Serenity. . . Please!

I love to look at these photos. I took them about a month ago and have been waiting for an opportune time to post them here and I couldn't think of a better time than today. This is what we see in our upper pasture on a regular basis from spring through fall. It is so serene. This is why we call our place "Deer Meadows." Fitting, don't you think?  

Now, imagine the sprinklers "sprinking," as Tanner would call it!

And cool mornings and evenings and pleasant days. And the sound of crickets. 

    And the smell of alfalfa. And the sounds of a river running.

And. . . diarrhea dog! Oh, yes, with the return of spring came the return of the sensitive-stomached dog! Like I have time for that today. Erik is gone on a scout trip, Holly is nowhere to be found with all the graduation-themed things going on. . . and diarrhea dog has returned! 

He looks so innocent. But let me tell you otherwise. It started in his kennel mid-afternoon yesterday with that panicked yelp that is all-too-familiar. I didn't even want to look. When the boys got home from school and heard the yelp, Tanner ran to the window to see what was happening. I heard him say, "Oh, Milo, it's okay. Uh-oh, he just pooped in his kennel." I asked how bad and his response was, "it's just like water." I asked the boys to go let the dogs out again in hopes of keeping the kennel clean. We found the diarrhea pills and gave him one at bedtime and then I heard that all-too-familiar yelp again right after waking up. I do NOT have time to deal with this today (so I'll blog about it rather than deal with it!) The crate has been pulled out of the garage for a later cleaning. . . when, I don't know. Lucky Tanner. . . it's a good thing he'll be home by 11:00 on this, the last day of school! Do you think people will notice the crate sitting conspicuously in middle of the driveway when they show up for graduation? Nah! The garage door is open for airing out.

The funniest thing about this is that I couldn't find the diarrhea pills this morning so I had to call the school to talk with Erik. I would have just texted him and had him text me back when he got back to his locker, but his phone is out of commission due to a 1,200 foot drop off of "Wicked" at the theme park yesterday. I called the school and talked with Merry (yes, that's really how you spell it :), and asked if there was a possibility that I could speak with Erik. There was a long pause on her end of the phone. She told me they were in an award's ceremony in the auditorium and that they were out of school at 10:00, kind of with a "can't you wait until then to talk with your child" tone in her voice. I then went into the whole, I don't-know-what-to-do-about-diarrhea-dog spiel. I told her I was trying to find the diarrhea pills and that Erik wasn't going to be home after school because he was leaving on an overnight scout trip and on and on. She laughed and said, "well, that sounds like an emergency. Let me go find him." Erik did tell me where to find the pills (in the house by the human peanut butter, not out in the garage by the dog peanut butter for the ole' hide-the-pill-in-the-peanut-butter trick. . . I would never had looked there!) 

When I asked Erik what he was going to tell his friends when they wanted to know why he was called out of any assembly he said, "I don't know, I'll think of something." And they will ask. . . it's just the age!

Hopefully we get diarrhea dog back to normal soon so we can enjoy graduation and the guests that will be here.  

Hey, Grandma's coming over to help get things ready for tonight. Hmmm. . . think I could ask her to clean the dirty crate. She's a farm girl. . . she dealt with worse than that with calf scours!