NaBloPoMo #12
All The Nyans Part Four
We heard from Summer, the breeder, on April 13. Her fox had given birth to two males the night before. Eler Beth was ecstatic! One of those two was Remiel!
As I said in the second post of this series, our only concern about getting Remiel was how Bryant would be with him. Bryant is the sweetest, gentlest dog, but he is big, and he is very attached to Eler Beth. Those fears were put to rest the next week when we brought home the orphaned newborn kittens to raise. Bryant went into surrogate daddy mode. He cleaned them and watched over them, was worried if you took them from his sight, and he was very, very gentle with them. He also would not let Little Big, the fox terrier, get near them. So we knew he would be fine with Remi.
Summer kept us updated online and by email with pictures and reports of the babies' progress. We started making plans for our trip in May to pick him up.
Left is pictured the two newborn Fennec Fox kits. I have no idea which one turned out to be Remiel; they were competely identical.
Pictured on the right are the Fennec kits with their step-siblings, Bengal kittens just a bit older than they. Summer hand raises her Fennecs from birth. She bottle feeds them during the day, and then at night she lets her Bengal cat nurse them with her kittens to give Summer a rest. This gives the foxes the socialization they need.
The story will continue in future posts; the next Remiel post will be about our trip down to Pensacola to pick up our fox.
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #11
All The Nyans, Part Three
From the time Eler Beth was eleven years old, she has wanted a Fennec fox. As with anything she has an interest in, she began researching Fennecs and the legality of owning a Fennec in Indiana.
To my surprise, at the time she first started doing her research, there was a breeder in the Northern part of Indiana who, among other exotic animals, bred Fennecs. She also found one in Ohio and some other nearby states. We contacted the breeder in our state and got some information, and then about twice a year, she'd check to see if she was still breeding them.
About three years ago she started making definite plans for owning a Fennec. She contacted a local vet who works with exotics to make sure she would treat a Fennec; she would. She pretty much made a care manual with specific instructions for housing, training, feeding, and health care.
Two years ago we found out that the breeder in Indiana was no longer breeding Fennecs. But that was okay. By that time she had found a breeder in Florida who she liked the look of. Summer runs Rare Earth Ranch, near Pensacola, and everything we read about her on her web site made us think she was the type of breeder we wanted to work with. Eler Beth got in touch with other Fennec owners who had bought their foxes from Summer, and then she got in touch with Summer, herself, last year. The two of them hit it off from the start. Summer said she could tell from the correspondence that Eler Beth was the type of person she wanted for one of her Fennecs. She has actually turned down prospective buyers who hadn't done their homework, or who expected more from a Fennec as a pet than they would get.
Fennecs are not legal to own in all states in the country. They are legal in Indiana, and we checked with our local officials to make sure there were no city or county regulations against them. There were not.
When she graduated from high school in 2014 Eler Beth saved most of her graduation money to go toward the Fennec, and in late fall of last year we sent Summer a deposit on a male Fennec. Summer's Fennec fox rates were higher than the other breeders, but from what we saw and read, we knew it would be worth it. When Eler Beth started working she saved as much as she could to add to her other savings so that she'd have the balance when her Fennec was ready.
She started getting the supplies she would need for her fox, and decided that she would name him Remiel. By the end of last year we were counting down the days to Remiel's birth -- praying there would be at least two males in the spring litter, because another purchaser had dibs on the first male. If there was only one male or none, she would have to wait until the summer litter was born. But assuming everything went according to plan, we knew that Remiel would be born around the second or third week of April, and we would be able to go down to get him by the end of May.
Pictures of Remiel on this page are current photos of him. I will post pictures of him as a newborn, as a baby, and of her first meeting with him in the next few blog posts.
Eler Beth and Remiel, earlier this year.
To Be Continued....
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #10
Should She?
Yes, my mother will be 92 next month. She was 42 when I was born; the seventh of seven children, I was a surprise. She actually didn't even think she was pregnant; she thought she was starting to go through menopause early.
When the doctor told her she was pregnant, she asked, "Are you sure?!?"
I can't imagine having a baby at 42, with six older children ranging in age from 18 down to 6. The eldest, Dennice, got married one month after I was born. I was an aunt twice at the age of three! I was closer in age to five of my nieces and nephews than I was to the sibling closest to me in age. In the picture above, Mom smiles at something my son's girlfriend is saying.
