Skittles and All Her Kittens

March 2006

In the spring of 2003, Isaac and I went to a little house north of Hopkinsville. A lady was giving away kittens from a litter of five. The kittens were in a big box in her living room. We wanted a female kitten so Happy, our old tom, wouldn't feel obligated to fight with it. 

There were two little females. One trembled in fear when touched, and the other reached her paw to Isaac and then bit him. Isaac decided that the little biter had personality, so we brought her home and named her Skittles. 

Skittles is spayed now, but she had two litters of kittens when she was a mere adolescent.  During one of the kitten episodes, the babies had grown too large for their box in the house. The weather was warm, so I moved them to a large wooden box on the carport. 

 I glanced into the box one afternoon, and I was shocked to see a fuzzy little alien in there. The kittens were nursing, and a baby rabbit was huddled against them. Obviously, Skittles had acquired the rabbit, and she didn't seem interested in eating it, so I left it there. I didn't know if it would survive if I released it, and I hoped that maybe it would accept Skittles as its mother. 

I looked in the box the next morning, and I was shocked to see that now there were two little rabbits. I surmise that in her condition of activated maternal hormones, Skittles decided the little wild rabbits were actually kittens who needed a home. Never mind that their ears were a bit long; obviously they needed her care.

 I still wasn't sure what to do with the rabbits. They were so young that I was afraid they'd die if I turned them loose. Still, I wondered about leaving them with Skittles. She groomed them enthusiastically, just as she did her feline children but I didn't ever see the rabbits nursing. She wouldn't have minded, but they didn't seem interested. 

After much pondering of the situation, I sought out a recipe for homemade milk-replacer for rabbits on the internet and bought some pet bottles so we could feed the little rabbits by hand. They were flighty, slippery little creatures, but they were hungry. Keely named them Abbot and Costello, and developed a method of wrapping them gently in a towel for feeding. That way, they could shrink into the towel rather than darting forward if they were startled. 

Unfortunately, Abbot died, and then we had just Costello to nurse along. I read that rabbits have fragile bones and I became concerned about the kittens hurting him. They were much larger and they played roughly. We decided to move Costello to a nest of dry grass clippings in the bottom of a large round garbage can in the house. 

Costello was terribly nervous whenever we handled him. He couldn't help it; that's the way little wild rabbits are. I think he became about as tame as a little wild rabbit can be. Sometimes as he drank his bottle, he closed his little eyes and seemed to enjoy it and maybe even dozed a little as I sat very still and held him, bundled in his little feeding towel. 

Soon Costello developed sharp teeth that could sever a pet bottle nipple with a single chomp. I started giving his milk to him in a drinking bottle designed for hamster and rat cages. It had a long metal tube with a metal marble in the end of it. Costello quickly learned to push the marble up just enough that a trickle of milk flowed out of the tube into his mouth. He grew rapidly. 

Soon our little rabbit developed a hearty appetite for clover picked from the lawn for him, and I knew that he could probably survive on his own. One sunny day, I took him out to the hedgerow along the back fence where there was a thick cover of unmowed vegetation, and I said goodby to the little guy. After I released him, he sat still for a moment and then crept away into the tall grass. I couldn't help worrying about him! 

Meanwhile, the kittens had grown too large for the wooden box, so we had moved them to a 6-foot round cattle tank that the kids had used as a pool when they were little. One day, I saw Skittles jump into the tank with a baby squirrel struggling in her mouth. Apparently she had an idea of adopting it like she had done with the rabbits. 

The little squirrel was trying so hard to escape that Skittles was excited by it. She seemed a bit uncertain -- was it a baby or was it a game animal after all? I snatched the wild little thing away from her. It leaped from my hands in a flash, ran into the shrubbery and was never seen again. Skittles was momentarily puzzled where the strange baby had gone -- and then she nursed the kittens. 

Last summer, when Costello would have been one year old, an unusually tame rabbit lived in our yard. He didn't come close to us, but he never ran away or froze in position like rabbits do when frightened. He was quite comfortable even at a 15-foot distance. The lawn mower didn't disturb him much; he just moved out of its way and enjoyed the freshly mowed greens. 

We saw him all summer long, placidly grazing on the clover in one spot or another. Of course we think it was Costello.

