Barking Mad

Kittens, Chickens and Horses...Oh My!

This past Saturday netted us a bounty of unexpected bubbly, furry, giddiness; accompanied by a few moments of sheer terror when I thought for sure my eyes would be pecked out!

How's that for kicking off a blog post...cuteness and terror.  I tell ya, we've got it all, right here at the asylum.

A note of caution though, this post is going to be photo intense, so if your page takes a while to load, that's the reason. 

For some time now we've been discussing adding another fur baby to the menagerie here at the Barking Mad Asylum, of the feline variety, because you all know how voraciously I detest waddling little balls of fluff of the canine variety.  We've scouted local shelters and came close to bringing home two midnight black little dolls that would have fit in quite nicely with the mutt, the other two cats and the partridge in the pear tree, along with the two-footed homosapiens who all call this place home.   Alas, we didn't move fast enough and they were gone.  The other little lovelies at local shelters that would have made wonderful additions to our family were all FIV-positive and you can not adopt a cat that carries that virus into a home with FIV-negative cats.  So we decided to look into a couple of local catteries, knowing what kind of kitten we wanted and seeking a breed that would be ideal with not only two other cats, but a dog who thinks he's a cat and a toddler.  That's when we found Ragdolls.  

Fast forward a few weeks, and several discussions with a ragdoll breeder down in Wells, ME., and we loaded up the car, loaded me up with Xanax and headed down to meet Sandy from Rag Angels cattery.  Little did I know what an incredible woman she is and not only does she have such perfect kittens, but a huge heart and was so generous in showing us around her farm and letting the Little Imp not only chase chickens, but pick freshly laid eggs and then let her ride her horse, Rangi.  Sidenote: I am utterly terrified of birds.  Hence the earlier remark about being terror-stricken that my eyes were going to be pecked out.

We spent part of the afternoon sitting in her cozy kitten nursery getting to know Windsong's newest litter which consisted of two boys and one girl.   We had an idea, based on the website and pictures Sandy had sent us, which kitten we wanted...but being able to spend time with him and watching the Little Imp interact with him, as well as the others, just sort of sealed the deal.

Whilst the Little Imp is not entirely sure of the kittens, she had the best time throwing balls and other toys around to them and being chased by them. 

Click to enlarge all photos and be sucked in by the fluffy cuteness!

 

Introducing, Geronimo!

Look at those big blue eyes!  Is he not gorgeous and cute and infinitely cuddleable?  I had the hardest time leaving him there.  Alas, he won't be ready to come home with us for another 4 weeks.  *sigh*

The Little Imp says goodbye to Geronimo...

Once I'd reluctantly said "See ya soon" to Geronimo and peeled myself away from him and his siblings we headed outside for a real treat.

I knew Sandy had some other animals but I didn't know she also raises an award winning (I have never seen so many trophies in my entire life!), breed of miniature horses and several organic laying hens. 

Oh God, there were so many hens.  You have no idea how fast and furiously scenes from Hitchcock's The Birds, were playing through my head as we walked towards all of the multicoloured, speckled and very vocal hens.

Yep, that's pretty much what was running through my head as we mucked our way through the mud towards the hen house.  I was absolutely certain one of them was going to find me delectably peckable and you'd be reading a post from the hubby about my untimely demise by way of chicken pecking!  "Pecked to Death" would have been the first line of my obituary.   Lovely.

This was the first hen to greet me as I walked toward the yard and the hen house...

The monster hen also known as Henny Penny. 

She definitely looked like she could do some major eye-pecking.  I was literally shaking as I walked towards her.  One cluck from her and I probably would have wet my pants.

But hey, obviously that didn't happen.  THANK YOU SWEET 6lb 4oz BABY JESUS!

Oh and Henny Penny, I apologize for those awful thoughts about seeing you on my plate, deep fried and sitting pretty next to some mashed potatoes.

Here's what did happen!  A miracle of sorts.

