Category: Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Botulism for Brunch

LaShelle

Moose and Murders, Farm Edition

Every farm-related crisis happens at the most inconvenient moments. Thunder rattles the house and storm clouds gather in the distance, a fence is down, flower boxes hang by a single nail. In the middle of preparing the farm for heavy winds and downpours, few things catch me off guard. I keep bale string in my back pocket, a stick or stump nearby to wedge a gate shut or push some chicken wire upright temporarily. I’m the rock star of rig-it-until-it’s-functional. A VIP in farm management.

Blue lotion on the fly to ward off infection for our farm baby-boo-boos, and “never a dull moment” is a religious motto I utter under my breath like a prayer to ward off psychotic incidents. The hay is always gone when you need it most, having slipped your mind to replenish it. Cat food in hand. Of course, the dog food’s missing when it’s too stormy to whisk off to the grocery store. Every once in a while, the crazy kicks up a notch, and I’ll be left in a field blinking, wondering what happened to the peace and quiet the morning began with.

Such was the case in one of the more head-scratching moments of farm-life insanity.

Georgia had been raining for weeks. One of the most unusual summers we’ve ever had—nonstop downpours during a time when our creek usually dries out. The flowers were stunted, my mood just as dark and sullen as the skies, and every walk in the big field continued to knock my spirits down. Plenty of identifiable floral stalks, but not a single bud. Hundreds of dollars in planted seeds—seeds I feared had drowned beneath the endless rain. I wanted to sob.

Yet there’s never any time to do such things. Another storm was coming, and Niki needed help with chores to get safely inside. Damaging wind, hail, and possible tornadoes on the horizon.

The weather doesn’t care how much we hate what it’s doing to our farm—it will rage onward. We’re just along for the ride. We keep those spare ties to hold everything together. Nikolai, disappointed by the lack of warm lake swims and golden sunshine, was equally moody but trying to make the best of it. Scrambling to feed everyone, searching the house for a morsel of canine buffet before the flood, I glanced out the window and saw Niki scowling at a patch of ground.

Shirtless, belly sticking out, hands on his hips like a pint-sized farmer and eyes full of concern. My brain was already annoyed because time was of the essence, and it was being wasted. A convenience we don’t have. I sighed, slipped on my shoes since he’d stolen my boots—again—and stepped out the door.

He was already marching up the hill, briskly making his way across the gravel driveway, a scowl etched into his face.

“What are you doing? We have to hurry, kid. Where’s your shirt?”

“I forgot it—Mom, I have to tell you something.”

“How do you forget a shirt? Caspian’s hay is going to make you itch forever. Maybe even rash. Hidden spiders. Might even run into Frank. That’s a big no-no. Shirt. Now.”

“But Mom—”

“Now.”

With a huff, he stomped up the steps to do as I asked while I sorted through our list of responsibilities. Next thing I knew, he was running back out of the house—wearing half of a respectable outfit and the other half pajamas.

“Mom, you have to listen to me. I think Moose ate half a person.”

I laughed. Moose is old, gray, the lover of the farm. A friend to all things feline. The neighborhood kids’ favorite—a child nanny on four legs with a big grin.

“There’s no way that’s possible. What do you mean by half a person?”

“I found… legs,” he whispered.

“What kind of legs? A lot of animals have legs, bud—you know this. Chicken legs? We’ve seen those a million times.”

“I know what chicken legs look like, Mom. And it’s too big to be a possum. Definitely not an armadillo. Seriously. They’re huge, very long, and… there’s two of them.” His eyes—terrified.

Meanwhile, I was mentally preparing for a crime scene. Thinking back to the days prior, when a hint of death had caught on the wind—but I wasn’t sure where it had come from. Brushing it off, I had gone about my business. Running errands, managing the to-do list.

Now I couldn’t stop wondering—what exactly do you do if you find a pair of legs? I should call the police, right? Does that mean they’ll bring reinforcements? Finish off my seedlings by trampling my garden? Put a pause on the greenhouse build?

I gulped. How had Moose dragged home man legs?

Looking up at the sky, I ran through every technique people use to preserve remains without contaminating anything. I thought back to every crime novel and podcast I’d ever consumed. My brain came up empty. Only a mental image of horror—blood everywhere. I swallowed the fluid rising in my gut.

“Oh, and Mom? They’re… hairy and… attached.”

Attached?

Farm life has prepared me for many things, but this wasn’t one of them. I was already in a mood that morning after walking past one carcass—my summer snapdragons, torn apart by Ripley, our German Shepherd. I was still heartbroken, but this was a new level. Two legs. Not roots. LEGS. Hairy legs! I wanted to throw up.

“Where are they?”

“You can’t miss them, Mom. Just keep walking straight.”

Should I grab a bottle of water? Vomit messes up crime scenes, right? My DNA on attached hairy man legs—or woman? Women can have hairy legs too. God, please don’t let someone kill me before I’ve shaved all my girl parts.

I crept forward—slowly, cautiously, bracing for horror. Moose sat beside them, proud—like, I totally brought home this delicious prize, Mom.

Then I burst out laughing.

He wasn’t wrong. They were ridiculously hairy legs. Man legs? Debatable, since the rest was missing. Human? No—thank God. The deer they belonged to was probably part of a crime scene somewhere else though. Poaching this time of year is a no-no—especially on my land.

Nothing like a side of botulism for brunch.

Did I clean them up?

HA! No. I left them for my wonderful husband. Bless his heart. I’ve cleaned up more carcasses on our farm than I care to count. When Rob’s home—I save the dirty work for him. Moose only kills things that threaten our flock or things she believes don’t belong around us. She works hard for her scrambled eggs with cheese. She earns every sprinkle of cheddar.

The storm inched closer. The chores got done just before the downpour. And I ended up on the sofa smiling. A reheated cup of tea in hand. I skipped the podcasts, because the best crime scenes… are the kind I live through.

Only on a farm do you go looking for a corpse, find a pair of hairy deer legs, and still have to finish feeding the dogs before the tornado hits.

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse, Steeped in Sass

Sip Happens

LaShelle

For everyone who’s ever faked a smile and steeped strong opinions.

Let’s get this out of the way.
I don’t just dislike coffee.
I loathe it—with the fiery passion of a thousand scorched taste buds.

I can already hear the gasps from behind porcelain cups. I’m sure those of you who are reading this are reeling in horror, clutching your chest or gasping dramatically.
But let me explain—before I’m cast out of brunch circles and removed from every beverage-related gift card list.

I remember the delectable scent of it drifting from the kitchen counter when I was young. That forbidden drink my mother’s fingers curled around every morning, her mug cradled like a sacred ritual. She’d pour herself more than one, and I’d watch, thinking:
This is the answer to adulthood.

One day, she looked at me, eyes softening, and asked the question I’d longed for:
“Would you like to try it?”
I was elated. My heart skipped beats.
It felt a little like swearing—something naughty, something only parents were allowed to do.

I shuffled over, inhaled deeply, and took a drink.
My nose wrinkled. My eyes scrunched.
My soul briefly packed a bag and left my body in betrayal.
Once the flavor skipped past my taste buds, all that remained was bitterness.

She laughed and said, “You’ll grow to like it someday.”
I’m almost 40 now.
Still waiting.

My ride-or-die barista buddy tries to convert me every chance she gets. She pulls up to the coffee window and orders the sweetest, frothiest, most whipped-cream-laden brew they’ll allow.
“You have got to taste this!” she says, eyes wild with caffeine.
I give her a skeptical look. “I highly doubt I’ll enjoy it.”

But she’s determined to enroll me into a sorority I never wanted to join.
Every once in a while, she convinces me and I discover one that doesn’t immediately attack my soul. Sometimes I even think, Huh… maybe that wasn’t too bad?

Then I sip again… and somehow, it leaves me contemplating ordering it for myself.
I make a mental note to give it one more chance.

After the Boston Tea Party, when crates of precious sweetness were hurled into the sea (what did tea ever do to them?), drinking the leaf became un-American. A statement: We don’t need you for the crime of taxation without representation.
You’d think tea would’ve earned a little respect. A symbol of our rebellion.

But no. It became a quiet protest against tyranny and deliciousness instead.
And yet here I am—an above-29-year-old woman, trying desperately to uphold the dreams of my revolution-loving ancestors.
Ordering tea in public, and still managing to make people think I’m betraying the founding fathers with every sip.
Because—how could anyone not like coffee, right?

Still, I make another attempt. I order a drink I didn’t completely hate that I once sampled.
I sit down with my laptop, take a few sips, pretending to be one of them.
Not bad.
Then a few more.
And it hits me—this is still revolting.

I stare into the abyss of my roasted brew and question every decision that led me here.
I try to justify my life choices.
To seem less like the unpatriotic oddball quietly carrying contraband in my purse.
Americans don’t drink steeped blends—
except Southerners.
Where sweet tea is its own food group and doesn’t count.

So I do what any desperate, tea-loving imposter would do.
I discreetly tiptoe past the mixologists of espresso—to take my brew to the empty bathroom.
I make it inside without a single sideways glance, dump it like crime scene evidence, and crank the faucet.
I scrub the aftermath off my hands, dragging my palms across a cold metal grate, and hang my head in shame.

But let me make something clear: I am very far from being un-American.
In the suburbs outside Chicago, when all my friends listened to metal, goth, rock, or emo—
I wore cowboy boots and listened to country music.
Yet I was the one they all made fun of.
While all the city kids were going to youth nightclubs,
I was tackling farm chores in exchange for riding lessons.
I married a soldier.
And somehow, I’m the one who absolutely despises Java.
But I do. I really, truly do.

So I got back in line inside the chapel of liquid syrups, trying not to look like someone who’d just flushed her last sin.
The barista raised an eyebrow.
“Did you drink the entire cup I gave you that quickly?”
My eyes widened.
“Ughhh—yes? I’m practically jolt-juice deficient.”
She laughed. “I get that. I’m exhausted, too.”
I smiled, then put on my big-girl panties and proudly ordered a hot, caffeinated tea latte—
like a boss in farm attire.
Not because I’m anti-American.
But because coffee is a disgrace.

I love my infusion black—like how my heart feels when someone offers me a cup of that roasted regret.
I swirl in cream like it’s a declaration of independence.
With floral notes that sing my country’s national anthem.
And sugar? That’s not optional.
It’s Southern diplomacy in a cup.

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse, Still Blooming, Despite the Forecast

Who am I?

LaShelle

“You’re a healthy thirty-five year old woman with an anxiety problem.” I replayed that phrase from one of the doctors I saw as if it were a record. The comment was the catalyst in my desire to never step foot in an emergency room again. Especially after it was followed by, “I have actual sick patients to see.”

Despite my blood pressure being exceptionally high, I was told it was my own fault. The numbers were high because I checked them too often. Yet the primary reason why I checked my blood pressure… was because my chest felt as if it was in a vice.

The doctor smirked at me on my way out the door having almost forgotten to give me the potassium I needed. After pushing blood pressure medication through my IV moments earlier to help regulate my numbers… she was oblivious to the damage she had inflicted with her words.

Meanwhile, I could feel my body ramping up to an unknown event so I continued to seek help elsewhere. I sat down with my primary care physician to go over my list of bizarre symptoms… yet the more I talked, the more she looked like Bambi right before getting hit by a semi. Mouth agape, doe eyed, and pure terror.

She wrote up referrals to autoimmune specialists, neurologists, an ENT, and a cardiologist she swore was talented. I went to every appointment. I talked about my strange medical history. I discussed moments of confusion, tremors in my hands, vision loss, high blood pressure, chronic low-grade fevers that would come and go, flushing, chest pain, and a few other oddities like losing consciousness.

A short while later I started having severe vertigo. I spent three months being unable to drive because I kept passing out. I didn’t even bother going to the emergency room this time.

“You’re fine.”

“You’re healthy.”

“Try this medication.” The specialists said.

In the middle of grocery shopping on a gorgeous sunny day, I went from feeling content to unwell within moments. I was browsing the shampoo isle looking forward to a relaxing afternoon when my heart started hammering against my ribs. A feeling of unease washed over me. I lost part of my vision to flashing lights and huge black spots. I couldn’t see but even worse… as I attempted to find a safe space to wait it out, I couldn’t remember what kind of car I drove.

What color is it? What make is it? How do I get home? Where is home?

I spent two hours searching the parking lot… yet I couldn’t remember the vehicle I had been driving for over 6 years. I sat on the curb, buried my face in my hands and sobbed. The battery on my unlock key ring had died. The panic button didn’t work.

I knew it wasn’t normal, but I tried to rationalize it anyway.

I’m inching closer to forty. It’s probably stress. I’m fine. I’m safe. It’s probably anxiety. Deep breath. Get creative.

I typed “home” into my GPS as soon as I could see better and that’s what I used to find my way back. I told my husband about the vision loss, I told him I couldn’t find the car, but I also told him it was probably just an ocular migraine. I left out the feeling of confusion because I didn’t want him to worry.

I saw an eye doctor. I got a new pair of glasses. I continued moving towards my goals in life. Flower farming, being a mom, managing a household.

I passed out while sitting on my bed. It felt as if someone disconnected my brain. My vision went black, my ears were ringing and I flopped onto my back as quickly as possible. My wonderful husband was home for that one. The look on his face when I came-to had me agreeing to see specialists again even though I didn’t think they would be able to help me. I had my hearing checked for the second time. Everything came back clear again.

I narrowly avoided hitting my head when I passed out in our horse pasture. My face lifted towards the sun I couldn’t see, but I could feel the warmth on my body. The soft grass supporting my spine. When I came-to, I took a moment before getting up on wobbly legs.I finished watering the equine, tidied up the farm chores, and went back to the house to sleep it off.

Little episodes happened a couple times a week. I would feel a flood of unease and anxiety, my heart would race, my hands shook uncontrollably, blood pressure would skyrocket, then I would suddenly feel confused. Forgetful. I would stutter, loose my grasp on words. My brain felt foggy.

Strangers asked me if I was okay. I wasn’t. Random people said I didn’t look so good. I didn’t feel so good.

When discussing my reality, I told my husband whatever was happening would either kill me or become so serious it would be impossible to ignore. I was half joking when I said those words but they turned out to be dangerously true. I just didn’t realize it at the time.

“What’s your name?” The woman at registration asked gently.

“I don’t know.”

“Where do you live?”

“I can’t remember.”

I tried to search my mind. Who am I? I could visualize my farm in my head but I couldn’t remember my own name or where my farm was located. So I stood there until I started to cry.

“Do you know your social security number?”

“… No.”

When I finally recalled my name, I couldn’t remember how to spell it, so I pulled out my ID and I handed it to the hospital staff with my insurance information.

This time was so much worse. At around two or three in the morning I had an uneasy feeling slam me like a freight train. I watched videos on YouTube about overcoming anxiety.

“Remind yourself this feeling is temporary. You are in a safe place. Accept the feelings as they come but know they will pass.” The woman on the screen coaxed me. She was right. I wasn’t going to panic.

The feeling grew stronger, a sense of doom descended like a black cloud. I rolled out of bed to get a bottle of water. I hardly made it into the kitchen when my heart felt as if I was running a marathon. I began to sweat, I started panting and hit my knees to the floor.

Standing would be impossible so I crawled to the bathroom. I thought maybe if I threw up I’d feel better, or if I just used the restroom I’d be back to normal in time. Sitting on the throne with my pants around my ankles I remembered the video I had watched earlier.

I am in a safe place. Breathe. Stay calm. It will pass.

I hardly finished the thought when darkness encompassed me. The sound of my heart thumping in my ears. My vision was gone, like a light bulb burning out. My hearing vanished and I couldn’t move my limbs but I felt my face hit the floor.

My first conscious thought was that I either died or I was going to die. My second thought was the horror of someone finding me on the floor with my peach shaped rump in the air. I bet they would leave that out of the obituary… or maybe not.

LaShelle was found deceased, half naked next to the toilet. No one knows what happened to her but she is survived by her loving husband and the son who found her in such a precarious state of humiliation. Cue the sounds of wailing.

