Monday, December 26, 2011

Caught a Cat On a Fishing Line

So looks like we may name Ainslee's new kitten "Catfish" thanks to today's adventure!! A couple of weeks ago we caught two wild kittens on our little ranch. They had teased us for a couple of weeks just letting us see the three of them scram back into our large stacks of hay bales,but we couldn't seem to catch them! One day while we were doing school in our room over our garage, we were at our desks facing a huge window that faces the mountains to the west and our alfalfa field, the girls started yelling, "MOM, the KITTENS!!!" And there was momma cat and her three kittens heading out on a hunting lesson. They were far enough from the stacks of hay that we felt we had time to go try to get them. We grabbed a couple of plastic storage box lids and got hats and boots on and RAN outside as quietly as possible. Momma cat deserted her babies real quickly, and the three babies ran down into this 6 foot deep and 15 foot wide empty irrigation canal. Of course the girls tagged me as the one to do the actual grabbing, but I had on my work gloves so felt fairly safe! One kitten shot off past us to the hay, but the other two went down into the big irrigation ditch. Can I interject here that I LOVE my kids!?!?!? SO I dove down the steep ditch bank and almost skit down on my chin! Some tumbleweeds were all caught up together in the ditch, and one at a time we cornered the two remaining kittens under tumbleweed tangles, and Addie and Ainslee would distract them and I would grab. They were both grey striped kittens, but one had a little white and orange on it. It was the calmer of the two. After losing one of our last kittens to a vanishing and another to an incident with the garage door (quite tragic for the kids since they found her...dead), I told the girls we would raise and tame these kittens to barn and stable life as to hopefully prolong their 9 lives better than the last pair of hay kittens. SO we fixed up a large wire dog crate with a small crate inside so they had a cave to sleep in. We made a little box, and the girls kept them fed and watered and brought them in sime each day to tame them. Then IT happened. Ainslee accidently left the wire crate door unlatched, and the kittens both escaped and were not wanting to be caught. I even tried for over an hour by myself yesterday, but the kittens are getting big and very quick!

We drove to Boise today to pick up Grouchy's parents who flew up from Louisiana for the week. We got home and went to take them over to the bunkhouse, and right away Ainslee took Grouchy's mom, DiDi, to see her kittens.....who were still loose in the barn. And a couple minutes after they went from the bunkhouse out into the barn, Ainslee comes in crying and saying something about a kitten and a hook. A WHAT???? The kitten had managed to get a fish hook attached to a line on a pole up through her top lip and the barb end coming out of one of her nostrils. OUCH!!!! DiDi was holding the line and waiting for us to bring a towel to catch the kitten as it was hissing and very scared. We grabbed it and cut the line and took it into the house. We then treated the injured area, hook and all, with betadine and then clipped the barb off with my Mito bracelet-making wire pliers, and it easily slid out. We then cleaned the hole and wrapped the kitten in a soft blanket of Ainslee's where it has spent most of the evening purring happily! SO thus the name possibility....a cat caught with a fishing pole....Teresa, you might be right!! CATFISH!!! Ainslee isn't buying it, but we will work on her!

So another first for our family. We caught a cat with a fishing pole!! Only us. Promise!!!

Many other weird things have happened to us lately, but I haven't had the time to report on those, but I will. Here's a sneak peak of some recent headlines:

"Clara-Leigh survives jury duty in a tiny wild west town 40 miles from home where "you better bring a sack lunch 'cause there isn't food in this town"

"Unmanned car rolls out of its parking space at WalMart and smashes a large dent into Clara-Leigh's car"

See, you just have to read these blogs because they can bring so much useless info and entertainment to your home!!!!

I should blog about Christmas, and will. It was a wonderful day. It was just the 5 of us in our Idaho home Christmas day, and while it was different and sad being away from our LA and AL families, there was something wonderfully calm and peaceful about just being here, going to the Christmas Eve candlelight service and Christmas Day service and keeping Garrett in his groove and calm....sort-of!!! The kiddos were way spoiled with too many cool gifts, we enjoyed reading the Christmas stories in the Bible, delivered some pies to our dear neighbors/friends, and then went to bed at a reasonable hour even!!!

I also want to blog about the year in review. It will probably be a long one.....not all cheery, but overall insightful and full of thankfulness, reflection, and a depth of love and growth I cannot claim during any other period of my life. I really should stop here and get sleep to recover from the past 4 nights of past-midnight work trying to get 2 iPads and an iTouch synced and loaded with lots of youtube videos and aps for my kiddos. Let's say I have learned A LOT in that time!! I have also learned to check under the tree FIRST when a gift is missing........at 2 a.m. Christmas morning, I found it.....wrapped.....under the tree......just like I had planned the day it came in the mail.......I NEED SLEEP!!!

Oh, and thanks to my parents for the electric mattress pad...oh my.....life was good..... now it is GREAT!!! It's the little creature comforts that make a big difference for me these days!!!

Looking forward to a wonderful week with Grouchy's parents!!!! And BEGGING God for some now so we can FINALLY ski!!!!! Also looking forward to many visitors in the coming months!!! Can't wait to see the Gusinde family in a couple of weeks and then Aunt Beth and Emma and Colton in late February!!!

Christ the Savior is BORN!!!!
Godspeed,
CL

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