Lie in August’s Welcome Corn!

     “Join in black December’s sadness, lie in August’s welcome corn, stir the cup that’s ever blending with the blood of all that’s born . . .”

-- Jethro Tull,  Cup of Wonder, from Songs from the Wood

                         

Pesach took me by surprise and then there was a long silence on this blog. So many things happened in April and May and then summer was upon us, and now the Monsoon and the first hints of autumn are already showing themselves here in the high country. Elul is also upon us, early this year just as Pesach was. But in order to begin looking to the year ahead, I need to look back at least a bit to see what brought me from there to here.

 

April, Come She Will:

The post-Pesach Spring Term was divided between Freedom Ridge Ranch and the house in Sedillo. Both the Cowboy and I were taking classes, he at CNM and me at UNM. In April, we drove up to Albuquerque every Monday morning and returned late Thursday night. It was a hectic busy time, make more do-able by the increasing light and warmth, although it was a cool spring in New Mexico.

In April, I:

•   Edited a dissertation for my Ruby Slipper friend, doing both APA Style formatting, grammar and spelling, and helping with writing style.
• Worked on a literature review for a class I was taking, as well as a research proposal and presentation.
•   Enjoyed down time hanging out at Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque, and began planning the summer work at the ranch.

May Days:

The term ended for the Cowboy and I at the end of April,  and he returned to the ranch and stayed. However, I was still back and forth there, and on up to Aurora, Colorado, mostly on Libertarian Business.

In May, I:

•   Helped plan and attended the LPNM annual convention, where I was termed out as Vice Chair and began a term as Secretary. There was a lot of politicking involved this time as we had a take-over threat and I really wanted our current Chair to remain Chair, although he wasn’t so sure.
•   Continued final editing on the Ruby Slipper’s dissertation, which reported a kick-ass study he did.
•   Drove up to Aurora one weekend for the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance meeting, held in conjunction with the Colorado State Convention. This was great—more relaxed than the bi-annual National Convention—there was plenty of time to talk to Libertarians. It always feels like coming home!
•    With the pressures of committee and comps preparation over for the semester, I had a chance to spend time with Excel Manufacturing friends after a long hiatus.
•   At the ranch, we welcomed our only baby calf of the spring (we had shipped some of the older cows and the bull earlier in the year). We also had water-pipe problems and had to work on the system, and install a new French drain in the irrigation system as well. We got the fencing complete for the greenhouse/garden area.

June is the Hottest Month:

June is hot and dry in New Mexico. Every living thing begins to long for water, and people slow down. We had several weeks of very hot weather, and late in June, temperatures climbed to a record 106 degrees. During late May and June, we had a number of serious wildfires in New Mexico and Arizona, and we saw some smoke at the ranch and in Albuquerque.

In June:

• I picked up my nephew, the Illinois Boy, at the airport as his parents moved to Texas and he came to try out life at the ranch. Once he adjusted to the altitude, he took to it very well.
• The day I picked up the IB, I had a long talk with my realtor, and we brought the price down for the Sedillo house, my beautiful Hobbit Hole. It was a painful decision, but important. We knew we needed to sell the house.
• On the second Friday in June, I thought I saw lightning as I was setting the Shabbat table. Dry lightning is common in June, so I thought nothing of it. The next morning, I woke up with a floater in my eye. I called Eye-Doc Randi that afternoon, and the short of it is that I had a vitreous detachment, requiring numerous trips to Albuquerque and UNM Eye Clinic for monitoring.
• We started fencing for a new horse pasture, and the Cowboy was really happy to have the IB’s help. The IB also learned to ride a horse, drive cattle and drive the tractor. We will make a cowboy of him yet!
• I went riding every week with a friend, JL, another Jew in the Republic of Catron. She was a wrangler for years in Arizona, and passed on some of her riding expertise to me.
• The Cowboy broke his hand while driving cows, and spent five weeks in a cast. Or he was supposed to, anyway!

 

 

Glorious July: 

July was truly a wonderful month, because the Monsoon  came right on the Glorious Fourth and stayed through the month. We got 3.53 inches of precipitation for the month, several of them in cloudbursts that re-arranged the landscape.

In July:

• We celebrated the Glorious 4th small-town style, with a parade and BBQ. Yours truly was honored to read the Declaration of Independence right after the choral presentation of patriotic music.
• The IB settled in, helping me dig retention basins around the trees, and we started a garden.
• The Cowboy spend several weeks working cattle at the York Ranch, but that ended in mid-July because the Monsoon had not yet hit the Continental Divide Country, and they shipped their cattle to a ranch in Texas for better grass.
• I qualified for my Concealed Carry Weapon license, shooting the EG’s Glock .40!
• The Cowboy removed his cast prematurely at the York Ranch, cutting it off himself, because it was getting gnarly. He’s definitely a Cowboy.
• The IB had to return to Illinois to take care of some business late in July and we weren’t sure if he was coming back.
• In the same week, Eye-Doc Randi found a small tear in the retina of my right eye—the one with the vitreous detachment—and I had a week in Albuquerque, playing appointment tag with an over-worked retina specialist.
• In the same week, the IB decided to come back—with resome gentle pushing and bribery from his mother and grandparents, and I arranged the flight.
• In the same week, we had a real gully-washer and frog-strangler, that washed away half the county. We have a new micro-topography here at the Ranch.

