Perdi

Oh Perdi.  He is such a trooper.  He came to me gravely ill at 11 weeks.  A vet at a rescue center in St. Cloud knew a vet at WRC.  She looked over Perdi and asked me if I was willing to try and nurse him back to health.  Of course, I couldn't leave him so sick.  He had critical metabolic bone disease in his jaw and from his lower spine down.  He was practically paralyzed in both legs and had a dramatic hump in his lower spine.  I needed to syringe feed him critical care mix and baby food for weeks.  I also had to do extensive physical therapy on his spine, tail and legs.  It was important that his spine was flattened some so that he was able to go to the bathroom.  So everyday I would work his legs and tail.  Through the years he had a couple of check ups at the exotic vet clinic.  His front 1/2 of his body was deemed completely healthy, but his hemi-penis would fall out all the time.  So I needed to put up a visual barrier between Francis and him so he would not get excited.  I work in tandem with the vet at the clinic to keep his hemi-penis in and so far he has not needed surgery.  He is an Orange morph which is a beautiful morph of the inland bearded dragon of Australia.  They are usually very expensive.  How sick this little guy was in only 11 weeks.  His tail bitten off or torn off in some way near death.  So sad.  But this little fella is now 6 years old and doing fine.  He holds his own when Francis gets near and even got a crunch of his leg once :)  k~

A Huge step in the right direction (cautious but sure)

I am taking just a short break from my animals to give you an update on my progress/condition/moving on.  At the beginning of the month I went to listen to Rabbi Kushner speak at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.  He is the author of many books, his first one being Why bad things happen to good people.  The book aforementioned was his first, and he was now on a tour, at the age of 80, with his last book 9 Essential Things I've Learned About Life. It was a very nice evening lasting about an hour and a half.  I had no ah ha moments. But I did have a sense of self worth descend on me.  Although I went alone, I didn't feel lonely.  I was in the moment and enjoying my surroundings and the speakers, and all that went on.

From that day forward, I had some very dark dark days, like super dark. Mixed in them were surprisingly some being in the moment days.  Then one day shortly after, I caught Joel Orsteen on TV.  He's often talking about Joy, Happiness, How God loves us.  Feel goods.  But that isn't what I came away from it. I remembered the times when I would watch every Billy Graham special on TV.  At the very end he would ask people if they wanted to come to Jesus they could come to the people waiting for them to pray with them and Just as I am would play the entire time.  Back in those days they didn't cut everything.  And I have thought about those words a lot lately.  Like maybe even with my gross horrible flaws and my terrible enormous mistakes that keeps me unforgiven. Maybe I am OK just as I am.

1	Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
2	Just as I am, and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot; To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
3	Just as I am, though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt; Fightings within, and fears without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
4	Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind; Sight, riches, healing of the mind; Yes, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
5	Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
6	Just as I am, Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down; Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

I'm told I have to wait. Wait for what? Rick wants me to stop and wait. For what?  I ask again. It's been over a year and a half almost 2. If I just accept the obvious,  I can breath a huge sigh of relief. A weight is lifted then.  The weight of waiting for others to consider you as a person, and possible an audience for forgiveness just isn't worth your life.

I am just as God made me.  I am smart. People try and make me feel dumb, even myself, but I am smart, I know it.  I am funny and love to laugh, maybe even at odd things people don't get, but that doesn't matter, I am funny and love to laugh.  In the last week or more, I have laughed more than I ever thought I ever would again. I am rational. Yes I actually am.  I think a lot of things through.  I take a long time sometimes but that is because I consider everyone in the party that's involved. That takes time.  AND maybe someday, I can forgive myself for the transgressions I have been party to.

For those of you rooting for me, thank you. At this stage in my life. I am destroyed.  I have been ruined by selfishness, compassionless, unforgiveness.  I am functionally ruined.  I can't be expected to do much of what I did before.  My brain is VERY slow.  I am scared to go out of my house, to go to a parties, to go in public, even dare to call anyone a friend for fear they will go away.  But someday, when you see me out looking confident, it will be real and not a strong front that I have on to keep me from crying or leaving.  That day I hope will come.  Because laughing feels better than crying.

I AM MOVING ON! unforgiven, hurt, and knowing I could feel better...but I am moving on.

