So Long Ordinary

Let me catch my breath here.  I'm kinda (very) grossed out. The vet just left and.... s hudder . If you've followed this blog for long, you may have picked up on an unavoidable fact of life in the tropics.  At least for our family, pets have been a decidedly disappointing venture pretty much all 'round. Kittens.  We found some kittens at the dock just after we moved to Palangkaraya.  They were so cute!  (And look how cute and little Paige and Madison were!)  But they ran away pretty quickly. Chickens?  Um, do you mean oversized disgusting vulture birds? They were cute little chicks but we gave them to our helper when they got big and pooped all over our pump house next to our porch where we eat dinner.  Our helper loves them.  She named the mean rooster "Rocky."  We are happy her family can enjoy the eggs. Rabbits?  We  tried the cute little baby bunnies from the pet store.  They all died within days.  Not a fun ordea...

  Let me just say, everybody is fine.  But that picture up there, in Brooklyn's sweet note to her Daddy, pretty much sums up our weekend.  Blood.  Lots of it.  Flowing out of Sean's foot.    On Sunday afternoon Sean was using a weed-eater to try and tame our wild, jungle grass in the yard.  This weed-eater, rather than having a nice, docile nylon string was basically a little metal machete propeller.  Which, incidently, is not so safe when you accidently get your foot in its way.   Ugh.  Let me just say that seeing my husband's foot bleeding profusely was mighty disconcerting.  I worked in a dialysis unit, mind you, and regularly dealt with people's blood.  But when it is somebody you love, it just can't be helped to feel a little woozy and worried at the sight.    Praise God, it wasn't a toe and Praise God it wasn't any worse.  We were able to drop the girls off with our teammates and get him to t...

It is raining more and more regularly!  We are so thankful.  The smoke got very bad there for a few weeks and it was so gross and depressing.  It is nice to see blue sky - or even gray rain clouds - instead of that dull brown fog.   Our electricity has been going off nearly every day.  Usually, it isn't this bad and your guess is as good as mine why this has been a problem all of a sudden.    We've gotten a lot of use out of the generator lately!  We don't turn it on every time the electricity goes out (it is loud and we like to save our gas for true emergencies) but we have had to turn it on a lot lately just to save the food in the freezer!  And to move a little air in the house...it has also been extra-hot. The girls and I are on a homeschool break this week.  We've already finished 9 weeks!  I'm very glad I scheduled in a week off in the fall.  It was time!  We haven't really done anything special but the girls did set...

There was a shrew in our house the other day. A shrew. I've heard plenty about the little creatures and seen them outside plenty but this was the first one to make it's way into our house. It was ugly and it shrieked like crazy when we tried to get it out of the house. I shrieked a little lot myself when I glanced down and saw it coming toward my foot! Sean was disgusted with all four of us girls for screaming like, well, girls. But some things can't be helped. When that shew was scurrying around our house and yard? The cat just stared. The dog, on the other hand, caught the little fella in no time. Well, then. We have a new pet rabbit, this time a full-grown adult that hopefully we will be able to keep alive. She's cute and Maddie is quite serious about taking good care of her. Did I mention that a couple weeks ago Sean brought a (big) snake home from the dock? And that he put it in a cage and wanted to keep it as a pet? And that the snake escaped within t...