When I could see again, I assessed the damage. I softly touched my throbbing head, and discovered the fact that I lost all control over my bowels. Full on humiliation mode was short lived because bile began burning my esophagus. I yanked the towel off the rack behind the door just before projectile vomiting all over the floor.

I deserved a sweatshirt after this ordeal. A slogan along the lines of “Not even forty and already crapping herself.” I imagined it stained with horse slobber and covered in hay.

This time the episode was violent. Worse than it had ever been and I tried to decide if I should call someone or just clean myself up and go back to bed without telling a soul. What if I had been driving? What if Nikolai walked in? What if I didn’t wake up?

I dialed my husband’s number. I called Izzy to come get me once I had been coerced into going to the emergency room, and then I called my mom. The confusion set in pretty quickly.

“Hi LaShelle, I’m the neurologist on call for tonight. Can you tell me where you are?”

“The hospital?”

“Very good. Do you know what day it is?”

“… I don’t remember.”

“Do you know who the president is?”

The box of information in my brain was empty. I gave the doctor a blank stare.

I was in and out of sleep as they ran a series of tests. They put sticky tabs all over my head which connected to wires and ran to some kind of a computer. I didn’t have hope. All tests would be normal like it always was. I would probably be sent home within the hour. I was so confident, I told Nikolai not to worry. I said I’d be home in time to pick him up after school.

“Hello again LaShelle. I wanted to stop by your room to talk to you. I’m going to be your neurologist for the rest of your stay. All of your tests came back normal.”

“I knew it.” I thought bitterly. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“… Except one. Your brain scan showed abnormal brain waves. That means you’ve had a seizure. Has this happened before?”

“I’ve passed out before and I’ve been confused before.”

“I see. Well, we need to keep you here for observation okay? We’re starting you on some seizure medicine today and you need to know that you’re no longer allowed to drive for the next six months. Every time you have another one, it’s another six months of no driving. Alright? It’s the state law, we don’t want you to hurt yourself or anyone else.”

“I have seizures?” I sobbed. “You figured out what’s wrong with me? Thank you so much for giving me answers.”

I walked into the emergency room that morning not knowing who I was. Having been turned away by doctors multiple times (more than what was summed up here). The relief of knowing who I really am, was the most precious gift I have ever gotten.

It’s terrifying to face each day with uncertainty. To be unsure of how to manage symptoms alone and left wondering if things will get worse. Pushing myself to be a mom, a small business owner, and to work around the obstacles because not one medical professional was on my side.

It shouldn’t have taken so long to figure things out. We need to live in a world where doctors are held accountable for writing people off and mistreating them. Instead, they get paid regardless of service.

If I take my car to see a mechanic and they are unable to identify the problem, the mechanic doesn’t get paid. Yet so many of my doctor visit’s have ended with a five minute conversation, no tests, and a pat on the back to wish me luck. I still receive an outrageous bill afterwards that goes on my credit if it goes unpaid.

I am not a healthy (now almost thirty-seven year old) woman. I am a woman who was written off and belittled multiple times. Even though I have a kidney disease, a stomach disease, and have now been diagnosed with seizures. I could have died or worse yet… I could have hurt someone.

I don’t deserve to waste precious time questioning who I am, or my sanity. I shouldn’t have to defend myself to my physicians or beg them to listen to me when I’m paying them to fight for me. The next time I go through this, I’m walking out… and I hope you will too.

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Faithful

LaShelle

“Four generations, reduced to three.” The phrase kept replaying. Tears skipped down my face while I attempted to quiet trembling hands. I lugged the carry on bags over my shoulder and encouraged Nikolai to keep up.

Grief is a funny thing, it likes to bring back memories to intensify pain. “Do you remember when Niki asked you to book a flight so he could ride in an airplane?” Grief asked with a snicker. A scene of my son standing in the kitchen less than a week prior popped into my brain to twist the blade that was already impaling my heart. He wanted to go on vacation.

“This isn’t what either of us had in mind” I mumble to no one in particular.

I had tucked my laptop between bare essentials in my backpack but I couldn’t find strength to pull it out. Once we reached our terminal and finally settled in after boarding, I leaned back into my assigned seat on the airplane feeling hopeful sleep might come to me this time. It didn’t. Instead, an outline of the blog post I wasn’t ready to write was being narrated by an unknown force from within.

Four generations, reduced to three. What is it about holiday’s and tragedies? The day after I found out about my grandmother’s cancer… I scrounged up some change to buy my favorite tea to sip while I sat in the parking lot looking for flights. I ran into a wonderful friend of mine before I even made it to the counter. The look on her face told me something was wrong and I knew she needed to talk.

“The doctor found cancer in my uterus.”

Grief was laughing at me again. She could hardly get the words to leave her lips. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her own children but somehow… she she chose to tell me. One of my best friends died of cancer on Christmas day last year. My grandfather also passed away around Christmas time. There I was connecting my cell phone to the coffee shop WiFi to book flights when an overwhelming sense of deja-vu slammed into me. All because another friend was sick and one of my favorite people seemed to be next.

I wanted to hug her close before leaving to soothe us both but she wouldn’t let me. The fear of breaking down in front of her employees weighed heavily. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I could keep it together myself. When I made my way back to my car I slipped into the drivers seat to sob where no one would see me. Life is unfair. As the minuets ticked by, I reminded myself that I would have to man up soon in order to relay the information about my grandmother to my son for the first time.

How do you explain the gravity of sickness and finality of death to a seven year old? Farm life taught me well but I still wasn’t prepared for this. I held my boy in my arms and listened to him gasp for air while his shoulders rattled against my rib cage as he wept. Who would I call when I couldn’t remember the list of ingredients to a recipe? Who would I talk to after having an argument with my mom? Who was going to be able to tell me stories about our family history?

She helped raise me when my mom was too young to be a mom. She kissed my skinned knees, taught me how to compost, instilled my love of roses and all things floral. I’ve watched her since I was a baby in the early morning hours just before sunlight graced the earth as she gingerly turned the pages of a well-worn leather Bible. She was the one who taught me the most about faith and forgiveness.

In my darkest hour when I had a brush with death, my grandma called me around two in the morning to tell me that I was in her thoughts and on her heart. She gave me sermons over the years not with words, but by the way she’s lived her life. Whenever she knew I needed comfort… I was given a front row seat to her private conversations with Jesus. My flight to see her was made so I could hold her hand before surgery in case I had to say goodbye.

I wanted to see her smile and hear her laugh more than I wanted to fly out for a funeral. Unfortunately, nothing brings out the worst in family quite like a crisis. A group chat between cousins, aunts, and uncles wouldn’t stop chiming with notifications from my cell. Petty arguments ensued about who knew her best, who was the closest to her, and how to handle her medical care. The saga overshadowed the gravity of the situation.

I woke up early to prepare the farm for my absence. I soaked feed buckets for Harlow (my horse), I threw extra hay to our donkey and I tossed plenty of scratch to fill the bellies of our flock. Rob (my husband) was making the drive home from another state to take over for me while I was gone. He had been fixing a life-flight helicopter when I told him I needed his help.

In the red beams of my vehicle’s tail lights, I tackled chores and tried to remind myself to breathe. Yet after loading luggage into the trunk, when I went to shut the gate… I heard a crunching sound. It didn’t take long to realize my cell phone had slipped into the pathway of the latch. All of my itinerary information, my contacts for traveling, and my banking apps vanished moments before I had a flight to catch. Pure panic set in.

Thankfully Nikolai had an emergency cell phone on hand which I was able to use in a pinch. The family bickering came to a halt and I like to think God knew I needed a break. Instead of reading messages that made my stomach churn, my focus was exactly where it needed to be… on seeing her.

Half asleep and standing on the curb outside the phoenix airport, my brother pulled us into a much needed bear hug. After a five hour layover and a full day of travel, Nikolai couldn’t keep his head from nodding off. We crashed on my big, little brother’s sofa. The next morning Austin (my brother) took us out for breakfast and replaced my cell phone with a shiny new one.

180 miles and one left turn until I finally set foot on the ranch my grandparent’s had built together. With nothing more than love and a dream it was encompassed by an eerie dense cloud of fog. I couldn’t help hearing echos of hoof beats from horses I once loved. I could almost smell the ripe tomatoes I use to pull off the vine inside my Papa’s greenhouse and feel the acidic juice as it dripped off my chin. I thought about the Rough Collies we raised and summers spent dodging monsoons. Four generations and the desert would probably reclaim the land we borrowed.

The small town hospital hardly looked like a hospital at all. We almost passed it up before turning into the parking lot. “She has three types of cancer.” The doctor said when I finally had a moment to speak with him. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and process everything he was attempting to tell me.

A tumor in her abdomen, colon cancer, and a tumor near the main artery next to her heart. I stood outside her room trying to catch my breath. I hate the smell of sterile environments. Three kinds of cancer, three generations. My eye lids were puffy from sobs I couldn’t contain, my soul felt defeated, and all I wanted more than anything else was another ten years with her.

Being faithful requires the ability to put your fears away so God can carry them for you. While I was terrified, my grandma was filled with peace. She opened her Bible before surgery the same way she did every morning. She looked weak and frail but her spirit was full of strength. She wanted to live. She always told me that one of her big goals in life was to make it to her one hundredth birthday.

As a family we sat in the hospital cafeteria nervously playing board games while we waited for an update. Someone won, someone lost, and I couldn’t concentrate. I wanted to hide in my little house tucked away between mountains among the forest.

Sometimes the hopelessness in life gives you tunnel vision. When it’s too painful to hope for something better, you stop trying. You lean into what you think is inevitable and you miss the miraculous events unfolding before your eyes.

I was the second person to see her after surgery. I kissed her hands and bossed the nurses around to keep my beautiful grandmother comfortable. I made sure she had the best nausea medicine. I fluffed her pillows, filled a Styrofoam cup with ice chips, and wrote our phone numbers on the white board in case anything changed.

She was lively, her eyes were mischievous, and she laughed! The charge nurse slipped in to check on us. He was a balding man who called her “young lady” which made her scoff.

“I’m going to climb ALL the stairs in Bisbee.” She stated with a matter of fact.

The nurse looked to me with amusement. “Don’t you think you should try to heal first?”

“I will heal and then I’m going to live. I’m going to travel to see my kids and I’m going to hike the stairs in Bisbee. You don’t have to believe me, but I’m going to do it.”

“She’s not joking. She’s the toughest woman I know and she means what she says. She’ll do it.” I said with a smile.

Miracles happen all the time, even when it feels as if there is no way out. The surgeon who told us to expect the worst… removed all of the cancer in her body with the exception of the one near her heart. Not only is my grandmother recovering, she’s thriving and we get as much time with her as God will allow.

My friend at the coffee shop had a complete hysterectomy. Her tumor ended up being benign. Her wonderful children get to keep their mother and she didn’t end up in need of chemo or radiation treatments. She’s back to working part time while she recovers.

Miracles happen, sometimes you just need faith.

Notes from the Author:

A lot of things have happened in my life the past two months that forced me to put my blog on the back burner for a little bit. I had to prioritize my family, my friends, and my farm but I never gave up on writing. I had to give myself grace for not being able to do it all and handle one crisis at a time. I hope you’ll forgive me for being away so long! I’m still sorting out how to juggle things better and the more I write, the more you’ll understand why those things happen sometimes. I love my fellow bloggers so much. I can’t wait to get caught up with the friendships I’ve made here so I can nourish them again. All my love,

Lish.

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Wolf

LaShelle

There are things I remember vividly about her. How she would occasionally tug the creases of her thin lips into an awkward smile. The sway of black hair when the October sun made it look auburn, as if it had been dipped in warm honey.

Her voice was soft and tender but she was fiercely opinionated. When my mom meet Jane, the woman was sitting in a church pew with her fingers interlaced across her lap. They shook hands as a round of introductions were made. Meanwhile, I fidgeted impatiently at my mom’s side, attempting to ignore the ache in my stomach with anticipation of our afternoon potluck.

Her husband was a pilot. A handsome man with a charming demeanor and ice blue eyes. Yet when he opened his mouth, his jokes fell flat. People around us forced a laughed to make the silence more tolerable but the words lingered out of place… even though the suit and tie fit right in with the rest of us. Phone numbers were exchanged along with an invitation to our house for dinner. My mom was queen bee of making newcomers feel welcome.

When I look back with an adult perspective, I can see things I failed to notice as a teenager. An inferno boiling below the surface. A valuable lesson in choosing who to trust with expert precision.

As the seasons changed, my mom and Jane struck up a casual friendship. Jane began writing a healthy eating column for the church bulletin and since my mom loved to cook, the two of them swapped recipes. She was invited to walk the neighborhood with us when my mom became determined to lose weight. I listened intently to the conversations between adults and watched as Jane pulled a gray cardigan taut when frost descended once more.

I would hear my mom correct her over Bible verse interpretations. She would twist the words to fit an internal narrative as she held those around her to a higher standard than she held herself. After catching a church member in the act of something she deemed unhealthy, Jane would go out of her way to bring it to light for all to see by writing about it in the church column. Jane became obsessive. Yet on more than one occasion members would be invited to join her at a seedy bar in town.

Jane’s husband and my step-father struck up conversations of their own. In no time the two of them were standing over a grill, a cold beer in one hand and a plate of steak to bring to the table secured in the other. Yet as steaming bowls of potatoes and vegetarian options were passed to our friends meal after meal, the air between the adults had grown cold and distant. Tension hung like a guillotine.

When a good person does something terrible, it eats away at them. Nights become exhausting as sleep is lost. An attempt is made at justifying their actions but they live in a prison of hell. Self-sabotage is a pleasure they seek to lighten the burden of guilt that weighs heavy on their hearts. Yet truly evil people… feel absolutely nothing.

Which one was she? As I think back to sitting next to Jane at the dinner table, passing a plate of snapped peas from my hand to hers… I can’t help wondering if she thought about what she had done. When someone smiled at her over a glass of deep red sparkling grape juice, did she flash back to all the blood she had to clean up in that tiny trailer in Alaska?

When the pastor held communion and said “Eat this bread as a symbol of my body” did Jane Reth think back to the moment when a firearm weighed heavy in her hand and she decided to pull the trigger? When she wrote the column for church members, did it conjure up a memory of the card she sent to his mother the first mother’s day after his death? Did she criticize others because she was riddled with guilt or did she do such things because she felt nothing at all?

“Jane Reth is a murderer.” My step-father announced to my mom.

She waved a hand in front of her face and laughed it off. Jane hardly weighed one hundred pounds. She was pretty in an understated sort-of way. While she was at times, a little strange and off-putting… she devoted a huge portion of her time to the service of others.

“Why would you even think such a thing?” My mom questioned.

“Because her husband told me she killed her first husband.” He said quietly.

“Maybe he was joking? Maybe he was so terrible, she joked about killing him?” My mom suggested.

“Maybe… but I kind-of believe him.” He stated tentatively.

A heated discussion over religion brewed between my parents. One claiming to be agnostic and the other, deeply rooted in faith. Neither refusing to give an inch while causing both of them to feel unbalanced. My step-father never wanted our family to practice Christianity and my mom couldn’t live life without God in it. A consistent war to tip the scale was ever present in the house I called home.

Scott Coville was an only child who disappeared out of his family’s life in 1988. It took Reta (Scott’s mother) over twenty years to find out what happened to her son. In that time, Scott’s father passed on having never received the closure he justly deserved. It broke both of his parent’s hearts.

I have witnessed first hand the rage that can blossom out of the rot where love once bloomed. Money and power are the most common motives for murder. Yet, nothing says I loved you quite like a brutal, premeditated end to someone’s life.

In a small fishing town called Sitka nestled near the state capitol of Alaska, collage sweethearts Jane and Scott decided to begin their lives together. Scott made money for his little family through work he picked up while fishing and canning and Jane felt she found the love of her life. It didn’t take long for the honeymoon phase to come to a screeching halt.