 

Lie in August’s Welcome Corn: 

And here we are at the end of the first full week of August. Time speeds when there is so much to accomplish and so many things happening.

The country looks like spring does elsewhere, all green and gold with water falling from the sky, running, trickling and making mud for the dogs to play in and trucks to get stuck in. The IB, gone barely two weeks, did not recognize the place.

And the day I picked him up at the airport, we got an offer on the house. Monday, that was. We dickered Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon. We came to agreement just after I had a good interview for a part-time staff position at CNM, a position I applied for in the Disability Center.

Whoo-hoo! The house is under contract. And, sniffle, we must now say good-bye to that era in our lives.

And just in time for Elul—the season of our turning . . .

But that’s another blog.

Technorati Tags: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,Summertime,Times and Seasons,Family Life

Yom Kippur: The Day of Decision

“This is the Day of Decision . . .”

“ . . . in the camps and streets of Europe mother and father and child lay dying, and many looked away. To look away from evil: Is this not the sin of all “good” people?”

“Turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why should you choose to die, O House of Israel?”

--Sha’arei T’shuvah: The Reform Machzor

 

Our lives are fleeting, like a leaf that rides on the river of time, for a while, and then subsides, while the river flows on. This is one theme of Yom Kippur and the High Holy Days in general, timed as they are in the month of autumn, from the dark of the moon to its waxing. This year the Engineering Geek and I felt this acutely, as our daily household has shrunk to just the two of us, with both children up and out.

This gives us both pause about where we are in our lives, with more years behind us than ahead, but it also confers a certain freedom, and one way that we expressed it was to choose to spend Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur differently, cutting ties to the synagogue where the children were raised. We went to the small, eclectic and egalitarian shul in Flagstaff, taking a hotel room in order to experience Yom Kippur free of the distraction of long distance driving. Of course, in the odd way of the Jewish world, where smaller degrees of separation abound and bind across continents, we found connections with the president of the congregation, another member who remembers me as a very pregnant cantorial soloist, and the rabbi herself, with whom I share a mentor, a study partner, and a course of study.  

And for the first time in our ten years of marriage, the EG and I also were free to really spend some time on the Day of Atonement studying the Machzor—the High Holy Day Prayer Book—free of distractions. This was a boon we had not counted upon, and it worked out because the little shul has an organized morning service followed immediately by Yizkor (the Memorial Service), after which there is a long break until Neilah, the evening service just before breaking the fast. Not wanting to put ourselves in places of commerce nor to go back to the hotel, we went instead to Buffalo Park—a huge open space under the San Francisco Peaks—and there we found a lone marble bench facing the mountains, cloud-shadowed beyond a field of yellow daisies, where we prayed the afternoon service for ourselves, stopping to discuss and comment upon it along the way. And as is always true for me, themes that match what is going on in my inner and outer life fairly jumped out of the pages of the Machzor, demanding to be confronted.

Yom Kippur is, as the prayer book says, a day of decision. The image is the Book of Life being open at the Seat of Judgment, as every human being chooses between good and evil, life and death:

You open the book of our days and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being. . . This is the Day of Judgment . . .”

But the problem for many Jews is that we have taken a concept of judgment from the dominant culture, one that is foreign to our own world view. This idea is that human beings should eschew judgment altogether, that it is wrong to make a judgment—which I cannot help but point out, is a judgment itself. For because human being have the capacity to make decisions, we must necessarily make judgments between good and evil, between right and wrong, between life and death. Judgment is not an option, and it is also not something to be feared:

Your love is steadfast on Judgment day, and you keep your covenant in judgment . . .

You penetrate mysteries on Judgment Day, and you free your children in judgment . . .

You uphold all who live with integrity on Judgment Day . . .

On Yom Kippur, we take the time to ponder, to burn away the clouds of mystery, and to make judgments about ourselves, determining where we have failed in judgment and where we have gone beyond our own boundaries, in order to restore integrity to our lives.

Beyond our own lives, we must make judgments about our world. We cannot say: Who am I to judge this policy, this action, these people and their behaviors? We Jews know what the sin of silence and the sin of indifference mean.To refuse to judge evil as evil, and evil doers as evil doers is to allow it and to become a part of it. There are no innocent bystanders. And those who claim to desire peace but refuse to confront evil cannot create peace, rather they will bring death and destruction upon themselves and upon those who excuse them, for to excuse the guilty is an injustice waged upon the innocent.