This is the Way We Wash The Clothes

 March 2006

Oh, the virtue of it all. The laundry is washed, dried, folded, and put away. I'm free from that drudgery for a few days until it piles up again. But at least, I have a washer and a dryer. I'm grateful for them! 

We bought our first washer and dryer shortly before Keely was born. A fellow who was moving sold us the set cheap. It was apartment-sized --the washer hooked up to the sink faucet, and both the washer and the dryer could be plugged into ordinary wall outlets. It was wonderful not to have to drag the laundry to the laundromat anymore.

Then we went to Germany for five years and our washer and dryer went into storage. When we came to Kentucky, the little washer refused to wake from its long hibernation. It wasn't worth fixing, so we went to Sears and bought a Kenmore washing machine which served us faithfully for 15 years with only a couple of visits by the repairman. 

Though its mate died, the apartment-sized dryer still worked when we came back to Kentucky. We used it for about a year, until one day I put too much heavy wet clothing into it and burned up its motor and the wall outlet it was plugged into. 

I had already rigged a clothesline between a couple of trees, so I dried the laundry outside for the next five years. Money was tight and a dryer wasn't an absolute necessity. I soon became well acquainted with the joys and frustrations of depending on a clothesline.

Clothing dried outside usually has a wonderful fresh-air scent. However, there were times when our neighbor spread manure in his field, and any clothing hung out to dry picked up the stench. And while laundry dried quickly on a warm, breezy day, it didn't dry at all in rainy weather.

Hanging the clothes was a pleasant outdoor diversion on a warm day, but on a winter day, even with gloves, my hands ached with cold before a full basket of wet laundry was pinned to the line. 

Dennis decided that the clothesline between the trees looked tacky, so he fixed a proper clothesline with metal poles, on the south side of the house where the north wind wouldn't be so bitter in cold weather. That turned out to be a bad idea. We have a wood stove that we use in the winter, and in the clothesline's new location, the laundry picked up a strong smoke smell all winter.

We eventually got a dryer (a Kenmore.) I'm grateful for it, but I still hang clothing outside sometimes when the weather is nice. I don't have a clothesline anymore, but I do have a chain that I use for clothing on hangers -- one hanger per link in the chain. The hangers can't slide together and the wind can't blow them off the chain. If I put the clothing on hangers as soon as the washer stops, most of it dries nearly as wrinkle-free as if it had gone through the dryer. 

My Mennonite neighbor, Kathryn, is dedicated to hanging her laundry outside on the clothesline year-round, though she has a dryer for emergencies and long rainy spells. Her clothesline is a long loop strung around a pulley on each end. One pulley is on the porch and the other is mounted high on a tall pole far across the yard. She stands on her porch to pin on the clothes, then pulls the line through the pulleys to move the clothing out into the air high above the yard.

Last year, the Kenmore washer started having some problems and we decided to get a new washer. I researched washing machines in the $500 range, and finally decided on a General Electric with a stainless steel basket. I am satisfied with it; my only complaint is that it is noisier than the Kenmore. 

My conclusions about all this? A washer and a clothesline are better than going to the laundromat, and a washer, a dryer and a clothesline are as good as doing your own laundry can be. But a laundry maid would be the best of all.

Wintery Night

February 2006

The rain of yesterday afternoon changed to snow when night fell. The ground was still warm enough to melt most of the flakes as they fell, so the snow didn't accumulate much. Isaac was hoping that the roads would be icy or that we'd get enough snow for school to be cancelled. But school in Christian County was "in session and on time" this morning.

Dennis went to work in the wee hours of the morning. He called me at 6:30 AM to say, "Careful!" He said that he came across some slick spots while driving to Fort Campbell.

South of Pembroke, he met a man walking toward him on the highway. He thought that was odd, but he didn't stop because he was going in the opposite direction of the walker.

Down the road a little farther, he saw blipping lights that turned out to be a volunteer fireman's pickup truck, stopped along the road. The good fireman (God bless him and all his kind!) was checking a car that had gone in the ditch.

Dennis stopped and told the fireman that he had met a man walking and that the man did not appear to be hurt. The fireman got out his cell phone to call the highway patrol, and Dennis went on to work.

All of that happened in the middle of the night while most of us were asleep. I didn't even have a bad dream, but that guy who was walking down the road probably thought he was having a nightmare.

