Razzle, Dazzle, Pokey, and SOCKS!

I realized I never continued my pet story I started back in February...today it's all about the cats. From a very young age, I was enamored with cats. I don't hardly remember a time when there weren't cats in my life. (NEVER in our house mind you - except when we'd sneak them in - sorry Mom...) I recall a time when we were visiting someone and I coaxed the cat out from under the bed. The owner was shocked that Kitty let me near her. After that I was so proud to hear my dad repeatedly declare that I "had a way" with cats. Many of my fondest (and most tragic) childhood memories involved our cats.

It all started with Missy...at least that's how I remember it. She was a city cat that the family no longer wanted so we took her in. I can hardly even believe my parents agreed to it knowing how they feel about cats today. I don't remember ever anticipating Missy's arrival. Dad just showed up with her one day. I don't know if Missy wasn't fond of our home or if she was just an explorer, but she'd find her way back into town (approx. 1 1/2 miles) to her previous home on a regular basis. The former owners would call to let us know Missy was back and Dad would go pick her up again. Eventually she got used to it and stayed. I think Missy, a brown tabby cat, must have been the mother of almost all of our baby kittens as I was growing up. I only really remember her having the babies...hmmm...maybe Midnight had some too... Hey, maybe it all started with Midnight and Boots! Where did they come from anyway? For some reason I want to say Aunt Ellen, but I'm not sure about that one. As a matter of fact, that's the way it is with farm cats: you lose track of them.

My sister and I prided ourselves on the fact that all of our farm cats (as many as maybe 20 or more at a time) were tame. We spent hours - and that is no exaggeration - out in the barn or down in the basement (really a cellar) or in the shanty playing with those cats and kittens. We dangled strings in front of their faces and rejoiced when they'd reach out to paw at them. We felt the anticipation as a kitten hunkered down and wiggled its little bottom right before we were filled with delight to see it pounce on the toy we'd been enticing it with. We snuggled them inside our bright red sweatshirts and dressed them up in doll clothes. We "rescued" them from Prince. We were thrilled when we knew a cat was expecting kittens and didn't quit searching for where she might have hidden them when we saw the "skinny" mama walking around. (Did you know a mama cat leads you right to her kittens if you shake salt on her tail? ;o) As soon as the kittens were born we agonized over not being able to touch them until their eyes were open and dreamed up names for each and every one. Some of the more memorable names included Razzle and Dazzle from the same batch of kittens - identical except one had a darker nose than the other. I forget which one. Pokey (who is one of the few who lived forever and the one who was the start of my sister and I referring to all cats as "Kinanis" ("ki-nah-nis") another one of those sister things) and Jokey - also identical except Jokey had a little more white on his belly. And SOOOOOOCKS! (spoken with the drawn out "o" sound and kind of a sickly voice) We thought Socks was super cute because he looked different than most of our cats. He just sort of showed up one day. One of the cutest things he'd do is climb up your pant leg to be loved up...not fun to experience this wearing shorts...He lives on in infamy because, well, let's just say he was "special". (As it turns out, with all of the inbreeding that goes on with farm cats, quite a few of them are kind of "special".)

The life of a farm cat is certainly not all it's cracked up to be. The dreaded tom cat is lurking around just waiting for an opportunity to put an end to their adorable little existence. A sense of innocence was lost the first time (among several other times) Dad told me the tom cat had gotten a batch of kittens. One time I even saw the poor things in a pail in the back of Dad's pickup ready to be disposed of. What a horrific memory! It still makes me sick just to think about it. After a few announcements of litters lost to the tom cat, my sister and I had declared war! Every time we even caught a glimpse of that monster, we were yelling at him or running to Dad to ask him to get the gun out...little did we realize no tom cat means no more baby kittens...I did still have some of my naivete in tact. Eventually we talked Dad into building us a "cat cage" so we could protect the little babies from that horrible creature. Unfortunately, we weren't always the best at keeping the cage clean...we had the best of intentions, but were not the best at seeing things from the cats' perspective. I can still hear the mews of kittens desperate to be released from the cage as we opened the barn door. Distemper (a feline disease) runs rampant once it gets started - those poor kitties with their goopy little eyes... Food is often scarce. We fed them, of course, but children can be forgetful and let's just say the adults are relatively unsympathetic to these quickly-multiplying little creatures. There were times we had TONS of cats and then they'd disappear and we'd be down to a half dozen or so.

