Halloween was on Tuesday, but Sunday is where the mayhem began. Bear with this long post. It has been a crazy ride! Sunday is the day I usually get my mom in law into the shower, but that morning we were checking to see if one of Little Bear’s rabbits had her kits yet. It was below 20 F at night and the days aren’t too much warmer. She hadn’t, but I’d gotten up early and took my insulin twice for some reason. Thus, my glucose dropped incredibly low. I realised this when I was fixing Tikka’s litterbox and almost fell in head first (that would have been very distressful!). Being busy, I often don’t notice lows. My sensor reported one, but after it reports it once, it doesn’t again. Which is not really efficient. Technology is great, but it isn’t as perfect as it could be. I sat around, because no driving when it is as low as an American 40 (like most things in the US, we do glucose differently, too). I did text with my EMT friend. She’d done a college Halloween gig Sat night and reported a couple of amusing things. One was a guy who came in because he and his friends had some weed and now they all felt funny (you think????). Another gal wasn’t an icident, but she might have caused one. Apparently, the dress code was clothing optional (S Cal) and this gal arrived in panties and pasties. I laughed and said she might as well wear what she can’t while she can. In 10 years, or maybe 20, that kind of party not dress won’t be as easy to fit into. Anyway, my mom in law wasn’t showered. But, I did get her dishes done.
By noon the temp outside was up to 40F and falling again. I’d removed ice from the bird bath and it was on the porch railing still a thick round!! I also made cookie dough that afternoon for cookies on Monday. So, Sunday was busy, but it was only the tip of that ice piece!!
Monday is my day to do laundry. Unfortunately, Little Bear did most of his on Sunday, but not all of it. He’d gone to a friend’s to help move hay or something. Anyway, I made my cookies in the morning, gingerbread cutouts. Mostly man shaped, some circles. I’d gotten up at 730am to get things done. When I got to the mom in laws, she still didn’t get a shower. She didn’t really want one (it is a lot of work for both of us to get her in and out and cleaned) and two different mail persons came to the door before lunch. One needed a signature and the other was just a package. Amazon didn’t like my address 5 blocks away, so I used hers. Very strange.
I opted to decorate the cookies in the afternoon. I wanted to make orange frosting. Now, if you look at color wheels, orange is fairly easy to make. If you have the right colors. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Most of my red has been used to entice hummingbirds to the feeder (I think that is still outside, for some reason…) and my yellow was gone because I’ve a cake pan for a Big Bird cake that I’ve made many times. So, I used some other colors I had and made a disturbing hue of butterscotch. One of the little bottles had food coloring dried around the lid and it made a mess. A really really big mess!!! The dust, when wiped up with a damp cloth, made smears of bright pink! On my white stove, in my white sink where I’d shaken a dry dish towel, and on my hands. I wiped up dust for HOURS! Then, when I used the white frosting, it was too thin and spread and didn’t set up. I needed more powdered sugar, which I didn’t have. I tidied up a bit and left to go back to the mom in laws for a short minute. (it is like glitter, I keep finding bright pink whenever I clean something!)
Little Bear wsn’t home, but I was checking the rabbit off and on all day. He went up into the hills because the guy who rents from us had said someone had ‘removed’ the lock on the gate to the ‘ranch’ (several acres used for cows and hunting. In the 30’s it had been a ranch, but not anymore) and the ‘No Tresspassing sign was gone (metal sign was torn off because there was still pieces of it in the screws) and the fence was also cut. If a sign isn’t in place, a person can say there wasn’t one and if there isn’t one, they can wander around as they please. (insert eye roll) It was almost time to make dinner and I had run outside just before my next culinary mess. The mom looked like she’d given birth, but there wasn’t anything in the nest. Next to her water dish, though, I found a cold kit. It wasn’t stiff, so I brought it inside. After massaging the tiny thing under a bit of lukewarm water, it started moving. I dried it and put it in her nest box. An hour later, it was at the top of the hay and cold again. I warmed it once more (dinner was late because my midwifery took a while) and since Little Bear was home, he put it into a tiny box of hay and hair inside on a heating pad. He tried to get it to eat. Unfortunately, the mom wasn’t interested, he held her on her back and I set the little one near a teat. It was interested, but no milk. Babies can live quite a while at first and this little one was determined to live! Eventually, the mom was pulling fur again, but no more babies. This little one must have been a runt or something. Anyway, managed to get my cookies frosted. Made them into gingerdead men. Skeletons and mummies. Little Bear said the skeleton ones looked liked they’d been electrocuted (like the skeleton shape inside a cartoon character hit by lightening). He eventually went to sleep about midnight, I stayed awake with the rabbit. She’d had more about 1 am, but we needed to make sure they were all born before bringing everyone in (20F is too cold to be outside blind and naked). I had to lock Tikka in the bathroom because she was very intersted in the box. A lot of rustling noises. I kept going out every 45 min or so to check on the rabbit in case others ended up outside of the nest box. I finally went to sleep about 440am. And woke again about 600 and went back to sleep at 730. And messed up again. My glucose dropped so low I couldn’t figure out how to get up or turn off my cell phone alarm. I didn’t get to the mom in law’s til really late. I’m not made for all nighters anymore!
It was a busy Halloween. I got the laundry done, finally, and most of it was folded and put away by 11pm. We got 64 trick or treaters, Tikka was locked in the bathroom so she wouldn’t try to escape outside. I made muffins instead of more cookies (using up Halloween m&ms.) and sketti with meatballs (if you bake frozen meatballs and don’t turn them over, the side down gets dark and they look like eyeballs. Served with red sauce and noodles, it is a perfect creepy dinner.). The caramel corn mix I made last week with golden syrup was delicious. I was going to try it again with the ingredients listed and see how they differed. The batch I made on the 31st was really odd. When cleaning up, I realised what had happened. I’d forgotten half the butter!! I’ll make another batch of the caramel corn today. With mostly popcorn, It calls for pretzels and popcorn, but I’ve only about a cup of pretzels left. I’ll add the ‘loose’ m&ms and almonds and candy corn. Usually those stick to the mix fairly well, but these fell right through–because there wasn’t enough sweet glue. The little one was still alive and about a third of the size of the rest. Little Bear has been taking it out to the mom with just one other kit to help it get fed, you can do that with smaller kits so they even out later.
Wednesday, Little Bear called from work to ask me to make sure his door was closed. That is where he’s been keeping the babies while it is so cold. It was..but not latched. I’d been back and forth all Wed morning and the last time Tikka must have heard the little one and bumped open his bedroom door after I left. Little Bear called me from the house, almost in tears. She made a mess of the nest box and his room is a horror scene with hay, fur, and blood mixed up with the regular disorder on the floor of his room. Thankfully, she only ate the littlest one (part was under his discarded pj pants!) and the other 4 were alive and unharmed. It is also warmer today (above freezing), so he put the nest box back with the mom. We were worried because if the mom scents predator, she will sometimes abandon her babies. Thankfully, she didn’t. But, Tikka is now officially lcoked up in the bathroom where I should have put her when I left the last time this morning. (She is supposed to stay calm and with her blue bonnet-the Victorian collar is blue and kind of cute-on for 10 days after getting spayed. No jumping, running, or playing..or killing.) And me, I feel incredibly guilty. I saved this little guy for the darn cat to do what cats do. Because she’d been an inside/outside cat in a multiple feline family, she was used to ‘foraging’ for extras. But, it doesn’t erase my guilt. Maybe chocolate will.
Around the Korner 
You must be logged in to post a comment.