The Little Imp has a few tactile and sensory issues.  Whereas she is very bright (and I'm not saying that to brag, it is what it is.  Yet another reason I won't be homeschooling her), she is often times very apprehensive to familiarize herself with new things, especially when it comes to touching them.  For instance, she still won't eat anything that's remotely gooey, or messy, or feels funny to her.  It's been a huge issue because her diet is pretty limited at this point.  It was a major feat getting her to eat Yo Baby yogurt.  The drip factor was huge and she absolutely WILL NOT touch it.  She has these tactile issues not only with foods but other every-day items as well.

At Imp's Montessori they have a small farm.  The geese scare the crap out of her; they are forever making that God-awful honking sound when we're loading her up in the car in the afternoons...I don't even like them.  So imagine my surprise when Sandy walked Imp to the hen house and she went in, ON HER OWN and started picking out FRESHLY LAID EGGS, all the while, the hens are clucking nearby and Imp's very own mama is standing in the corner, cowering.  If I had a tail, it most certainly would have been between my legs at this point!  Nothing stood between me and all those peckerish beaks but my trusty camera.

Out of nowhere this HUGE MONSTER HEN flies into the coop to supervise the Little Imp as she gathers eggs.  I think I did actually wet my pants just a little when that happened!  I mean come on people, she flew over my head and then landed squarely in front of me!

Alas, I'm still here with both eyes, so I guess I owe this little hen an apology too.  I am sorry for picturing you, covered in barbeque sauce, on my grill, along side a fat juicy ear of corn and some grilled bell peppers.  And Sandy sent us home with several freshly laid eggs!  Organic eggs!  After eating them, I don't know that we can ever go back to the kind we get at the store, even if they are organic cage free eggs that come with the expiration date on the egg itself!

If being near all those dangerous beautiful hens, and walking into the hen house wasn't enough, the Little Imp did something that truly amazed the hubby and me...she became fast friends with one of Sandy's horses, Rangi.  We didn't think she'd go anywhere near the horse.  Not a chance.

Boy, were we wrong! 

Sandy then told Rangi to give her a kiss, and my heart stood still for a moment because I was a tad scared; he is a pretty big guy for a mini-horse after all...but I really had no reason to be frightened.  Rangi is a big softy and such a cuddle-bug!

I suppose, to understand how the rest of the afternoon unfolded you might have to know the Little Imp personally.  I honestly did not think, when Sandy offered to let Imp RIDE Rangi, that she'd say yes, or at best, it would take a lot of prodding from the hubby or I to get her to consider it. 

The Little Imp didn't even blink once when Sandy asked her.  Something clicked inside her.  I saw it and the hubby saw it.  Rangi looked at the Little Imp and nudged her the tiniest bit with his nose, as if to say; "Come on luv, I'll take good care of you...you and I are going to be best friends!" and it was like this tiny spark of knowing this would be a good thing.  I can't articulate it, but I saw it.  The Little Imp was like butter after that. 

I think I have a better understanding of the magic that therapy horses work, with special needs children, after seeing Imp and Rangi.    I also think I am going to have to come up with some pretty damn solid arguments against getting Imp a horse of her own, after Saturday.

It took a great deal of convincing on Sandy's part, but Imp finally realized that she wasn't, in fact, going to hurt Rangi, by hanging onto his mane. 





"Daddy, may I please have a pony?"



Getting one last smooch from Rangi

I often worry that the last 16 months, spent with a mother who has some serious social anxiety issues, has affected the Little Imp adversely?  From time to time she will exhibit an irrational fear of people.  We want her to have a healthy fear of strangers, but not to the point where it paralyzes her, as it does me.  

It took a great deal of courage (and Xanax) for me to be able to head all the way out and meet Sandy without obssessing about what she was going to think about me and whether or not her opinion of me would weigh whether or not she was actually going to let me take one of the kittens.  Imp has been surrounded by these fears and practically bathed in the anxiety, panic and depression that has weighted me down like an anchor for the last year.

