I’m off work today. (Big happy sigh.) It’s hard to understand what a feeling that is unless you work. Yesterday was a work day, but look who kept me company.

Annie sometimes sits in my lap while I type, but most often she snuggles up behind me, so that I have to scoot up in my chair. I don’t mind sharing my chair, though, because — like I said — she’s keeping me company. That’s a treasure.

I also don’t really mind working. My job is such a blessing to our family.

I was out early yesterday morning feeding the bunnies (my little walk before work starts) and I tried to get a picture of Boomerang for you, but the sun was just too bright.  After seeing the picture, I though you might just enjoy seeing the bright morning sun on our shoulders.

Basil likes to chew on pieces of what appears to be Timothy hay growing around the cage.  I suppose that’s what it is.  We now have a lot of bunny droppings and some accidentally spilled seeds all around the cages.  I have noticed bright green patches of a grass growing which I have never seen before.  It looks like the Timothy hay, only not dry.    Anyway, the bunnies love it.

Poor Midnight can hardly open his (her?) eyes, the sun is so bright.  You can see just how black Midnight and Boomerang are.  Coco looks so small now that her babies are getting bigger.

One of my favorite things to read about on other blogs is when people share their ideas for feminine dress.  What do you reach for to put on in the mornings?  I love to grab a dress and then layer something pretty over it, if it’s cold.  I usually put on an apron and tights or leggings and try to find some pretty way to put my hair up for the day.  Lately I’ve been test-driving the brooches that Michaela and I are making. 

Today is cold but bright again.  I hope to get some lesson planning done today.  We simply must start back to school in earnest next week.  We’ve really been slacking off the last few weeks.  Hopefully I can work on a few more pins as well.  I also need to get out into the garden and remove some dead, unsightly potted plants left over from the summer. Enjoy your day.

Today has been filled with merry thoughts, mostly due to the kindess of others and the simple joy found in nature. 

I was admiring again today some exquisite little gifts from Marqueta and her girls.  You’ll notice the finely detailed card from Bennet Manor, to our very own dolls.  Oh how the dolls love getting such ladylike and special packages!

And, honestly, I cannot quit looking at the little acorn and felted pincushion Marqueta sent.  I took it outside just so you can see how very nature-inspired this pin cushion is.  For just a moment I pretended that my garden gnome was a tiny magical tailor who had worn himself out making holiday clothes for the ball held deep in fairy forest each year.  He lay down to nap but stayed close to his prized pin cushion.

The picture is a bit blurry, but I thought you’d want to see Michaela’s gingerbread house, complete with PlayMobil snowman and santa out front. 

I realize there is no paucity of colors in my clothing choice for today, but you only live once.  And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Walking Annie this afternoon, I spied pretty orangey-pink rosehips.

And a cedar from which to take a small bough to add to my potpourri.

I keep a large zip-loc bag of potpourri in my blanket cupboard.  It scents the blankets, but I also take from it to make sachets and to simmer on the old stoves in the house, so I add to it constantly – whatever I can find.  Its scent changes over time, but it always has an earthy, nature-y scent.  I love it.  Some rosemary goes into the basket to be dried and added to the potpourri.

Annie is supposed to walk beside me.  She pulls me.

The camellia is in bloom.  I love having something so bright and so pretty in the garden this time of  year.  Camellia, you help me hang on. 

Hmmm.  I cannot decide.  Does my sock really set off the color of the bright green moss?  Or does the moss really just make my socks?  Uh…

Back inside, I can smell the sagebrush from my Idaho friend.  I love it so much.  Marqueta filled a pretty sachet with sagebrush, which is (or was) a type of Artemesia, something I never knew until I met Marqueta.

I hope your heart is filled with merry thoughts today.

My dear readers, we did get some snow yesterday and last night, and it was beautiful, but I am afraid if you love, love, love snow, North Carolina is not the place to find it in plenty.  It snowed to beat the band for about an hour, then it rained.  Then nothing.  Then it snowed again and was stunningly beautiful, the flakes were so large and the snow so thick.  And then it rained again.

It was a wet, slushy snow; the kind that to make a snow angel in would soak your clothes and you’d have to go straight inside to recuperate.  Despite the mushy mess, however, we did get to see Annie’s reaction to her first-ever snow.

Upon first seeing the bright white ground, Annie stopped dead-still and did not show any signs of wanting to go out.  Once outside, she seemed in a big hurry to get back inside.

The second time out Annie was braver and, I suppose, had realized that the snow would not hurt her, other than freezing her sweet little beagle toes.