Snowman With Hat

February, 2006

We rarely get a snow in Christian County, KY, that is just right for building snowmen. Keely and Isaac built this handsome fellow in 1994. My goodness. Isaac was only four then, and Keely was eight! Keely tells me that the snowman's hat was the ice from a cat water dish.

A Pileated Woodpecker Sighting

February 2006

Coming up the lane to our house this morning, Isaac and I saw a pileated woodpecker. He left a tree in the ditch, flew across the road in front of us, and landed on the side of a tree in Clarence's woods. He was quite a large bird. In fact, when the woodpecker took to the air, Isaac said, "What is that? A duck?"

We had a fairly good look at him. I'm certain that he was a pileated woodpecker, not a red-bellied or a red-headed woodpecker. I checked the range map for woodpeckers, and it's possible a pileated would be overwintering or even breeding in this area. It was a great thrill to see a pileated woodpecker for the first time ever!

This was the only pileated woodpecker I've ever seen anywhere!

Life with Well Water

February 2006

The water for our house, here in rural Christian County, KY, comes from an old hand-dug well. It's about 3 feet across and 30 or 35 feet deep, and it is lined with big limestone building stones. It was probably dug in the early 1800s, or maybe even earlier.

When we first moved out here, the well was protected only by a piece of roofing metal laid across it. We were afraid the kids would fall into it! We put a fence around it immediately, and very soon thereafter, built a little house over it, installed a strong metal grid across the mouth of the well, and moved the water pump from our laundry room to the well-house.

To get a good well in this area, it's necessary to hit a water vein in the limestone that underlies the soil. Our Mennonite neighbor Willis brought a pocket watch on a chain one day and used it as a pendulum to dowse the water vein that our well is on. He says it is a minor channel of water but it connects to a larger channel 100 yards away.

Having our own well is an exercise in self-reliance. We don't have a monthly water bill and we don't depend on a public utility. If worse came to worst, we could drop a bucket into our well and get water. However, there are inconveniences. 

• When the electricity goes out, we can't pump water, so we store several 5-gallon containers of water for such emergencies.
• When temperatures fall below freezing and we're worried about ice forming in the pump, we turn on a light in the well-house.
•  Silt seeps into the well when we have heavy rains, so we have a water filter in the well-house that has to be maintained.
•  We usually buy our drinking water, but if we must drink well water, we add 8 drops of chlorine per gallon.
•  In dry weather, we use water conservatively so we don't pump the well dry! 

Today Dennis had trouble changing the water filter. As he tried to loosen and remove the old filter, a pipe joint suddenly popped a leak. That was the first problem. The second problem was that Dennis somehow cracked a section of PVC pipe while attempting to fix the leak. 

We called a plumber and paid him to come out and fix the whole shebang. The way things were going, it seemed the sensible thing to do.

Turkey Buzzard Stories

February 2006

 We have a lot of buzzards (also called vultures) in western Kentucky. When we first moved out here in the Kentucky countryside, the barns in the field east of us were standing empty. Buzzards roosted on the roof ridges nearly every summer night. They flew in at sunset, and as darkness fell, they cooed to each other with their vulture voices.

An amusing thing happened several years ago. We have a local landmark known as Pilot Rock. It's a big shaft of rock that juts up out of the hills and towers above everything else in the area. A lady about my age had grown up here and moved away. She came home to visit and decided to climb Pilot Rock, for old times sake. 

When she came back down, she told everyone about her peaceful experience on top of the Rock. "Oh!" she said. "It was so quiet up there!" She told us how she lay down and stretched out and watched the clouds floating by and the vultures circling in the sky. Her brother was horrified. "Good grief! You won't catch ME lying on the ground for long with vultures circling over me!"

Several years ago, the Kentucky New Era (our local newspaper) published a photographic essay about autumn at Pilot Rock. The photography girl had driven out and taken a few pictures of trees in their fall colors. In the text that described the pictures, she stated that there wasn't any life stirring except a dozen big hawks circling the skies. Ha! Everyone out here laughed about that. We all knew she had seen vultures, not hawks. 

A couple of weeks later we laughed again when the newspaper published a letter that someone from another state had written. He stated that he was certain the photographer had seen vultures, not hawks.

Most or all of our vultures here in western Kentucky are Turkey Buzzards. They are beautiful in the sky, riding the wind with their wings spread wide. Sometimes people mistake them for eagles, but eagles can be up to one-third larger than buzzards.