Sunday, March 05, 2006, 19:08
Baby Shower
I always like going places where I don't have to drive very far, so the baby shower on Saturday was one of those "happy circumstances." My nephew and his wife live around the corner from me and are about a half mile away. If it wasn't for the fact that I had to bring four dozen buns, as well as baby shower gifts, I would have enjoyed walking.
We had a good time at the baby shower. Everyone ate dinner together at noon. Then the men went down to the farmhouse and the women stayed at Jon and Amy's for the shower.
We were finished with the shower *long* before the men were finished with their game of Monopoly!
Mom-to-be Amy is doing quite well. Little Eli Roy is expected on April 13. Amy says she hopes he arrives sooner rather than later because she would rather not be in the hospital on Easter. They have finished painting the baby's room and putting up a wallpaper border (with farm animals on it!). The little guy's room is bright yellow and bright blue (bright yellow on the top; bright blue on the bottom).
Every time I see Amy, I have to talk to her tummy and say "Hi!" to Eli and tell him that we are all anxiously awaiting his arrival so we can make his aquaintance. I think Amy thinks I'm a little dippy, but she laughs when I do it, so I also think she thinks it's okay, too. (I hope so.)
Grandpa (my big brother, Ingman, who appears in all of my books) will most likely have to drive Amy the 30 miles to the hospital. He says he wants a "dry run" first so that he knows exactly where he is going and so nothing is left to chance. (Don't blame him!) (Grandpa also is holding onto the slim-slim-slim-slim-slim chance that Eli is a girl, even though the ultrasounds say otherwise.)
We played several games at the baby shower, of course, and I won one of them in part, I think, because I knew that a baby swam is called a cygnet. I don't know how I knew that. Just one of those trivial pieces of information that I have collected. I once won a game of Trivial Pursuit, too, because I knew that the composer of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
It is snowing now on Sunday afternoon. Randy is on his way home from the annual ice fishing weekend at his mom and dad's house all the way across the state. The Guys Fishing Weekend has been an annual event for something like 20 years.
I don't know how much it is supposed to snow. At 1 p.m., we had two inches on the ground.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take any pictures at the baby shower to post to Rural Route2. Randy took the camera with him for Guys Fishing Weekend.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, March 03, 2006, 20:57
Timber Wolf
I cannot say for sure because we did not see the animal, but I would be about 90 percent certain we heard a timber wolf last night.
I had gone to town in the afternoon (to get a gift for the baby shower tomorrow and oats for the horses), and it was 6 p.m. when I got home. By the time I got everything in the house and had gotten the horse feed ready, Randy came home at 6:30. We fed the horses, and then we took the dogs for a walk down the road. It was almost dark by then.
A little while earlier, coyotes had been howling across the road at the back of the farm where I grew up. We didn't think much of it because the coyotes were not terribly close.
As we made our way down the road, suddenly, about a hundred yards ahead of us, from some pine trees that belong to the neighbor but which are just at the end of our hayfield -- came a single, long howl. The kind of howl that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
Coyotes, from what I have observed, seldom travel alone. They like to be in packs, and when they start yipping and howling, they sound like hyenas. They also hunt in packs, which is why they are able to bring down deer and why they pose a threat to the neighbor's calves in the spring.
The single, lone howl came several times more as Randy and I and the dogs stood close together in the middle of the road.
Usually when the coyotes howl, Charlie, our Springer Spaniel, gets all bristly and stalks around as if he's thinking, "Let me at 'em. They don't belong here."
He didn't get bristly over the lone howl, and in fact, wanted to stand closer to Randy and I and Pixie.
"I think that's a timber wolf," Randy said.
"Maybe so. I've always heard coyotes in packs," I said. "Not one, howling all by itself."
"I wish we could see it," Randy said.
"I hope it is a timber wolf," I said. "I would rather have a pair of those around than a pack of 50 coyotes."
"Me, too," Randy said.
Timber wolves, from what I have read, are the natural enemy of the coyote.
"You go right ahead and chase those coyotes down to the river," I said.
We turned around and headed toward home. If we had continued on our present path, we would have had to walk right past where the timber wolf was howling. He was on top of a hill, just above the road in some planted pines.
After we had walked a few steps, I suddenly remembered that when I had come home from town, Isabelle and Kajun were watching something at the end of the five-acre hayfield. They stood and stared with their heads held high. The sun had already set, but it was light enough for me to see. At first, I thought they were watching deer, but I couldn't see any deer, and in fact, couldn't see anything at all. But still, they stood with their heads high, watching.
I told Randy about Kajun and Isabelle.
"I bet they saw the timber wolf cross the end of the hayfield, or something," I said.
"Could be," Randy said.
The coyotes have been in our hayfield, too, and have been in the hayfield at night when I've been out with the horses. Isabelle and Kajun have not paid any attention to the coyotes. You'd think they would. But the coyotes don't seem to bother them.
I must say, we're getting quite a list of wildlife around here: fisher/martin, bear, wolves, coyotes, pheasants, deer, quail, wild turkey, rabbits, grouse, raccoon. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph