The Writing Garden: July 2012

Look what my mom caught! A huge goldfish. So cool.

Hey!

Wow. It seems like it's been a long time. Probably because it has.
My laptop has been on its last leg for several months (not that laptops have legs) The poor little thing has served me well, during heat, cold, and long hours of writing. I am missing it as I type. I was going to keep using it until the end. But one day, my patience ran out. I couldn't stand its slowness any longer. It had grown so slow and feeble that would take several minutes to turn on, not to mention load programs. I’d have to plan a click a head of time what I was going to do. Then leave and go do something else for several minutes. Even then, after dinking around waiting, I’d go and check to see if the computer had loaded the program, and it would still be loading!

No. I don’t like wasting my time. I knew something needed to be done. From the computer’s slowness I had learn patience---or lack thereof. But why needlessly learn patience from an inert object, when life, people and circumstances will teach you that already, in great abundance?

So I did it. I did something drastic. Against my wishes to use a normal desktop, I decided that it was time for a change. A writers time is valuable, and I don't want to spend more time on the computer than I have to. Thanks to my sister, I've found a sort of replacement computer for the time being. It is faster, in some ways than my laptop. But it has a strange habit of shutting down in the middle of whatever it is that I'm doing, so I don't know if this change is for the better. I wonder…

I think owning a laptop has spoiled me. They take up very little space, and come with almost everything you need. With this desktop computer, I had to order stuff like speakers, and a little internet gizmo, and computer screen. It was crazy because I wanted to order a flat screen monitor. But I didn't pay too much attention to the dimensions when I ordered one. It was about 15 inches wide and only six inches tall. Oh so very small in height.

When it came in the mail, I wondered why the box it came in was so small. The screen looked so funny when I set it up. It was so long and yet so small up top. It was so short. A hobbits computer screen for sure. There was no way I could use it. Not with all the editing, writing, and design work I do. Luckily I got a refund, sort of---after paying the return shipping. So all in all. I still am looking for a flat screen monitor. So if you know of any good deals, I’m game.

Now that my internet is up and running, I'm all set. I took a break from writing, as my room has been so hot, and I don't like using my mom's computer to do my blog posts much. But it was a nice break. I needed it.

The summer has been blowing by. Literally. Wind. Wind. WIND. Everything is hot, smoky, and dry. My room has been so, soooooooo hot. Yesterday, I was editing my book cover on the computer upstairs, and I came downstairs, covered in sweat, feeling very ill. That set me on another mission---to get my room cool so I can stand writing in it. So today I put in little conditioner. For being so little, it weighs a ton! It's a heavy little thing, and it looks more like something from star wars. It looks like R2 D2, with all its funny lights, and beeps, and groans. I'm happy though. Even though I had to rearrange my bedroom to make it fit. Right now my high-tech conditioner says its only 80 degrees in my room. Which feels like heaven compared to what I've been used to.

The past week the weather has been over 100 degrees and climbing. All the lawns and plants look thirsty. There has been so many fires in my state; I'm worried that there aren't going to be very many fun places to go camping.
             Last night it looked like it might rain, but it got really windy instead. My sister and I sat on our lawn swing, watching some pretty fantastic lightning in the distance. Before I went to bed, the valley filled up with smoke. Sticky, asthma causing smoke. I've been sleeping downstairs to curb the heat, and sometime in the middle of the night, the wind picked up so bad it gusted through the window in torrents, tossing my covers. It felt kinda weird. To make matters worse, we couldn’t close the window as my sister and I took the glass out to get more air. So we had to suffer the raging blasts from the wind and smoke the entire night. It reminded me what sleeping by an ocean might be like.
Ahhh, smoke, you got to love the smell. (Sarcastic) It makes my eyes burn, and gives me a dull headache. Not to mention its hard to breathe.
          I guess the lightening started another fire in a town about two hours away from us. The wind was bad enough that it brought all the smoke to us. Last I heard the fire was heading towards a really big pig farm. I'm rather worried because my dad just harvested the grain around my house, and sold it to the same pig farm. I hope they are okay. And I hope my dad gets paid for the huge truckload of grain he took them. And I hope all that beautiful grain doesn't burn up.
               So I think I’m going to tell you a story. And I don’t know where to begin. I hesitate telling you because it is one of those stories that are just, painful to tell. It's pretty gross. Actually it's really, really gross. I haven't really told anyone except family because it is gross, and one of the scariest things that has happened to me.
          I still don't know if I will be able to tell it. It's all to vivid, and fresh. And super embarrassing. But, I might as well tell it.
Okay, here goes. (Big breath)

        So about a month and a half ago, or maybe it was two months. I was outside, watering my new baby lawn. I could hear my sister outside on our lawn swing talking with her fiancé on the cell phone.
I was just minding my own business, watering the lawn, when I heard a horrible scream. EEEK!
I smiled. I knew nothing terrible had happened. Bugs make her scream---loud.
              My sister had just had a run in with a spider. I was sure of it. She has a very, very strong phobia of bugs. Even when she was very little she had nightmares about spiders crawling all over her. When she woke up she insisting that spiders were crawling on her. My mom had to check every night in her bedroom for spiders before she could go to bed.
That said. I knew my sister had just had a bug crawl on her. She would survive.
I continued watering the lawn.