Rick I am sorry and I don't care who reads that.  For 2 years you have stood by me.  It has been tougher on you most of the time than me.  For all the hard work, compassion and patience you have given me, thank you. All your warnings I think are for my own good.  I also hear when you say that maybe someday I will get what will make me whole again.  Maybe what I needed will happen.  If I'm patient I may get what I need.  You see the good in people.  You are a good person and not destroyed.  For that I am so happy for you.  I love you Rick.  

k~

Mazey

Ahhh Mazey.   I love our little 5 foot Mazey.  She is a joy.  She is gorgeous.  She has a guitar shape on her head, always has.  She is so friendly.  She loves to hide under her fake hollowed out rock.  The only time I see her is when she pocks her head out once in a while.  This means, I have a rumbly in my tumbly mom, can you start to thaw a rat for me.  The other time is when she is cold and she sits on her heating pad just under her glass.  Then we get to see all of her beauty.  She is time for a tank update, however, Sometimes I wonder why, she just goes from one side to the other to hide.   She really doesn't us up all the space provided.  She likes to get out of her cage and loves bathes.  I fill the tub with warm water and she swims around for quite a bit.  Then I dry her off and wrap her in a dry towel and she sits with me for a time.  She is used to be picked up and held.  She is a corn snake. They usually reside in the South Eastern part of the United States.  I named her Mazey due to her "Indian corn" pattern on her belly.

Yum yum.... See the guitar on her head?  

Millipedes

I have one millipede. "Her" name is Nancy.  I love millipedes.  Their many little legs tickle me as they move along my hand and arm.  This one is the largest millipedes in the continental United States.  They reside mainly in Texas.  I also enjoy the chocolate brown ones as a pet. My luck of housing 2 together has not been great.  So I now keep one at a time.  

One of my favorite things about the millipedes are their munchy little mouths. Sometimes while holding them you can feel them munching away on your finger.  They, however, are totally herbivores. Unlike their hideous garden (and house) neighbor, the centipede. The are carnivores. 

Nancy

Millipedes are often born with only 3 legs.  There are no millipedes with 1,000 legs, even though Mil means 1,000.  The closest is a small white millipede that can fit on a quarter.  This millipede has 742 legs. The millipede has 2 pairs of legs per segment of it's body.  

Millipedes are most definitely NOT centipedes. Centipedes are carnivores. Where as Millipedes are vegetarians.  Both do good for keeping the environment clear of leaf litter and dead carcasses from around or in our home. 

     

Texas Giant Redheaded Centipede 

Common House Centipede

They have an important job to do and not just to send me to the nut home!!! 

But I don't keep one as a pet!  They only have one pair of creepy legs per segment of their body.  Ick! k~

Nala the illusive

I am often asked about my cat.  Well yes, we have an adorable gray tabby.  Her name is Nala.  She came to us 14 1/2 years ago.  Her beginnings were kind of tragic, like a lot of our family additions.  She was found on one of my mom's friends property in a bag with her sister in a pond.  They were left to be drown there.  Nala got out but her sister sadly succumbed.  So Nala spent approximately the first 8 weeks of her life living in nature.  She must of come back to the bag frequently, because that is where she was found.  She has always been illusive.  She likes to pet herself on your hand.  When she is done, she usually yells at you and then kills your hand.  It is very important not to pull your hand away, or she will just dig her claws and teeth in deeper in order to kill you even more.  With that said, she has a very spontaneous sensitive side.  She loves her wet food and being brushed.  She can't get enough treats and enjoys spitting and hissing at Bing.  

Photographing her is a challenge.  She is always moving and very rarely is in good lighting.

So just like the chickens and Quailly, photos are blurry. K~

The Farms

Keeping micro farms is not extremely easy.  It's is not terribly hard either. There is a lot of sifting.  I guess it might take a discerning eye.  I have to keep a close look out for the teeny tiny little worms.

Meal worms

The "gross stage".  This stage is where the icky stuff goes.  The obvious dead and the molting.

OH BOY!! wow a hole what 10?

 

Once the worms grow up they hit the pupa stage and then hatch out as

small black beetles that then lay the eggs that hatch into the worms.

Super worms: the same as meal worms, just bigger and grosser.

