One set of puppies arrived!

Birdie successfully delivered seven puppies on Good Friday. J. came and assisted in the deliveries of puppies 3, 4 and 5...the first animal deliveries she had witnessed. It was almost as fun to watch J. enjoying her new experience, as watching the puppy births. My daughter actually resuscitated the last puppy, which had come out droopy and not breathing after the initial stimulation. She continued the stimulation of rubbing, blowing, stoking, etc. until she got a response. Then she spent all evening and night watching over the pup - making sure it got several drinks of milk despite the weak sucking reflex & competition of six other wriggling bodies rooting around for nipples that smelled of bitch's milk. Tonight all is well with that litter. Birdie is relaxed and resting between her occasional checking of each puppy with her eyes and tongue. Pi, on-the-other-hand, has had her temperature drop from the 101 degree F. range to 98.6 degrees. She should deliver within 24 hours. We should have an Easter litter for our friend. Refusing her meal this evening was another indication that more deliveries are imminent. My husband took the first watch of six hours and then hit the bed, snoring within 5 seconds. Now I am checking the doggy nursery between blog sentences. Nothing is quite so fascinating as new life.

The Joy of the Great Commandment

The last couple of weeks have been joyful! My family has had the opportunity to "do unto others what we would like to have done unto us". As volunteer leaders of a small Messianic congregation, we have the opportunity to physically and spiritually feed our small group each Shabbat. Many changes in our mishpocheh, (transliteration for the Hebrew word for "family"), are opening doors of service for us. We spent much of a week helping a couple sort & pack their belongings and clean their cabin/home so he could be driven as quickly as possible to Atlanta to receive alternative treatments to his stomach cancer. About a month ago, we had sat in hospital waiting rooms with the wife while her husband underwent a major surgery (Bilroth II) that removed a large, last-growing tumor from his stomach and duodenum. Unfortunately the margins of the tumor were diffuse rather than defined, so the pathology slides above and below the surgical site still revealed cancer cells, although it appeared to the naked eye that the cancerous tumor had been completely cut away. A week in ICU and another week in a regular surgery ward started the healing after the surgery. Then the husband went home with a "j tube" in place in his small intestine, so he could get additional tube feedings, since he has less than a third of his stomach left. He is a large man, so the calories needed to support him can not be obtained only by continual smaller day meals. We learned that stomach cancer does not respond well to either chemotherapy or radiation, so they have had to seek other alternative treatments. One is to heat up the entire body to above 103 degree F. temperatures. Fast-growing cancer cells heat up even faster and are killed. This has evidently helped some people in the past. Of course, special diets are important in stomach cancer treatment.
In extending ourselves with these friends and another couple who are moving to Alaska, we noticed ourselves almost on an emotional high. We have also been supporting an elderly couple, who decided for the wife to move into an assisted-living facility mid-week. She has had a couple of strokes which have created disability that extensive rehab. has not eliminated over the past couple of years. The husband has been getting minimal sleep during that time as he has cared for her in their home. He is totally exhausted and she is slowly declining mentally and physically. We have helped with food and emotional support. They decided not to have us help with night care. We watch these couples and realize how blessed we really are.
We like dogs & have two golden retrievers. Therefore, dog-sitting is also an avenue we use to help friends. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved. At the moment we have two very pregnant female goldens of a friend in our diningroom. One is in our whelping box, since her temperature has begun to drop. The other is in a more make-shift pen for possible delivery. Our friend took two other goldens to a dog show in Alaska. We hope to get a puppy from her in the future, as she breeds from the best golden lines and has wonderful show quality puppies in her litters. Anyway, we love the life helping others gives us. God has arranged - even in this fallen world - for many of the blessings you give others to boomerang back into your own lives.

Purim - Esther's Fast/Feast

This year is a Jewish leap year with an extra month of Adar. As a result, Purim is the Jewish holiday close to Good Friday and Easter, rather than the usual Passover. Our Passover Seder will come on the 23rd of April at sunset this year. In recent centuries, Jewish families eat Hamantashen during Purim and give gifts to the poor. The story of "Esther" is read and often dramatized, with all the children dressing in costumes of the characters in the story. Our daughter loved to dress like the queen, her namesake, when she was young. While reading the story, noisemakers, called groggors, are shook or twirled, or folks boo & hiss whenever Haman's name is read. Wolf whistles are made when Esther's name is read. Everyone shouts "Yea" or "Hurrah" when Mordecai's name is read. Hamantashen are cookies that look like the three-cornered hat that tradition says Haman, the villain in the story, wore. Here is my favorite dough for Hamantashen:
1/4 pound butter 2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup sugar 1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 egg yolks 1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 pint sour cream 1/8 tsp. orange zest
3 cups flour

I always double this recipie when I make it. Cream butter and sugar together until well mixed. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks. (Save the whites for Meringue cookies) Add the beaten egg yolks to the butter-sugar mixture; then add the sour cream.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda; add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture. Now add the vanilla and orange zest. (I always save orange peels for a couple of weeks before Purim to make my own fresh orange zest.) Mix well. Cover securely with wax paper or plastic wrap. Let stand in the refrigerator overnight. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Roll out 1/4 inch thick and cut into 3 1/2 inch rounds. Place a heaping tsp. of filling into the center of each round. Draw up two sides of the dough and then the third, pinching the edges in the center of the round to form a three-cornered "pocket" for the filling. Place on a greased baking sheet & bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. ( Our favorite fillings are fruit preserves like apricot, strawberry or huckleberry. More traditional are date, prune or poppyseed fillings.)

Meringues Plus Cookies - What we do with the egg whites!
2 egg whites 3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt 1/4 cup chopped nuts
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar 1 6-ounce pkg.chocolate chips or bits
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Beat egg whites with salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla until soft peaks form. Add sugar slowly and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold in nuts and chocolate. Grease cookie sheet and dust lightly with flour. Drop by heaping teaspoonful on sheet & bake for 25 minutes.