Then I heard a faint goat bleating. It sounded faint at first, and kind of echo-like, as if it was down a tunnel or something.
I continued watering. A goat bleating for its mom is not unusual as our baby goats do that a lot. I hesitated. There was something about the way the goat was crying out that made me stop and think.
Where was the sound coming from?

I dropped the hose, and wandered around the side of the yard. I could see the swing my sister had sat on was vacant, swaying back and forth like she had left in a great hurry.
I wandered out of the yard, and toward the sound of the goat. It had gotten louder, but strangely muted, like the animal was under something. When I got to the other side of the fence, I realized that my other sister, Bessie, had tied a momma goat near the fence, so she could eat the weeds growing there. Yet, she only had one baby with her. Where was the other?
I stood there for a moment, listening. I scrutinized an old truck bed, wondering if the baby goat could have trapped itself underneath it.
I walked towards it, sure that it was stuck under there.

I stopped just before the edge of the truck bed.
A foul odor hit me in the face. I looked down, and in an instant I knew where that baby goat was. Near the truck bed, was a hole. The hole to the sewer to our house. A hole whose lid had been opened because the sewer had been misbehaving---thus we had been keeping an eye on it to make sure that all was in rights.

We had put a trash can lid over it. (Very stupid) just enough to make it dangerous.Just enough for a baby goat, to prance on and fall into.
I caught my breath as I peered into the poop hole.
My stomach lurched.
My heart stopped.
A loud, frantic, horrible, cry of a goat echoed below. I saw the baby goat’s black head as it floated through the poo, only to see it vanish under....sludge.

A million things went through my mind. A million horrible things. My only desire was to save that baby goat. My only focus on preserving its life. I had no idea how, but I sent about a thousand prayers up in that one second, asking for God to help us save this poor little animal.

On instinct I ran to the house, and shouted in the window yelling for help to anybody inside. Then I grabbed the a really long handled fishing net by the side of the door and ran back to the hole.
By that time, my sister, whom I thought had screamed because of a spider. (But screamed for reasons now obvious) was there with my other sister. We were all talking and moaning, and panicked at once. We lowered the long net down into the hole in hopes of snatching it up.
         But, please tell me how, oh how you are going get a large baby goat in a small fishing net? I don’t know.
But we tried. I ran that net through the blobby black goop, reaching for the baby goat just before it vanished under a pile of brown sludge. Screaming and yelling I dove down with the net trying to pull it up. Unsure if I had caught it or not, I pulled, and pulled. Whatever we had caught was heavy. I yelled for my sister to help me, and we pulled out----not a goat, but a GREAT pile of poo.
It was so horrible. So stinky. So awfully retched. I felt in a state of hysterics. I tried to empty the net of its heavy load of goop, but it was too heavy. I screamed for my sister to help me. Yes, I know, it sounds horrible because it was. My sister helped me empty the net onto the ground. The smell that came up from it was baaaad.

        "A rope," someone said. "We need a rope." I don't know if it was my sisters who said it or me. But I ran to a shed that we keep lassos in, and frantically searched for a rope.
I grabbed a lasso and ran back to the hole. Soon we were all over leaning over the hole, with the horrible smell wafting up. It was like a horror movie. But real. The hole was so full of water and goop that the baby goat would float near the hole, and then vanish out of sight.
         We lowered the rope down into the hole, but every time the baby goat surfaced, it would sink back down into the liquid. We tried and tried to lasso the poor little goat. But nothing we tried worked.
Soon my mother, and brother were leaning over the hole with us, everybody was offering ideas, and frantically trying to help. We tried using a shovel hoe to scoop the baby up over into the loop of the rope. The baby goat’s cries were horrible, frantic, desperate, and made louder by its prison. It was so horrible to see the baby goat surface then float on by our of reach. Its cries would suddenly become muted and bubbly as it inhaled water, and sank down into the sludge.
           Each time it sunk down. I thought it would be the last time it came up. But it was resilient, and kept fighting for its life. I had visions of the poor thing dying in the sewer. It was so terrible. I prayed and prayed, sending little quick flash thought prayers to heaven, asking God to help us save this goat.
Every time we tried to reach it, it would sink down. Each time it vanished under the sludge I thought it was the last time I'd see it. I wondered how long a goat could swim before it drown.
So this is the part of the story I still have no idea how to explain. I was managing the net, using it to push the baby goat towards the loop in the rope, but it hadn't worked thus far. We were all splattered with poopage, and we all smelled like heck-poo. Yet in the poo, and the stink, and the horribleness, a miracle happened.
I don't know how. But that baby goat surfaced once more, its black head was spattered in gunk, its cries were horse, and desperate. I pushed and yanked with the net, managing to push it into the lasso. My sister expertly yanked on the rope. It tightened around its neck. Just like that.
           "We got it!" We shouted. It was one of the happiest feelings in the world. We got it! My sisters pulled on the rope, and I held its back end up with the net. It was heavy, but we got it up. Once we got it onto land, we all looked at each other stunned. It was alive.
It was covered in poo. And so were we.
It smelled horrible. So did we. It was bloated from all of the water it had taken in.
But it was alive.
We were all shell shocked.
It was alive.
We had made it.
We had braved the poop and lived.