In the praying of the services, in the thoughts that the words in the Machzor inspire, and in our discussion of them, I have made some decisions for myself, or I have set the standards and benchmarks for decisions that I expect to need to make this year. Over the years of my upbringing and education, and on into young adulthood, I had developed the habit of self-censorship in response to a great many things, and over the last 11 years I have made a concerted effort to rid myself of this habit, for it is a dangerous abdication of the mind and heart. I will continue to root this out of my life, and replace such fears and hesitations as I may have with reliance on making judgments that are just and true. This year, more than ever, as our world spirals out of control and our civilization seems bent on suicide, this emphasis on truth and justice as the basis of judgment becomes more important than ever, and that integrity is something I want to restore in small ways as well as large, and in my personal as well as any public life I might have.

There are other conclusions that I have come to in order to fulfill my desire to mend my errors and to  be proud of what I have written in my book of life, and perhaps I will share more of them at another time, but I know that confronting untruth will be my greatest challenge. The Hebrew word for truth is EMET and the Hebrew word for justice is TZEDEK. EMET and TZEDEK will be my words for 5773. These are big words, and knowing my own weaknesses regarding them, I take pause before them. They require great  courage and discernment both, and i tend to err on both. And yet I long to come closer to these marks. I may not have the power to change the world that seems to be hell-bent on destruction, but creating an island of order and sanity within the chaos is a worthy goal.

 

Technorati Tags: Judaism,Times and Seasons,Yom Kippur

Elul 5771: Renewing Our Days at Freedom Ridge Ranch

The Jewish year 5771 has been a year of changes. This has been reflected in my blog, in my daily life and in our family's approach to Jewish life. Last year, I completely missed writing a post about Elul at all, and the posts about our Jewish holidays have been short or entirely missing. Although we did celebrate them, our celebrations were different--especially in the springtime of the year, when we were caught up in the most protracted move I have ever made, complicated as it was by the Engineering Geek's retirement, surgery and frequent travel. However, this summer--as we got settled here on the ranch--we began some practices for our Jewish life way out here, far from any organized form of communal life.

Change, even good change, even planned change, is hard. It is endings and beginnings. For me, starting a business, investing in that business, buying property, moving out of a house I loved, learning, learning, learning--sometimes the hard way--all of these things create a lot of emotional stress. For the EG, retiring from a career at the National Labs, a work environment that was becoming increasingly bureaucratic and difficult to fit himself into, leaving the work itself--which he loved, learning how to organize his own work, forming his own Engineering firm and dealing with the financial changes this all entailed created stress that matched and exceeded mine. For the CIT, making the decision to move to a new school in mid-year, making that move, meeting new people, adjusting to small-town life, planning for life after high school, and taking a great deal of responsibility for animals and the infrastructure of the ranch, all made for his own adjustments.

The confluence of all of these individual changes definitely put great stress on each set of individual relationships--husband to wife, wife to husband; mother to son, son to mother; step-father to step-son, step-son to stepfather--and there was a great deal of family turmoil as all of these relationships had to be negotiated anew. For not only are the parents transitioning to a new phase of life--retirement, new work and new plans, but so is the boy becoming a man, planning his next moves, working out how to be up and out and yet remaining attached to the ranch, work that he wishes to inherit.

And of course, there is also everything that is happening in the outside world, a world that is becoming increasingly unstable as it approaches a Crisis period, the Fourth Turning of the Saeculum. Increasing financial stress upon our country, and the crash of economies in other countries; the increasingly dire realization that--like it or not--there is an implacable enemy out there that threatens our country and our world; and for us, the rise of the oldest hatred, the virulent antisemitism, expressed this time through a threat to the very existence of Medinat Yisrael--the Jewish State.

As the world labors to enter a new cycle of seasons, as the generations enter new phases of their own lives, and as we make huge changes, we have found the need to establish new ways of reconnection to our heritage and our religion. All these stresses, coming together as they are, require a strong central anchor, a place of coherence, in order for us to generate the faith in life and in ourselves so that we can weather what is coming with strength of spirit.

So as the physical requirements of the move receded into the past, and as spring became summer and the emotional turmoil began to manifest, we knew we had to establish a different kind of Jewish life. At one point in June, when the smoke hung in the air and the rumors of evacuation were upon us, we knew it was going to be divorce, murder or a positive evolution to our marriage. At this time, when it looked like we weren't going to survive ourselves, we happened to unpack our Ketubah--our marriage contract. And we read the contract we had made: to establish a household within the People Israel, and to nurture our lives through the cycles of Sabbaths and Holy Days.

So we began to turn again, a little earlier than Elul, or our Elul began a little before it begins formally. We are not certain which is true. So we each established for ourselves our own person ritual of prayer and study, more of less formal as we each felt we needed. As a family, we have always observed the Sabbath together, but during this past year it had become disorganized and perfunctory. Into this latent framework we breathed new life, making it a point to appreciate each other through the formal ritual of the Friday night Shabbat ritual. To this we added a casual, communal service on Shabbat morning, including Torah Study. As it has been summer, we have been praying this service together on the porch, developing our own minhag (custom) about who leads and who responds during the different prayers.
And then before we eat lunch, we make Shabbat morning Kiddush. And in the evening when three stars appear, we make Havdalah.

