Slicing through the plastic wrap on a frozen pizza, I look at my counter and think it is the perfect summation of my life right now. In the corner, an incubator with its second batch of eggs. They are starting to come in faster than we can eat them so we put a day’s worth of eggs in only two days after a successful test hatch yielded two little chicks.

Lined up under the cabinet are three jars of kefir culturing with my new kefir grains which are taking up as much time as the puppies sitting at my feet hoping for dropped crumbs.

And behind the dish rack, my sourdough starter, bubbling away as it prepares to produce two fresh loaves in the morning.

But it is seven in the evening and I never really thought about dinner so it is frozen pizza again tonight.

Slowly, in fits and starts, we are moving forward again with the vision of a life that drew us out here to this property. To a life of hard work, fresh air and fresh food. Last year, we did a lot but more because we didn’t know what to do other than the next thing on a list I had sketched out only weeks before Tiggy died.

But this year, as we go over our plans for the spring, I catch glimpes of that original vision. I see Tiggy’s little hand reaching up to slow me down to his pace during chores and I see little Micah holding his jacket on top of his head because he wants me to put it on him so he can come, too. And I want this for our family as we grow into this land together.

And I have been thinking a lot over the last couple of weeks about what I want for this blog. It’s going to change as our lives begin to change. There will be more about chickens, and dogs and fruit trees. There will be more about the business we are hoping to grow. And there will, of course, be the stories of our life I have been sharing for the past two years.

I just need to figure out how to organize it and then find the time to get started.

For some reason, I thought the craft show ended at three, not four. I was on my own with a six year old to break down and load the car. I had promised her Wendy’s and a frosty. I needed to stop at WalMart for glue.

And it was a two and a half hour drive home in good conditions and these roads were anything but good.

John needed me home by nine in case he got called to work. And my Bug had to climb every snow mound and jump off every hill.

“Come on, Bug.”

I felt the impatience of a dozen other things I needed to do, of places I needed to be, of tasks calling me out of this Winter Wonderland and into the world of “Hurry up.”

I felt the impatience and the whining lilt to my words before I even lent voice to them and my displeasured scowl was met with glistening eyes full of the wonder of the first real snow of the season.

And I replaced the impatient words with a deep breath and a different exclamation.

“That’s a big hill, Bug! Do you think you can climb it?”

Because ten years from now it won’t matter whether or not I had time to pick up glue on my way home from a craft show. But Bug’s memories of playing in the snow with her mom after our Big Day with just the two of us just might.

The day Hunter didn’t get up to do chores with me in the morning was the day I decided it was time to let him go. His appointment is in about an hour.

He didn’t even lift his head when I went out to do chores this morning.

It’s hard to say goodbye. Going out to brush him one last time before carrying him to the car.

It was a good weekend. My evidence of that is a funny story I have to tell. It has been a very long time since I’ve shared a funny story.

That and my daughter thinks I give way too much air time to Bear, especially in the “Funny Stories Shared on Facebook” department.

This one is about this girl (sporting a custom ordered chipped shell bracelet available from our Etsy shop):

And this place:

And a little Nebraska town of less than 25,000.

It had been a long day. We left for the Dog Expo at six in the morning, drove for three hours, showed all day and had a three hour trip back home before repeating it again the next day. And when I realized that when you figured in the cost of gas I wasn’t saving all that much by going home, I decided to check into a hotel.

But I hung up without asking where exactly the hotel I just booked a room in was.

But I also figured the lady at the Wendy’s drive thru would know. And she did. Apparently, knowing where a place is and knowing how to explain how to get there are two separate skills, however.

“Well, you go past the McDonald’s . . . um, it’s the first turn . . . well, how do I explain this. You’ll take the first turn past the McDonald’s . . . “

And she started making lots of hand signs while turning around and more showing me than telling me while asking someone else how they would explain how to get to the Quality Inn. Fortunately for us both, the cryptic information she had given me was enough. Her confidence in telling me she knew where the hotel was coupled with her confusion at telling me exactly how to get there made me suspicious I’d been to this hotel before.

“That’s OK. Did it used to be a Holiday Inn?”

