Injured Or Sick Crow

Today when i went to take JuJu the donkey for a walk, we came upon a big crow laying on the ground. At first I thought it was dead, i thought the movement in it's body was orchestrated by a million maggots and bugs eating it's insides... till I realized it's eye was actually blinking at me. I bent down and immediately touched it, so the black crow flapped it's good wing and favored the bad one that appeared to have scrapes on it.
I don't know much about crows, but after nursing two sick chickens this winter until their death it seemed the end for the crow was near. Pointing it's head into the air, something called "star gazing"... a creepy spiritual sort of movement they do when life is leaving their body. I still took it to my spring water to see if it had interest in drinking, and it did. That gave me a glimmer of hopeless hope.

I put the crow on some leaves in a box where it could be peaceful and safe, I started feeding it with a dropper- water and mushed up food, rice milk... anything it seemed to like.

It knew when i was going to feed it, and opened it's mouth like a baby in a nest.

Eventually it's one eye that wouldnt open, opened wide and it became very alert, less lethargic. But still the head turned around, pointing to the sky continued.....

My cat toots was curious about who was the latest patient in the blue box...

JuJu the donkey was more jealous the curious... she tried knocking the box over, stepped on my camera and also tried stealing the mushed up food for the crow.

Then once I spent far too long helping the crow, JuJu of course ran away!

The beautiful crow is still blinking it's eye at me, still breathing... but I expect not for long.

xoxoxoox

Our House Fire 3/4/09 and 5QF-Did We Really Lose Everything?

I'm so glad you have stopped by to visit today! Some of you have been here before, and some for the first time, but today will be one of my most important blog posts-FOREVER!







First, our lives two years ago today (I am actually writing this the night before), and then on to the blog hop!





March 3, 2009





I watched my children get on the school bus, and when I got down to pray, I asked God to keep my children safe.





Sometimes we don't know the weight of our prayers, do we?



 March 4, 2009





My oldest working, my other two children in school, Dan was studying to preach at church that evening, and I was off to town to do laundry.

Dan called me on my cell phone, although with no signal, I got the message shortly later. The house was on fire, and burning to the ground. When I got home, the fire was almost out. Approximately one short hour after the fire, this is what I came home to:

Taken from the back yard, looking at the tree in the front yard thru the living room. Dakota's room is to the left, with a little bit of wall still standing. 

The standing partial wall and the wall that fell was my bedroom and Dakota's bedroom.

Front view of the livingroom.

The room that is still standing is the kitchen.

The kitchen and bathroom.

Fifteen years of marriage.

A fire that was completely out of control in 10 minutes time.

A house "completely" gone in one hour-except the garage they were able to save.

Did we really lose everything?

What did we still have?

We still have our friends, family and neighbors, and even total strangers, who showed us generosity on a very humbling level. Strangers offered to open up their homes for us to have a place to stay, neighbors we knew and didn't know gave us generous gifts of money and clothing, among the other ways they helped, and offered to help us.

We still have each other!

April 5, 2009

Amber and I called home to tell Dan we were on our way home, only to find out he and Dakota were on their way to the emergency room because they had been poisoned by carbon monoxide.

I still have the two most important men in my life!

April 9, 2009



I received the phone call from my brother in law that my hubby was in the hospital after taking a fall from a tree. After the first surgery and 9 days in the hospital, he came home.

A second surgery took place in August, 2009.

This is the chair my hubby has spent most of his last two years in. The chair was brand new-but is now worn out. But that just means that I am not a widow today. ♥

Today we live in a home that we're very happy in, and in a nice little community. We are very blessed.

Did we really lose everything?

No, we still have the most important things in life-our family, friends, and the Lord.

I just wanted this post to be a reminder that stuff is just STUFF, and can be replaced. I hope that each person that reads this today will tuck this little reminder in their hearts, in case you need it for a rainy day.

If you'd like to read the entire story, this is my long, detailed post on it-click here.









NOW! On to the Five Question Friday!!!