As always, I am amazed at the truth of the saying about Torah from Pirke Avot: "Turn it, and turn it, for everything is in it." Each week, the portion says something to us about the things we have been pondering, or about what is happening in the world. Soon we will celebrate Sukkot, our first here at the ranch, and this phenomenon of the eternal relevance of Torah to our lives and the life of the world is stated in the readings from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes): There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to events created out of the relationships of person to person and community to community.

There is nothing set in stone about this routine we are establishing. We still have to travel to Albuquerque to care for our house, to take care of other business, and to fulfill appointments. When we do, our comings and goings do not always go as planned. And so, when we are there instead of here, we reconnect with our now far-away Jewish community by attending Friday night services, and then having a more simple ritual at home.

There can be, we have discovered, Jewish life when one lives 30 miles from nowhere, and 200 miles from the nearest synagogue. The bands of connection to ritual life and community have to become elastic, and the ways that we relate to it must change. At the same time, we are learning that in some ways, those connections become more necessary and more important.

I have learned again that Jewish life changes with the lifecycle, that the cycle of the year and the circle of one's life are wheels within wheels, ever turning, bringing us back always to that stable and necessary center.

Blessed is the One who renews our days as in days of old.

On the REAL Name for the Ranch

Welcome to Freedom Ridge Ranch: Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the cows are above average.

Alert readers may have noticed that the name of our ranch has finally been decided upon. I have been calling it "Ragamuffin Ranch" here on this blog and in general conversation because, well, I liked it. But there are other people involved in this enterprise besides me. The CIT thought the name was too cutesy, and threatened to pull out of the whole enterprise if it stayed that way. "Mom," he stated, "You don't rope cattle on a place called Ragamuffin Ranch." The EG was in total agreement, the name was too 'girly girl" and had to go. And he pointed out that even our ranching partner hated the name. "She hates that as much as you hate anything with the word 'Pointe' at the end of it!"
It is true. I refused to buy property once in a place with 'Pointe' as part of its name. I hate that pretentious 'e' at the end, and mocking call a place called Primrose Pointe, 'Primrose Pointy.'

We thought of a lot of possible and not so fussy names. We thought of a lot of humorous names, too, but we didn't intend to use them. "City Slickers Ranch" or "Broke Acres" just doesn't have the proper ring, the one that will make certain people want to be part of this adventure. So we looked at names based on local rock formations and local features. I really liked the idea of "Point Lookout Ranch, a name taken from the Point Lookout formation that makes up the caprock of our mesas and ridges . But the name with the most 'ring' to it was "Freedom Ridge Ranch", named after the ridge there behind the cabin the picture. This is the ridge that the old homesteader who took out a claim on this land a hundred years ago looked up at every day while proving up his claim, and the one that rainbows like to visit and mists (and smoke) like to curl around.

Freedom Ridge Ranch.
It brings up connotations of grass fed, grass finished beef raised in freedom right here on the ranch. It brings up the wholesome goodness of free-range chickens pecking in the grass, producing eggs with the yellowest yolks you have ever seen. And for Studley Dooright, our bull, it brings up the run up the ridge and through the fence to check out the pretty cows in season over at the McKinley place--but that's another story.

Most importantly, it reminds the EG of why he invested in the project in the first place. Freedom might have been 'just another word for nothin' left to lose' to Janice Joplin, but for the EG it means self-employment and entrepreneurship--and the time to craft really fine wood products-- after years of being just another engineer at a government lab. Our ranching partner likes all the connotations, but seems particularly taken with the idea of naming the ranch after a local geographical feature. And the CIT likes the freedom he has to swing a rope and to ride his horse daily.

And me? I like the whole concept of freedom. The freedom from the noise and traffic of the city. The freedom to set my own daily schedule, and the freedom of having my husband around all the time . . . (Hmmm. I wouldn't go that far, even out of sheer enthusiasm).
But I especially like the idea that we are free and clear, and can decide how to use this wealth made up of this place at this time using for our own best interest. That's the best part of having one's husband retire. Not to mention that the alarm does not go off at dark o'clock anymore. I never see a cow until after the sun comes up . . . Perhaps that's the greatest freedom. The Freedom from the tyranny of the alarm clock.

Pass that grass fed, grass finished beef, please.
And welcome to Freedom Ridge Ranch.

And After the Fire . . .

וְאַחַ֤ר הָרַ֙עַשׁ֙ אֵ֔שׁ לֹ֥א בָאֵ֖שׁ יְהוָ֑ה וְאַחַ֣ר הָאֵ֔שׁ קֹ֖ול דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה׃
And after the earthquake, a fire--the Eternal
was not in the fire. And after the fire--kol
ramamah dakah--a soft murmuring voice.
-- I Kings 19:12

The past month has been a very fast ride. During the first week of June, the Wallow fire in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest took off, leaping quickly to the northeast, sending its smoke and ash up to our ranch on winds so strong that the fire was spotting up to three miles ahead of the line. That week was surreal here, as we went about with windows closed, peering through windows at a world gone smoky and eerily, translucently orange and red. Even up in Albuquerque and Tijeras, the smoke was seen and smelled, the funeral pyre of thousands upon thousands of trees covering six states.

