you know you're in the country when. . .

...the neighbor can't get the dog to come, so they take two adults to lift him into the back of an old junky pickup and 1 adult to sit with him to keep him in it while they drive home.


...when you have baby rabbits in a box in the oven, and bottle fed rabbits in a cage in the mud room, and two  goats in a crate in the mudroom, I think you're in the country!

...when you walk back from the goat barn to find an chicken pecking at something on the trail. Come to find out it's an owl pellet. We brought it into the house, and dissected it and looked at each bone. And to think! Most people pay money to get an owl pellet to dissect. Maybe you should come to my house more often!

...when your children decide they want to have a skull collection. So far we have a bird skull and goat's skull, a mouse and a mole skull, & a turkey and turtle skeleton. Everybody wanted to know does a mouse animal skeleton look the same? You'll have to come to my house to find out!

...when your daughter comes limping up to the house with blood dripping down her foot. She was standing on a stake, trying to keep the duck door open, and the stake went through her new rubber muck boots and into her foot. She has a nice puncture wound, which 12 hours later was all swollen and in need of medical assistance and possibly a tetanus shot.

AND

you know you're in the country when you walk into the house after once a month shopping trip to Walmart lugging the groceries in with you. The dog is sniffing the food, the baby is taking food out of the bags, and your tracking in mud and straw with you. At the same time G came in to tell me that the baby rabbits we're starving and we needed to bring them inside. At the same time my aunt Jo called to talk to me. I haven't talked to her for 2 years. Why did she have to call at this very moment when all of life was in an uproar?! She kept asking me is this a good time? Well honestly, I'm not sure that there's ever a good time! Yes, indeed, this is pretty much my day everyday! So, while we were trying to carry on a conversation, G brought in the baby rabbits and put them in a box. Meanwhile, I had warmed up the oven, and we put the box in the oven. Not too far into my phone conversation, I hear an awful, blood curdling scream. One of the baby rabbits had managed to climb-blind, hairless, and unassisted -out of the box and onto the hot oven floor. His nose was burned, his paws were burned, and he was shaking. Poor baby! By this point in my conversation, I think my aunt had had enough of my life and told me she would call later! Good idea! Try calling in about 20 years! Good news, bad news. Good news is I have lots of homemade plantain lotion and we were able to heal the baby rabbit of his injuries. Bad news, in the long run six of the eight baby bunnies were too young and too weak to make it. The two remaining were healthy and thriving and we were able to sell them to some friends  for pets for their children. They will have a good life and they will thrive in spite of their struggle to survive early on. As for me... I think I will save phone conversations for a day when I'm doing a little more than surviving! so if I don't call you, please forgive me. It's not that I don't care, it's that I'm busy rescuing all of the baby animals ans my children on the farm.