Mom says her kids keep her young, but I think she just has really, really good genes. She's a little too spry sometimes, though. A few years ago my sister Barbara walked over to Mom's house just in time to catch Mom climbing up on a chair on the back porch, getting ready to clean some spots off the wall. Barbara scolded her and then did it herself. Two weeks ago she -- Barbara -- was washing Mom's windows for her, left the house for something, came back and caught Mom, again, climbing onto a chair to wash the kitchen window over the sink. When asked why she was doing that she blandly remarked that it was the only way she could reach the window. We still aren't sure if she really didn't understand the question or if she was deliberately making a joke!
I called Mom today to check in with her to see if she was feeling better. Last week she was complaining of a head cold. She said that had passed. She really does take pretty good care of herself -- and my sisters who live there and nearby take good care of her too. She goes to the doctor for her regular check ups, but she also goes if she starts feeling bad at all. At her age she doesn't need to let anything go.
She told me today not to worry about her. "I rest whenever I feel like I need to. There's nothing I just have to do; the girls do everything. If I feel like doing something, I do it." I reminded her of the two "chair" incidents. She chuckled and said a bit sheepishly, "Yeah, I guess I really shouldn't do anything like that anymore even if I do feel like it."
In the picture on the left she is snapping beans to can.
In the picture on the right she is making
no-bake cookies.
We're happy to have her with us just as long as she wants to stick around. I plan to write quite a bit more about Mom and about my Dad too, this month -- as well as my siblings, especially my sister Barbara who writes me a snail-mail letter every week.
Bye for now. Happy blogging!
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #9
But I'm Very Busy Inside My Head!
I may have to give up on NaNoWriMo this year. I can't write with Thomas home every day, bless his heart!
I love him to death, but I'm used to having a certain amount of time during the day when I can, at my leisure, sit down to write as the spirit moves me. If Eler Beth isn't at work, she knows I'm writing, either because I tell her I'm going to write, or she sees me at my computer and from my expression or something, she just knows. Unless it's something very important, she doesn't interrupt me.
But Thomas doesn't know the signs, and if I tell him ahead of time, then he forgets -- bless his heart. Even if I'm in our bedroom or on the front porch using the laptop, there's a good chance that he'll pop in (or out, as the case may be) to ask me something or tell me something.
And if he realizes what he's doing, he'll say something like, "Oh! You should have told me you were writing. Want me to go see what Bob is into?" And then, perversely, I say, "No! I like having you here." Because I really do, you know. I'll miss him once his thumb is healed, and he goes back to work.
And
you know, sometimes when you're writing, you just sit and stare at the
computer screen for minutes at a time. It doesn't look like you're doing
anything, but in your head there is a LOT that is going on. Thomas is
the type of person who is almost always moving. There is always some
project for him to get into. He has his wine making. Gun season starts
this weekend, so he's prepping for that. He surfs the web and watches
funny YouTube videos. He works with wood. He bakes squash pies. He is
interested in what the kids are into and how they're doing. He'll pull
his guitar out and strum on it for awhile -- well, not so much that
with a broken thumb, but you get the point. He is never bored, and he
never looks like he is doing nothing. The only indication I might ever
get that he is even a little close to being bored is if he turns on the TV and starts flipping channels. And even that
isn't a true indicator because he might very well be pretty relaxed and
just looking to see if there's anything interesting on.
The
thing is that while he's baking pies, surfing the web or working with
his wine, etc., he's talking to me. He loves to talk, to socialize,
whereas I live inside my head most of the time. But that's not
necessarily a bad thing. He keeps me from living in my head too much, and he has learned over the years that he
can appreciate sitting back and being quiet sometimes. But these few
weeks are giving me some insight into our retirement years. I know that
when that time comes, if I have any deadlines to meet, personal or work
imposed, I'm going to have to lay down rules, lock doors, and hang
"Writing in Progress" signs.
I
guess I'll enjoy his company while I can, because when he is released
to go back to work, between that and deer season, I won't see a lot of
him. I'll just have to do my writing then. In the meantime, if I don't
succeed with NaNoWriMo, then I don't.
(Ha
Ha!! While I was composing this post, he was in and out of the room
talking about one thing and another, and he just now said, "I'm going to
leave you alone, now, mom." I love that man!!)
Happy blogging everyone!
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #8
It was a Daily Writing Prompt
I'm still feeling pretty rotten today, like my head is trying to roll off my shoulders. I don't have enough brain power to write what I had planned to write, so I'm cheating and using a writing prompt. (Also, my desktop is running very, very slowly, and Andrew borrowed my laptop.)
Hey, it was either that or a cute kitten video!
Actually since I started looking at the writing prompts for November on Blogher, I feel like I might use some of them again through the month and not feel like I'm cheating. Some of them are really interesting questions upon which to build a blog post.
The prompt I chose was this: What did you think was the coolest job in the world when you were younger? Do you still feel that way?
