Picking Up The Crumbs

I found a white horse to wish upon...

If you had told me I would be driving 4,089 miles in two weeks, I would have gone, “Lordy no.”

If you had told me that I would find that trip to be the most relaxing vacation of my life, I would have thought you had gone mushy in the head.

It's true. I drove the miles with Daughter D’s help, her navigation skills, her divine company, and the divine guidance that dropped its grace on us.

Can I skip the one day we ended up in the emergency room?

“What is the message of our trips to the emergency rooms?” DD asked, for we aren’t the sort that frequents emergency rooms. On our trip there were two. First for Baby D. One night he spit up pink milk, and of course mother and grandmother were concerned. I worried that I had taken a two month old baby on such a long trip, although we didn’t know he had picked up a cold bug before we left. Earlier he had a little blood in the nose drips, but he had no fever, and he was perky and smiling and happy. The emergency room doctor figured he had swallowed some blood from his sinuses and thus the pink milk. We were sent on our way. He remained all right.
Then we climbed mountains, and the altitude got to me, and I had chest pains, and we had another emergency room visit.

So what is the answer? “What is it with those trips to the emergency room?”

Our conclusion is this: Live your life! Enjoy the moment, take care of business, but don’t fret about it. Things happen.

When I took the wheel that afternoon after DD driving for an afternoon and a morning, I felt fear. I was afraid I would feel the same feelings I had the day before. Strange isn’t it, the associations we build when something traumatic happens? Guess that’s the reason they say, “If you fall off a horse, get back on.”

I soon settled into driving and felt at home, my old self, but I can understand how someone who hasn’t driven for years might be afraid to try again. Maybe it will work to my benefit, too, when I get back on a horse after falling a year ago. I might be afraid for a couple of minutes, but then perhaps the old courage will come back, and I will take up the reins with renewed vigor, and be in command again.

One more thing. Coming home we found that Mille Fleur and Dixie started laying after their long winter hiatus. We had ten eggs waiting for us. Mille Fleur is the breed of the chicken, but I thought it was such a pretty name that I named the hen that. Two years ago I picked up a mother chicken and her three baby chicks at the County Fair here in Eugene Oregon. I named them Mille Fleur and the Dixie Chicks, but it turned out that two were roosters, so it’s Mille Fleur and Dixie. I need a name for the rooster, the other one died, which left it perfect for us, two hens and one rooster. And they are the nicest chickens, small with variegated feathers, like a million flowers (thus Mille Fleur). Their eggs are small, but the most deli9cious eggs I have ever tasted. The rooster is a protector and a gentleman. When I put veggie scraps in their pen he clucks to the hens to come and get it.

Now, the point to all this is that I am incubating five little eggs in a child’s plastic incubator. First I dowsed the eggs to see if they were fertile. Then I asked each egg if it was a girl egg or a boy egg. I think they are all pullets…we’ll see how accurate I am.

Nineteen more days to go…