Sometimes the cats were not imprisoned in the barn. In the wintertime, we kept them down the basement or in the shanty off of our porch. Remember that innocence thing? We used to be clueless as to why Missy would be "crying" so loudly from the basement that it would wake us up. There was a little hole at the bottom of the door to the basement that the cats could just fit their paws through. We thought it was so cute to see a paw popping through there. I witnessed the capture of a mouse in the basement one time. It was not fun to see the little thing scurrying across the floor; but it was oh-so-satisfying to watch Missy pounce on and play with her prize once she caught him. I'll never forget witnessing the birth of a litter of kittens. It was in a box we'd prepared on the porch. We were so proud of Missy! And those kittens were so small...Mama licked them clean and fed them almost right away. Can't you just picture those little paws kneading as they nurse? The kittens could barely walk on those wobbly little legs. So precious! Gives me warm fuzzies to think about it.

So, if you haven't figured it out already, I am declaring myself a "cat person". I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I'm enamored with them. I'm not sure what it is about cats, but they bring a smile to my face. They can really be kind of a nuisance, but I love them! They can be playful, cuddly, aloof, selfish, relentless, annoying, meticulous, or messy - but one thing is for sure - they are CURIOUS! Maybe it's the challenge of trying to win them over. Maybe it's the velvety soft fur. Or, more than likely, it's the memories. It's the joy and companionship they provided for me as a child. Cats, and especially kittens, found their way into my young heart. And young hearts don't forget feelings like that...

Memorial Day Weekend

These photos pretty much speak for themselves, but I'll offer a bit of commentary. Grandma and Charlie were trying to fill a water balloon, but when it came time to tie it, the water kept squirting out at them!
The lawnmower is always a highlight. The adults all want to mow with it. The kids practice their driving skills on it. Hannah is now able to pull others in the wagon (a privilege she had to wait for until she turned 10). Sarah just learned to drive it this weekend. Ethan's an old pro so he's on to bigger and better things...the 4-wheeler! He got up the courage to try it for the first time this weekend - he takes the "not safe for anyone under 16 to drive" warning very seriously so it took a little convincing. Those extra girls in the wagon are Eliana and Abigail, daughters of Mom and Dad's new pastor.
The water balloons were definitely a highlight one afternoon. Nedra filled and filled and filled and filled (and then filled some more) before lunch. The kids could hardly stand it to leave them alone until it was "time". Here Ethan is chasing Hannah around the yard trying to nail her with a water balloon. Some of them really sting when they hit you. The weather was really hot so the cold water felt good... The "fight" soon gave way to "let's see who can fill the largest balloon" with many squirts in the face as you're trying to get it tied!



Pretty brave there Grandpa!

Grandpa and Dana hung the tree swing for the summer. The rope kept stretching out as we sat on it so eventually Grandpa came up with a fix - a vice grip holding the rope tight underneath the swing! Leave it to Grandpa...

You don't need to run into the house when you've got the privacy of the countryside :o)
Tractor-driving, building stools in the shop, hunting for baby birds in their nests (we saw one with just eggs, 2 with babies, and a few empty ones), 4-wheeler-riding...
Kickball in the front yard using trees for bases, visiting the horses and brand new baby kitties at Uncle Mark's, doctoring Rudy's sore foot (blisters from running so much)...
Water balloons, swinging on the tree swing, conversing on the patio, asparagus-hunting and eating, the Rushmore Cafe for breakfast...
Trying on flower girl dresses for Natasha's wedding this summer (Hannah and Sarah will be in my cousin's wedding; Natasha and her sister were my our flower girls), Pizza Ranch, taking Great Grandma Elsing along to do both...
Grilling chicken and pork burgers (always Dana or Hal as Dad has only one way to do it...the hotter the grill, the faster it gets done, also the drier the meat:o), eating fruit pizza...
Watching Grandpa disassemble the old rusty swing set and rotting sand box, checking out our trees on the yard (there are individual trees planted in honor our weddings and each of the grandkids' births - even one that grew from the seeds of our beautiful maple in our front yard on Bennett Street)...
Birds chirping, sun shining, calm breeze, screams of delight, lots of laughter...
When we visit, it's always hard to leave. This time was no different. We love that the simple things have become traditions our children look forward to. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa. We love you!

Ethan's Month of May

My friend, Nick, came over one day and we played on the slip 'n slide and had a squirt gun fight. Nick is looking at me funny in this photo because he is about to shoot me with his squirt gun between photos. Mom was the judge of our slip 'n slide moves. She gave us a score from 1 to 10.