The endless disagreements became too much for Scott to handle, so he reached out to his mother in Fairbanks for support. The couple made strides to seek out church counseling yet it left the pastor feeling increasingly uneasy about the well-being of this match. As Scott began discussing divorce, something toxic ruptured inside of Jane.

If you’re wearing your Sabbath best, with your shoes shined and white blouse freshly pressed. Even though your hands are covered in red… do you sound like a sheep, or howl like a rabid wolf instead? As Scott slept in their bed, Jane shot her husband with a 357 magnum point blank in the head.

Petite Jane cut Scott’s body into pieces. She parked his car at the airport nearby and meticulously cleaned the home they had once shared together. Since Sitka was a fishing town, garbage was incinerated rather than taken to a landfill. Scott was picked up with the trash and never found again.

Grown men are allowed to leave their wives and travel elsewhere. Jane and Scott had been married for only a few months. His mother Reta had lost all hope of finding her son but she suspected Jane all along.

A three page letter was written to Reta by Jane explaining how the marriage went wrong. She fabricated details about choosing to go separate ways and moving on with their lives. Yet the first mother’s day after Scott had been murdered, Jane sent Reta a card in her handwriting and signed Scott’s name next to hers.

In 2007 Jane’s second husband provided a tip to police in regard’s to the disappearance. She wasn’t officially arrested until 2010. 20 Years had gone by since Reta reported her son as a missing person. Through taped phone calls, detectives were able to get Jane to admit what she had done on record. Without evidence of a body, the majority of the prosecution rested on obtaining a confession.

A video of Jane’s interview with police can be found on YouTube or by watching the episode created by the popular TV show called Snapped. Reth finally took responsibility for what she had done. While various versions of this story can be found online, I believe that I am able to add a unique perspective because I personally knew her. She wasn’t just a murderer, she was a friend.

When Mr. Reth told my step-father about the murder… it was long before the Reth’s had gotten divorced. The police had not yet become more involved in the case. It seemed too fanatical to be factual, especially when we had no knowledge of Jane being married to anyone other than the husband she had introduced us to. It was for that reason we never told anyone or gave it a second thought.

The police didn’t find any evidence of drug abuse between Jane or Scott with the exception of recreational marijuana. She had no criminal history before or after the murder of her husband. A passing rumor was overheard about a plea for self defense, but it wasn’t supported by the evidence.

Only Jane could attest to her state of mind. The district attorney motioned to charge Jane with first-degree murder. When she decided to plead guilty, the charges were reduced to second-degree murder. She is currently serving thirty-six years behind bars which will lessen to Twenty-four years with good behavior.

When news of Jane’s arrest and transport back to Alaska was released to the press, my mom made a call to her childhood best friend. Joy Wiebe was a petite woman of faith who shared her life as an ice road trucker with a significant number of followers on Instagram. When she wasn’t risking her life, she was working on her farm… in Fairbanks, Alaska. To our shock, Joy was close friend’s with Reta and her son Scott.

Joy described the Coville’s as a kind and loving family. She was enraged over the devastation Jane’s presence had inflicted upon them, while my mom (having known Reth) remained skeptical. Yet the question lingers ever present in my mind… if you’re wearing your Sabbath best, with your shoes shined and white blouse freshly pressed. Even though your hands are covered in red… are you a sheep, or a wolf instead?

Notes from the Author:

When Autumn leaves are dropping, I love curling up with a spine tingling mystery and a hot cup of tea… don’t you? This true story was written from my own perspective. I have painstakingly gathered research to share this final product with all of you. Names were removed to obscure identities. The only sources I’ll be sharing are the ones I discovered online. If you enjoy a good mystery, it may shock you to know more than one murder occurred within the church I attended. I can’t wait to write about the other one.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been while my blog has remained dormant, I sincerely apologize. I agonized over being gone for so long! An early frost arrived on our little farm that set into motion a long to-do list. Farm work will forever take priority. So what have I been up to? Mending fences, building a greenhouse, planting lots (and lots) of bulbs, washing buckets and blankets, buying and storing feed, taking care of my kid, mucking out and preparing stalls for winter, going trick-or-treating, hiring a new farrier to trim hooves, and attempting to balance normal house work and appointments.

Whew! I’m trying to get back on schedule, bare with me. For now, I’ll be thrilled to post once a week even if it doesn’t fall on a Tuesday. Next to spring, Autumn is the busiest time of the year for us. We’re preparing garden beds so our farm is overflowing with blooms. On a positive note, I snagged three AMAZING frosted windows for the greenhouse build… they came out of a mansion! I am DYING (figuratively) to walk you through it on video when it’s all finished. Once winter rolls in… I’ll be spending almost all of my free time avoiding the cold by writing blogs in front of our wood burning stove. Don’t give up on me yet!

Sources:

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/article/mother-cold-case-describes-years-wondering-about-her-son/2010/11/28/?fbclid=IwAR2KcaHIkgqtg2qcBwRxa3DPFQ_goi0L6iUYI-Cthy5KTaAKrcwQ__x3-zI

https://murderpedia.org/female.R/r/reth-jane.htm?fbclid=IwAR0uYWGJ918k4vh5m1P_e7WKY3lViNJOkIcVLViNLyv-3-Qk1ioJ4VWnjqc#:~:text=Jane%20Reth%2C%2046%2C%20admitted%20in,George%20in%20Sitka%20Superior%20Court

https://www.kcaw.org/2011/03/03/reth-sentenced-in-1988-cold-case-murder/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/chibrknews-36-years-for-exoswego-woman-in-alaska-murder-20110306-story.html

https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/photos/episode-2-jane-reth#265011

Cover Image of the Joker: Makeup was done by Kayla @FacesByGremlina, Photography was done by yours truly.

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Something Most Sinister

LaShelle

From the sky, mountain tops are being kissed by autumn. In a helicopter my husband has watched leaves turn to a shade of honey and ruby red. Waves of color cascades rolling hills as October temperatures descend until it grips the valley below.

The scent of baked apples stuffed with oatmeal wafts from an oven door and fills our little house. I drizzle some molasses across it before dusting the treat with cinnamon. Haunted hay rides have begun and there are festivals to attend almost every weekend from now until Christmas. My Audible and Kindle are full of murder mysteries to curl up with when the weather becomes too dreary for serious farm work.

Several pairs of muck boots line the wall next to our front door in preparation of a muddy season. Meanwhile, I mourn the loss of my cut flower garden as a chill takes their life. While Nikolai is gearing up to order a matching Halloween costumes with Scribbles, my husband enlisted our assistance with treats and treasures of his own. It’s amazing how events in my life line up with the perfect stories to tell during spooky season. I hope you’re ready for them.

Around this time last year Rob put in a bid on a storage unit in the middle of Atlanta. A small outdoor facility located in an unsavory part of town. Beat up cars lined both sides of the street, potholes big enough to swallow an entire person scattered across yellow lines and black tar. Sometimes the most interesting things are found in unusual places.

A man behind the desk in the front office was smacking his lips as he chewed on a piece of gum. His bald head shining underneath florescent lights. His fingers poking at the keys below his computer while simultaneously adjusting a button down shirt that appeared to be a size too small.

“You won a bid you say?” He had a surprisingly high pitched voice for someone with a gruff appearance.

“That’s right. Unit number 3082 on the auction site.” My husband informed him.

“Ah yes, here you are. Let me grab the key so I can unlock it for you. Be sure to clean it out and have it inspected before you leave.”

“I know the drill. I’ve done this many times before.” Rob smiled with bubbling excitement.

I suppose I was expecting the usual. Household goods, furniture, clothing… things we could donate to local charities. The boxes were promising because they were dusty and unorganized. Stacked with little care for the possessions they contained which meant they hadn’t been trifled through by unit staff members. A menagerie of cardboard, plastic bins, and trash bags placed into heaps. Paperwork tucked into crevasses and odd trinkets I couldn’t identify.

My greatest joy in tackling this sort of work is unraveling the personality behind the things someone choses to keep. The tape was pulled from the first box and nestled within was more makeup than I had ever owned in my lifetime. I had originally suspected the unit belonged to man (due to the lack of organization) but now I wasn’t so sure.

My mind raced from a possible drag queen to an unusual married couple. Yet the harder we dug into this individual’s past the stranger things became. Rob pulled a pair of handcuffs, some chains, and a few locks out of black mesh. Things that might make a prude blush but they didn’t appear to be used for sexual purposes. A set of camera lenses caught my attention as my husband and Niki flipped through comic books and signed memorabilia.

Pile after pile, one mysterious item after the next were carefully inspected before loading it into the back of our truck. As a lover of crime novels and puzzles, this one kept me on the edge of my seat. It was one of the most interesting units we had ever done.

“I think I know who this person is! Have you figured it out yet?” Rob grinned and taunted in a sing-song voice. Forever my competitor in sleuthing.

Rolled up in the very back of the unit was a poster for The Walking Dead TV show. An iconic scene splayed in glossy film with an easy to recognize face. The signature was exactly the same as the one we found on storage facility paperwork.

Our mysterious man was a zombie. Not just any zombie though, ours was one of the more famous African American zombies within the entire Walking Dead series. A stack of bobble heads nodded in smug approval.

Why this man let his unit go to auction, we never discovered. Sometimes people quit paying for things they don’t want to move or they forget why they’re paying to store things they rarely use. We see this happen quite often and their loss, is our family adventure.

The last week of September per autumn tradition, Rob bid and won another auction. I wasn’t nearly as thrilled this time. Having caught a virus the germ magnets at Nikolai’s school had passed around… I was feeling less than chipper.

The idea of sorting through boxes with an aching head and a slight fever made me want to stay home. Yet I didn’t want to spend the weekend without my favorite people next to me. I figured Rob could use the company but he probably should have left without me because my moodiness made me an insufferable companion.

The metal door on what should have been a small 5×15 unit shook as it rolled upwards and tucked out of the way. It was so well organized that I could hardly believe it. We rarely get lucky on something we bid under twenty dollars for. Yet every inch from floor to ceiling was stacked with beautifully labeled plastic totes.

Hardly ever does the contents of a box match what’s written on the outside. Yet the more things we opened, the easier our job seemed to be. It felt as if we might make light work of a typically long afternoon. Rob even joked about being finished before dinner.

There is a reason why doctors and police officers keep the phrase “It’s a quiet night” off their lips. Thirty Six years of life has taught me to never antagonize the universe by joking or making plans of my own. Five hours into digging through boxes and arranging donation piles, what started out as a straight forward storage unit owned by a large family became disturbing by the second. I should have known.

Tucked away inside a box of Christmas decor was a book of spells and an introduction to witchcraft. A jewelry box with a stunning 18K diamond and sapphire ring also contained multiple pill bottles. People like to hide valuables in silly places. It wouldn’t be the first time I found something lovely inside a pill bottle. A couple years ago a moving love letter fell into my open palm. My curiosity over-riding my better judgment left me opening the child lock to take a peak inside. This time… what fell out was human teeth.

A curse had been written in permanent marker on a glass mirror and in almost every box from that moment on, we found an unlimited amount of teeth. Some had fillings in them, many were molars, a few were of baby teeth, and some looked to be perfectly healthy of every shape and size imaginable. Books about evil, forcing someone to love you, and advice on the best methods to connect with the spirit world were beginning to stack up. The deeper we dove, the more sinister this unit became.

A bundle of half burned sage was tucked inside a tote with tea candles and a box of ashes. My knowledgeable friend Heather informed me that Salvia (a type of mint) is the typical variety people use to cleanse something of evil spirits. It also happens to be a mildly addictive hallucinogenic that can cause migraines and various other symptoms (such as hearing voices and seeing things). It’s been used medicinally for a number of years but it’s against recommendation to burn sage inside a building that isn’t ventilated.

A zombie and a witch walk into a storage unit feels as if there’s a joke hidden in there somewhere. Sometimes life is more bizarre than anything we could come up with. Human beings are the scariest mysteries of all.

Kayla is my incredibly talented and Instagram amous friend and makeup artist. I had the pleasure of photographing her before Halloween a couple years back. To this day this session is one of my favorites.
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Scribbles and Doodles

LaShelle

I’ll never forget the day Nikolai came home and asked me if I thought he was stupid. Tears were trickling down his cheeks, his mouth was twisted in emotional agony, and his sunshine blue eyes had turned into wells of pain. The mother bear within was ready to rip someone apart.

“Kids can be brutal.” I soothed as I gathered him into my arms and tried to hide bitter tears of my own.

The ride home had been filled with silence. I kept asking about his day but the set of his jaw spoke volumes. The moment we walked through our front door his words came tumbling out. I sat with him in my lap, little fingers curled around mine and listened for him to tell me the entire sordid tale.

Nikolai (Doodles as we call him) had been sitting at his desk, pencil in hand when the teacher asked him to write his name at the top of the page. His mind went blank. He began to fidget and get nervous.

“Don’t you know how to write your own name? What are you stupid or something?” His young classmate sneered as all eyes turned to look at him.

Nikolai froze. He didn’t know how to react. He just sat there gripping his pencil until his knuckles turned white.

“You ARE stupid! Who doesn’t know how to write their own name? Stupid people, that’s who!” The girl taunted.

Thankfully his best friend whispered into his ear “It’s okay Nikolai. I’ll do it for you.”

Unfortunately the damage had been done and the little girl began to make every day a nightmare from that moment on. She called him names, singled him out, humiliated him, and alienated Nikolai from his classmates. Meanwhile, I wrote his teacher on a regular basis in an attempt to resolve it. His seat was moved somewhere else in the classroom… but nothing helped. My happy bubbly boy was being pulled into depression.

I spent most mornings begging him to go to school. I gave him pep talks and let him take a stuffed animal with him so he wouldn’t feel alone. He carried a stuffed fox lovingly called Foxy everywhere he went. Yet the boy who normally never meet a stranger began to have trouble making friends. Eventually he stopped trying and I grew increasingly concerned. He was sad constantly.

“Please mom, please don’t make me go. I hate school. I really don’t want to go. I don’t feel safe. Kids hate me.”

I would sit in the car, put my face in my hands and cry about forcing him to be there. I had meetings with the principal, I took him to do as many fun things as possible but nothing made an impact. More than being bullied, Nikolai had been struggling to learn. I knew in the depth of my soul that my son had a learning disability. No matter how many times his teacher and I went over words and letter sounds, the boy wasn’t grasping them.

Second grade came and brought new beginnings… but the battle ground was much of the same. More bullies and the struggle to learn was forever present as it hung like darkness over his head. Outside our favorite park one afternoon, my husband had a conversation with our son about our farm animals and their mutual desire to get another dog. Our beautiful Moose has been living in her golden years. She’s gray around the muzzle and we give her pain medicine for arthritis. She is forever the light of our lives since we rescued her from the Humane Society in Atlanta (long before we moved to our little farm in the woods).

Tallulah is my service dog. She loves to play with Nikolai but she gets overly excited and her size sometimes knocks him over. While they’re two peas in a pod… Niki isn’t allowed to feed her or walk her. Tulla’s job lies in helping me monitor my health and she takes it seriously.

Nikolai wanted a dog. The more I thought about it and the struggles my son had been enduring… the more I got on board. Plus, I was outnumbered two to one! I spent a good amount of time researching because it’s not easy for a dog to fit into the established crew on our farm. The right dog needed to be outgoing but friendly. They would need to be able to get along with Moose and Tallulah, while learning to live around chickens and livestock.

Most of all… the right kind of dog needed to be small enough for an (almost) eight year old boy to handle but have a big enough personality to be a best friend for life. All of which is a rather tall order for a dog. It took a lot of internet browsing on my computer at the local coffee shop to find somewhere to take Nikolai to look for a dog while checking off our primary requirements.

When my husband and I picked Nikolai up from school, we didn’t tell him where we were going. The winding mountain drive to Blue Ridge forced us to squash his questions about our plans for the afternoon under the premise that we needed to run some errands (which wasn’t a lie). Since we had already agreed to get him a dog, Nikolai sat in the back seat excitedly discussing how he had told his entire class.