I honestly can't remember ever thinking that one job was the "coolest." I know I became interested in writing in one form or another when I was about 14. By the time I was a Junior in high school I knew I wanted to work for a newspaper at least for a part of my life -- and I did.
But when I was really young, there were two things that I can remember being interested in enough that I read about them or used them in my pretend play. One of them was police officer. When I was a first-grader I checked a book out of the library about police officers. It wasn't very big, and the binding was blue. The text was simple enough, and it was probably written for a higher grade-level, but thanks to my sister Barbara I was already reading at a third- or fourth-grade level.
All I really remember about the book was that it was blue and there were simple drawings accompanying the text. It explained how police officers went to police academies, and it told what they're duties were. And some of the drawings were of female police officers. I think that might be what attracted me; I don't know. For a year maybe, I wanted to be a policewoman.
In the second grade I announced that I was going to be a scientist. I wore a white lab coat (probably someone's dress shirt) and I carried a notebook and pencil with me everywhere. In my pretend play I was a "scientist" working on experiments and making notes about them. That's all I remember about that except that my sister Barbara asked me why I wanted to be a scientist, and I said because I liked to write things down and keep records of things. I can remember that like it was yesterday. She laughed at me (she was 6 years older), and said there was more to being a scientist than that. I wonder if I had read a book about a scientist or if in school we'd done some elementary experiments and had to write down our observations or something. Or maybe we had a text book that showed a scientist with a white lab coat, making notes or something. I don't know, but it was very appealing to me.
Of course, in real life, I was not that great at math or science but excelled in English and literature. But I do still like to keep neat, complete records of just about everything, and I do write down my observations. :)
Other things I liked to pretend to be in play were forest ranger, detective, and newspaper reporter. And all three of those required taking notes and keeping records, didn't they? Hmm.
Anyway, I'm off to bed now. I'm going to baby this cold and hope it doesn't get worse, and I'm going to baby this computer and hope it doesn't require getting wiped -- but it looks like it's heading in that direction. It keeps freezing up on me! Oh well! Maybe we'll both be feeling better tomorrow.
In the meantime, happy blogging!
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo #7
Because I'm Getting Sick
I think I've caught Thomas' cold. He had to go to the doctor Thursday. I hope I can keep this from turning into an infection like his did.
I don't feel like writing anything really; getting ready to go to bed. I have taken juice, Nasacort, hot tea, aspirin, and I just had a small glass of wine (some of Thomas' home made grape).
I've had a head cold for a couple of weeks now, and today my throat suddenly felt scratchy and the back of my sinuses feel raw, if you know what I mean. And I feel it creeping down into my chest. Yuck! I really don't have time to be sick right now.
So maybe I'll be back to write something a bit more interesting tomorrow. And hopefully I'll be feeling a lot better by morning.
Happy Blogging, and I hope everyone is healthy!
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo #6
I Carried Mine in My Arms....
This article on NPR caught my eye. It's about how students have carried their books to school over the past several decades, beginning with the old leather strap.
I started school in 1972, graduating in 1984. No one carried a backpack or rucksack or any kind of book bag to school. We piled our books and folders and binders in our arms, largest on the bottom, smallest on the top. We stood at the ends of our driveways or at our bus stops holding them against our chests in front of us or resting them on a hip, the way you would hold a baby.
We hated days when there was something to take home from each and every class. It could get pretty heavy. And we loved the days when we could leave everything in our lockers.
I was a reader, so I always, always had a book to read, and sometimes I carried two. If I was close to the end of a book and thought it possible that I might finish it while at school, I'd take the next book I was planning to read so that there would be absolutely no chance of being caught out with nothing to read.
If you were a girl and you carried a large handbag, you could sometimes fit some smaller books or papers in there. But other than purses, no one carried a bag unless it was a gym bag.
Our son started school in 1995, well into the days of the backpack. By the time he was in middle school he was so loaded down with books and supplies that he bent over when he walked. I've been away from school systems since I started homeschooling our daughter in 2006, so I don't know what types of backpacks the kids use in our area now or if they are still burdened with 30 or more pounds on their backs.
How do your kids carry their books? How did you carry yours when you were in school?
Happy Blogging!
~ ~ Lori
Summer kept us updated online and by email with pictures and reports of the babies' progress. We started making plans for our trip in May to pick him up.
Pictured on the right are the Fennec kits with their step-siblings, Bengal kittens just a bit older than they. Summer hand raises her Fennecs from birth. She bottle feeds them during the day, and then at night she lets her Bengal cat nurse them with her kittens to give Summer a rest. This gives the foxes the socialization they need.