I just delighted in seeing her beautiful coloring and light green eyes against a backdrop of glistening snow.  She is a lovely dog.  And sweet.  And when Michaela’s not within earshot, I tell Annie that she’s really my baby and not anyone else’s baby, and she licks my nose in agreement.

PS — for your enjoyment

Dear Readers,

I thought you might want an animal update, and if you don’t, well, would you like a cup of tea?

First of all, the bun buns.  Inquiring minds want to know, does Coco have two ears or just one.  I know the picture in my sidebar is misleading.  Coco asked me to put that picture of her up there so that people would feel sorry for her and ask questions.  She is just an attenion hog, I tell you. 

Actually Coco has two very fine, very large ears. She is just fond of laying one of them straight back. She especially did this when she was little. I don’t know, maybe she’s just camera shy. As you can see, her babies, Midnight and Boomerang, are getting quite big!  It has been very cold lately, down into the 20s at night.  The bunnies have been given extra bedding and we have to check their water frequently to thaw it.

Enter kitty kitty, or Elijah as some of the neighborhood kids call him.  Her.   Him.  Uh, I am just not sure about this cat.  Actually, it is a tom cat, but he is so sweet, I sometimes say she.  He loves to come around when we feed the bunnies.  He actually jumped into the cage with the bunnies one morning when we had the door open and no one panicked.  The bun buns seemed fine with it.  I guess they know a docile cat when they see one.

Now, how about that Oreo?  Doesn’t she look great?  She’s staying totally inside right now, but we carried her out to get a picture in some natural light, without the flash.  Her head is healing well and her eye looks fantastic.  There is even some light fuzz growing over her eyelid.

Here is an inside picture of Oreo looking like she looks most of the time right now.  Her tongue sticks out most of the time, but she yawned really big the other day (actually huge) and I saw the wire runing across the inside of her mandible and under her tongue, so I’m thinking she may keep her tongue in her mouth again once the wire is out in a few more weeks.

Princess of the Universe and Oreo both with their tongues out.  I don’t know.  It’s kind of cute on Oreo, don’t you think?  She just needs to quit drooling on my furniture.  Actually I think copies of these pictures need to go to Dr. Mac for his bulletin board, don’t you?

And last but not least, and I cannot emphasize that part about not least, enough, is Annie Banannie.  She is spoiled rotten.  She is the essence of spoiled rotten.  She is the epitome of T totally spoiled rotten beagle.  And I have no one to blame but myself.  I wonder if there is a support group for people like me?

Happy Saturday Evening

Caught curled up in front of the warm heater with Michaela..

napping.

Oreo is remarkably better every day.  It is amazing to me. 

For her writing assignment Friday, Michaela wrote a letter thanking Dr. Mac.

What a week this has been!  My my, the week has flown and it has surely been a week of lessons from the SCHOOL OF LIFE.  Not so much book work this week, but a lot of real life learning has taken place. 

First of all, I woke up on Tuesday morning to a lovely day, a day off, and plans to get A LOT done.  However, after putting our heads together, Michaela and I came to the conclusion that we had not seen Oreo in at least a couple of days. 

Here’s little Oreo as a new kitten, so sweet, and she was the most loving and trusting kitten in the bunch.  She turned out to be the best hunter too, and she’s the one kitten in that litter that we adopted and kept. 

Anyhoo, now Oreo is about a year and a half old, Oreo is an outside cat and we have so many neighborhoood cats that hang around the yard, I do not do a head count every morning when I take food out.  I just see Oreo when I see her and give her hugs and she likes to be on her way.  Still, on Tuesday morning I was concerned that I had not actually laid eyes on Oreo for a couple of days, and then Michaela said it had been four days for her! 

So we started calling, and calling, and calling.  I had to come in and get some stuff done, but Michaela would not give up and stayed on the porch shaking the food container and calling.  It had probably been three or four hours in total that someone had been calling for Oreo — either Michaela on the front porch or me walking up and down our street, when Michaela came flying inside, breathless, and sobbing uncontrollably.  Oreo had dragged herself up onto the porch but it was a sight I’ll not soon forget.  She was badly injured, having been hit by a car. 

Let me stop here and say that Michaela has always wanted to be a vet, but the sight of Oreo made her say she didn’t think she could do it.  If ever we needed a lesson in what it really means to be a vet, we got one that day.  I began giving Michaela things to do to keep her busy:  go get the crate.  Get me the phone book.  Go get some clean cloths from the rag box.  Oreo appeared to be missing an eye, her jaw was dangling, obviously broken, and the skin underneath her jaw was dangling down even farther.  The top of her head was raw and black. 