A miracle had happened. God helped us save the goat.
Moments like these, I have no idea why they happen. I have no idea why goats fall into sewers. Why accidents happen, why anybody falls into holes, or has problems---if by some miracle you get out, you are never the same.
You always remember. You remember the smell. You remember how you felt. You remember the sinking feeling. You remember everything.
And if by some miracle you get out, you make sure as anything that you close the lid!
Should have done that in the first place.
Gosh.

Everybody felt responsible or not getting the lid of the sewer closed sooner. The (What if a person had fallen in) still wanders into my mind.
I hate (What ifs)

But wake up calls like these really make you more aware than you had been before. It’s sad that we have to be reminded at all. Yet we humans, we people, are fallible, we mess up, we try again, and hope and pray that somehow the big man upstairs will help us out of the sewers of life that we ourselves sometimes forget to close.
Oh man. After we got that goat out, we had some big time cleaning up to do.

We smelled worse than anything you can possibly imagine. My sister threw away her pajama pants, because....because....
We are all wearing flip flops so our feet were especially unclean. Thus ensued the clean up party. We hosed down in the yard. Yet the smell lingered.

We hosed the baby goat down----the smell LINGERED.
So the rest of the morning we spent with the baby goat cleaning it, and ourselves.

It was really cold after we showered him off with soap and water. (We oiled it with essential oils to cover the smell) So my sister got the blow-dryer and dried the poor goat off, while I was off trying to get medicine for the goat.

Then I gave the goat a shot of penicillin to make sure it wouldn't die of phenomena from all the gunk it had inhaled. After that, we all took turns in the shower, scrubbing every inch of our bodies.
Phew. I'm getting tired remembering it all. I still don't know why I'm telling you this. It's one of those personal stories that you shouldn't tell people because it's just so horrible.
If you're curious, yes, the baby goat is alive. Healthy, and happy. And getting into more trouble as we speak.
Gosh life is interesting, horrible, and a little amazing.
I still smile thinking of my brave sisters hovered over that horrible hole. We were brave in the face of poo. Some people might look at us and think that we are just girls, and are not really that strong.
But I beg to differ.
We can face a lot of crap when we have to.

________________________________________________
I'm uploading some pics on here now that I have a computer to do it with. Enjoy. Most of them are of my summer adventures.


From left to right. My sister, Besie, next my adopted sister Paola, next in line, my sister Lauriejo, and far right, me.							Don't we look tough?

Left to right, me, Laurie, and Bess. I Love my sisters! Yes this a winter picture. But it's one of my favorites.

When these little baby goats were born they gave me quite a scare. They wanted to come out at the same time. Two heads at once. But with prayers, and help, we got them out. Both babies, and the mom are well and happy,

My cute little nephew. I love this shot.

My niece. She's a sweety.

This canyon was so beautiful. The sun lit up everything , and made the land look like a magical land.

Flags

Easter fun with my niece! I spy...

One of my mom's favorite places---last fallish.

Just one cool bug! Last summerish.

So fluffy!

More bubbles.

Dandy

Some really weird clouds.

Seems like we only have purple flowers at my house.

Giant Bubble

I like flowers.

Pinecone flowers my nieces made. I thought they were very clever.

Asparagus we picked early this spring. We worked hard---most of the day to get that. Picking ditches and such. It's supposed to be good for a lot of things. anti cancer.

A weird rainbow around the sun.

Pretty place, the water was so clear you could see the fish. The fish didn't like our worms. We even sang to the fish. But they wern't hungry. We plopped the hook/worm right next to the fish, but they didn't care.

Rainbow around the sun.

Clever. Yes?

Our rose bush.

More scary clouds.

My side yard.

A lot of asparagus. We picked so much we had to wash it in the tub. We tried asparagus, canned it, and froze it. Yes. Yum.

Pretty!

My Laptop and workspace---before I got a desktop

Smoky sunset.

My niece made this sculpture of me for my Birthday. It's so cute. It has a hula hoop (Because I like to hoop) a flute, because I play the flute, and books. Love it.