On those years that Purim is close to St. Patrick's Day, I add a little green food coloring to the egg white mixture. On leap years, I leave the mixture white, so it more resembles the Messiah's tomb. When baked, the cookies are mostly empty!

First Jobs

My sixteen year-old daughter is applying for a job at Cold Stone Creamery. She has two friends, who were on her high school basketball team, who already work there and like it. Two weeks ago, she picked up the application for employment and filled it out. She returned it the next day. In a week, she was called in for what the manager called an "audition". She and a dozen other teens were present to answer questions, make up singing jingles and try to make a good first impression. Now a week later, she was phoned and asked to come for a regular interview. Each step of the process has created a case of nervous second-guessing and mannerisms in my daughter. Now she awaits the final call to find out if she landed a job, which starts at minimal wage. This brings back so many memories. Sometimes I'm plain happy that I am no longer a teen, no longer trying to decide who I really am and what I might want to do with the rest of my life. All this, while I am also trying to impress the boys or managers of businesses. Yes, I am satisfied to be in my mid-life while watching her.

Lamb Antics

Obviously I am feeling verbose this evening after days of no blog postings. As noted in the previous blog, it has just been too nice outside to remain at a computer. Our lambing season has stalemated after half of our ewes birthed the six lambs. Those lambs get into predicaments in their explorations. Yesterday I came home from a trip to Hamilton to find one of the lambs entrapped in the electric fencing around our chicken house. The baaing of the lamb and answering chorus of baaing from the rest of the flock on the other side of our regular fencing, caught my attention. As I came near, the lamb did not realize I came to help. He grew more panicky. He repeatedly jumped into the regular fencing, bounced off and tried again. He tried to squeeze through the gap between the gate and fencing, but couldn't get through. He would turn and run in the opposite direction toward the chicken house or toward the three Tennessee Walking horses that share the pasture. The horses had walked over to watch this noisy lamb and didn't move when he would run at them in his panic. About the time I thought the lamb would bump into a horse leg or two, he would realize where he was and reverse his direction...only to run and bounce off the fencing again or almost get stuck at the gate in trying the squeeze method of escape. After twenty minutes or so, one of his bounces was near the corner of the fenceline where the fencing is a bit loose. His weight carried him partly under the fence. He squirmed the rest of the way to the other side. This is probably how he got into the wrong pasture. The Lord compares us to sheep and lambs. I never get into situations like this and panic, do I?!

Antrim Point

How I have been enjoying our unseasonably dry and warm February and March days. Our weather forecaster stated recently that this is the second dryest & warmest winter on record for Missoula, MT. and the surrounding area. During the 50 and 60 degree temperatures, I have pruned trees, weeded the herb bed, helped remove pieces of tin from a large pine tree in front of our home and resealed the tree with pruning sealer. My husband even cleaned out our chicken house. Best of all, we have loved the starlit nights and the hikes on Sunday afternoons. The last two Sunday afternoons, I ambled south on Meadowlark Lane until it ended. Then I cut across another neighbor's property a few feet to be able to cross over onto the acreage owned by Priscilla Antrim. Priscilla bought 4 Coriadell sheep from us about ten years ago and gave us permission at that time to hike whenever we wanted on her property, which had been placed into a conservation easement years earlier. This property is called "Antrim Point", as it is the highest ridge around our area. It once boasted a Forest Service fire siting tower located at the level summit. The summit has a wonderful 360 degree view of the Bitterroot Mountain range, the Sapphire Mountain Range, parts of the Eastside Highway and homes along it, as well as the Bitterroot River. In June, Antrim Point wears Bitterroot flowers, from which our valley is named. Only the evergreens were green on these past two hikes. I could not even find the early Buttercups that we have seen down in the lower meadows. What I did find saddened me. As I left the conservancy, I noticed several signs announcing proposed subdivisions that would border Antrim Point. Our rural area is slowly but surely being built into a suburbia. I still plan to hike Antrim Point at least early in the morning on summer days. I'll hike down aways from the summit to sit on an old pine that my husband and I have dubbed "Lover's bench". The pine grows up from the ground about a foot, then turns parallel to the ground for about two feet and then turns vertical again for the rest of its height, which is quite tall. There is a nice view of the Bitterroot River and mountains from this natural seat. I like to sit and commune with the Creator of all this beauty at this spot. Hopefully the sprawling encroachment of homes will not change my private meeting spot. I'm starting to engraft more of "the Word" - James and some of the Psalms - into my life and hope to spend time meditating on the words I've memorized while sitting on the lover's bench and gazing at the Bitterroot beauty.

Short of Power

Our electricity went off and stayed off most of Monday when a bird flew into a large transformer at the power station for our area. All the tasks I had planned for the day came to a screeching halt - the laundry, exercise on the treadmill and the shower after it, cooking lunch and dinner... I did a few tasks that did not require electricity and as the minutes ticked to hours, I finally left to run errands in Missoula & attend my weekly Hebrew class. Thankfully our electric gate opener has a battery attached to it so I could flee my frustration. The power was back on just before I returned home from my Hebrew lesson, where we are translating Genesis. Once again I realized how reliant I am on electricity in my daily life. Before Y2K my husband and I bought a generator strong enough to get the water from our well or to power our freezer for a few hours. However, we never had the proper switch put into our electric box that would allow us to switch over to the generator without causing problems. We must make aquiring that switch a higher priority. My natural self is just like that poor bird. I detect a lack of spiritual power and so ask my heavenly Father what happened. He often reveals that my fleshly self got into the middle of a situation that He had well in hand. I messed it up but good and shorted the whole system for myself and oh so many others!