“Yes!” She said with evident relief.

“Ok, thanks! I think I remember how to get there.”

And we left. And I turned left. And my daughter, ever ready to give direction, protested.

“The other way mom! The McDonald’s is the other way!”

“No. You’re right that we passed a McDonald’s but she was talking about the one up here.”

And this is where the small town girl came shining through.

“What?! This town has two McDonald’s restaurants? This place must be HUGE!”

And my steering wheel got a light shower of Coca Cola.

I should NOT have watched Grace Card.

Because other than that whole accidentally shooting his own kid thing, that’s what I fear most.

Seventeen years and the living can’t get out from under the shadow cast by the one who died.

I know it doesn’t have to be that way.

But I know it can.

And in my darkest hours, when my husband retreats and the children fight and I don’t want to deal with it anymore, it scares me.

This feeling in my chest . . .

This tickle of anticipation . . .

This vicarious excitement that makes me want to tell the whole world what my daughter accomplished . . .

She earned Grand Champion in Showmanship. Her little golden penciled Hamburg won Grand Champion in Large Fowl. Her Welsh Harlequin . . . the last survivor from my little flock, the bird I told her cost $120 since she is all I have to show for it and hence had better do well . . . her little Welsh Harlequin won Grand Champion in Waterfowl and went on to win Best of Show.

And this feeling in my chest . . .

Is it pride?

We call it that.

“Oh, honey, I am so proud of you!”

Or is it love? Love which causes us to rejoice when good comes to those close to us? To experience their joy as if it were a piece of our own?

And I think . . . Wouldn’t we all have so much more joy in our lives if we learned to truly love more?

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Don’t forget about our bracelet giveaway celebrating the opening of our Etsy shop for Tiggy’s House. Today is the last day to enter!

Sunday, Hunter went missing. Our crazy, annoying, paralyzed dog went missing.

The third lab in our area in as many days. But Hunter couldn’t have gotten far. He would have been easy prey for the coyotes, but he couldn’t have gotten far.

All day, I called for him and all day I stared at the soybean field thinking he could be lying a few feet in and we’d never find him. I thought about coyotes, and I thought about dog fight rings because I’d heard a few things about where missing dogs sometimes end up. And I called for Hunter with very little hope of ever seeing him again.

Checking on chickens in the late afternoon, I thought I heard him. I stopped and listened, but it couldn’t have been him. Hunter’s voice has changed since his paralysis. It’s raspy and quiet. If you have ever heard a debarked dog try to bark, it is very similar though there is some voice behind it. His bark is very distinctive, but he barks barely above a whisper.

And I wasn’t sure I had actually heard anything at all so after calling him and standing in the silence listening to the wind, I went back to caring for the chickens.

Until evening.  Just a little before sunset. The children were playing and I heard it again. Again, I thought I couldn’t possibly have actually heard him. The children were so loud, but this time the bark was persistent. It wasn’t a single bark I wasn’t sure whether I’d even heard.

And Jake answered.

And I KNEW it was Hunter.

“Everyone to the car NOW!” I shouted. “And someone grab a flashlight!”

This was out of the ordinary. The kids scrambled to the car with feverish excitement.

“What is it mom? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just think I heard Hunter. I’m not sure, but we only have maybe 20 minutes before sunset and he sounds far away.”

And we drove off. North to the creek near our neighbor’s because I knew he had been there last summer with Copper. The creek bed was empty.

“Hunter!” I called, and waited.

“Ararrararararararararararar!” Was the reply. Distant. To the east. But definitely Hunter.

Earlier in the day when I realized Hunter was missing, I had felt resigned to the fact that we wouldn’t see him again. I was sad, anxious, hoped somehow he would just turn up, but knew that there wasn’t much hope.

Because really, how far can a paralyzed dog go?

Apparently, pretty far. A mile away, we found him at the bottom of a steep embankment and up to his chest in mud. I couldn’t even get to him. Bear climbed down with a tow rope to attach to his collar and he didn’t even struggle as I dragged him straight up and onto dry ground.