It wasn’t until a little pal named Einstein came across my Facebook feed which put the Humane Society of Blue Ridge Georgia on my radar. The almost all white dog looked similar to a baby Yoda with his cocky little ears. He was too cute to pass up an introduction. The bonus being H.S.B.R had a couple of other dogs for us to see as well (just in case).

“Are we at a doctor’s office?” He asked when we pulled up outside a red brick building. His small face etched in confusion.

“Lets go inside and find out. Tell the lady at the desk that you would like to meet Einstein.” I smiled feeling a little tearful.

The beauty of looking for a forever friend is keeping an open mind. Sometimes the dog you have your heart set on or imagine yourself with… isn’t the one that’s right for you. Einstein wasn’t a good fit for Nikolai. He was fearful, and nervous after having been abused by kids. Although Niki loved him right away… it was clear to me that Nikolai wasn’t what the sweet guy needed. It took some convincing on my part but Doodles agreed to meet the second contender… a scrappy six month old pup the Humane Society lovingly named, Dunn.

From the moment this large eared, funny faced little dog walked into Nikolai’s life… it was as if the two of them were made for one another. He bounced his way into Niki’s arms, licked his jaw and Nikolai erupted into a fit of giggles.

“This is my dog!” Nikolai proclaimed proudly, and as if he always had been Nikolai’s dog… the two of them walked to our car together.

On the playground after school, Nikolai was surrounded by children. His puppy (who never meets a tiny human he doesn’t like) had his stubby tail going wild. Kids were laughing, wiping slobber off their palms and cheeks, while Nikolai’s wing-man helped him make more friends than he knew what to do with. The tough days he had at school were meet with kind eyes and a playful gesture when he came home.

The nightmares about the man who broke into our house, were soothed by having this little dog rest beside him. Nikolai isn’t afraid to be alone in his bedroom anymore which is exactly what I was hoping for. He isn’t afraid of the dark anymore either because if something is amiss… his partner will let him know.

The learning disability may always be there. I myself have struggled with dyslexia since I was young. Yet the burdens people face in life aren’t quite as heavy when they have a friend to share it with. There’s something spectacular about dogs… they are capable of loving unconditionally. It doesn’t matter what you look like or what you struggle with, they only care about who you are as a person.

As I sat scribbling down notes for a blog post… Nikolai asked me to brainstorm names for his (at that moment) future dog. I thoughtfully suggested that we call his new friend-to-be Scribbles. He pondered for a moment, and with a huge grin… exclaimed that Scribbles was perfect (and he was).

Notes from the author:

* Scribble’s introduction to Tallulah & Moose, and the rest of the farm couldn’t have gone any better. All three dogs are the best of friends.

* Apologies for not being on time with my post this week, I skipped last week because it was my birthday, and I was late this week because Niki gave me a cold virus from school. I’ll be back to posting regularly on Tuesday’s at 10:00 AM this next week. Thanks for being patient with me!

* If you haven’t seen the post my friend Jen from BosssyBabe did about me and my little farm blog… you’re missing out! I answer a ton of questions about how I got to where I am, why I write the way I do, and what drives me. Take a moment to stop by and check her out plus… her blog is down right incredible so read some of her other posts as well. She’s one of my favorites!

Nikolai, Moose, and two of our six cats Tetley the calico, and Mousey the tuxedo
Moose & Scribbles on our morning walks
Tallulah & Scribbles passed out after an hour long play session
The day Scribbles & Nikolai became partners
A bright future & an autumn walk
Watching me scribble blog notes while waiting for his kid to get home from school.
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Devil Underneath the Bath Tub

LaShelle

I couldn’t sleep. When I did sleep I found myself dreaming about strange things and when I woke… it was before my six thirty AM alarm. I heard a sound I couldn’t place and discovered not everything in my dream had been locked inside my mind. Was it coming from the roof?

I blinked several times to try and wake myself up. It had been raining for days so perhaps the sound was radiating from the trees. Sometimes water collects on leaves until it’s too heavy to hold. Branches bow and fat droplets make crazy noises when hitting shingles. It didn’t really didn’t sound like that though. More like banging… or gnawing. A shiver shook me from head to toe.

Barn cats playing above my head? Sometimes they get a mischievous glint in their eyes during witching hour. They tear across the pasture, sink claws into bark and shimmy their way up to chase one another on top of my house. If I were to guess… I would say something was trying to eat it’s way- in. I was wide awake now.

I ran outside wearing only an over sized sweater, tiny pink shorts, and my muck boots. Wild red hair piled and knotted atop my head. Thankfully I have hardly any neighbors because even astronauts would have been blinded by my white chicken drumsticks for legs. I grabbed a handful of rocks and launched them (rather poorly) at my own house. I missed and nearly hit a window instead.

When I came back inside everything was silent again. Nothing but a rush of cold air blowing from my vents. So I breathed a sigh of relief, kicked off my boots, and tip-toed back to bed. I was asleep for less than half an hour and the devil was back. This time the gnawing was so loud, it seemed to shake my bedroom wall. I shot into a sitting position, ice blue eyes flaming with anger and rimmed in red.

I thought about the squirrel who lives inside a massive crimson maple. He once lectured me in his accusatory squeaky tone for stepping into his domain. Right before the little jerk chucked a half eaten acorn. I had been trying to refill water buckets for animals on my farm and that stupid acorn nailed me in noggin. He had much better aim than I did.

“Hey! I have to live here too you know!” I yelled as I rubbed the lump forming on my head.

“That seriously hurt!” He didn’t care.

I wondered if squirrels could eat through the roof of a house. I grabbed my cellphone and propped it up in the window where (If I was lucky) I could get one bar of service. The page loaded and I almost woke Nikolai up when I squealed in delight. After clicking on the most relevant link to my question, I learned squirrels can indeed eat through the roof on a house. This was not great news for someone who lives on eleven plus acres- in the woods- surrounded by squirrels.

The gnawing continued but it didn’t sound like it was coming from the roof anymore. It sounded like it was in the wall… or in my bathroom. I shoved my feet into my slippers, slid down the hallway, and paused at the threshold. What if I find it? What will I do then? My 22 caliber firearm was out of rat-shot. I didn’t have a bat or a golf club handy (Rob doesn’t even play golf) and the nearest shovel was laying somewhere in the garden. I am so screwed.

I decided against opening the bathroom door until I could get some advice. So, I located my cellphone and called my husband for backup. The call went to voicemail but I tried again. His sleepy voice was finally coming through the speaker on my phone and it gave me an instantaneous feeling of relief. Surely he would have some insight into my dilemma.

“It’s probably just a mouse.” He lectured.

“It’s definitely not that.” I stated firmly.

“Well, why don’t you just grab a frying pan or something?”

“A frying pan? Seriously?”

“Well, that’s what I would do. Hit it over the head.” I could hear him shrugging his shoulders.

“I think it’s coming from underneath the bathtub” I whispered frantically.

“Just pry up the sealer around the tub, stick your hand in there and figure out what it is.”

“What kind of advice is that?”

“Use your bad hand. You can lure it out with your broken finger. It doesn’t function well anyway.”

“Are you crazy? Stick my hand in there… you’re as useless as tits on a bull.” He roared with laughter but I was livid.

“Trust me. It’ll work.”

“Trusting you is how my middle finger became permanently screwed up in the first place. I don’t need a side of rabies to go with it.”

“Hey, you called me remember? This is the advice you get when you wake me up at three in the morning.”

I hung up the phone and walked back to bed. Nothing was going to get resolved tonight. I pushed a pillow over my ears to muffle sounds of my house disintegrating in the devil’s jaws.

When my alarm finally sang to wake me up again, I had a sharp pain radiating within my skull. The house was silent… but it didn’t last long. I got Nikolai ready for school while I scooped up his backpack. Yet right before dogging thunderstorms to get to the car, we nervously held hands near the mouth of hell so I could take a video recording.

Thankfully my husband isn’t the only person I call for advice. My friend Heather almost always has a creative solution for farm situations. I sent both her and my husband the video recording and waited for a response.

A ping sounded off after I had pulled back into my driveway alone. I fished through the contents of my handbag to locate the source. Two notifications flashed across the screen, a text from Rob, and a missed call from Heather.

Rob: “You’re right. That’s definitely not a mouse. That thing sounds like a bear.”

Me: “I told you!”

As I returned Heather’s call, I was pacing the length of the farm. Kicking rocks and dreading another sleepless night. I had days left before Rob could make it home. This had to be resolved now.

“It could be an armadillo, or a gopher rat.” She suggested.

“Awesome! I love armadillos and rats the size of cats.” I quipped sarcastically.

“Mmm leprosy, the health crisis I always wanted!”

Heather’s advice involved a large quantity of rat poison. I grabbed a screwdriver and scraped along the edge of the tub to remove the caulk. My fingers trembled but I managed to make a small hole. Using the tip of the tool I carefully pushed the delicious treat into position. Some dangerous contents broke apart and sent powder peppering my leggings and arms while I worked. Praying I stuffed enough in there to entice the beast, I stripped myself of clothing.

After cleaning up and washing my hands six or seven times (the packaging said to handle the product with gloves I didn’t have and to avoid getting it on my skin… whoops), I sat on the sofa in my living room to wait. I listened intently, typed on my laptop, and stared at my opening paragraph. My eyes nearly crossing out of exhaustion, I gave up and closed the screen. I decided a nap was in order and had stretched out to get comfortable.

Until I heard it… enjoying a morsel. I picked up my cup of tea feeling warmth radiate from within. A smirk played at the corner of my lips as I sent the creature to another kind of hell. The kind that lasts eternal. Eat up little devil, don’t you miss a crumb now.

As I held Nikolai in my arms later that night, I listened to his rhythmic breathing. The crickets serenading the two of us to sleep. The bull frogs croaking in the creek, as I slept poetically deep. As for The Devil… lets just say he didn’t make a peep.

My sleeping angel 💗
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Great Race

LaShelle

I belong to a family of travelers. Midnight drives across the United States, watching sunbeams dance over a dew logged windshield as morning light graces the horizon. Waking up sometimes at two AM because our rickety car was bouncing across uneven roadways… it was a big part of my childhood.

My mom or my grandfather would turn to look at me as I rubbed sleep from my eyes. Attempting to make sense of where I had laid my head previously and trying to comprehend my new reality. Surrounding scenery engulfed in darkness at times.

My mom would say something like “Oh good! You’re up! Guess where we’re going?”

She would toss her head back to laugh over my confusion. Yet it was all so enchanting, not knowing what was to come. My childhood of travel is why Nikolai has crossed so many states off his list. It makes coming home sweeter instead of being taken for granted. In his (now) young seven years of life, he has been to at least 25 States.

While browsing news articles one evening, I read about a magical balloon race starting in Helen Georgia and reaching all the way to the Atlantic. At two hundred and twenty five miles it was deemed as being one of the best long distance balloon races in America. When I laid eyes on the advertisement I knew Nikolai needed to experience it for himself.

Late one Wednesday evening in May, I booked a hotel, packed our vehicle, and buckled four-year-old Nikolai into his seat. I slid my body behind the wheel and smiled back at him. His sweet little face was full of confusion. His eyes asking questions his lips hadn’t caught up to.

“Guess where we’re going?” I asked with a giggle

He hadn’t a clue. Just my boy and I set off to see spectacular things. We lugged belongings into our assigned hotel room with bags of snacks spilling out onto the red carpeted floor. I tucked him into bed, kissed his forehead with a promise of adventures to come in the morning. We skipped winding down over a glowing television screen for going to bed early and yet we barely slept a wink. Our exhaustion was evident when we missed our first wake-up alarm. Yet before the sun, we rose to greet the day. Slipped our shoes on and grabbed breakfast to take on the road. Nikolai’s little legs did a jig all the way to his surprise encounter.

Our car weaved around mountains. Patches of gold and pink fog billowing into the valley as I asked him which items he would take if he were setting out on a hot air balloon trek rather than watching it. Water, Snacks, binoculars, a picture of daddy (since he was working), and mommy would come with of course! My camera nestled into the passenger seat nearly slid to the floor as an idea for a photograph blossomed in my head.

We walked a winding blacktop following crowds of visitors. Birds fluttering about, having been disrupted of their routine. A nature path through woodlands opened to a grassy field full of baskets. Tipped balloons were graced with fire breathing contraptions. Nikolai’s eyes were wide in anticipation of lift off. Children held hands and ran through the meadow careful to stay out of the way. Pick-nick blankets covered fresh earth where families sat cross legged together. The scene similar to something I saw in film somewhere.

Tiny pests were waved away from morning meals in frustration and people of all nationalities held their breath. When the first balloon lifted, cheers erupted. Loud clapping and well wishes echoed through the forest. As I am terrified of heights, my fingers laced into sweaty fists. I couldn’t imagine seeing beautiful things from their advantage but I also couldn’t grasp how to avoid falling out of such a flimsy restraint.

I pictured myself dropping out of the blue sky and landing on someone’s house while mentally adding a parachute to my own personal list. If I was setting out on such an epic adventure, I would take my camera, my journal, chocolate (to calm a panic attack), several parachutes, my husband (someone has to help make flight repairs), and of course… my son. I’d also low-key kidnap (but later return) a therapist and pocket a large bottle of Xanax to swallow with my bottled water.

I doubt all of those things would even fit. Where would we go pee? While I love adventures, I am happiest watching ones that involve great heights from somewhere on the ground while cheering for those who are braver than myself. I couldn’t imagine getting caught at the mercy of a storm. Thunder and lightening wouldn’t make very good neighbors. I prefer to enjoy them from a location of safety.

We stayed until the last balloon lifted to the heavens. I sighed in contentment and folded our throw blanket over my arm. Nikolai put his tiny hand in mine, and I traced his fingers as we walked to our car. We got to see the balloons suspended over German architecture. We enjoyed cobble stone streets, listened to a rushing river, and grabbed lunch at a nearby cafe.

I ordered a hot cup of tea while Nikolai pocketed rocks he found along the way. When my husband and I visit Helen by ourselves, we sit along the river and look for heart shaped rocks to bring home to our boy. Nikolai likes to set them in odd places around our farm and throughout his bedroom. It’s a little tradition we do almost anywhere we go (but especially when visiting Helen).

When I asked my husband what he would bring if he came with us, he conveniently left out bringing any kind of tools what-so-ever. We had an amazing conversation about plunging to our deaths, hoping for the best, and panicking afterwards. He’s forever the rock when everything is on fire but quickly falls apart when life is back to some sense of normalcy again. I think it has a lot to do with his time spent as a soldier. That therapist on board would sure come in handy.

When we pulled into our driveway at home, Nikolai ran to his room to dig through his toy box. He grabbed his flight jacket, his flight goggles, and his pilot’s hat. Maps were drawn out of crayons, Moose (our farm dog) was forced into being a copilot, and together they flew past chickens who clucked their intense disapproval.

A long pink tongue rolled out of Moose’s mouth, but there was joy found in her eyes. Doodles (short for Doodle Bug, also known as Nikolai) was so worn out from the day’s activities he fell asleep early. Long lashes against soft peach skin and cupid bowed lips were slightly agape as he rested in a heap of blankets. A pilot’s hat still pulled down over his face and one arm draped over Moose’s belly.

Name 5 must-have essentials you might take on a long hot air balloon race! Are you adventurous? Do heights freak you out too? Could you guess what your spouse might bring? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

This image was shot in sections and blended together. The background was shot with a GoPro at sunset, the balloons were shot on race day individually, and Nikolai was photographed at home on our farm.
Nikolai & Moose
Two best friends ❤️

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

This Messy Life

LaShelle

He had a cocky smirk on his face when our eyes meet, almost like a child who got caught stealing from a cookie jar. Crowds of kids swirled on and off between us. Instinct declaring upon a single glance I would be burned alive, yet oxygen was fueling the flames inside my veins. Ignore it my head sang but it was too late, I couldn’t tear myself away.

How does a chance encounter end up laying the foundation to something extraordinary? What are the odds of meeting the one person who could derail all of the plans I had so carefully crafted? At an event I wasn’t supposed to addend no less.