We lost a lot of time down here on what has now been formally named Freedom Ridge Ranch, the chickens are late arriving, the garden only got half-in, and will have to be stocked with plants started at nurseries in Show Low and Albuquerque. We spent a day moving the horses down to the Middle Rio Grande Valley and another moving them back. But we did get the house in Tijeras on the market (listing here in case you know somebody . . .) and we are pretty close to being done moving in down here at the ranch. Work here is now proceeding apace, and though catching up to what we envisioned for this summer is highly unlikely, we find ourselves grateful for what could have happened but didn't as we greet a timely monsoon season with fresh appreciation.

Over the past week we have had the opportunity to drive roads that were closed a week or two ago, through the Apache-Sitgreaves and in the Rim Country, on Monday, down to Luna and today over to Pinetop-Lakeside. Each time, as we drove across the state line, we saw the shadow on Escudillo Mountain, the burned areas coming down near to Eager itself. We saw the blackened places along US 180 and SR 260, where backfires had been set. But we also saw the damp ground where the monsoon rains had brought out the green of new growth. And near the Fort Apache ski area, we saw the ferns under the jack pines, impossibly green where a month ago there was only brown. Deer crossed the highway, taking their own sweet time, and wild horses were grazing again near the lakes and rivers between the Greer turnoff and McNary.


The fire was terribly hard on some of our friends and neighbors, some losing their homes and everything but what they could take out, but many lost only their refrigerators full of food when the electricity went out while they were evacuated. We discovered this when we went into Lowe's at Show Low today to find a fitting for the ice maker/water line we were installing for our refrigerator. Lowe's was out of refrigerator water line fittings. They were low on refrigerators. They had been selling them off the floor to people who needed them. People from Nutrioso, from Alpine, from Greer and Sunrise. The insurance companies were paying Lowe's to lock and haul off the old refrigerators with spoiled food within, and install new ones. And Lowe's was throwing in the new fittings because although the old ones may have been good, when they install they are liable for any new leaks. The kindness of neighbors and the kindness of strangers, and even of large corporations, is a balm to the spirits of those who are now rebuilding homes and lives. We saw each other through, with a little help from friends and strangers.

The fire was terribly hard on some, and very difficult for most here, but the primary response is gratitude. Where ever we have seen burned ridges and valleys, we have also seen the signs. In Nutrioso, in Alpine, in South Fork, in Luna, in Greer: THANK YOU! God Bless Our Firefighters! Thank You, Our Heroes! GREER, ARIZONA: Still Here, Still Green. In case Obama is wondering, this is the fiercely independent, decidedly can-do spirit of Flyover Country, the real America. We do cling to our God and our guns. Proudly. Gratefully. We lift our small voices to the sky.


And now the monsoon rains have come, on schedule, and they are falling every afternoon over the White Mountains, from the Rim to Escudillo, just as they do most years across the southwest beginning on the 4th of July. Waters are moving over the burned scars, and in the unburned forest still here, still green. The waters trickle, drop upon drop, they beat a steady rhythm on the metal roof at Freedom Ridge Ranch. The winds blow cool air and soft clouds where once it was all fire and smoke and ashes. And we have seen rainbows, double and triple, arching across the mesas and canyons. Promises that life returns with the water.


And after the fire . . . kol rammamah dakah. A soft murmuring voice.

Picture Credits: Top--National Forest Service InciWeb. Middle--Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest Web Page. Bottom: Rain over Escudillo, taken August 2010, Ragamuffin Studies.

Resolutions: Greeting 2011 from Ragamuffin Ranch

Yesterday, on the first day of 2011, the Cowboy in Training and I drove down to our Catron County ranch. The CIT starts school in Quemado this week, and a new phase of our lives begins as well. The CIT has moved all of his essentials down this week, and with every trip back to the East Mountains, everything I bring down here will stay. I will be packing for the trip back up each time.


There is still much to do back in the East Mountains. All of our personal stuff must be sorted, and given away, thrown away or packed to move. Now is the time to reduce the clutter, clear the junk, and move into our new lives. This week, the Engineering Geek remains up there working on his office. He is a packrat and the clutter is unbelievable. He needs to get it cleared out so that we can put a floor down in there, and make the room presentable.

On Thursday I will be going back to Albuquerque in order to get some business there done, and then I will stay and the EG will leave. Then it will be my turn. My goal is to finish the bedroom (almost there), and then do my office. We will be trading off like this for a few weeks, getting all the work done, and moving gradually here as the Real Cowboy and his wife begin moving to their new place.

