You don’t mind brushing your teeth in the bathtub, do you?

Some of them are pretty excited:

Others are maybe a bit more laid back about it:

It’s a good time to put on a costume, if you’re so inclined:

Or your fancy party clothes:

And there’s possibly even been a bit of caroling going on:

Of course, there’s always that one family member who puts away a bit too much of the spiked eggnog at the holiday party:

Calvin is having somewhat of an impulse control issue about waiting till Christmas morning to open presents:

This is the second time I’ve had to drag him out of this one, and rearrange the (increasingly more shredded) paper in the bag. And it’s not even his present.

Winter has decided the presents don’t need to be unwrapped to be useful:

We hope everyone has a safe, wonderful, and abundant holiday, and good things for the year to come!

That plan was cut short by a call Joy received from one of the animal control officers: he’d taken a call about some kittens under a woman’s porch, and had picked up two tiny kittens, so small that their eyes weren’t even open. We needed to quickly find someone who could raise them, or they’d have to be put down. Joy called Blue Ridge Humane Society and thankfully one of the staff there said she would take them. Awesome! All we had to do was to get them there; so much for our lazy afternoon in the sun, but a small price to pay to help save two lives.

Adorable fuzzy little week old calico babies!

The officer dropped the kittens off to us and I was instantly smitten; how can anyone resist a week-old kitten? They were fluffy little calico girls, a bit chilled but very healthy and VERY hungry. We headed right off to Blue Ridge to get them to their new caretaker. I have to confess the kittens rode there tucked inside my shirt, to warm them up.  I was almost reluctant to hand them over, but luckily I still remember how much work it is to raise bottle babies.

It was after five o’clock when we headed home and our sunny day was about gone; I hurried to feed the dogs and take advantage of what little daylight remained to continue my assault upon the forsythia patch. The nearby oak trees on our neighbor’s property had been raining acorns all day, and I’d gotten used to all the thumps of things hitting the ground around me (though initially I admit I had thought someone was throwing rocks at me) but then there was a thump nearby — followed by the sound of a small bird or animal screaming.

Jumping up and scanning the grassy area, I spotted a very small squirrel sort of stagger-crawling back up the hill. I approached it warily, convinced it would either (a) take off at a high rate of speed as soon as it saw me or (b) bite the crap out of me if I tried to pick it up. It did neither. I gently scooped up the squirrel and it nestled down into my hand immediately:

I had my iPod in my pocket and snapped this just seconds after I found the squirrel. This is almost more cuteness than one person can stand.

The poor little thing was very, very young, cold to the touch, and very dehydrated. My guess is that the mother had probably been hit by a car and not come home, and the baby — starving — crawled out of the nest and fell out of the tree. Joy got on the phone to find a rescuer for the second time that day.  She called several wildlife rehabbers, and finally found a lady who said that everyone was overwhelmed with hurricane orphans from the coast, but she’d call a few other people and get back to us. She also gave us some recommendations on what to do in the meantime.

The first problem at hand was the fleas; squirrels are loaded with them, and when I picked up the baby, what immediately happened was that literally hundreds of them swarmed off her cold body onto my nice warm one. I was standing way out in the middle of our driveway so as not to contaminate the house and yard, flicking fleas off myself frantically. The rehabber had said that Adams flea spray is safe to use, if you just wipe it on lightly; the fleas on a wild animal don’t have any built up resistance to insecticides so they die pretty easily. Thankfully she was right, and after a few minutes we’d removed most of them. I still had the heeby-jeebies for the rest of the night, imagining they were still crawling on me.

Next, we needed to get her rehydrated and warm. While Joy was on the phone, I had already been syringe-feeding the squirrel water – she was so thirsty she grabbed the syringe with her little hands and drank more than 3cc immediately. The rehabber told us not to try bottle formula, but rather to stick with the water short term and offer the squirrel some apple. Luckily we had apples in the house and she took to that pretty readily as well. Joy set up a little nest with a snuggle-safe underneath, and our houseguest was settled in for the evening:

Fern the squirrel (I know you aren’t supposed to make pets of wildlife, but we had to have something to call her temporarily, right?) slept most of the evening, with a few more drinks of water. At one point we heard a sharp whistle from the bathroom where we’d set the cage up (the only safe place from our houseful of predators) which apparently signified that she was hungry or thirsty again – I had no idea squirrels whistled? Each time I fed her, she’d crawl up to my neck and snuggle down against it, I was trying not to handle her too much but it was really hard to resist her apparent fearlessness acceptance of me as her replacement ‘mommy’.

The next day, we had a rehabber that the other lady had contacted called us back, and we arranged to meet and get the squirrel to him. Most of these pictures, except for that very first one, were taken just before we bundled her off to her new caretakers. The couple were very nice and were currently raising eight other squirrel orphans, and they said that this one was very young and had probably just opened her eyes. She’ll be safe and well cared for, (and most importantly, grow up knowing the things she needs to know to be a wild squirrel) then released onto their large wooded property once she’s ready.

This is my favorite picture, she was on her way to her snuggle-spot on my neck, and just after Joy snapped this she licked my face. You can really see how little and fragile she was, in this one.

All in all, it was a pretty eventful weekend, I’d say – with a pretty good outcome! We’re so happy that we found a safe place for both the kittens and the squirrel, and it’s actually pretty amazing that I was in the right place at the right time to save Fern in the first place – if I hadn’t been outside the fence cutting down those bushes right at that moment, there’s no way either of us would have heard her little cries when she fell.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen these two within a foot of each other. There was a sunbeam involved.

…like a hellhound out of some frozen Hell. That is what a friend jokingly said about the above picture, and that description seems to fit the weather of the past month rather well. It’s a shiny new year, but that’s because of the glare bouncing off all the snow and ice. We’ve had four snows – three of them significant, the last one still with us. Each time the snow was followed by days of bitter cold. Yesterday morning, it was four degrees outside when we got up. It’s very unusual for NC to get weather like this, and with this being the second year of it, I think we’re beginning to suffer from snow fatigue.

The dogs, on the other hand,  (Cricket being the exception here) are loving the snow. They frolic in it until they are exhausted. Paddy eats it, snorts it, digs in it gleefully. Gwen bounds through it and ends up coated in snow, looking like some sort of miniature yeti. At least someone is enjoying it, right?

If you click on either of the above pictures it will take you to a gallery of their “Fun in the snow” from January 10.

Last year wasn’t the greatest one, but I am thankful for everything we have. These are hard times, a lot of people are struggling hard, facing incredible losses, and we’re fortunate to have stable jobs and a roof (of our own, yet!) over our heads.  We lost Lindsy this past year, and it’s still weird and sad to have her gone. She was part of our lives for what felt like forever. We had Paddy and Gwen (who I still haven’t properly introduced here, that’s coming) join the family, and the little kitten we adopted in December of 2009 blossomed into the most wonderful big hunk of orange cuddliness. We adore our Calvin.

Cricket – amazingly – is still with us and thanks to some advice from our vet, her stomach trouble is better than it has been in years. Olive reached her fourteenth birthday! Simon is nine – nine! Holy crap, how did that happen? Winter, the ‘baby’ before Calvin came, will be six this coming June. Time just seems to go faster and faster.

This year ahead is going to be a tough one, I think; we have family members facing serious health challenges and it feels like there is some uncertainty and change possibly in the wind with other parts of our lives. But I also feel that these are all things that everyone could emerge on the other side of better than before. We just need to buckle in for the wild ride, and remember to be grateful for all the good things in our lives.