1. Have you ever forgotten your child in a store or at school? Um, I don't think I have! I guess that's where my obsessiveness comes in handy-I'm the type to check and re-check to make sure things aren't left turned on when we leave the house. That spills over to other areas of my life.

2. Where did you go on your very first date? (Like...first first, not first with your spouse or current significant other!) I believe it was to a movie, but you know, I'm getting really old and can't remember much else about it!

3. What's your "silly" fear? (We're not talking water and heights.) Okay, don't laugh! I live in Pennsylvania, and since I grew up a city girl, I have a 17 year long fear of.....

Bears. Black bears.

I cannot tell you how many people have told me, "Oh, they won't bother you if you don't bother them." But YOU grow up in the city where the biggest thing you've ever seen in a raccoon, and tell me that! If my car ever breaks down at night, I'm not worried about some bad guy coming and robbing me-I'm worried that a bear is gonna come out of the woods and MAUL me!

 

4. Confrontation: do you cause it, deal with is as it comes, or run far far away? I RUN!!! I HATE confrontation! I try to live by the wise words of Solomon, a soft answer turns away wrath.

5. Wood floors or carpet? Carpet, although I am taking a liking to wood floors more than before. After our house burned, we rented a home that I absolutely adored! And the bedrooms had wood floors. We've become good friends with the man who rented the home to us, and he was a fantastic help to my family when Dan was recovering from his injuries-always willing to help Dan and I, and our children if we needed anything. This is my shout out to Harry! Thanks, friend!

Anyway, I've already informed him that when I'm rich, I'm going to buy his house. It wasn't quite what we needed for our family of 5, but by the time I'm rich, my kids will all be married and moved out. Then I'll have a house with carpet, AND a house with wood floors! =D

Thanks for stopping by! I hope my blog has been worth your time today, and as always, I welcome your comments!

Bleeding Tree

One of the reasons most regular folks label environmentally concerned folks as "treehuggers" and "hippies" is for exactly what I am pointing out here. This tree is obviously bleeding from being partly cut with a saw - the macabre part of my personality noticed right away how sickly the dried black goo looked dripping out to one side... the part of me who strives to give nature all the respect it deserves wanted simply to share how strange and amazing this looks with others. I am not an advocate of deprivation, I am not seeing this and having it lead me to simply screaming "save the trees" - in a world of survival there are many uses for trees. It is how we (ab)use at this point in modern history that strikes me as odd and disturbing. We don't just build simple shelters, we build toxic McMansions in gated communities, we use billions of paper grocery bags instead of bringing re-usable bags...and still that isn't exactly the problem, our whimsies are just a symptom. The real problem is the disconnect from nature. Who will really think of a tree or the eco system while building their big 'keep up with the Jones' house in the wealthy or middle class neighborhood - and can you blame them for not thinking of it, when they have no exposure to the reality of our natural resources and where these resources come from? Sometimes I think people should act more responsibility towards the earth (of course they should) but the over educated rich are just as under educated as the poor in this modern consumer society. Without the hands on knowledge of what this eco system really entails, without the reality and experience (AKA living in the woods and with nature in the raw)- I have doubts to whether the majority of uneducated will come around very quickly to learning the basic elements of respect for the earth that supports their very life and breath. Our education system is concentrated on teaching children and adults what I would consider some really petty skills, mainly ones applying to consumption, sales, and how to fit into the economic box we've created. After learning to read and write- our most basic education should be to learn the one-two steps to what really keeps us alive - being our food & how we can grow it, our water & how we can keep it drinkable, our air & how we can keep the earth in balance enough to breathe it without breathing in later health problems.
It's good to recognize it, it's amazing to talk about, but it's extraordinary to go out and really live it! I believe the low mummer of talk I hear these days of cleaning up the planet is a good sign - I am forever an optimist about the possibilities of change... I know that when things really start to break down and are seen for it's dysfunction people will undoubtedly be motivated to make changes - but it would be so awesome if we could fix before it completely breaks.
XoXo