Hayin', Wild Things, & Puffy Faces

Hey, what's up?  I have sleeping boys all around me.  Everyone has crashed at the end of a normal, long day.  I should be crashed and sleeping, too, but gosh golly I just want to blog.

Weston has been haying.  Mostly last week.  That means that he is gone all the live long day(light hours), and we get to take him his lunch and dinner and have picnics.  It also means that he sneezes a lot.  

One night last week we took him dinner - a blanket picnic in the middle of two windrows.  (Or were we sitting in the windrow?  Whatever.)  It was a beautiful evening and the kids had tons of energy.  I didn't.  We were waiting for Weston to join us, and as we waited they ran, and kicked up grass, and made nests in the grass.  

This is what the pictures are all about.

And here is where I throw in some random things, and/or thoughts, and/or happenings.

Our cat got attacked by a bobcat last Monday night.  It was midnight and I heard her screaming and I poked my head out of the back door.  I saw that the bobcat had her by the head and was shaking her like crazy.  I hollered at it and it dropped her and hopped away.

It pretty much left her for dead.  To make a long story short, she was clinging to life until Thursday when she just up and left; no one saw her leave or saw where she went.  I saw her and then 20 minutes later she was gone.  I figured that she went off to die.   

We didn't see her again.

Until this evening.  She was skinny, hungry, and looked like someone had just twirled her around forever.  Her head is cocked side ways, and she walks like she is dizzy, sometimes falling over.

But she is alive.  It's crazy that she survived that. 

She is locked in a kennel thing in the garage right now, just in case Bobby comes back to visit.

Seriously, how can one run barefoot on that prickly stuff?
I suppose that I used to.

On either Wednesday or Thursday night, Weston came in at midnight from baling and as he was coming in threw the mudroom door on the back porch he saw something moving outside of the kitchen door about 25 feet away.

Kate in a "nest".

It was a bear!  A small, probably a yearling, bear.

He came up and woke me up to tell me and we ran downstairs and snuck over to the door to see, but it had already left.

I am totally sure to shut the windows at night!

Freaky!  They usually don't come around until Fall.  Yesterday I noticed what I think is a bear print on the kitchen door glass.  Weston agrees that he thinks it is too.  I took a picture of it.  It is hard to see in the picture. 

She wanted to try her hand at editing.  This is all her.

I want a dog.  A big, protective dog with a deep bark.

A Great Pyrenees perhaps. 

Now Kate has boots and Ezra doesn't.  They have a great idea to play in the over-their-head grass.  

They can't wait to get there. 

This is the point in this picnic where things begin to worsen.

Going...

Going...

Gone.

(Well pretty much)

And while they are gone, Daddy is still not there, and Jiles cannot wait any longer to eat.  Me neither.

So we dig in.

The sun drops behind the mountain, the kids are still playing in the grass, and the rancher finally shows up, starving.

The 2 lefties indulge on the enchiladas.

"Hey, you kids!  Time to go!"

They didn't have to be called twice.

They all emerged

sullen,

swollen, 

and itchy.

By the time we got back home they looked like this:

Unrecognizable.  

Looks like they all have Weston's curse:

Hay fever.

The boys cleared up with one Benadryl tablet and a shower.  Kate was by far the worst - swollen eyes, puffy cheeks, stuffed up, yet runny, nose - I was afraid that she was going to go anaphylactic on me.  I kept asking her if her throat felt weird, but thankfully it never did.  2 Benadryl tablets, an immediate shower, 3 days, lots of antihistamine and nasal decongestant later, she was still sneezing and rubbing her somewhat puffy eyes.  Poor thing.

That's it for now.  And now I am joining the crashed-out crowd. 

Nighty night.