Of Skunks and More Deer Encounters

I'm thinking that the deer guard actually pulled out the missing patch of his hair and that's what's coating the whole guard. So, so thankful for front end replacement guards, as it would've cratered the whole front end of his truck and probably totaled it.

At the moment I'm seriously fighting off massive urges of revisiting everything I have eaten today..despite the fact I have eaten in tiny quantities so this would not happen. But given my current state of wellbeing, the lack of creativity I am feeling is probably going to be widely evident in this post. If the content is overwhelmingly boring know that this too shall pass and once my normalness returns I should be back to my old self....hopefully.



This past weekend held a spontaneous trip to the Above Rubies ladies retreat after some hasty planning and arrangements for children were made. I will say that I expected to go and just be encouraged a little.....getting away from the kitchen for awhile and thoughts of the fact I would've been holding a baby boy this week. I came away so entirely blessed and absolutely amazed over how loved our family is by people I have never even met face to face. I'm not sure I ever realized just how many people read this blog and how many families there are praying for us, loving us, and following us in this little mundane thing called life. I suppose I just assumed I had my little group of 32 readers and that was about it. I always feel so small and inconsequential when I see massive, commercialized blogs with anywhere from 130 to up to as many as 700 readers. It comforts me though since I fear that if I ever had that many I would feel pressured to "produce" something or write more often than I do. Some weeks I'll write anywhere from 3-4 days a week and others...as evident by this past one....I'll manage to get around to it once. Life happens. Pretty days. Happy children. No reason to sit in front of computer for hours. But, not only was I blessed by the encouragement and ideas I always receive from other like minded mothers but I also was able to see just how many families are praying for us....loving us..and how many of you there were to meet and with which to bond. I am blessed beyond words by the dear friends that were made. So many of you I wanted to spend so much more time with...to talk to for so much longer than I did.



Returning home with rescue driving husband on shift I gathered the children up from their dearly beloved babysitter's home where they played nonstop with their crew of 10 children. It took no less than half an hour of calling for them and digging them out of acres and acres of pastures to finally all be on our way home. Finally arriving at the van door and talking excitedly the smell of nastiness abounded. With all of the little guys loaded the 3 older ones piled in and as they piled the stench, grew and grew.....and grew. Apparently boys armed with an arsenal of weapons took out a very real live skunk....and when shooting a real live skunk they apparently spray upon death. And every one of the older 3 happened to be down wind when he went off. Only 5 miles into our journey home....if that....every head except their 3 were hanging out windows...despite rain......and gasping for any amount of fresh air we could get. The skunk seriously might as well have been in the van with us. Once unloaded and only minutes into settling back home the house began to wreak. Where they were skunkiness prevailed. Bad doesn't even begin to do what I survived justice. No surprise that the van still smells like skunk. They, in all of their joy, seemed to be completely oblivious to this fact and felt it was a huge injustice when 20 minute baths were mandated for all of them. The vet's miracle skunk potion ironically works on children too. A cup of baking soda added to bath water, Dawn dish soap for hair and body...3 times over. Then rinsing with fresh water. It did the trick and while they brillo-ed off I prepared a late dinner before bedding everybody down and climbing wearily into bed myself.



Brad returned home early yesterday morning and called me out to show off yet more deer damage. Kickapoo, 60 miles an hour coming out of the valley, topping the hill, 4 deer on the run, early morning sun , head on straight into it. Despite the fact his diesel truck sports a huge front end replacement specifically for deer purposes it still did damage, so hard was the impact. It managed to sheer 2 bolts off underneath the truck due to it having bent the guard backwards. When being bent backwards it cracked the chrome that surrounds the front end grid air intake where both places of impact frmo guard into truck were made. The buck's small rack swung around and took out the front driver's headlight and shattered the yellow blinker/hazard light within. And the guard was nicely and disgustingly covered in a thick layer of deer hair....along with tiny chunks of deer gut to compliment it all and nicely round out the whole effect. So...as any family with tons of enthused kids would do, we loaded all of the children up and drove the 2 miles back to the sight, took pictures and hunted down his antler to add to the boys' collection. With older 6 piled up in the bed of the truck the dark luminous clouds decided about that time to pour forth. So in the midst of the torrential downpour we hastily finished our antler search and threw remaining kids within truck. So, we now had a total of 10 people, bunkergear, all sorts of misc vortex equipment and the abundant source of trash that seems to always occupy not so organizational husband's truck all within the cab of a Dodge quad cab. The 2 miles home were filled with thunder, lightening, lots and lots of laughter and a bit of claustrophobia. The rain left puddles that children seem to just naturally gravitate to...thus the pictures. And these were taken after lunch after they'd already been cleaned up once. They are mild in these pics compared to the 1st cleaning up session they endured. Garrett's feet and ankles were so caked with mud that I actually had to brillo pad him off that night in the bathtub.

He actually plays guns with this...and still manages to kill off all of the bad guys. He sleeps with it, he plays with it, he sticks it in his pocket and it has been his absolute favorite gun for days. Amazingly, it has yet to get lost.

Not exactly sure what was going on with Garrison here but it's still a funny picture. Gavin was way too busy running through puddles to pose for a picture.