I called the vet, that amazing man they call Dr. Mac, and he said to bring her in.  I just knew we’d have to put Oreo down, but he informed me that her eye was still there, there was just a ton of swelling, the place on her head would slough off and heal over with new skin, and the biggest thing of all, he felt he could pin her broken jaw back together. 

What?

Surgery is not cheap, but he quoted me a price that we could squeeze in, especially if he let me break it into about three payments.  He was so sweet.  He said, “If I have to choose between putting her down and three payments, I say we gotta try.”

On top of that, he said by the looks of the black wound on top of her head, her injuries were indeed about four days old.  That means that poor Oreo had been laying outside in the cold and some rain for four days with no food and maybe no water.   A cat with that kind of will deserves a chance!

Fast forward to today, Friday.  Oreo looks like a different kitty!  Dr. Mac repaired her jaw and she is healing!  She is eating a food called A/D which is very nutrient dense.  We have to water it down and she laps it up like water.  I am totally amazed at how strong a cat she has been to survive all of this.  She is of course on antibiotics and pain meds and has to rest a lot.  She is also inside, something that has Annie very puzzled and curious! 

I know not everyone wants to see how she looked, so I could not bring myself to take a picture of her before surgery.  You see, her surgery was not until Wednesday morning, so we kept her here Tuesday night in the horrible shape she was in.  It was so hard to hear her meowing and to see her in such discomfort.

If you want to see how she looks now, a picture is here.  It’s not so bad, but will show you some of the top of her head injuries.

And here’s one of her little face and how remarkably the vet brought her chin back together.  The red spot over her eye is where all the swelling was and where a small piece of dead skin had to be clipped off.  Her eyelid may not have hair in the future, but it should heal.  I think Oreo’s tongue is sticking out because of the swelling.

Dr. Mac was so kind to Michaela.  He explained every injury to her and explained what he would do to fix it.  He told her he thought she  might want to be a vet again once she sees how Oreo looks in a month.

We snapped this picture because Oreo was already trying to play last night.  Annie was wagging her tail because she’s so excited to have another pet in the house with her, and Oreo was pawing at Annie’s wagging tail. 

It’s also notable that Oreo’s eyes appear blue in the shot and Annie’s red!

One more thing.  I called this post “the week of doctors” because I went to the specialist yesterday that I’ve been wanting to see.  I saw PA Linda Salerno, and talk about seeing someone who knows EXACTLY what I’ve been through!!  You can read her story here.

Well, it’s a work day for me so I must run.  It’s been an exciting week for us here.  I’ll let you know how Oreo does.  And how I do.  I’m on a new regimen of supplements and I feel better already.  I was diagonsed with a classic, severe case of adrenal fatigue, in addition to hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s.  When I went in my BP was only 90/55 and my heart rate was around 60.   Have a wonderful Friday!

Obviously, dear readers, my header has changed this evening.  If you like flowered-y Victorianesque sorts of things, then you may like it.  If not, well, would you like a cup of tea? 

I’ve been a bit under the weather today, and it’s not a virus this day, but my thyroid.  Sigh.  I can feel my body playing tug of war – my poor thyroid trying to keep working and my poor immune system, confused and trying to destroy my would-be healthy thyroid.  They each are pulling against each other, causing everything from headaches to eczema to a racing heart.  It’s quite the exhausting thing.   But I digress…

My garden has been such a solace for me over the last year.  It has been a constant in my natural world when everything else (my health) has seemed crazy and out of whack.  Just thinking of my garden calms me down. 

What’s more, tucked into the little garden are two homemade bunny cages housing four bunnies that I have come to adore.  I am not sure if it’s their big brown eyes, or their soft fur, or the hunts I take around the yard each day, basket in hand, to find them their greens, but I am smitten.  The bunnies, or as Charlotte Mason would say, “something to love,” have been most therapeutic for me.  I can hardly picture myself without bunnies now. 

You are cordially invited to come with me to feed the bunnies.  Then we can find greens for them and then we can sit and have tea and talk about bunnies.   Well, we don’t have to talk about bunnies only, and I promise I haven’t lost my mind totally to bunnies.  I’m just trying to explain to you why my home has been christened, at least for internet purposes, Sage-Bunny Cottage. 

What is that you ask?  Sage?  Ah yes.  You’ve been on so many adventures with us here, from harvesting sage to gathering wild rosehips to painting with mulberries and plantain stems, you might know that an herb would be included in the name.  And sage is one of my favorites.  Not to mention Coco just looks so wise in the bright sunshine.  Don’t you think so?