Super worms

When they curl, they are ready to turn into a pupa

Super worm pupa

When the "leg looking things on the pupa" turn brown, they are very close to turn into a beetle.

When the pupa becomes a beetle, they are often white and brown or brown.

Very quickly they turn black.

These beetles are very clingy.  When ever I have to clean them

or remove the dead, I usually have to have David near by to catch

any that get out.  These beetles are icky.

Crickets: Well these are just a mess.  Hatching, not hatching, Living not living.  Some day!

And there you have it.  3 farms.  k~

58 animals... is that too many?

A couple of days ago I took the time to count my animals.  I do this every now and again because it fluctuates over the year.  58 was the number plus 3 micro farms.  This of course does not include my family of 3 children and my husband  :). I don't have them all pictured some are hard to get on camera, but I have some pictured below.  Now if you read my blog or talked to me recently you know Medusa (pictured below) has passed away, but I still have one snake and her name is Mazey.  So Medusa is representing her.  Then Mama, Studio, Buff, Quailly, Quailly, Nancy 2,  Francis,  Buff, Perdi,  Lizzy, Jupiter, and Bing.  Sam helped me take some of the pictures.  It does take a while to care for all of these precious lives, it's what I do.

So if I were to list them all it would be as follows:

2 African clawed frogs
1 large feeder gold fish
2 anoles
2 long tailed grass lizards
1 corn snake
2 bearded dragons
2 tortoises
2 box turtles
2 fresh water parrot fish
1 hamster
2 bunnies
1 cat
1 dog
1 quail
3 chickens
7 water turtles
12 (or so) small fish
3 large feeder fish
8 brown goldfish (outdoor ponds)
4 bullhead (outdoor pond)
Cricket farm
Meal worm farm
Super warm farm

Phew.  That was overwhelming just to write.  I have quite a system down and my sister is the only other one that has it down.  Sam is catching on.  Now onto the plants... oh later on that I'm exhausted. k~

The day I got "schooled" by my chickens

Of the 3 Chickens, Studio has finally started laying eggs.  She has been for about a month now.  She liked to lay them under the coop.  As we are approaching winter, I have not wanted any of them to get used to laying any eggs under the coop for obvious convenience reasons.  So, I had Rick board around the coop. The next thing I know we are hearing quite a ruckus, noises that I had not heard before.  I ran outside and went to the coop.  There was Studio trying desperately to get under the coop.

Studio

(It is very hard to take pictures of chickens, I think, they move SO much.)

So I took Studio into the coop and sat down with her.  I put her where she should be laying her eggs.  I said gently "This is where you lay your eggs Studio. This is where  hey go."  So she scratched and scratched and squatted and clucked.  Then she did this over and over again.  Finally after a while she bit my hand and I said "Ok, enough is enough, you go on your way."

The next day I needed to get oyster shells, grit,  and organic seed mix as a suppliant with their pellets. When I was at Eggplant, I saw 2 ceramic eggs (they were quite expensive) in a package.  They recommended them to me to get the hens to lay where they should.  I got home and decided that I could tell the real from the ceramic and put the 2 ceramic in their coop where I wanted them to lay. Just a note, it's not so easy to to tell them apart.

So here is where I got schooled.....

The next morning when I got up and went to feed the chickens, there were 2 eggs laying close together by their chair that sits in a corner of their run far away from their coop,  I went to the coop and inside was laying an egg.

I stood up.  What was I looking at?  3 eggs.  That means one is real.  A chicken really rolled one or both of the ceramic eggs out of the coop, down the ramp and over to the side of the chair.  I took all 3
in and washed them off.  Then I tested them.  The 2 by the chair, one was real and one was ceramic. The one in the coop was ceramic.

Somehow Studio laid an egg outside, and chose to roll out a ceramic egg next to it as if to tell me "NO I LAY MY EGG OUT HERE!"

All I could do is laugh.  Those smart crazy little women.  k~

Mama

Buff

The reach out

Recently, there have been suicidal triggers going on around me.  I often think of my friend Steve who held it together for so long.  He was just a breath of sunshine.  His smile warmed any room.  But he suffered so, emotionally and physically.  Then there were those ladies that had jumped off the high bridge. The one that was at the end of August was an elementary friend of my sons. We are very sad as a family.  We didn't keep close once David left that school, but she still brought joy to us.  One of our favorite family sayings is from her "I played baseball, I was good"  We'll miss you.