Yesterday, when we drove down here, the state and county roads were still snowpacked and the temperature only reached into the teens. Today, it has warmed up nicely, and the snow is melting off the metal roof of the cabin and the house. Yesterday we drove up the ranch road in the golden light before sunset, reaching the ranch at twilight, and the temperature dropped precipitously. The cabin was cold, cold and there was little time to warm it up, so we spent the night with space heaters and dogs. Tonight will be better, though there is wood to cut in order to assure a comfortable night.

Although we have prepared ahead of time, we are learning more about what we need as we go, in order to do the work we came here to do. Tomorrow, the CIT and I will go into Show Low to get the recommended chain-saw, and other things we learned we need. It is a good thing the Real Cowboy and his wife are being patient with our questions and helpful in many ways, with advice on everything from herding dogs to wood cutting to feeding the cattle.

This year? We have made no formal New Year's resolutions. The whole of this year is going to be about change, adaptation, and learning. During this month we will step up the transition that started last August when we began to come down three weekends a month. This is enough resolution for anyone!

I did set one goal. To write and reflect as much as possible so that I can capture the adventure we are embarking on as 2011 begins. Welcome to Ragamuffin Ranch!

From Boychick to Man

"In a place where there are no menschen,

you be a mensch."

--Hillel

In the past several years, the boy I called Boychick here on my blog has been busy growing up.

After acquiescing to his request to go to high school, I have not featured him here very much, preferring to give him his privacy as he went about this business of learning to be a man. In the process, he went from being my Boychick--my favored (and only) boy-child, to being the Rasta Jew--who was quite enamored with Reggae music and then with trucks and the Dukes of Hazzard.

From the beginning, high school has been a challenge to my young man, who has found great difficulty with academics, and who's talent lies in hands-on subjects such as music, art and sports. And yet he has perservered, and despite finally receiving a formal educational diagnosis of Autism and Specific Learning Disability, he has also made numerous friends who accept his ways as a given. Kids these days do seem to be much more accepting of differences among themselves, even as they navigate a world that seems less and less accepting of them.

From last March until now, as the Engineering Geek and I have been putting into place our plans for Going Galt, the Rasta Jew has been considering his own future as well. It took a good deal of courage to tell me, his scholarly mother, that university studies were not part of his plans.

And it has taken some work on my part to let loose the apron strings and let him dream his dreams. And yet, at the same time, it is immensely satisfying for me to see the changes that his choices has wrought within him. On his IEP in the spring of his freshman year, he said that he wanted to be a Rock Star when he grew up. This seemed like the same kind of starry eyed ambition as the first grader who wanted to be an astronaut or a fireman. But in the past six months, the obsession with trucks has become an obessession with engines and now they work--an obsession that includes a great deal of work and study to understand them in great detail.

When we closed on the ranch in Catron County in August, we began to plan in earnest for the EG's retirement, and for the move. At that time, I gave the Rasta Jew a choice. He could either stay at East Mountain High School and we would make arrangements for him to stay with his sister or friends, or he could move down with us to the ranch. At the time this choice was presented, our young man had seen the ranch just once, and although he loved it, the whole project was not real to him and he seemed inclined to stay at East Mountain. But starting Labor Day weekend, we began spending two or three weekends a month at the ranch, and he began spending time with a genuine Cowboy, Mr. H., and learning some of the skills we all needed to know. He repaired fencing, put in line, chopped wood, built fires, and learned to rope. And his plans began to change.

At the same time, the Junior level curriculum at his college prep high school was becoming quite a challenge. A month in to school, it was recommended that he drop German Language and add a Structured Study Hall in order to focus on two academic courses, as well as his beloved music class, World Rhythm. He still struggled both with the kind of writing that was being demanded in his humanities, as well as with the pace of the work, as well as in math. He began to realize that his talents and the skills he was developing did not lie with academic work in the classroom, but with his ability to take things apart and put them back together in order to get them working--whether it was an electric guitar or a drive-shaft that fell out of his truck.

So in October, when we visited Quemado High School in Catron County, he was far less interested in the Calculus class being taught to students in classrooms in three different schools across 100 miles through the magic of technology, than he was in the fact that the school has an excellent wood shop, metal shop and welding program. Such opportunities are now almost non-existent in the urban schools as kids are pushed toward college whether they have the talent and the inclination for it or not. A discussion of the FFA program and 4-H, both of which take place during the school day, got the wheels turning in his head, and a few weeks later, with the help of his very special Special Education coordinator at East Mountain, he announced that he was going to move with us to the ranch.

Since then, we have seen remarkable peace and purpose descend upon him; he has a vision for his future, and it is very specific. He wants to learn welding and auto-mechanics, and plans to attend a trade school for those skills, and then he wants to open his own business in Catron County, and live at the ranch. A rancher needs to be a master of many of the trade skills, plus animal skills, and the Rasta Jew's ambition is to take over the ranch from us one day. He loves working the cattle, and gets up without complaint of a snowy morning to bring them feed and get wood ready for the fire.