It’s nearly bedtime here — time for snuggling and reading.  Poor Pa Ingalls!  He just lost his wheat crop to a million grasshoppers and has set out walking 100 miles in broken boots to look for work. We simply must see what happens next.

I feel like sometimes this place should be called Bunny Cottage.  In fact, we may start calling it that.    Four bunnies are not many compared to the amount of bunnies that some people care for, but four bunnies are a lot compared to many homes!

I wanted to invite you to see the new “rabbit inn” I’ve built over the last few weeks.  I love working with my hands — sawing and nailing, and this newest bunny cage is much more efficient than the first one I built with Princess of the Universe. 

This cage is much roomier and is at the perfect height for visiting with the bunnies and feeding them.  And if you are wondering, yes, that is the neighbor’s cat sitting atop the cage.

He goes by several names, depending on which neighborhood child you ask.  I just call him “kitty kitty.”

He may look like a mountain lion poised for an attack, but he’s really one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever known.  He plays contentedly with Annie, our beagle, and he purrs the moment he gets around anyone. 

Michaela visits with Coco’s twins, Midnight and Boomerang.

You may remember that the bunnies were in Michaela’s room for awhile, but that was only a transition for us.  My goal has always been to get them at the back of the vegetable garden.  If I am going to feed them, they may as well be fertilizing the garden. 

It just took some time to get another big cage built.  For the past couple of months they have been on our porch, Coco in a regular storebought cage with her babies, and Basil in the first cage we built.   We wanted them to be getting used to outside weather before being put all the way out at the back of the garden.

Basil’s cage has had some modifications.  We built a little box to go inside and I thought Basil would love getting in that box, but so far he loves sitting ON the box.  I guess he feels more secure, or maybe more important (?), perched up high in his cage. 

My next project?  To built another bunny cage.  Keep in mind that every piece of wood you see in the cages came from the 51 cents bargain bin at Home Depot.  Frugal bunny cages.  I love it. 

Happy Tuesday!
Lynn

Mrs. Coco Bun’s nose twitched nervously as she saw her little black puffball lifted out of the cozy nest she’d lined with her own fur.    

Coco’s twin bunnies, both the color of midnight with not even the faintest hint of anything but black fur are but 12 days old. 

Snuggled in Michaela’s hand, a soft baby bunny peeked open one little eye, ever so slightly, and it twinkled like a little diamond.

Lynn

Some people dogs are just too cute to be denied.  I mean, they ooze cuteness out of every pore and even after they’ve punctured your ankle skin with their razor sharp teeth, you’ll pick them up and cuddle them like they are the same genus and species as you. 

I tell you, it’s the way they lay with their stomachs on the floor and their little feet out to the side.  I should know.

Annie comes to my office chair and looks up at me.  I can’t hold you.  How can a person transcribe and cuddle a baby beagle at the same time?  A person can’t.  (Terri, if you are reading this, I was on break.  I promise.)

Wonder what she’s thinking.  Any guesses?  I bet it’s something like, “You big sucker.”

Notice the razor sharp teeth.  I’ll spare you pictures of my ankles.

And her little tummy is so cute!!  How cute can a fat pink puppy tummy be?  Not cuter than Annie’s.

And there she goes with the one ear laid back thing again.  I can’t take it.

And I’m not the only one who can’t take it.  Our little fenced in veggie garden has turned out to be a wonderful place for Annie to play.  Especially now that autumn is here and we’re not babying tomatoes.  No, we’re babying Annie now.

Our neighbor’s cat is very sweet.  He’s a purring sort of cat.  The kind that will snuggle up with you.  But Annie hasn’t figured out yet that cats are cool and they don’t like to be made to look like fools.

So what does Annie do with her friend?  She goes to the other side of the garden and gets a running start.

And she zig-zags as she approaches, since she’s a beagle.  And maybe to throw off the cat.

Annie Bananie’s got her target in view and she’s moving in fast.

This is the shot right before Annie attacked the neighbor’s cat’s head.  I apologize that my burst function did not get one more shot because it was really cool. 

Even cooler than this cat is and that’s just not right.  The neighbor’s cat looked over in my direction, totally dejected.

The cat is trying to leave with a shred of dignity, but for Annie one humiliating attack just wasn’t enough.  Poor neighbor cat.  His reputation is shot.

At least this time he knew to defend himself.  I was yelling at Annie the whole time not to get her eyes scratched out.

Annie must have heard me because she took off running. 

Ohhh.  There she is with her ear laid back again.  So cute.  I think I need to pick her up again and see if she still has that new puppy smell.

What do you think?

It’s exciting times around here, I tell you.  Exciting times.

Lynn