felt when they were the newcomers and try to be more kind and hospitable. They don't remotely care what I think, however, so I will continue to run around like a crazy woman, to try to supervise every single interaction, so there are no negative encounters (all the while, knowing that no matter how much I try, I really can't do much to change things). My poor giant kittens!

Egg hunting

At my parents' on Saturday, with cousins, Dej had to work. H spent the weekend with his grandma, and we missed him!





At home today (12:15 was the earliest that Dej would commit to starting). L won. Dej needed help.