Yet there he was, with a grin permanently plastered across his face. As if he had already won the war even though my stubborn nature was still trying- failing to rebel. My cheeks flushed poppy pink. I could barely make out the shape of my own hand let-alone guess the trajectory which this night would take us. Glow sticks were waved into the air as school advisors cranked fog machines to max capacity.

When the cloud cleared, he was in the middle of awkwardly peeling another girl’s hands off his body. Wait a minute… how dare she? Yet he was still looking at me. I lifted my chin to meet his gaze while heat crept up my spine. The girl was persistent. Her hands balled into fists which gripped his T-shirt as they danced even though he was becoming exacerbated with her. So, I squared my shoulders, waltzed over, and I cut between them to take what was mine…just as the beat was getting good.

“You looked like you needed rescuing” I mused into his ear.

“I’m so glad you stepped in to save me.” His voice sounded husky.

He was exactly a foot taller than me. Lean, with brown eyes which turned to gold in the flash of a strobe light. His dark hair curled a little on the ends and he had to hunch over to meet my small frame. Something between us felt perfectly clear as we danced our way towards curfew.

“What’s your name?” He asked but I could hardly hear.

“You can call me Lish.”

“Trish?”

“No. L-I-S-H.” Confusion furrowed his brow.

“My name’s Rob.” He said, and I was left feeling spellbound encompassed by his arms.

Outside glossy gymnasium doors, the teachers had hauled tables from the cafeteria. We grabbed water bottles out of ice chests which were provided and re-hydrated before heading home for the night. If I had been less naive, I might have noticed he was rather inebriated. Instead, I handed him a slip of paper containing the phone number he had asked for, and hoped he would call. To this day we’re convinced he accidentally used it to smoke a joint.

Freshmen year of high school Rob had been an honor roll student who spent the summer playing football. He was in band, taught himself how to read music, and played several different instruments. He tried out and made it onto the swim team. He won second place in the state for a math competition, even though his calculator broke less than halfway through it. While everyone else had the advantage, Rob tackled equations in his head. He was smart, driven, and accomplished.

By sophomore year none of his achievements measured up to the allure of spending time with the wrong people doing the kind of things which got him into trouble. Rob and his friends ran from the cops after being clocked going far above the posted speed limit. Rather than face jail, his brilliant idea was to lose the tail by sneaking into a subdivision and parking in a stranger’s driveway. He forgot to take his foot off the brake and was caught over the glowing lights that bounced off the pavement.

It should come as no surprise after searching his jean pockets the following day, the phone number I gave him at the dance was nowhere to be found. It also shouldn’t come as a shock when I was told by a mutual friend about Rob’s more wild behavior, I decided I wasn’t interested anymore. The spark of electricity between us was quickly snuffed out by my stubborn nature and refusal to settle.

The following Monday Rob looked for my face throughout the hallways at school. Yet when I was finally located, I turned on my heel… to head in the opposite direction. There was no way I was getting sucked into making the same mistake twice. He assumed I was angry because he never called.

When the new class schedules were handed out the following semester, I showed up to P.E prepared to do whatever it took to avoid exercising. I waltzed into the weight room and ran right into Rob. His body towered over mine and his mouth was wearing that smile again.

On the track, we were manipulated by our teacher into running for a passing grade. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and stretched out my hamstrings even though I planned to jog at a walking pace. I linked arms with one of my girlfriends out of solidarity and when the whistle blew… we practically crawled towards the finish line.

“Hey Trish!” Rob shouted.

“If you can’t bother to remember my name… you and I are not on speaking terms.” I quipped.

Using his long legs and height to his advantage, he embarrassingly sprinted from one classmate to another.

“Do you know what the redheaded girl’s name is? I need to know so I can get her to talk to me.”

By the time he had it figured out, he had already lapped me and was running backwards with his hair blowing in the breeze. There was a glimmer in his eyes and a wicked smile crept across his lips as he faced my direction.

 “I’m going to convince you to go out with me Lish.”

“Over my dead body.” I laughed with conviction.

Seventeen years of marriage, eighteen years together, and over twenty years of friendship. I still can’t believe that he talked me into it. Waking to find his fingers tangled in my hair and his lips covering mine, taking walks together on rainy days, and kissing underneath streetlamps. There is nothing more enchanting than strolling through this messy life with his hand in mine.

Happy anniversary week to us!

Taken by my amazing friend Chris Hansen of Rob and I on our horses
A picture of us when we were living in Germany visiting my favorite castle (Burg Eltz)
The two of us dancing at a friend’s wedding
Is it just me or is it getting a little steamy?!
Our first wedding ceremony when we were just babies. I was 18 and Rob was 19.
My Soldier and I
Rob headed back to a war torn Afghanistan
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Boy I Could Have Been

LaShelle

I put my hand over my heart, and I begged it to stop rattling against my rib cage. Rain was hammering my bare flesh. The trees were suffocating me, and I was locked within them. If I stopped now, they would be my tomb. Strands of wet red hair clung to my face where salty tears mixed with freshwater raindrops. I was going to die.

Thorns and branches tugged at my limbs. They scraped my skin until pebbles of blood pooled along the surface. Wobbly legs led to a break in the forest where I could see an empty beach. Dark thunderclaps rolled in the distance. Waves broke along the shore, swirling and frothing with rage. The last time I was here the sun was kissing my cheeks. A cold pink popsicle melted over my fingertips and ran down the length of my arm. My cousins laughed and my mom handed over napkins with smile. This time, I was alone.

I gagged on the sobs I tried to contain as vomit threatened to burn my throat. My mom was probably being told that no one could find me. I imagined her pouring her heart into her hands as she screamed my name. I’ll bet she was giving people a description of the dress I was wearing. It had been so pretty this morning, with delicate blue flowers printed on white cotton. It wouldn’t be recognizable now. I used it to wipe away mud that was smeared up my legs. I raked my hands across the hem to unpack the grime from underneath my fingernails.

I had twirled my way to the campground showers like a princess. Yet the longer I waited for my cousins to finish getting ready, the more impatient I became. I decided to venture off towards the direction of the campsite on my own when one path turned into another. Had I gone to the left or to the right? Or maybe straight? If I could just get up higher… to see where I was, then perhaps I could find my way back.

I climbed a dune near the beach knowing that my mom would be furious. It was against the rules to be out here alone. Although I wasn’t normally a rule breaker, an exception was made in my mind for life and death situations. Yet the water would remain off limits even as the hot sand burned blisters into the bottom of my feet. The task to reach a higher perspective was daunting, and my leg finally gave out from underneath me.

A twisted piece of driftwood sliced through my arch and blood stained its bark crimson red. I screamed in frustration, my wound, throbbing. I sat back on my bottom with a hard thump so I could have a good cry. A random hiker might find the shoe that got sucked into the mud pit. Or maybe they would find the one I threw out of anger when I couldn’t get mud-pit-shoe out of the hole it sank into. I wondered if they would locate my body sometime after that. 

Using the back of my hand, I dried my tears. I was a tiny speck of blue and white among miles of rolling sand mounds. I would allow myself to cry but I wasn’t allowed to give up. When the sun broke through the clouds, I shaded my eyes by using my fingers like a visor. A boardwalk path leading back into the woods could been seen in the distance and I whooped for joy! I still didn’t know how to get home, but I might be able to find help. I sprinted and the mud smeared dress swirled torn and tangled behind me.

When I reached the path, the knots in my stomach cinched tighter. I had barely touched breakfast and it was nearly lunch time now. The walkway wound through an eerie marsh lined with stumps and dead limbs, but I tried to keep my mind focused. I giggled when a long tongue darted out from the muck to catch a fly but stuck to the frog’s green eyeball instead. The creature looked confused and wiggled his mouth a little which made me laugh even harder.

A seagull, suspended in flight tucked its wings against its body. It danced with the breeze at a dizzying speed. Through moody storm clouds and patches of sunlight it dived headfirst into the wind.

I bet he could see my way home… I wish I had wings like his.

I rounded a corner to find myself no longer alone with the frog, the seagull, and my thoughts. A stranger materialized and for a moment I was relieved that I might be saved. I wanted desperately to tell someone that I was lost. Yet the voice in my head told me that he was untrustworthy. He tried to appear friendly, but his blue eyes struck me as menacing as he squared his shoulders with mine.

“Where’s your mom?”  He asked and I groped for words to wield like a weapon.

“Catching up to me.” I stammer and point in the direction I had come from.

I have the sudden urge to run, so I do. I carry myself as far away from the stranger as I can. When I am out of breath, I think about how his eyes brightened when he thought he caught me out here alone and how they darkened when I pointed to where I wished my mom would have been. It gives me a second wind to pace myself so that my legs can pump even harder in case the man tries to catch up to me.

The boardwalk ended at a dirt road and a three-way junction. I didn’t know where else to go from here. My stomach roared with hunger. The sun tucked itself behind the clouds again so I could barely stay on the path. I was exhausted. My resolve to hold onto hope was weakening with every step. Then I heard something. The rumble of an engine. A man wearing a park ranger vest on the back of a four-wheeler was coming for me. His vehicle skid to stop and relief floods his expression as he shouted into a walkie-talkie that he yanked off his belt.

“I found her! I found her! Tell her mom that I’m bringing her back to camp now!” The static was electrifying.

Through tears of relief, I explained how I lost my shoes. As he doctored up my blisters, I talked about making my way to the beach to look for help only to find it empty. The ranger winced as he applied a sunshine yellow sticker to the cut on my foot. His kind face was contorted into a grimace as he told me that the beach was empty because a boy my age had drowned.

He had been ripped away from his family by an undercurrent. Search and Rescue had been on the water trying to locate him and they cleared the beach, but it was too late. When my mom heard a rumor circulating camp that a missing child had washed up dead on the beach, she thought that the kid might be me. She spent the hours I was missing praying that it was someone else’s child as she searched the campground trying to find me.

The ranger scooted forward and tucked me safely behind him. My legs suspended around the seat; my fingers griping so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I rested my head on the strangers back as we flew through the forest. Myhair waving goodbye to the marsh, the dunes, and the boy I could have been.  

Every year three to four people drown in Lake Michigan at or near the Indiana Dunes State Park. Men, women, and children have disappeared. One boy fell through a sand dune never to been seen again, and police in the area are still looking for three women who went missing on a beach full of out-of-state visitors.

While there have been other times throughout my life when I have gotten lost, I’ll never forget how lucky I was to be found that day. In moments when my health has tried to drown me, or in instances where I’ve felt like I couldn’t find my way, I remind myself to keep moving forward. As my grandfather use to say, “If you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know where you are…put one foot in front of the other.”

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Zebra Farmer

LaShelle

There’s a famous one-line quote that many doctors have heard in medical school that refers to looking for a diagnosis that’s more common than not. “If you hear hoofbeats, remember to think of horses and not of zebras.” The problem is that medically speaking… not everyone is a horse.

Six months after I got married, my husband and I sat down to a large cheese pizza and a movie. We did this little routine every Saturday night to ensure that we made time for one another as much as possible. Rob was stationed in South Korea, and we could never be sure when he would be shipped off for training or getting ready for war.

We lived in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat a few streets over from the Army base with a rice paddy in our back yard. It was our first home together and the minimum requirement that we would be living there (through military contract) lasted at least a year, but possibly longer. None of that mattered so long as we could be together… until the night that changed everything.  

I was positive that I had the stomach flu. By the time the movie ended, I wasn’t feeling so hot. My stomach churned, my face turned pale, and I made several trips to the bathroom to get sick. I had hope within that moment that everything would work itself out. That I would be feeling better again in a couple days.

That’s the funny thing about hope, in the beginning you have a lot of it. Yet as time wears on, it becomes the most dangerous emotion that someone who’s chronically ill can have. When days of being sick turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months… with no end in sight. You begin to lose it. You bargain for your life. Have another hospital stay, see another doctor. Sit down in your 100th exam room and hope has dwindled until there’s nothing left.

When you’re young you start out with the notion that all doctors are smart. You feel as if the world is full of incredible people, and that someone somewhere will know how to fix you. You move on to hoping that there’s a pill to take or a treatment to try that will give you a better quality of life. Yet you settle on symptom management. The ability to have more good days than bad ones… or just any good days at all.

My husband watched me waste away from being vibrantly healthy to counting the bones in my body just from looking at me. I weighed 64 lbs. Just a few pounds shy of the weight my almost eight-year-old boy is now. My body punished me for every morsel of food or liquid that passed my lips, and I was told more than once that I was probably going to die. I was racked with abdominal pain, and I couldn’t prevent myself from throwing up repeatedly no matter how much I begged to make it stop.

I reached a point where I longed for death. It took great effort to get dressed, to brush my hair, or just to walk from one room into the next. Upon trying to make my way to the hospital on base (The TMC), I would sit on the curb and lean away from traffic to avoid getting hit by cars when I passed out. I was transferred to a better hospital by ambulance, where doctors discovered that I had a kidney disease… which had nothing to do with regaining my able to eat.   

I went from having a needle phobia and being terrified of hospitals to showing up to medical exams for regular testing. I was forced into being dependent by allowing my husband to help wash my hair when I couldn’t do it myself. Rob spoon fed me broth or soup when my hands shook too much out of weakness from malnutrition. When he couldn’t be there, and we were back in the states (two years later) my mom helped take care of me.

All the while my husband was forced to continue going on training missions that kept him away from home for weeks at a time. He would stock the refrigerator and pray that I would still be alive by the time he came back home again. I was unrecognizable. He didn’t handle the new adjustment to my health very well. Alcoholism ran in his family, and he relied heavily on that to help him cope. Which began another kind of sickness that we had to fight to get through together.  

I spent nine years of my life more bedridden than not. I fought to avoid feeding tubes and TPN, I tried every medical miracle I could find (sometimes at the detriment to my body and peace of mind) because deep-down I wanted to live. I wanted a full life on my terms without lasting side effects from daily medications or being hooked up to machines that would barely help me survive.

Six months of testing at Mayo Clinic and I was diagnosed with a little-known illness called Gastroparesis. Which is the shortened medical term for stomach paralysis. To this day episodes of what I call GP strike fear and anxiety within my heart. It never fully goes away. It can become more manageable (like it did for me) but for the millions of friends I’ve made over the years through support groups… Gastroparesis doesn’t always get better with time (or in my case… with pregnancy). It can get so much worse.

I have a long list of zebra-like symptoms beyond Gastroparesis. Things that happen to me that can be explained under other diagnoses in which I was given, and things that can’t. I’ve had more than one near death experience and knowing my medical history… I’m sure there will be more. My husband and I have spent thousands of dollars trying to figure everything out only to walk away with less money in our pockets, and no answers to show for it.

One of my favorite primary care physicians I’ve ever had once told me that my medical history was so interesting, he took it to bed with him as reading material. While under his care, I contracted a rare parasite that no one in my area had experienced in almost 45 years. Upon returning to his office for a follow up exam, he shook his head, and we laughed over the absurdity of it together.   

When new doctors are forced into my life because physicians retire or move away, I am coaxed into relaying the bizarre sagas to fresh faces. The jaw-dropping reaction of disbelief is one I’m all-too familiar with. I can tell within the first five minutes of conversation whether that specific doctor can handle my case or not.       

Farm life and motherhood are my reasons for getting out of bed in the morning. There are moments when I am so overcome with pain that it takes everything within me to do the most basic tasks. My ability to run our farm, be a professional photographer, write, and build a small business is accomplished not because I’m young or feeling my best, but because I am resilient.

One of the many roses in my garden.
A picture of me right after I got pregnant. I got worse before I got “better”
I didn’t take pictures of myself very often but I took this one to show how much
weight that I was losing
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Things We Hide

LaShelle

Opening credits roll and the camera zooms in on a group of kids navigating a boat through a series of channels near the ocean. They’re looking for lost treasure and you can’t take your eyes off them because you’re invested. People make books, movies and T.V shows about treasure hunting (Outer Banks on Netflix for example), and viewers of all ages are on the edge of their seat.