This picture is me with my K'nex. The ones I'm holding are a surveillance plane and a regular plane. The big one in the middle is a catamaran. On the bottom left is a speed boat. The one next to it is a jeep. The one on the bottom right is a rally car. The tiny one in front is a jet ski. I made one design from each of my instruction books.
This is just a silly picture of me and Mom on Mother's Day. She always wants to take a picture with me.
This is me in my favorite spot for playing on the computer. It's very comfortable. I'm playing Sim City 4 Deluxe. I wear the headphones because Dad was doing his Bible Study and I didn't want to bother him. The game is about making a city. Some of the things I like to have in my cities are hospitals, subways, bus stops, highways, trains, and public recreation places. You need to build an efficient city to earn money to expand it. Income always needs to exceed your expenses. Mom says that's the way it is in real life too!

This is Nick and I at the Regional Science Fair. Our project was "The Effects of Temperature on Magnets". We are holding up our purple ribbons. A purple ribbon means you have a chance at placing. We got 2nd place in the 6th grade physical science division; it had the most projects of all the different divisions in the science fair, including other grades. We were really proud to place!

This is Caleb, Devin, and me. We are holding our Timothy Awards for AWANA. We won them by finishing all of the books from the first book of Cubbies (at 3-years-old) all the way to the last book of Truth and Training (6th grade). We memorized a LOT of Bible verses. My life verse that I chose is Joshua 1:9. You can look it up because I don't want to put it down here, but I DO know it. We are gonna go to Youth Group next year!

Some other things I did in May that we don't have pictures of here: soccer, field trip to State Capitol and Fort Snelling, Track and Field Day at school, my final band concert (I play the trombone), and we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house over Memorial Day weekend and saw our cousins, John and Charlie.

Thanks for reading!

ETHAN

Birthdays

May 5, 2010
3:00-5:00pm
SUPER windy day so 16 girls were inside 1543 Meyer Lane for the birthday bash. We ate cake and ice cream, "shoo-bopped" while Dad played guitar, and were full of excitement for what the afternoon would hold. The stations included a craft, bounce house (borrowed from a friend and set up in the basement), and spa. We divided the girls into 3 groups as they traveled from station to station. Then it was time for presents and general chaos as the parents arrived and girls were reluctant to leave...that bounce house was quite the attraction! All in all, it was a fun afternoon despite the enormous amounts of energy and estrogen that come with having a number of 7 and 8-year-old girls in your home:o)





















Round 2: May 27, 2010 (after Nedra had been on a Field Trip to the Children's Theater and Art Museum with Hannah's class all day)
5:00-7:00pm
Beautiful weather
15 Nine to Eleven-Year-Old Girls
"Get to Know Hannah" Quiz
Pictionary
Barnyard Hunt
Balloon Stuff
Balloon Stomp & Bubble Gum
Catch Phrase
Pizza
Triple Chocolate Treasure Cake
Presents
Water Balloons - Dana was the favorite target
Lots of laughter, giggles, and screams
LOUD Party
Wonderful group of girls - great way to get to know them
FUN, FUN, FUN!

















Round 3: Later in June...

The Girls

May is a big month for birthdays at our house: Sarah's on the 3rd and Hannah's on the 27th. This year they turned 8 and 10 respectively. A few observations...


Sarah - high energy; constantly snapping her fingers; turning brown already; experimenting with her hair (not cutting it, just constantly changing from one pony to 2, then a headband, then all down, french braid, a bun...you get the idea); avid artist; animal adorer; contemplating a dog-walking "business" this summer; accident prone; every injury, sniffle, or bug bite is a BIG deal; natural leader (hopefully in mostly positive ways); loves time with friends; spendthrift; crazy idea sharer; attention monger; good worker; just learned to drive the lawn mower; avoids pain like the plague; "Take my picture Mom!"

Hannah - can find her reading every chance she gets; constantly "stretching" her fingers; comfy clothes wearer; loves all things green; sweet tooth; contemplating a babysitting (at our house) or back rub (for family only) "business" this summer; loud gum chewer; loves to listen to adults conversing; likes trying new things; watches people - socially aware; lots of friends, but prefers to hang out with them individually; easily excitable, just as easily down in the dumps; snuggler; thinker; great with young children; love language=quality time and physical touch; can take a joke and dish them out; developing her own sense of style; camera avoider

Glad to be blogging again!