He has begun to study the things he will be learning to fulfill his plans. He has been reading up on horses, to better care for his horse, and he spends as much time working his saddle as he does playing his guitar. He keeps Faye E. Ward's The Cowboy at Work by his bed, as well as the Horseman's Almanac. And he pores over the technical manuals for his Jeep, and has developed innovative ways to replace parts that can no longer be found. Thus has the Boychick cum Rasta Jew become the Cowboy in Training (CIT).

It has been a wonderful transformation to watch, as his purpose unfolds bringing with it a new maturity and sense of responsiblity.

No longer a Boychick, he is becoming a man, and is beginning to show the purpose and the promise that comes when a boy puts away childish things, in order to create a life that satisfies his own desires and understandings. For to be a mensch--a real man, a real human being--is to become a person who does not do what is expected, but what is right. And he chooses his own path, putting away the childish desire to do what he thinks his parents want, or to be like others. And with that choice comes a new sense of purpose and a new responsibility to make of his life something he can truly love.

Yule: A Week Out of Time

Yule, that's what this week is. Since we don't celebrate Christmas, I had not thought of it this way before. But in the days of the Old Religions of Europe, people took this whole week surrounding the Solstice out of their calendar completely. The days were not part of any month, and they had no number except Yule 1, Yule 2, and so forth. It was literally a week out of time. And peculiarly, this week feels much like a week that has been yanked out of the normal flow of time for us, because we are non-celebrators. All of our normal routines and interactions are blown to the wind, and we have no special rituals to replace them.

This year, the sense of dislocation is even greater. The Engineering Geek retired from his employment at Sandia National Labs on December 23, and we are starting a new adventure in independent employment, Going Galt, as it were, and moving down to our ranch in Catron County. And the move is coming soon, as the Catron Kid (a.k.a. the Rasta Jew) will start his new school on January 5.

Never have I been less prepared for an imminent move.




This year, at Erev Shabbat Shemot (Christmas Eve to much of the rest of America), we had a cake and poured Champagne to toast the Engineering Geek's retirement. And the Engineering Geek was finally entirely happy to have retired. And he has finally developed the energy to begin preparing for the move, energy previously being used to reflect on the work he has done and the disappointments of his career, as well as to do the work of actually finishing that work. Although exciting it is also an emotionally laden time.

We went to bed Friday with visions of the work ahead dancing in our heads. On Saturday, however, we woke feeling the need of a leisurely day, for Christmas for the rest of the country is truly a day out of time for us. It is our custom to go to a movie and then have a Chinese dinner. (A movie and Chinese is the American Jew's way of coping with a day in which everyone else is celebrating and almost everything is closed). This year, December 25th fell on Shabbat, so we stayed home and watched The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford and had homemade stir-fry and egg rolls for Seudah Shlishi --the third meal of the Sabbath, usually eaten as night falls).

But this feeling of time out of time, of dislocation, and the short, winter days all mean that we have not been diligent about getting ready, about packing, about all the repairs the house needs so that we can move. Although we are all exciting about the move, there is some trepidation about the challenges of beginning a new life--at our age!--again. And there are the good-bye's to say, the inevitable sadness and sense of loss that accompany such great change.

All of this together has made the 2010 week of time-out-of-time particularly strange. We are all walking around laughing one minute and nearly in tears the next. Moments of panic are interspersed with these other emotions for me, as I look around my house and contemplate just how unready we are to make this move.

Fortunately, for me, when I come back to even keel, I realize that since the house has not yet been sold or leased, and since we want to leave most of our furniture in it while we prepare the house at the ranch for our move, I have some time to get it all going. I really can RESUME. BREATHING. NORMALLY.

Change. It is wrenching, even when it is eagerly anticipated. The adjustment will be made. What I need to do is just allow the whole month of January being about the move.

A Cowboy Country Thanksgiving

"The Eternal has brought you into a good land, a land

with streams and springs that issue forth from valleys

and mountains. . . A land where you will eat bread

without scarcity, where you shall lack nothing;

a land whose stones are iron, and out whose hills

you may dig gold and silver . . . And you shall eat and drink

and bless the Eternal your G-d for the good land..."

--Devarim 8:8-10

We don't think Moses was talking about this land when he told our ancestors that they had been freed from Egypt to work a land flowing with milk and honey, and where their flocks and children and gold and silver would increase by their own hands. But when we traveled to Cowboy Country, and sat down to Thanksgiving dinner on our own ranch, we certainly understood how they felt.




The morning of Thanksgiving brought snowfall, and the Rasta Jew looked out and said, "This is the best Thanksgiving ever!" as he laid a fire in the stone fireplace.

The cabin smelled of the slow roasted turkey, and not having a double oven, of the pies baked the day before. We felt warm, and with a full larder, we felt blessed. The hard work of the spring and summer, finding and buying the ranch, and the fall's labor of beginning to prepare it for our future work, was laid aside for a day, so that we could celebrate that quintessetial American holiday celebrating the fruits of our productive work.