My husband and I have very different ideas on what Treasure Hunting looks like. His version entails going through boxes in the sweltering Georgia heat while mine, involves searching for new blooms in my garden. Yet who wouldn’t want to know what’s in that old trunk, locked box, or what’s buried underneath the surface… right? So, when my husband tells me that he wants to go treasure hunting, I can see the appeal even if I’m not in the mood to join him.

X doesn’t mark the spot here and I’m usually groaning when the topic comes up. Yet when Rob has the itch, I know without a doubt that I’m getting roped into helping whether I want to or not. It also means that I am forced to reorganize inventory, so we don’t end up with a ton of junk stored inside our little house.  

Thankfully my husband grasps that even if I’m not nearly as excited as he is, it doesn’t make me any less grateful. Especially when I’m able to donate large quantities of items to those who need them most or furnish our house with unusual finds. Knowing that we possibly helped a single mother, a kid just beginning adulthood, or a low-income family in the process… is a completely different kind of treasure in my opinion. A more valuable one.

This past weekend my husband had the itch and because I knew I was going to be involved in the adventure… I decided to take a more proactive approach. I logged in online and I began to search for storage units that we could compromise on. That’s when I hit the jackpot. We would have to wake up early in order to place our bid using the coffee shop Wi-Fi, but if it all worked out… we would be busy for days.

After reluctantly rising to greet the morning sun, and refreshing the page several times, my night-owl heart fluttered when the winning banner danced across the screen. It’s not quite as glamorous as Storage war’s makes it out to be. That T.V show is dramatized to add a more competitive nature, but I will say that bidding on storage units can be a lucrative side hustle… if it’s done correctly. It’s also, a ton of work but the excitement of discovery is what makes the daunting task feel lighter.

Imagine helping a stranger move. Except that there’s no free pizza, and the payment comes only after you sell the things you find within their belongings. Unboxing, organizing, then packing it all back up again after taking several trips to the local garbage dump… and repeat. The upside (besides selling things) is not having any sentimental ties to the valuables that are in storage because it makes easy work of sorting everything.

It never fails to baffle me when we win a unit that someone has been paying on for years only to find that it’s mostly filled… with bags of garbage. What a let down! Why pay to keep things that clearly belong in a landfill? The hasty departure almost gives off an apocalyptical feel.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, poverty is not the only cause of units being listed for auction. In many instances we have discovered drug addiction to be the primary culprit. This is evident by the number of needles and drug paraphernalia that we find stuffed into old socks and bags of dirty laundry.

Other units have ended up in our possession when the previous owner has passed away. It’s heartbreaking to come across obituaries, yet these units typically contain the most significant treasure troves for just the change we’ve had in our pockets. Gold jewelry, real diamonds, full bedroom sets, brand new sofa’s, leather furniture, kitchen appliances, cell phones, computers and so much more. Stunning antiques, newspaper clippings from world events, old love letters, and items just waiting to be refinished and repurposed.

More gut-wrenching than death are the units that go to auction because of a divorce or jail sentence. Witnessing happier memories though photographs, wedding guest lists, childhood treasures, and High School yearbooks filled with hope for the future, only to see them end up in the rubble of things discarded and left behind. It’s enough to leave you twisting internally and wishing that you could save someone from themselves.

You can learn a lot about people by things they keep. Yet you can learn even more about them from the things they hide. Underneath the family photographs, and ever-changing events throughout an individual’s life, are the items that were once tucked into the back of their closet. Burner flip phones with messages to mistresses. Naughty toys, dirty magazines, and bizarre sex fetishes. We’ve identified cheating spouses in what looked like happy homes and long-term marriages, as well as sex addicts and pill-popping mothers.

Upon discovery it has at times, left me wondering if the people around these human beings knew who they really were. Yet the more I learn about humanity, the more I realize that we all have something to hide. Weather it’s the ugly parts of ourselves, some unusual extracurricular activities, or the things we do when we think that no one is looking… we’re all a little bit guilty of something. We’re all searching for acceptance and forgiveness in one form or another.    

The beauty of losing the stuff that we think is important… is that it makes space in our lives for better and healthier things. Weather it’s surrounding ourselves with the kind of people who lift us to a higher standard or finding a partner who respects healthy boundaries… we all deserve some wiggle room for growth. Who knows, maybe in losing everything, the drug (or sex) addict may finally have the strength they need to get help.

There is also a beauty in old things being made new again. Repurposing discarded items while simultaneously making the lives of other’s just a little bit easier. Perhaps a young mom who couldn’t afford to buy a brand-new pack-and-play, is able to get one because we donated what we found in a storage unit. Maybe a father that couldn’t furnish his house can have a house that’s just as beautiful as anyone else’s because of the furniture we refinished. Or perhaps someone, somewhere found healing from moving on.

The truth of the matter is that while you may not know who’s sitting next to you, I’ll bet that there’s something you regret or have kept hidden yourself. You know exactly what’s buried underneath the surface in your life. The gift is that you’re not alone. It’s never too late to box it up and throw it out.

Ya’ll have never seen my client work. Meet my amazingly talented friend Kayla who was both the makeup artist & the model for this shot that I took in my living room in the middle of summer. Her dress is one of our storage unit finds!
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Stay on the Path

LaShelle

Sometimes I’m forced into managing my expectations. I get an idea in my head about how something should look. A picture of perfection that I attempt to manifest but circumstances out of my grasp humble me.

When we took our family vacation this summer, I thought I’d be feeling my best. I planned for the unexpected by bringing all my medications along, but I told myself that I wasn’t going to need them. We were going to have an amazing time, and I wasn’t going to let my family down.

The guilt of disappointing those you love most when your body refuses to cooperate is one of the hardest feelings to manage. The list of plans you made, go out the window. Hearing your kid try to be understanding even though he’s holding back tears… is devastating. Your husband gripping the steering wheel tight lipped even though he doesn’t blame you, he’s just attempting to manage his own feelings of frustration… it’s gut wrenching. Worse yet, is trying to contain the anger you feel towards yourself.

If you weren’t there, they would be able to tackle all the plans that were made. If you were someone else or had a different body, then you could go with them. If you were healthier. If you were stronger. If you were better. Yet it took a lot for me to accept myself as I am and to know when to call it quits. To know when my body has had enough. After days of limited sleep, camping in icy weather, attempting to hike,  and trying to stretch out in the car, my body was telling me that I couldn’t go on anymore.

We were walking together on a boardwalk on the top of a volcano. One of the largest volcanos in the United States and Nikolai couldn’t stop asking questions. Steam was rising out of these amazing blue pools. Water, mud, and other organic material was frothing along the bank. On our way to see these spectacular sights, a HUGE fountain of water shot up into the sky and shocked the crowd of people.

Big signs said things like “Enter at your own risk.”

“Caution hot thermal temperatures.”

“Unstable ground. Stay on the path.”

As we were walking and reading the labels on the different phenomenon’s surrounding us, a Hispanic man with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes decided to step off the platform. His feet shuffled across forbidden earth and bubbles formed around the souls of his shoes. Nikolai gasped clutching my hand tighter out of concern. The man proceeded to bend at the waist and put his face inches above the fountain that had gone off a few moments prior.

“What do you think you’re doing?”  My husband said sternly.

“It doesn’t look that hot to me.” The man smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

“What about it doesn’t look hot to you? The fact that it’s boiling water? The signs telling you to stay on the path? Or the fact that it launched like a rocket as we were walking up to see it? Do you seriously need the flesh on your face to melt off, and life-flight to haul your ass out of here before you’re able to admit that you’re standing on top of a volcano?”

Anger rippled across my husband’s face. Nikolai’s eyes widened, the confrontation had him feeling unnerved. The man just laughed and got back onto the platform. He made his way past us, a swagger to his gate. He was undeniably full of confidence… as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred even though he risked his life. My husband shook his head in disgust and strangers murmured under their breath.

“This is why we respect nature and follow the rules.” I said with an unamused expression.

“What was that guy thinking mom!” Nikolai wondered out loud.

“I don’t know, but he almost ruined it for everyone.”

A chilling sweat broke over my body even though I had burrowed into my sleeping bag like taco meat inside a burrito. I couldn’t stop shaking but my body was on fire. It was confusing. I hunted for a bottle of water inside our tent to help me swallow my pills. I didn’t want to wake my family. My bones throbbed; my stomach churned. So many of my chronic illnesses began hitting me all at the same time. I worried that I might not make it to the restroom and wished I had a hot bath available.

The signs had been there, I just didn’t want to read them. The exhaustion, the fact that I was struggling to hike and opt for staying in the car. I waited alone for my family to see the amazing things we had driven so far to set eyes on. I wanted to be with them, but I had pushed myself and I could feel the breakdown starting to happen. My head feeling light and dizzy, the worry I felt over making my way back to the car. Wondering as I walked if I was possibly going to pass out.

I had pushed through and now it was the end of me and the plans I fought so hard to create. The medicine wasn’t working this time and the only way to recover would be to get a hotel room and sleep heavily for the next day or more. The thought of missing out on our last adventure broke my heart. It would break Rob’s and Nikolai’s too. I tried to put off the inevitable, I attempted to sleep, but I ended up getting sick in the campground restroom. My ability to spend another night fighting the elements had come to an end. It was time to head home whether I wanted to go or not.

Nikolai stifled a sob in the back seat of the SUV. He wanted to be brave for me. We had one last amazing day planned but I just couldn’t make it happen. His little arms were crossed over his chest, I could see the rise and fall of his breath weighing heavily. We had packed up our tent and all our things before our last night in Yellowstone was through. We had come face to face with grizzly bears, black bears, bison, elk, five point bucks, and so much more. We saw old faithful, and some spectacular waterfalls. We had ONE last place we wanted to visit but it just wasn’t going to happen. We had one last animal encounter on our list but that wasn’t hopeful now either.

I should have paced myself better, I should have listened to my body more. Yet I wasn’t reckless like the man standing above the hot springs was. Recklessness would have closed our trip with a hospital visit instead of heading home a day early. Stupidity would have been going hiking and needing someone to carry me to the car instead of staying behind, wishing that things were different.

“Don’t feel bad mom. I know you can’t help it. I’m just disappointed.” Nikolai sighed.

My husband gave me a sympathetic smile and held my hand. It was hard to see in the dark. Winding around twisted roads and praying we didn’t hit something as twilight descended. It took over an hour to find our way to the exit. We made a quick stop at the restrooms before entering a canyon.

Our headlights were turned to the high beam setting once we pulled back onto the highway. Something shook the tall grass and darted across the pavement. To our wonderment, a white tipped tail, red fur, and two pointed ears bounced to the other side. A breathtaking red-tailed fox with copper highlights was on the hunt for his dinner. The final encounter we hoped to have… spectacularly checked off our list, all because I stayed on the path and respected the signs.   

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

A Life Fulfilled

LaShelle

Earth chunks soared over my shoulder. Some fell short only to land onto my itchy scalp. My shirt was soaked all the way through, my jeans… pressed so tightly against my skin that in order to remove them, they had to be peeled below my hips. Once I tossed the last of the carnage into the compost pile, I am rewarded by sinking into a hot lavender bath. I can almost taste the icy bottle of water that I left in the freezer before it’s pressed against my sun kissed lips. It only takes about an hour for me to get the job done because I am determined to get it over with.

The war on weeds is my biggest gardening frustration to date, yet I feel so empowered and satisfied when I’ve finished the task. I wait until the sun begins to set after a small rainstorm has loosened the soil and then… I attack! I rip unwanted stems out by the head and dig for their roots with my hands until the muscles in my legs feel too wobbly to keep me in a squat position. Sweat pours from my brow and my hair lacks luster when I’m done, but tiny red curls form at the nape of my neck.

The long-term reward of weeding around all the beautiful things in my garden is spying brand-new buds on my camellias the next morning. Eagerly waiting for my dahlias to make their appearance and having the room I needed to tuck new blooms into the paradise I have created with my own two hands. I use the hose to fill up my mud smeared watering can, and then I take a little walk clutching a pair of nippers against my chest.

Stormy and Waddles, (our ducks) are usually taking a stroll as well. I typically need to wave them away from my vegetables or they will use them as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sometimes I’m forced to chase them off because they like to crush my flowers as they walk and nibble leaves and petals off my blooms. During our big family trip this summer, I received a call from one of my best friend’s informing me that Waddles wasn’t a drake (a male duck) like I had originally suspected.

Waddles had laid a clutch of eggs near Stormy and the two ducks were terrorizing my farm sitters. The girls were determined to have babies, but I didn’t have a drake old enough to provide them with fertilized eggs. This problem also caused havoc for Harlow (our big black and white paint) and Caspian (our miniature donkey). While trying to eat their feed, Stormy and Waddles would launch themselves at the equine and horrify them by nipping at their hooves. It was hysterical to watch the boys retreat to a corner of the pasture and eye the ducks suspiciously out of fear for their lives. Two large animals at the mercy of two angry females.

Izzy (my daughter of sorts) made a wonderful suggestion. She recommended buying some baby ducks and in the cover of darkness, to swap the duck eggs in exchange for ducklings. This way the girls get the babies their hearts desired, and the little ducklings get the mothers they never had. So, I went to Tractor Supply, and I carefully selected and bought four tiny, orphaned puffballs. I had never witnessed an adoption like this before and I couldn’t wait to see the outcome.

I sat on a log nearby and watched the shadows in the forest grow longer. I listened to the chuck-will’s-widow and heard an owl shake off the cobwebs of slumber. A daddy-long legs with two missing limbs crept over the dirt but when blackness encompassed me, I made my move. Moose (our farm dog) had stolen Waddle’s eggs earlier in the day, but thankfully I was able to snatch some from Stormy. Izzy had told me that the two ducks would share and raise the babies together if the imprinting was fruitful.

Stormy tucked those babies underneath her wings as if they had been hers all along. The relief in her body language was evident. Her purpose in life, fulfilled. The next day my neighbor drove by with her granddaughter and watched the ducklings play in a puddle with their two mothers. I myself stopped mid-snip of a flower stem to witness the binding love between adopted ducklings and their protective mothers. Rather than chasing two ducks out of my garden beds, I was now having to watch my step and encourage six to find another place to feast.

I adopted a love for gardening in the same way my grandfather adopted me. I didn’t have a father who was present in my life when I was young until my mom meet my stepfather. My childhood after their marriage became even more complicated but that’s a story for another day. My papa was the one (besides my mom and grandmother) who was always there for me no matter what. One of my most favorite memories was of holding his finger in my fist as he let me pick an armful of flowers.

He had sewn the seeds inside a drainage area that was fenced off and locked up when he worked as a ground’s keeper for a local hospital near Chicago. The skill seemed to come naturally to him while it took a long time for me to learn how to have a “green thumb”. It’s funny that I say that because the secret to growing beautiful things is simply… sunshine, food, and water. I reached a point in my adult life where I had a moment of clarity and suddenly an achievable passion blossomed. My papa however… he could grow things in the middle of the desert.

Long before I was good at growing things, my husband knew that simply pulling over on the side of the road to pick a bouquet of wildflowers was the way to my heart. I can’t imagine what people driving by must have been thinking. I wonder if they sat and watched as a tall man with broad shoulders, in full military uniform stood alone in a field of flowers as he carefully selected which blooms to add to the handful. They probably assumed he was in marital trouble. As a friend pointed out to me not long ago, my husband understands my love language and he knew what would make me happy. He still does.

Before that green thumb kicked in, I used to dream about having a secret garden full of beautiful flowers. It helped me cope with events in my life that were out of my control when I was young. Underneath my bedroom window a large cluster of daffodils bloomed and there was (to this day) the biggest lilac bush I had ever seen near the edge of our property. I would pick clusters and stash vases on every available surface. It was my way of bringing light into the darkness. Storm clouds brewed within the walls of that house. It was beautiful on the outside, but what lied within was destruction.