Combine all of that with her already existent sensory and tactile issues, and her own nervous apprehensions about certain everyday scenarios and I fear that I might really be handicapping her social development.  It was no small miracle that both the Little Imp and I were put immediately at ease by Sandy's good nature, broad smile and generous heart.  I was so heartened to see the Little Imp reach out in both friendship and trust.  I was heartened by the ease with which the Little Imp broached her friendship with not only Sandy, but her animals.  Spending time around the kittens, the horses, and yes, to some degree, the chickens, and seeing the Little Imp absolutely soak all of this in, buoyed my spirits and lifted my soul in a manner that they haven't been in a very long time.

Saturday was indeed, a very good day!


P.S. Crap!  I almost completely forgot!  My mommily has her very own little corner of the Interwebs.  She is opinionated, and doesn't hold back!  Go see her and leave her some comment love, even if you disagree!

The Way I See It

A Little Nip Here, A little Tuck There - Blogstyle

I have been sitting here for the past few days, trying to revamp the header and be brave enough to play with the CSS (now that's laughable, seeing as how we've already covered the fact that, serveral times actually, that I don't possess a single geek gene in my entire body!), in order to change how things link. 

The result?  Epic fail!

As a matter of fact, it was such a monstrous failure that I almost killed the blog altogether.  Thank God that after administering CPR, I was able to resucitate it and well, here we are.

As a result of all this tussleing with the blog, combined with several complaints from the peanut gallery about not being able to leave comments, or the blog not loading properly - I have decided to not just get a little bloggy facelift of sorts, but to move it entirely and go the self-hosted route.  Well, almost. 

Over the next few weeks I am going to be emigrating the Barking Mad Asylum over to it's own space, hosted on something as similar to a self-hosted platform as I can get.   This place will still exist, likely for the next few months until I get all the kinks worked out, but there will be a redirect.  I've had the domain, www.iambarkingmad.com for a while now, I just need to put it to use.

I just wanted to give a little heads up that things will be changing.  I hope I don't lose you along the way.   If the breadcrumbs I leave (would chocolate work better?) for you to follow along the way happen to get snatched up by greedy robins or the mean blue jays, just shoot me an email at iambarkingmad@gmail.com and I'll toss you a rescue float and haul you over to the other side.

In the meantime though, I still have some awesome giveaways coming up, including the Keurig Platinum Brewing System (You have no idea how much I want one of these for myself!), a huge gift card, and I should be wrapping up my research and interviews so that I can finally bring you the rest of the Mommybloggers - Expliotation or Art? project I have been working on.  I just had no idea there would be so much interest, nor did I have a clue that two local papers would be interested in picking it up either. 

Of course, it goes without saying, I'll still be here bringing you our almost daily hijinks, calamities, disasters, and the occasional heartfelt and sometimes poignant warblings from the asylum. Oh and the odd assortement of photographs.

Oh oh oh oh and before I forget...we are bringing another furry family member into the fold here at the asylum. Possibly two.  I'll post more about that tomorrow.  It's really pretty silly, but it makes me bubbly all over, like champagne, just thinking about it.

Vignettes

Megawatt and I were in the car heading back to her college campus and I had the Twilight score (not the soundtrack, the Carter Burwell score) playing in the CD player. The track had just come on from the scene where Bella and Edward are on the run from Victoria's crazed pack of vamps...

Megawatt:  Dude, I kinda feel like there should be wicked crazy vampires chasing us.

Me:  That would be AWESOME!

Megawatt:  Word! 

Me:  Was that just a really weird Gilmore Girls/Lorelai-Rory moment?

Megawatt:  Totally.

Me:  Hypothetically speaking, would you ever let another vampire turn you, I mean, assuming hellaciously fine-ass vampires like Jasper and Edward were real? 

Megawatt:  Hell yes!  They wouldn't even have to ask.

Me: Well, hypothetically speaking, just make sure you've eaten and are full before you come home for a visit.

Megawatt:  That's chill.

Me:  I think this conversation has moved from the realm of a Gilmore Girls/Lorelai-Rory moment into the truly strange and bizarre. 

Megawatt:  That's us though, bizarre and strange.

Me:  Word!

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Daddy and the Little Imp were playing with PlayDoh.  They were playing with green, purple and bright orange PlayDoh.