Hunter was safe. Exhausted, freezing cold, and covered in an inch of mud, our Hunter was safe.

Dinner, a bath and time with Bear and the hair dryer and our Hunter was happy.

Our crazy, paralyzed dog who just doesn’t give up was home.

LE got a rabbit.

From a friend of a friend, my little girl received her first pet. Sally. We made her a home next to the porch, as close to having her indoors as we could without actually bringing her into the house. There she was for treats and attention on the way to the car. There she was for treats and attention on the way to the garden. There she was for a little extra something when LE left her to pick mulberries by the barn.

There she was to be read to while Mom made breakfast.

There the roof of the porch protected her hutch from the rain and the house protected her from the wind. Or so I thought.

But a storm . . . a real storm . . . with 60 mph winds and a wall of water drew me to the window where I saw the hutch on its side and pieces of it thrown about the lawn. My heart sank and I felt sick to my stomach.

“Oh, please Lord . . .”

But I didn’t get very far in the prayer. Because it is just a rabbit. And as much as I love that little bunny and as hard as it will be to tell little LE in the morning, it is hard to pray for the safety of a rabbit when my son’s grave is being soaked in the very same storm.

“Oh, please Lord . . .”

I’m not sure I got much further that night. I cried out to the Lord, but there weren’t a lot of words. My thoughts weren’t any more coherent than my speech when all I seemed to be able to tell dispatch was my address. Over and over and over.

“Oh, please Lord . . .”

Thinking of LE, I began again and stepped out into the storm. With flashes making the night as bright as day, thunder echoing in my chest and tears mixing with the deluge pouring forth from the heavens, I walked outside to pick up the hutch.

Empty. Except for the little dish of clover LE had picked her bunny before bedtime, the hutch was empty.

I was already soaked. I looked up at the storm and thought it might be smarter to go to the basement than to search for a rabbit in the dark in a storm that picked up her hutch and threw it. I thought maybe I’d bring Micah down to the basement and come back out because maybe she didn’t go far. And I had to try. So wishing things had turned out a little differently on the wings of a similar prayer, I began again.

“Oh, please Lord . . . “

Turning toward the house, I almost tripped over Sally as she climbed on my feet in the dark in a storm where all I could see was the outline of the world with every flash.

And that left me with a rabbit in a laundry basket and a weight so heavy on my chest it leaves me gasping for breath between the sobs overtaking my body.

Because really, I just want to trade.

OK. So we’ve established that we have the most annoying dog in the world.

But then we got chickens. Unless you have chickens, you may not understand this but chickens change you.

Pretty soon, four wasn’t enough. And I wanted geese. And goats. And a larger garden. And an orchard. And chores. And wide open spaces for the kids to run and play and be free. I remembered a childhood dream and we seized upon it.

Hunter greeted the new property with his customary enthusiasm.

Except he learned quickly that if he barked in the house, someone would just open the door for him. Gone was the mad scramble for the door any time it looked like someone might be trying to leave. Gone was the pile of children knocked this way and that along his path of escape. Gone was . . . Well, I’d really like to say the barking but that isn’t true. But it was so much less stressful out in the country without neighbors’ nerves to worry about.

Then we had our first visitors. That we knew of.

That’s when we noticed that his barking wasn’t random. Every morning and every evening, he trotted along the property line barking out his warnings. And that circling and barking thing? It looks a whole lot different at two in the morning when you’re surrounded.

All of a sudden, I understood my dog.  He was our protector, our guardian. He had a job to do and he took it very seriously. He wasn’t going to let little things like my sanity, the neighbors’ nerves or a nylon leash stand in his way. He was going to do everything within his power to stand between his family and The Big Bad World in order to keep us safe.

Within two months, he had pushed the coyotes back. Though our property had been abandoned for two years and poachers had turned it into a deer carcass smorgasboard, they stopped crossing through our land. We would find tracks and droppings all along the boundary, but not within the area he patrolled.

Then he stopped the nonstop barking, found a spot at the top of our hill where he could see our entire property and lay down to survey his kingdom. And we never lost a chicken to a predator while he was looking over the flock.