As an adult, I have surrounded myself with people who bring peace into my life. One of my most precious friends is a woman named Heather. When I was feeling especially lost with yet another health crisis, she invited me to see the farm where she worked and encouraged me to bring along a bucket for cut flower clippings. Her hard work and encouragement inspired me. She had created an oasis of living things with a few seeds, some bulbs, and a lot of hard work. The beauty of it breathed new life into my soul again.

“Do you think that I could have a garden like this one?” I asked her.

“Girl, I believe that you can do anything!”

My first year growing cut flowers was so successful that I made floral arrangements and gave them away weekly. Seeing how much joy it brought into the lives of other people had me researching ideas to improve my output. One of the first steps I needed to take was to expand our farm. We succeeded in doing that in March and rebranded our farm with the name Everpine Forest & Farm. This year we’ve cleared trees and worked to create a new pasture space that would allow us to move the equine around.

Harlow’s original pasture has served as my new gardening space. This spring I bought out four stores of their cut flower seeds. I planted hundreds of dollars in seeds and bulbs. Most of the time it was a matter of experimenting to see what worked and what didn’t, but each day taught me something new. I now know that next year I need to stagger my blooms by their growing season to help me have flowers to cut year around. I also learned that it’s best to keep each type of flower together with its own kind, so they don’t have to compete for sunlight.

I have discovered that like any crop… spacing is EVERYTHING. Rather than planting thick rows like I did this year, I need to plant smaller rows with a narrow space in between so that I can walk in and gather blooms without trampling, tripping, or dancing my way around them. I’ve learned that it’s better (and cheaper) to buy seeds and bulbs in bulk than it is to buy from your local Walmart, nursery, or dollar general. Best of all… I learned that in order to keep my output flowing efficiently, a greenhouse is a must have essential.

While all these changes are in the works to help me improve next year’s garden, I am thankful for the joy that this year’s garden has brought with it. I look forward to planning and building our greenhouse, and I can hardly contain my excitement regarding my future cut flower stand. I have high hopes of donating arrangements to people in hospitals and nursing homes who need a little extra love to lift their spirits.

A couple weeks ago Heather called to tell me how proud she was of my hard work. To my delight she told me that she was envious of my flower garden this year! This woman is the most selfless and hardest working human (besides my husband) I’ve ever meet. Her house is covered in plants, and she basically helps grow lovely things for other people even though she works three jobs and has no spare time. I’ll never forget her kindness in sharing seeds and bulbs with me to help get me started.

I can’t adequately put into words how much sunshine floods my veins when I’m standing in the middle of something tangible that I thought I could only dream of accomplishing. As a summer storm unleashes above me, I’m laughing as I chase six ducks out of my haven. I have rose petals plastered to my cheek. Rain is dripping off the tip of my nose, and my butterfly top is drenched as I attempt to carry a watering can stuffed with blooms up to the house. My favorite pair of nippers are clutched close to my heart and I’m overflowing with fulfillment.

One of my most recent arrangements from my garden 🪴
My magnolia that I planted a couple years ago.
These beauties took my breath away this spring
An arrangement that I made for my neighbor
I had rows of seedlings lining every countertop in my house and covering my porch.
Created with roses that I grew myself
A special delivery
Another bouquet that I was delivering
I hand deliver to our local coffee shop as well
Roses from my garden and some rather beautiful weeds that I was trying to identify
They’re everywhere!
It’s hard to see everything that’s in here but there’s rudbeckia, poppies, zinnias, marsh pink, cosmos, sunflowers, cornflowers, sweet asylum, marigolds, Asian forget-me-nots, cowcockle and so much more! Not to mention I planted a bunch of various bulbs, roots, about a hundred dahlias (no joke), and peonies in another area closer to my house.
Stormy and her ducklings
Stormy, Waddles & the youngsters (plus one chicken) playing in a mud puddle near the creek
My favorite butterfly top!
New business logo!
Nikolai & Moosey (our farm dog)
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Fire Embers and Glass Lakes

LaShelle

It’s funny how farm life follows me no matter where I am. Like the bits of hay that I find tucked inside my bra and pushed into the creases of my pockets. Or in this case… a couple of fireflies that hitched a ride and found themselves trapped inside our SUV in a state where they wouldn’t otherwise survive. The tiny yellow lights flashed and caught my attention as they clung to the windshield near my visor. My husband and I pulled off the highway to switch places and as we did so, I released them… knowing full well that they were doomed.

At home, the woods light up after dusk and if I’m not wearing my glasses… they look like hot embers dancing towards the treetops in the darkness. On an especially warm night, their numbers increase and if you catch them from the corner of your eye, you’ll be convinced of a raging forest fire taking place among the pines. These are the things I miss when I’m away, even if I’m surrounded by some of the most impressive scenes. Thankfully, it makes the homecoming even sweeter.

I woke up early because the chill in the air was nibbling on my numb toes and the birds were especially cheerful. Their shrill voices felt the same as stepping on Nikolai’s Legos with bare feet… except it was happening inside my throbbing head. I yawned and stretched my cramped legs as far as the floorboard of the car allowed them to go. When the promise of adventure glimmers underneath exhaustion and homesickness, you override your senses to radiate a joyful demeanor that’s infectious.

My sleeping bag had been pulled tight around my ears and I found it ridiculously complicated to wiggle my way out. I tried to look outside to see where we were but there was too much condensation. Droplets turned into rivers that ate up larger droplets until the glass meet rubber. I had to take the sleeve of my sweater and use it to buff out a peephole. Grey rock formations enveloped a rest stop where like us, rows of cars had parked to get off the highway sometime throughout the night.

The cold wetness on my sleeve mixed with the insane temperature drop raised the small fibers on my arm. My skin puckered like a freshly plucked chicken and sent a shiver that shook my bones. I leaned over to turn the key in the ignition and the dash lit up to inform me that it was a frosty twenty-six degrees outside. From the heatwaves we had in Georgia to a winter wonderland, my equilibrium felt distorted, but I was glad to be here in this magnificent place.

A place where green grass stretched out like an ocean, bending and rippling like waves against the shore. Only rather than hot sandy beaches, we were meet instead by cold and jagged mountains and water plummeting thousands of feet to the ground from melting glaciers. We arrived holding our faith in our hand like cowboys hold their hats. We couldn’t get the website for the national park to work. Reservations typically made 180 days in advance except… the sight would crash.

I would refresh the page and get on at eight in the morning per recommendation from Glacier’s Facebook page. Yet so would thousands of other visitors and only two hundred tickets were passed out daily. I kept trying anyway.

Page refresh… sight down.

Page refresh… tickets sold out.

We came with the hope of getting in but there was no certainty about it. Having driven thirty-one hours one way on prayer alone that I would be able to show my son and husband places from my youth that I visited again only in my dreams. I’ve taken more complicated leaps of faith before. I clicked on the campsite list, but I had pretty much given up. A lump of doubt formed in my belly and nibbled on my expectations like a rat. My husband was feeling moody. The thought of coming all this way to… be forced to sit outside the gate? It was heartbreaking.

Then there was this voice in my head about an hour and a half past eight… it said refresh it again. So, I listened. There it was… an available campsite listed for one night. My fingers shook with anticipation as I put in our credit card information and begged my phone to not loose cell reception. I hit the button to finalize the payment and forgot to breathe. Success at last! Time and time again, God proves to me that leaps of faith are the only way to live.  

I couldn’t stop photographing one scene after the next. I felt a lot like Julia Andrews during that famous scene in The Sound of Music. Arms spread wide, wind catching my cardigan instead of the hem of a dress. Nikolai and my husband would pull off to the side of the road to pick handfuls of wildflowers for me that I had never seen before. I had to photograph some of them just so I could look them up later and decide if it was possible to grow them at home. I think I would need an icebox for these blooms to survive on my farm.

The greenery of the Rocky Mountains is so different to that of North Georgia. In comparison, Glacier National Park looked like a desert. Not because it was without lush beauty… but because Georgia’s lush greenery is on steroids. We own a mosaic of trees while Glacier’s trees need to be able to survive drastic climate changes and avalanches. Furthermore, there’s a line where things stop being able to grow altogether due to the altitude. They don’t measure things by sea level but instead, by above or below tree line.

The campsite was… everything I had hoped for and yet beyond what I had expected. We were snuggled into a valley surrounded by silver cliffs with gleaming tinsel of white. Glee bubbled inside the way it used to on Christmas eve when I was young. A good portion of Highway to the Sun was shutdown due to flooding but we spent so much time soaking in what we had access to that it didn’t feel like we were missing out.

Upon parking to photograph thunderous falls, we took our picnic lunch and our pack of essentials on a hike with us. I put about three hundred more photos into my phone’s memory bank and had Tallulah help guide me down a path with a no-pets-allowed sign. Thank goodness she’s as well trained of a service dog as she is because she had to listen to commands carefully when it came to crossing narrow bridges. One bridge had water that leapt out to kiss our ankles. She almost attempted to turn around, but I told her to stop and move forward instead.

A lesser companion would have knocked themselves off the bridge and down into the frothing rapids out of fear. Not my girl! My heart swelled with pride even though my nerves jittered behind my confidence. A steep and tricky hike brought us to yet another waterfall that rewarded us by spraying a fine mist and cooling us down. Despite the weather at night, during the day it was rather balmy. There were lakes so clear that they reflected the blue sky like a mirror, and it made me wonder if that was how everything use to look before our world was polluted by humanity.

We decided to tuck in for the night a bit early (or so we thought) and that’s when I noticed something unusual. I felt exhausted but the sun was still up. Hours went by and twilight lingered. I couldn’t tell if I was that sleep deprived or if maybe we had gone to bed earlier than we had expected. My phone battery was low, but I had enough charge to see that the sun didn’t fully set here until around eleven at night. I didn’t remember it being that way when I was young, but it made nightly trips to the restroom easier to tackle and less likely to run into grizzlies. The Black bears in North Georgia are typically less confrontational.

Rob (my husband) had a difficult and bitter night when the freezing weather crept in again, whereas Nikolai and I possibly stole his blankets by accident and stayed rather toasty. The next morning, we packed up camp so that we could make the trip around the outskirts of Glacier. We were on a family mission to see my favorite place of all, McDonald Lake.

The odd timing of things working out beautifully continued to carry us throughout our journey. With road closures around the lake made of glass, Rob suggested we stop by a large log cabin hotel. We had driven past it at first, but it looked to be the easiest access point to arriving at the bank of colorful stones. There at the edge of the lake, sat a kiosk advertising guided ferry and motorboat rides. While the ferry was overpriced (and fully booked) … three motorboats sat tied to the pier like an open invitation.

I wasn’t sure how Tallulah would handle this kind of adventure, but I intended on finding out. I tied lifejackets around our midsections and slathered so much sunscreen onto our skin that we looked rather ghostly. Despite being noticeably uncomfortable, Tulla got into the boat and once she settled down… the exploring was underway. The heat was made tolerable by the breeze we created while flying across the water. I took pictures with my cellphone, yet the scenery was so breathtaking that friends of mine thought it wasn’t real.

I was able to photograph everything in a way that was impossible to do when I was younger. To my knowledge, boats weren’t allowed back then in order to avoid pollution. There were also spectacular ice caves to explore when I was last in this magnificent place and in its current state, 80% of the glaciers are long gone now. Even though the water wasn’t as crystal clear as I remembered it being… the views and images that I got from the boat will forever be something I cherish.

I’ll admit that it was hard to pull myself away from the beauty and serenity that we found here. The only thing that made leaving easier was knowing that Yellowstone (and the list I had created in my head of all the animal encounters I hoped we would have), was our second to last stop before going home again. Nikolai was most excided about witnessing living volcanos. I had been forced into creating multiple science experiments with him at home over the years. As we drove onward through the night… I spent time listing facts about what awaited around the bend.

Our view from the motorboat 🚤
Adventures with these 3 are always the highlight of my life.
Cellphone pictures only!
This flower is called a bear tooth. It’s a spectacular bloom!
Nikolai is king of the Rockies!
The sun like a spotlight over the lake ❤️
The stunning waterfall we hiked to
Rob & Nikolai on our way back to the car
Tallulah with her service dog vest stuffed with wildflowers that Rob and Niki picked for me 🥰
Aren’t those silver rocks amazing?
I couldn’t believe I caught this video of them. Absolutely hysterical!
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

The Challenge with Connection

LaShelle

Most people are shocked when I tell them that we don’t have access to internet out here. I must be honest; it was a learning curve for me as well when we first moved to our little farm. It’s not because we don’t want to pay for it, but rather because no working internet provider will bring it this far out of the way. Our town Facebook page is littered with posts about how the only satellite that provides internet is down time and time again.

The town grocery store puts up a sign asking people to pay in cash and Nikolai’s school has internet access issues too. When you live deep in the woods like we do, there’s no point in paying for something that rarely works. Large pines, poplars, and oak tree’s spread their limbs and reach to the heavens causing the signal to be disrupted. It’s almost as if nature is blocking the path for a reason.

The more I read the news and catch up with old friends on Facebook, the more thankful I become for the interruption. My ability to get into stupid debates when something rubs me the wrong way is limited to moments when out of nowhere my phone suddenly receives two bars of LTE. As soon as I’m invested in riveting conversation… the moment has passed and I’m unable to respond again. Instead, I use my phone as a paperweight. I listen to Audible, pull up pre-downloaded books on Kindle, or just leave it to charge while I spend the afternoon in my garden.

We don’t live “off grid” but I’ve come to enjoy my life being this way. When I want to upload a blog post and catch up with other writers, I must drive to the coffee shop to connect or wait until I need to go get something from one of the bigger towns nearby. I often pull up Facebook while I’m picking up feed for my animals. In other words, I schedule time to use the internet and my time is limited.

About six months ago a man came and knocked on my door to ask me if I wouldn’t mind putting my dogs up so he could access the powerlines. His bald head was a glossy glow in the morning light, and he had the kind of nose that was thick through the bridge but flat around the nostrils. He was doing research for an internet company who was determined to “bring knowledge and connection” to rural towns that are hard to reach. Apparently, there is a government contract for this kind of thing.

“Knowledge and connection.” I think towns like mine have more to teach the world about knowledge and connection than the millions of people who live in large cities and never look up from their phones. I’ve read articles that detail the problems that social media has caused on the mental health of billions of people. So much so, that humanity likes to boast about taking social media breaks (which I have done myself).  

One of my biggest accomplishments was the time I deleted all my social media apps from my phone for six months. I didn’t miss a single thing. I did, however, enjoy more phone calls from loved ones. They made my day burn brighter. Friends reached out with cellphone numbers so we could chat and there was far less confusion about the tone in which something was taken because it was a lot easier to clarify misunderstandings.

The gentlemen from the internet company asked me if I was excited at the possibility of getting internet. His brown eyes lit up with the prospect of gifting something of such great importance to most people. I attempted to smile.

“Not really!” I replied. His bushy salt and pepper eyebrows furrow at my response, so I elaborated.

“Why bother with that when I have all of this?” I reached my arms wide to gesture to our 11.2 acres.

He didn’t get it. My niece and nephew who live near Chicago didn’t get it either when they first came to visit. It took time for them to see the value in how we do things out here. I took them hiking on our farm, drove them to see an amazing waterfall, and took them to an empty field where they could learn to drive for the first time. The learning curve hit them harder than it did for me. Yet by the time they had to go home… they were wishing they had what we have here.

It all comes back to connection and real connection doesn’t come from a screen. It comes from immersing yourself into your environment. The feeling of your bare feet touching solid earth, seeing a creek turn into a waterfall, holding hands with the ones you love, and listening to the soothing voice of a friend. Salivating over an amazing meal and mentally stimulating your brain with conversation that bubbles over into laughter.

The internet can’t provide substance for you and knowing a lot about the world is meaningless without experience. People were social distancing long before Covid ever came into play, we all just got better at it. It’s a lot harder to handle the news when you’ve lost sight of things that have real value, and we can’t expect to change people’s points of view without first being able to connect with them.  

Upon returning home from our amazing family vacation and having the alone time to sit and reflect on everything I have learned… I continue to come back to the topic of connection. It doesn’t take living in the middle of nowhere to find it (though I truly believe that it helps prevent us from slipping into old habits). You can limit your time social distancing exactly where you are.

