WHOA ! Critters on the Ranch !!

Well, life goes on here, on our little ranch....just when we think it's all under control, we discover that Nature is really in control and if we stop clipping, cutting, pruning, planting, planning; that in a mere short time, there would be very little evidence that we were ever here, in our little corner of the world.
Many times, I have said, that we really don't own this land; that it is on loan to us for our lifetime and hopefully we are good stewards of this land while we are here. I guess that is why I keep spraying weeds, picking up garbage that others throw out their car windows, and basically cleaning up whatever I see "looks wrong" in my viewscape. (Someone said I must have made up that word: "viewscape".....well, whatever. I Know what I mean!).

This week, as I was walking the highway that runs in front of our home, and policing the roadsides of trash, (YUCK), I noticed a large limb from our fairly newly planted creek willows was lying down across the creek...and I thought to myself, "Gee, there hasn't been any large wind events to have broken off that limb...."

Then I noticed a pile of trash limbs piled up above the bridge, near where our irrigation pump is in the creek. And. THEN. movement...OH! MY! oh YES !! A BEAVER. Right here, where we've never seen one before.

Then I walk across the bridge and look to find a dam across the creek. A dam of sticks and limbs and mud and rocks....and doing a fairly good job of holding the water and creating a nice pond under the big, cool bridge.

Here!! See the telltale chew marks of the industrious beaver......minute by minute, day-by-day destroying my willow trees. YUP. Nice young sweet willow limbs. HUMPH.

So as I quietly watch, I find there are not one, but TWO lovely little beaver here. They have created a wonderful habitat for themselves and five ducks, two great blue herons, thousands of little silver fish and crawdads and frogs......

So when I called Fish & Game, I'm begging for a live trap....and a PLAN B.

Is there a PLAN B?

Where we could create a beaver pond where we could all co-habitate happily? Where they wouldn't destroy our new willows, and where the dam they have so heartily created didn't have to be blown up by the highway dept, because their new home is going to create a big problem around the road bridge during high water this next winter and spring.

The conservation officer will be here in the next couple days. Hopefully before the beaver have completely ruined our trees, and hopefully, with the Plan B for relocation of our new friends.

Then after I returned home and lay down for my afternoon rest, what to my wondering eyes should appear: but a damned bat flying around the ceiling fans above my bed!!!!

IS THERE NO PEACE ?????????

My dear Huggs arrived home, and donning a broom and the Granddaughters purple butterfly net, he promptly dispatched said bat to the outdoors. (OH. And yes, I DID wish for my camera, to catch my big, strong cowboy wielding a purple butterfly net..... ba ha haaaa......)

Meanwhile back at the ranch........Miss Vic

How Can I Keep From Singing??

My life goes on ... in endless song

Above Earth's lamentations

I hear the real though far-off hymn

That hails a new creation

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear it's music ringing

It sounds an echo in my soul

How can I keep from singing?

But though the tempest loudly roars

I hear the truth - it liveth

And though the darkness round me close

Songs in the night - it giveth

No storm may shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I'm clinging

Since love is Lord of Heaven and Earth

How can I keep from Singing??

God's Peace and Blessings to you..........

Miss Vic

A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven

Today as I flounder about the house, restless, unable to settle on any one of a thousand things that need to be done, I can only think of the one thing that's on my mind and in my heart: My little Mother-in-law. She is 90, and usually in robust health, but now lies propped in a hospital bed, looking not altogether like the sprightly little woman I've grown to care for over the last thirty years. She wants to die; it was her choice to pull the IVs; she wants to "go see Dad". I can understand her wishes, and we are trying to uphold her choices. After sitting with her these last few weeks and reminiscing about the good (and bad) times she had as a girl, and, of course we have talked about the men in her life: her beloved "Sabie" and her two boys. It is getting harder and harder for me to "let her go". We have become closer in these last two weeks than we have in the last thirty! And her boys have had to learn to talk to each other and respect each other's differences, even though it's still an on-going project. I think now I may understand the answer to Mom Geis' remark the other night. She said, "I've tried to live a good life, and be good to others....why does He leave me lying here so long? Why won't He take me?" I think the answer to her query is that He has left her here to minister to US, her family, for a while longer....until we get ourselves straightened out a bit more. She is a wealth of knowledge, and seems to teach us something new each time we take our turn sitting with her. She and I talk gardening, and flowers; critters and people: mostly family and friends that have been so good to her over the years. It's interesting to observe the friends and family members who sit their "death watch" and read or do needlework and have nothing in the world to say or visit with this little woman. They sit for hour after hour with no interaction, no exchange of love, or knowledge; no healing human touch passes between them! Amazing, this lack of Christian love!

She and I hardly come up for air, as we talk and talk...and laugh and touch each others hand or cheek and gaze into each others eyes! Mom Geis looks intently at me; for the world, trying to memorize my every feature; telling me of my softest skin, and perfect lips.....right down to telling me of her love of the color of my lipstick! We are becoming friends in these, her last hours. I feel sorry for the others, who will never know her THIS WELL; to know her every dream, (to sky-dive from high above!!), and her dissappointments, (the favoritism that was perceived between she and her sister) and the estrangement between she and her eldest son, that has hurt her heart more than anything in her life.

When we die, most of us are never allowed these precious moments to amend the past hurts, to say our thanks. The Lord has given my little Mother in law these last weeks to tell us of her love. What a blessing and a gift.

I am thankful. And sad, today, here on the ranch.