Hunter was the best dog we had ever owned. Someone even asked me if they could stud him because he so clearly had such beautiful instincts despite my best efforts to train them out of him. But that wasn’t a possibility.

I started to wonder what we would ever do without him. Then one day he came in acting just a little weird.

It took him two days to collapse to the ground and not get back up. He stopped eating. He stopped drinking. He lay on his pillow and looked as if he were waiting to die. We got him a wheelchair but remember his affinity for chewing through leashes? Well, one . . . two . . . three harnesses later, I gave up. I carried him to his hill where he seemed happiest, made him a bed on the porch to carry him to at night and wondered just how long a dog could live on what I could force feed him.

Perhaps it was time to put him down.

But then we had another visitor.

This time, I was getting something from the car and when I turned around there was a coyote standing at the edge of the driveway just watching me. I barely had time to comprehend what it was and Faithful was on it, chasing it back into the night. Back on the porch, Hunter was alert. Suddenly, the night came alive with the howls of the coyotes and he took off.

On two legs and dragging his useless hind legs behind him, he took off across the lawn and toward the coyotes in the soybeans across the road. I had to run to catch him and drag his fifty pounds of fury back to the porch where I had to chain him to make him stay.

Hunter was back. In the morning, he wolfed down his breakfast, drank two bowls of water and went on his morning patrol of the property. It was a long slow walk to the lilacs and he cut his circle short at the edge of the hen house, but he came back to the top of his hill with a vibrance I hadn’t seen in weeks. He was exhausted, but he was alive.

And then came chore time. Chore time around here . . . well, let’s just say chore time is difficult. I frequently send the children to take care of the poultry because sometimes it is just too hard to deal with the little hand that isn’t there.

The little hand that wanted to help. The little hand that reached for mine to slow me down. The little hand that reminded me that there is so much more to chore time than just getting it done.

And now, though part of me wants to rush through the chores to keep from thinking too much about that little hand, a tip tap slide holds me back. Tip tap slide, tip tap slide and Hunter catches up to me. I scratch him behind the ear and we walk slowly down to the hen house together. Because there’s more to chores than getting them done.

And I wonder what we’ll ever do without our Hunter.

This is the story of our dog Hunter, the most annoying dog in the world. This is him now.

His hind legs are paralyzed, but not his spirit. That’s why I want to tell you his story.

It started when he was just a puppy.

His mother was the most annoying dog in the neighborhood.  She spent most of her time chained in her backyard barking. The rest of the time she spent roaming the neighborhood barking. At least until her owners got her a present. Or maybe it was one of the neighbors. One can never be too sure about these things.

That ended her barking. But not her wandering. Every six months or so there was another sign about free puppies as you drove into town and every six months or so the remainder were taken to the pound. How we ended up with one is a whole ‘nuther story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you in the comments if anyone wants to know.

Anyway, he apparently took careful notes from his mother because when he came to live at our house, he displayed one great talent.

If I put him in the backyard, he barked.

If I had him in the front room, he barked.

When I had enough and put him in the kennel in my room, he screamed.

When the kids went out the back door, he would knock them over to get out.

Then I had to go out and chase him. Not that I could catch him. He would run in little circles around me, always just out of reach, always barking like his life depended on it.

And I thought all sorts of horrible things.

I knew he wasn’t getting enough walks. He was a big dog and a high energy dog. I resolved multiple times to take him for more walks and longer walks to just try to wear him out.

But I just couldn’t afford it.

So I resolved to take him to the pound. Over and over and over. Sometimes, I fantasized about it. While chasing him across the field behind our house, I’d imagine myself driving around with the minivan and opening the door, the one trick that almost always worked. Then I’d drive to the pound and leave him, the barking and the three leashes he’d eat on the way behind me. Sometimes I even told him all about it.

I might have even carried through if it weren’t for one thing.

He wasn’t my dog. I mean, he lived in my house and ate my dog food and got on my nerves, but he had chosen my son as His Boy. And my quirkly little boy had a lot of trouble fitting in and needed all the unconditional love he could get. Even if it came in the form of the most annoying dog in the world.

To be continued . . .with Part II.