My hope in writing this is that these thoughts of mine will touch someone who is as exhausted as I am. That perhaps they will read what was on my heart and have a desire to take a leap into connection with me. Challenge yourself to put your phone down, to limit your internet access and use the extra quality time this week to read a book that shakes you. Grab a loved one and hike to somewhere you’ve never been. You don’t have to be in shape for it… Lord knows I’m not!   

If you’ve decided to commit to doing this with me… I want to read about it! Write me a comment to tell me what worked for you and what didn’t. You don’t have to make it an everyday thing, just circle one day a week on your calendar. If you can’t do a full day, try an hour or two. Contact some friends or family and see if they can’t meet up with you or give gardening a go. Most importantly of all… share how this challenge made you feel, not just with me but with others.

Nikolai standing in the rain on an empty mountain road. WiFi free, making connections
My usual work spot is in a quaint little place down the road from my farm but since Izzy is working today… I popped by to brighten her day and say hello.

Side note: I had originally planned on posting more about my incredible vacation today but in light of what happened with Canada loosing internet service… I felt this was a better fit for this week. I’ll post amazing images, videos, and stories next week instead. Hopefully I didn’t disappoint anyone!

Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

An Impossible Task

LaShelle

Other than the white noise of Rob and Nikolai snoring, it was rather quiet inside our vehicle. Tallulah had her wet nose pushed against the glass so she could keep an eye on untrustworthy strangers. I could see the reflection of the flashing crimson sign from the “Come and Go” gas station lighting up her peripheral. We had laid all the seats down and blown up the air mattress in the back of the SUV with the hopes of re-balancing our sleep schedule.

Despite the exhaustion, it was the smell of equine sweat clinging to the breeze that woke me. It felt out of place within the truck stop’s parking lot until I realized that there was a farm nearby. We popped the trunk open for better airflow and let our tangled feet dangle out the back. The temperature was near perfection but It’s hard to sleep when there is an undertow of excitement crashing over your psyche. A crack of thunder strangled the peace. Darkness danced with lightening, and the anticipation of damp earth hung like a curtain in the atmosphere.

My stomach lurched with electricity, not from the storm but from the adventure of it all. The ability to witness firsts with my family, to see things that I saw as a child with the eyes and humility of an adult. I wanted to etch every detail to memory. Thirty-one hours of driving just to get to our first destination and that didn’t include the trip back or the stops we planned to take along the way. My friends thought we were crazy but, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy the mountains… is to get lost in them.

With only a couple hours of sleep in our pocket and first morning light on the horizon, we visited the restrooms and refueled with caffeine. The first fifteen hours of driving had been uneventful but from this moment forward there would be an endless supply of amazement. You can’t (rather you shouldn’t) visit Glacier National Park without stopping by to see things along the way, like the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. There’s even an amazing town from the 1800’s where you can visit the past as beautifully preserved as if it were the present, and you wouldn’t want to miss a little town called Walldrug where you can buy a cup of coffee for a nickel.

My beautiful boy had a history book opened across his lap one day. He was sitting on his bed flipping through the pages when I heard him gasp. His blue eyes wide in wonder as his fingertips graced a picture of some faces that had been carved into stone. His mouth left agape, and his expression full of questions that had me pausing in the threshold to wait for his thoughts to materialize.

“Hey mom? What is this?”

“That would be Mount Rushmore.”

“Is it a real place?”

“It’s very much a real place. In fact, I’ve been there… more than once.”

“YOU’VE BEEN THERE?! CAN I GO TOO?! I want to see it!”

“Not today sweet boy, but I promise that someday, I’ll take you.”

I laughed a little as I walked back to the kitchen. I knew how far away Mount Rushmore was, and I had been making plans with my husband to take Nikolai to see it for a long time. He had been so disappointed that afternoon. You would think the little conversation we had back then would have prepared me for how overwhelmed with emotion he would became when he saw it for himself… but it didn’t. After bounding up the steps towards the mountain cliffs, he threw his arms into the sky and leapt as he whooped for joy.

“MOM! I’VE WANTED TO SEE THIS FOR MY WHOLE LIFE!”

“I CAN’T BE-WEVE THAT YOU TOOK ME HERE!”

“LOOK AT IT MOM! It’s so be-woo-di-ful!”

People all around us found his excitement just as intoxicating as my husband and I did. Nikolai’s slight lisp made everything he said that much more enduring. It was demanded of me that I take his picture immediately and explain how and why the president’s faces were carved into stone. I did what was asked of me with gusto. I have a passion for history and lovely places.

Earlier that morning, hours before reaching Rushmore, I could feel my palms turn icy cold with a cool sweat. The sun was skipping off the copper highlights in Nikolai’s hair. He held daddy’s hand tightly as he gazed into the steep canyon of the Badlands. Wind so strong it tugged at the curls in my ponytail and threatened to push me over the embankment.

Every inch my family took towards the edge had Tallulah and I feeling anxious for their safety. She cried out for them, and I was forced to tighten my grip on the black lead that kept her at my side. I’m terrified of heights, and I knew she was picking up on my concern as she had been trained to do. I considered what early Native American’s and settlers must have thought when they saw the Badlands for the first time.

Void of walkways and trails to navigate through it and the extra miles it must have added to their trip in order to go around. Did it feel daunting? An impossible task with the wicked heat of the sun beating on the crown of their heads as blustery hot winds spooked their horses. Did they find a way to work with the land or did they lose loved ones? It was within that moment of staring into the emptiness that I felt myself being restored from my busy life.

I get wrapped up in to-do lists, maintaining my health, and being a partner to my husband as we attempt to make ends meet. I lose my ability to sit quietly, to allow the strong winds of life to soften my rough edges but not to break me. I am horrible at trying to maintain control over events in my life but as I get older, I’m finding a newfound freedom in weathering the storm. In allowing myself to let go of things I cannot control; I have discovered a depth of peace that is unmatched.

We slid back into the car, and I realized that sometimes we all need to slip away in order to see the bigger picture. Two days into a ten-day trip and I was feeling more like myself already. The tension released from my shoulders when I allowed spontaneity to take the lead rather than trying to micromanage our plans. With an audiobook keeping us on our toes, a cup of hot chocolate in my hand, and an empty road kissing day two goodbye… I could hardly wait to see what would come next.

Taken with my cellphone if you can believe that!
My two favorite people in the entire world
Mount Rushmore… look at Nikolai’s face!
Our feet hanging out the trunk at the truck stop
Can you imagine trying to cross this?!
These two sleeping in the back seat
Just us and an empty road at the end of day two.
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Thief of Joy

LaShelle

I can feel sweat sliding down my neck and slipping between my breasts underneath my shirt. Its continual dribble is saturating my bra with the scent of salt crystals. My nostrils flair because I’m worried that if I can smell it, someone else probably can too. I am convinced that my brain is swelling and smooshing against the confines of my skull. It must be that way because my mood has soured and I’m feeling forgetful, mouthy, and blatantly rude.

The day began with such promise but turned rotten when amid running errands during a Georgia heat wave, the air conditioning went out on my SUV. Even with all four windows tucked away and the breeze attempting to cool things down, I can feel my skin cooking like a rotisserie chicken set aside at Walmart. I don’t do golden brown though, I only do red. The flecks on my shoulders become more prominent but the rest of me looks like the underside of a baboon.

My husband kept talking. I would ask a question and he would snap at me while my son would repeat himself… and repeat… and repeat. My mind wandered and drifted off to laying on my bed at home in my underwear like a starfish. Air conditioning on blast, an iced tea in my free hand… or maybe it was an ice cream. My mouth watered at the thought of anything cold being pressed against my lips and lingering on my tongue. I would love for the water from a frozen swimming pool to graze across my skin right about now.  

“Maybe it’s a problem with the compressor… are you even listening to me?” He interrogated.

I wasn’t. The blowers were turned on but the only thing coming out of them were flames that were aimed directly into my face. He kept them turned all the way up because he had spent hours sitting in the Auto Zone parking lot messing around with parts underneath the hood. He wanted to see if he had fixed it yet, he hadn’t. He was doing it for me, but I just wanted it to be over. The vents stayed on blast while I was in the fast lane of being driven to insanity.

I wanted to feel ashamed for not considering the homeless people who have tents tucked underneath bridges in Atlanta. Yet I was selfishly focused on my heat intolerant body and my ability to avoid passing out so I could make it home… so I could identify as a pink naked starfish. The trip to the laundromat proved to be equally fruitless. I tucked my computer underneath my arm hoping to connect to the Wi-Fi, download some movies, write, and perhaps cool off a little. The problem was that their air conditioning had gone out too.

They used an extension cord to provide power to a massive fan as a way of circulating air flow and making things more comfortable. Unfortunately, a woman who didn’t have enough quarters for a dryer had emptied her wet belongings into the bottom of a cart while hanging her fitted bedding from the corners of the rack on top. The speed of the fan turned her bedding into a parachute that blocked the cool wind tunnel from caressing anyone or anything other than the clothes she wanted dried.

Normally I pay close attention to my body language but since I had lost my ability to sympathize, my foul mood and disgust was written clearly across my face. I should have considered that perhaps the woman was a truck driver, or someone who (in this current economy) was forced to live out of her car. It’s also possible that like me, she felt so delusional from the grotesque Georgia heat that she had forgotten all about the fact that they would dry rather quickly if she had only chosen to hang them up outside. I however didn’t think about any of those things before tossing dirty looks in her direction. She was the thief of my joy after all.

She tucked her yellow locks behind her ear, and I thought that it looked a lot like crunchy instant ramen noodles, so I made another face. I didn’t feel particularly proud of myself for thinking that way, but I was angry. Nor did I feel good about judging her life choices, yet I wouldn’t dare choose to wear white spandex in public on a day like this. As I sat there making mental notes, I assumed that perhaps this heat had her looking at me in the same light… or not. I didn’t care.

The woman stammered an apology. She tucked her sunny blue shirt into her leggings and fiddled with her hands as she tripped over excuses for stealing my happiness. It was too late; my back was turned, and I wasn’t listening. We loaded our small laundry pile into our plastic basket and onto the sticky leather seats of my car so we could head home. Relief at last!

As I lay like a naked starfish across the length of my bed, I didn’t radiate with joy like I thought I would. I felt cooler, I felt more levelheaded, but the only one I had to blame was myself. Rather than thinking rationally about my mood or my actions I allowed how I felt to determine how I treated people like my husband, my son, and even strangers within my orbit.

I could have scrounged my car for spare quarters to share. I could have thanked my husband for standing in the heat to rescue me even though he was frustrated too. I could have set a better example for my son. It’s hard to humble myself and ask for forgiveness. To point out that I didn’t do my best and that sometimes how I treat others is a dead give-away to what’s going on inside my head. My car runs. I have a house to go home to and yet, I was the thief today.

My blueberry lavender mental health milkshake 😋
My mental health reading list for this summer & for our big family trip to Glacier National park 🥰❤️
Critters, Chaos & the Occasional Corpse

Of Kisses and Magic

LaShelle

The other night when Nikolai was racing through the house with his fuzzy navy socks on and one of his favorite toy cars in hand, he slipped. As his legs gave out from underneath him and his open palms slapped laminate flooring, he skinned his knee, and knocked the breath from his lungs. When it finally caught up to him, he was a heap of tears and a sobbing disaster. I put aside cooking dinner for a moment by removing heat from the pan so I could comfort him. Yet as soon as he felt calm again… he said something that left me grappling for words I couldn’t hold on to.   

“I’m so sorry you hurt yourself, can I kiss it to make it feel better?” I asked, my heart overflowing with empathy.

Sniffling he replied, “I know that’s not how it works mom. Kisses aren’t magic. They can’t make me feel better. My body just needs time to heal up!” He smiled sympathetically and embraced me in a hug before emptying my arms to resume playing.

I sat there frowning for a moment feeling as though my heart had somehow shattered within the walls of my chest. Kisses aren’t magic. The more I turned it over in my mind, the deeper the notion cut me. I tried to resume cooking and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of despair. It wasn’t just the loss of childhood innocents that struck me so profoundly, though that was part of it. What really got to me, was the fact that the statement wasn’t true. At least it wasn’t true for me and in my heart, I felt that it wouldn’t be true for him either.  

I didn’t know what to expect when Rob met me at the airport a week before New Years Eve. We had been talking over the phone for months. My parents had screamed at me when they saw the phone bills that we had run up due to our non-stop conversations. I waited outside the terminal feeling breathless with my stomach twisted into knots. We weren’t officially dating. We had been friends for a long time, but this was different and when I saw him waiting for me, carrying a bouquet of roses… I knew that things between us were shifting.

Yet the chemistry didn’t fully ignite until I was standing before him in his parent’s rented apartment kitchen. When his arms slipped around my midsection, and he pulled me into him for the kind of first kiss that made it feel as if life itself had been put on pause. All the heartache of relationships past, and childhood trauma quieted within that moment. Rational thought left my head and the only sound I could hear was my heart strumming music into my ears.

I don’t remember kissing Nikolai for the very first time because I passed out. I had a C-section and after they removed him from my belly, I felt as if I was burning up. The last thing I recall saying to the nurse was that I felt hot all over. The last thing I remember feeling was the coolness of a temperature strip being placed on my forehead before blacking out. There are pictures of me kissing Nikolai’s forehead after the temperature strip had been placed but I don’t remember that part, and I don’t recall having seen his face.

Three hours later I woke up in a recovery room alone. My belly felt empty, and my baby was nowhere to be found. I didn’t know if they had taken him from me or if something horrible had happened. I couldn’t remember what he looked like because I didn’t recall having seen his face, nor did I remember if I had heard him cry or not. The pregnancy hormones were dropping, and I felt such a crushing sense of despair that I didn’t want to live.

When I was finally brought back to my room and Nikolai was placed into my arms where I could kiss his tiny forehead… I couldn’t contain the tears of relief and joy from flooding my cheeks. The same was true when he wrapped his tiny arms around my neck and kissed me back for the very first time. The magic that having him had helped to heal my body and had given me my life back plus so much more… was beautiful. I had gone several years bed ridden wondering if I would get the opportunity to be a mom at all. That moment felt just as powerful and just as healing as the first kiss I gave my beautiful boy on the day he was born… because I felt as if I had earned it.

There had been other kisses over the years that healed me as well. Friends who held and kissed my hand when I was in the hospital and my future was uncertain due to my health. Kisses that my own mom gave me throughout the years when I needed them most, and just-because kisses. Make up kisses, heartbreak kisses that gave me closure, and the kisses I gave to my husband before he left for Afghanistan so we could remember our last moments together for as long as possible.

These are the thoughts that ran through my mind as I was cooking that had eluded me within the heartbreak of the moment. Yet I knew that I had to rectify Nikolai’s notion on the subject matter before I forgot everything that I needed to say. When our meal was finished and the plates had been served, I took his small hand in mine so I could have his undivided attention.

“Remember when you fell today, and I offered to kiss your knee to make it feel better?”

“I remember.”

“Did my kisses make you feel better on the inside?” I asked

“Yes, I stopped crying.” He shrugged and smiled

“Your body will heal at the rate it normally does, that part is true but that doesn’t mean that kisses aren’t full of magic. They have a special way of healing your insides and when you feel good on the inside… you’ll feel better on the outside too!”

“OH! So, kisses are magic?”

“Kisses are the best kind of magic… because they are the kind of magic that’s real.”

I smirked at him before tickling him and attacking his grinning face with a million smooches. He squealed as he usually does and asked me to tickle him some more. When we were done laughing, I winked at him and told him to eat up before it was time to get ready for bed.

If you enjoy my blog, you may enjoy other things that I’ve written as well. Here is a list of some of my most popular posts. There’s no greater compliment than when people comment and share the things I have written with others, so thank you for taking time out of your day to spend it here with me. Happy Reading!

The Missing Piece

Fragile Lemon

Discarded Fear

We Can’t Go Back

A Small Thing Like Me