Baby Boy Tracker

Tracker @ 7 weeks, 2 days old

I have a long and sordid history with dogs beginning when I was just a year old and my mother took me to a friend's house for a visit. Said friend had a very randy Dachshund who was not at all immune to my prolific charms. He promptly mounted my ass, thereby scarring me for life and instilling in me a long-term fear of any canine. Tracker--the German shepherd pup above and the newest member of my family--isn't the first dog I've invited into my life, but the trust issues run ever so deep this time. It's not just myself that I have to be concerned with. I have four little ones, all under the age of eight. And he's going to be a very big dog with herding instincts whose breed accounts for 44% of all bite cases (most involving children, of course).

The husband brought him home in a torrential downpour of rain, calling me several times during the hour long drive to tell me all the little things that made Tracker the best dog ever. I reminded the husband to let the pup have a turn around the front yard to empty his bladder and bowels before he entered the house. After all, I'd spent the entire day cleaning every square inch because apparently bringing home a puppy is enough to incite the full-on nesting instinct in me. But when the husband pulled up, I watched him carry a little ball of fur all the way from the car to the house, never setting him down once. In comes the husband, in comes the pup.

"Did you let him go po--" Before the sentence is finished, I feel a warm puddle form on my bare foot.

Oh yes. He'll fit right in.

Wishing you all the merriest of Beltanes!

Is Winter Dead? Has Spring Begun?

Ohhh, I can stretch! Ohhh, I can scoop the black earth between my hands and let if fall between my fingers! Ohhh, there are creatures of the green emerging everywhere! Ohhh Beltaine is nearly upon us?? Shit. I've been busy, yes indeed. There are many changes, mostly of the mundane sort, happening in the Heart of the Beast. A quick rundown perhaps, so you'll not wonder when I disappear for long stretches at a time?

On the eve of Beltane we shall welcome the newest member of the family, and for once it is not a human babe sprung from my own womb! Still, there will be sporadic sleep and endless piss and shit (my lot in life, I tell ya). Our German shepherd pup, a fine young lad dubbed Tracker, will finally be ready to come home. It's been 11 years since I've shared my life with Canis lupus familiaris. I think I'm ready. I'm sure more blogging will come on this matter.

We (and by "we", I mean myself and the children) have gone grain-free. Again, more blogging is needed on this subject, I think. It was a huge decision, and I'm not sure we'll be able to stick with it because--Hell's fire! The cost alone might put me in an early grave.

If adding a puppy to the mix wasn't enough, I finally--after 5 years of longing and talking and dreaming--got the go-ahead from The Husband to raise a small flock of chickens in our teensy, tiny backyard. There've been a million roadblocks (because all things by me must be started during Mercury Retrograde, naturally), but I'm working my way through them. Um, more blogging fodder? Yeah.

It's that time of year when the roadkill is prolific. I've mostly been sending them off and/or burying them because my yard has to be inspected before I can get the okay to keep the hens. I'm fairly certain that the smell of death emanating from buckets of macerating bones would not help me pass inspection.

Add to that all the everyday and normal seasonal things, and my plate overfloweth.

Finding Home

It may not come from a hefty tome on witchcraft or an anthropolical diatribe, but I found this quote from Gene Logsdon's The Contrary Farmer to be very relevant to my personal practice. Maybe it will wedge itself into your psyche too:

The first [characteristic that may be learned] is a love of home. People with a true vocation to contrary farming find so much fascination in the near-at-hand that they feel no need to wander the world in search of truth, or beauty, or amusement... Right here in our neighborhood there are dramatic stories wating to be written about nearly every farm and village home I have privileged to enter.

If you look far enough back, even my conservative, trashy Midwest town--where there are more TruckNutz than trees--has magic and mystery as part of its story.