Plum Picking and A Story of a Close Call

We went on a wild plum picking excursion.

There are LOADS of them bordering the ditch in the south field.

We went with buckets (a bucket).  

And a baby bike. 

And brothers. 

And boyfriends (all 4 of mine).

(and 2 girlfriends, too.)

The plums grow on prickly, pokey branches.

My hair always gets tangles in them.  So I usually come out with leaves in my hair.

It's a good thing that we picked them when we did, because they were on their way out.

Little field trips (literally) like this help me to remember that I love it here.

oh, look, a heart-shaped leaf on ezra's heart

Sometimes I need that reminder.

Because, honestly, sometimes I forget.

I love that our children can run and play in nature,

but

 i

do

not

like

when wild critters are so close.

Okay, let's be more specific.
I don't like when the rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions, bobcats, and wolves are so close.

And earwigs.  We might as well throw them in with the lot.

You're probably sick of the wildlife stories 

(well I guess that I haven't put that many on here),

but here's another one for you.

It happened one day last week.  It was late morning and I was on the phone with a friend.  Jiles had just gone outside and I was inside with Zoe. 

In the middle of our conversation, a few minutes after Jiles had gone out,  I had the thought to check on him.  I went out the front door, still on the phone, to see where he was.

I looked over and saw him by the chicken coop, and my first thought was of what I had seen in the place he was standing the night before.

Martini is a personable cow (a "percow" as Kate and Ezra would say).

I told my friend on the phone about it.  

"Yesterday evening I was in my room, and I heard all of the chickens, who were all out of their yard and just outside our fence (somehow they had gotten out), squawking loudly.  I looked out of the window in time to see what looked like a tan, stocky cow dog running off, away from me, with a white leghorn chicken in his mouth.  I ran outside and over to where I saw this dog disappear into the bushes and threw a stick or a rock or whatever it was, telling him not to come back.  So there!  I'm sure that showed him who was boss.

Weston got home right after that and went out with his gun.

I heard him fire, and then a few minutes he came back to the house.  I asked him if he got the dog, and he said that it wasn't a dog, but something that was giving him a nice deep hiss: a bobcat.  He fired into the bushes where he could hear it, but he didn't think that he got it."

As I was telling her this, I was walking out to get Jiles.  Right when I got to where he was by the door of the chicken coop, my friend's little boy fell down and she had to get off the phone. 

Me with my red boots, and Spencer with his penny loafers, riding on the back of the 4-wheeler.

Jiles asked if he could get the eggs, and I felt uneasy, so I told him to get them quickly.  

While he was getting the eggs I glanced to the right of me and saw nothing but a face, about 30 feet away, staring at me.  It was feline face.  It was the bobcat.   

Now, if you are thinking, Ooo, what's the big deal about a little bobcat, go look them up on Google images.  They are not so little.

I immediately locked the chicken yard door with Jiles still inside, and told him to stay right there.  By the look on his face, looking at the look on my face, I could tell he knew not to move a muscle, and he didn't.

Ezra asked me to make him a leaf crown, so that he could play our Indian game.

Weston's 4-wheeler was parked right near me, so I got on it (Zoe on my hip this whole time, by the way) and tried to start it to scare the bobcat away.  It wouldn't start (I didn't know at the time that it was sitting there because it broke down right there), so I went back and got Jiles, and we booked it to the house.  I didn't realize until later that in my haste, I didn't lock the chicken yard door, and all of the chickens got out again.

When we were just about to the house I had the thought that if I had not gone out there, Jiles could have gotten attacked.  The bobcat was right there, like 25 feet away from where Jiles was before I got there, just watching.  I felt sick to my stomach thinking about that.  Totally sick.  I kept thinking how weird it was that I looked directly at its face.  I didn't see the body, or the trees, or anything else.

I know that I was inspired to go get him.  Whisperings of the Holy Ghost, those little feelings, they're real; I have felt them, heard them, so. many. times.  There is no doubt that we were watched over.

When Weston got home for lunch about an hour later, I told him about it all.  He showed me, again, how to load and shoot the gun.  And then he went out and I heard one shot.  He was gone for a while, and I was trying to wait patiently on the back porch, but just couldn't resist yelling out, "Did you get it?"

He yelled back, "Yeah."

*big exhale*

I love the south field.  So pretty!

This summer we also had rattlesnakes the closest we've ever had them: one on the BACK PORCH! Hello!  And one right next to the trampoline, which is right next to the back porch.  That one was really bad because we had a couple friend-families over and we were all running around barefoot and in flip-flops = not good!  We were definitely watched over!  I am so grateful for that!

Oh, and about the plums.  We picked about 4 gallons of them.  I juiced them and got about 1 1/2 gallons of juice out of them.  The juice is in my refrigerator waiting to be made into delicious wild plum jelly.  :)