Little Imp: *rolling a huge ball of green PlayDoh*:  Daddy, would you like some mold?

Daddy:  Pardon?

Little Imp:  Daddy, I'm giving you a moldy frog's toenail.  Here, take it.

Yeah, I'm not sure where the hell she's picked up the phrase, "moldy frog's toenail" but rest assured, we haven't got any of those around here.  But ya know, she's being creative, so maybe I should let it slide.  I think.

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Recently on one of Megawatt's visits home, after I had rearranged one of the kitchen cabinets into something less chaotic, she went to grab a tea bag from the cupboard where they used to be.  She yells, at the top of her lungs...

Megawatt:  Mommmmmmmmmm!  Come here!

Me: What? Why are you yelling like that?

Megawatt:  *standing there with the cupboard door ajar, hands on hips*  Is there something you want to tell me? 

Me:  About what?

Megawatt:  You can't think of anything that maybe I should know? 

Me: Other than the fact that you're starting to make me wonder if you need medication? 

Megawatt:  There's not ANYTHING you want to tell me?  Maybe something you and DDG (her name for her step-dad) should be telling me; wanted to tell me?

Me:  What the hell are you talking about?

Megawatt: *truly indignant now* Yeah OK...I just kinda thought that news like this; you might wanna share with your oldest daughter. 

Me:  Maybe I didn't say this clearly enough last time, but again, what the hell are you talking about?  There's nothing I need, or want to tell you...well except that you're starting to irritate me.

Megawatt:  Fine.  Fine then.  I guess we'll just wait until you give birth.

Me:  WHAT THE HELL?  WHAT THE FREAKING HELL HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING? 

Megawatt: *grabbing the bottle of prenatal vitamins on the cupboard shelf and foisting it towards me like it's some sort of huge cockroach* I think it's obvious isn't it?  Why would you be taking THESE *shoving the bottle of prenatal vitamins practically in my face.* if you aren't going to have a baby?

Me: OMG chill already!  I have to take these because my body requires more vitamins at this point than a regular multivitamin could provide, due to all the crap I've put myself through. I've been taking them since before Imp was even born, and now I'll probably have to take them the rest of my life. 

Megawatt:  Are you sure?

Me:  Dude, yes I'm sure, or would you like me to pee on a stick in front of you so you can see for yourself that I'm not pregnant?  

Megawatt:  Nawww, it's cool.  Just don't scare me like that again.

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At the Little Imp's Montessori they recently talked about what mommy's and daddy's do during the day.  The Little Imp's teacher gets to her and asks her what her daddy does at work?

Little Imp:  My daddy paints money at work and talks to guys that Megawatt finks are hot.

Imp's Teacher: *holding back laughter* OK and what does your mommy do?

Little Imp: I don't know.

Imp's Teacher:  Does your mommy write?

Little Imp: Well she does dat, but she mossly blogs on da 'puter.

Gee thanks kid!

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During a recent visit to Little Imp's pediatrician, we were seated not far from an elderly gentleman who was almost completely bald, except for the littlest bit of fluffy white hair around the sides.  The gentleman looks over at the Little Imp and at the book she's reading and says:

Elderly Gentleman:  That's a fine book you have there Little Miss.  My granddaughter has that very same book and loves to have her grandmama read it to her whenever she comes to see us.

Little Imp:  I gots lotsa books. I really like dis one.

Elderly Gentleman:  My granddaughter likes the swamp monster the best and always giggles with her grandmama gets to that part. 

Little Imp: You gots no hair.

At this point I wanted to fall into a huge black hole.  Just sayin'!

Elderly Gentleman: *sensing my complete mortification*  Awww, it's alright.  I get it quite a lot from the wee folk.   *Looking at Little Imp and smiling broadly*  I guess, Little Miss, I've just sort of lost it over the years.

Little Imp:  Oh dats vewwwwy sad.  Want me to help you find it?

Mercifully the Little Imp's name was called and we were ushered into an examination room.  I was so tempted to ask, on our way out, if we could leave via a back entrance/exit. 

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