Throughout my 18 month bout with depression and diagnosis of BPD I have suffered from suicidal ideations and self injurious thinking off and on and it comes and goes still. I guess I had been in this frame of mind in June and just recently.  In June I found myself at the very very end of my rope.  I was overwhelmed with the way things were not working out with me, that certain relationships were a disaster, I felt I was being blamed for things exclusively that were not completely my fault. I was being told how things were going to be.  I was given the cold shoulder for so long and no way of speaking to the right person so I could understand what was going on around me. Choices were being made about me and for me.  On my own in my depressive condition, I would just talk myself into telling myself I was a terrible person and there was no way of making things right. At the very last end of my rope, I reached out.  Was I skillful NO.  But at least I tried as best as I could to get some facts and some help.  I asked the person if they would help me.  The answer.. NO.  

It's a detailed story why I would reach out to certain people, and that will not be shared here. Believe me, at such desperate times in the life of someone who has depression, suicidal ideations, and a huge sense of abandonment, it is normal to reach out to those that you may have wronged for forgiveness, or you may reach out to those who have felt that low before for real understanding.

The irony of the entire story... I just wanted to be friends.  Just friends.

So what am I trying to say in this Blog? What is this message about?  Well it's not just me spewing my own feeling everywhere.  It is a lesson of mistakes and forgiveness, keeping up a give and take relationship no matter how shallow or deep the relationship is and don't overlook things that have been laid right in front of you .  Life is short.  It moves quickly.  But moments can be long and meaningful if you give them the time they deserve.  Take the time a relationship needs to build.  But never ever be afraid to step over lines when it comes to someones life. Pick up the phone, listen, remind them that they are loved.  You see, it is not healthy for you to surround yourself with sick people.  It is not healthy to keep up toxic friendships.  What is important to remember, however, is that if you were hanging on the edge of the bridge, would you want someone to care?  Would you have wanted someone to care before you walk to the bridge?  Think to yourself how much courage it took for that person to actually pick up the phone or text you when they hate themselves and "know" you loath them and then ask for help from you. Think about how impossible that would be.  Could you do that now when you are feeling fine?  Think about it when you are ill, very ill.  Suicide is forever. And even to the person who wants it SO BAD, it may make no sense at all. So try and reflect on the times you may have not had time for a friend that just needed a shoulder. Ultimately it is their choice to die.  If they do kill themselves by themselves it is their responsibility.  But I know first hand that help can be given when people treat others like people. Everyone has flaws but I think everyone wants to be loved and wants to belong. Some people need more than one chance, sometimes 2,3,4 but the one thing is for sure, they deserve to live.  k~

Medusa

Medusa is my beautiful adopted morph corn snake.  She came to me from a retired science teacher,  I had  2 tortuous from her all ready.  One tortuous has sadly passed but Natasha is still with us.

She, Medusa, had grown the habit of  biting and Eileen (the school teacher) was wondering if I could get her to stop doing that.  She also wondered if I could give her the holding that Medusa needed.

I started right away by holding her and getting to know her.  When we first had her, she struck out constantly.  When I would vacuum, Sam would hold her and she would strike out at me over and over.  By this time, however, she had never once broken the skin.

Only once did she break skin, that one day she decided my had needed to be bitten. I remember just scolding her. "Medusa!  I don't have time for this! you know that! Now just stop it."  Looking back I found it funny that I was yelling at a snake that wasn't even listening and for sure not caring about what had just happened.

Still makes me laugh, like I think she's taking notes.

Ironically, Medusa loves to slide through my ponytail and then she likes to slide up on the top of my head. That's where she likes to sit.

She loves her bathtub swims. She could swim for hours, but I only give her an hour.

Over the last few months she has slowed down. I have been watching her closely.  She hasn't eaten in 2 months now.  Snakes can go quite some time with out eating, so I am not panicked about it... yet. It's just sad to watch animals age.  It's possibly time for a vet visit.

Here are some beautiful pictures of Medusa.

 Medusa is just over 5 feet.  She enjoys her baths very much. 

Since she has stopped eating, she has lost weight.  Now her spine is quite visible.

She is very sweet and lovable now.  We are very glad to have her as part of our menagerie. k~