In the late morning, the sky cleared and our customary walk before the feast was spent walking the boundary fences, repaired the day before. The Engineering Geek found the repairs he and the Rasta Jew had made to be sound. The fences must be walked each week this season, as the elk are about, and walk over and through barbed wire as if it did not exist. We walked together, the Engineering Geek and I, talking of the future, while the Rasta Jew held down the fort and played with the dogs.







Returning from a few hours of wind, snow and sunshine, we found a fire had been laid anew, and the Rasta Jew provided us with some music to cook by while we made the gravy and the mashed potatoes, and laid the table for the Thanksgiving feast.


I had brought with us my crystal wedding bowl for the cranberry sauce, my harvest tablecloth, wine glasses and special Thanksgiving tchotkes to make the festive table. The slow-roasted, free-range turkey made the best centerpiece.







The prepared table, minutes before we sat down, a congregation of the three of us, ready to eat and be satisfied, and bless the Eternal for bringing us into this new land of ours, a land that by the work of our hands will become even more productive and beautiful.
Before we said the blessing over the bread, we told the story of the Mayflower Compact, the Plymouth Plantation, and the lesson learned anew of the tragedy of corn collectivism American-style. We ended that lesson with a singing of America the Beautiful: "Oh, Beautiful for Pilgrim's feet whose stern impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for Freedom beat across the wilderness . ."




Any occasion upon which there is singing, blessing and candles bring forth the canine members of the household, because they have come to expect a share of the challah, the bread over which the blessing is said at the beginning of the meal. This night, they had to make do with crescent rolls and turkey, which pleased them as well, and attention all around.

At the ranch, even Lily does well, and Shayna is ranging further and further from the porch. With an invisible fence that covers a good acre of territory, they all get plenty of running space and many interesting places to sniff and explore. Another item on the Thankful List--the ranch has saved Lily's life. A day of ranging through meadow and trees, and she's tired and content. The hierarchy has gotten settled, and the dogs are getting along.

Unlike that of the Pilgrims, our Thanksgiving ends with the Blessing for Food (after eating), as we have been told: "You shall eat and be satisfied and then bless the Eternal . . ." Then dishes, and then relaxing around the fire, talking about the days to come, and enjoying each other--just the three six of us--celebrating Thanksgiving in Cowboy Country.

About Lily: A Difficult Decision

During the past few days I spent my 15 minute writing period discussing Lily, her behavior problems, how they have intensified over the past 6 months, and the difficult decisions that must be made about this situation. Dr. Nichol was, in the end, very frank about the stark choice that we face. He was quite clear that if we decide to keep Lily in the household, we would never be able to let our guard down regarding her for the rest of her life, even if we use medications and behavior modification, spending thousands--primarily on the training--she will remain untrustworthy. The only option to removing her from our household is euthanasia. Or as we used to say in those days when the Engineering Geek and I were growing up, putting the dog down. And the decision remains ours. He did not tell us what to do.

From the outside it looks like an easy decision: the dog is displaying more and more fear-based aggression, and the target is generally Shayna, the low dog on the totem pole, the dog who is generally quiet and shy. The obvious thing to do is to put the difficult dog down and to let the shy and quiet dog blossom. Except. . . except that such black and white pictures of the two different canine temperaments happens only in mediocre novels and B-movies.

Although Lily has indeed been showing more and more incidents of aggression towards Shayna, she is still a sweet and obedient dog with us, and is a pleasure to have around most of the time. Since consulting our very capable trainer, Casey, we have instituted a program of home training and she not only has learned to sit, stay, and down-stay, but she is beginning to come when she is called. She is affectionate, and she enjoys Umbrae's company much of the day in the dog run without incident. All of this makes it very difficult to contemplate putting a healthy dog down.

And Shayna's shyness is not all sweetness and light. It has the dark side of fear to it. Shayna will snap if she is cornered by a person, especially a large male person. She never makes contact, and the snarl and snap are a warning: "Look at these teeth and leave me alone!" If she is not cornered, her MO is to run to her "office" (her crate) and hide. She is very reactive to loud noises--pots and pans banging, a door slamming in the wind--and she is absolutely melded to her routine. Although all dogs are creatures of routine, Shayna gets physically ill when it is changed. Shayna can be said to be on sensory overload a good deal of the time, and she manages her anxiety with routine. She, too, will likely need a course of anti-anxiety medications and has already begun training--the beginning of her behavior modification.

By now, the gentle reader may be wondering why it is Lily's behavior and not Shayna's that has created the need for the decision that we are about to make. The difference lies in the nature of the behavior problem. Although both dogs are reactive, Lily's reaction consists of an all-out attack. Further, she has not only attacked and physically injured dogs, she goes after strangers and has come close to injuring people. And that is a line that cannot be allowed to be crossed. Although during the current escalation of aggression, Lily has only attacked other dogs, this must not be construed to mean that it will always be so. Lily cannot be trusted with other people. Ever.

It is also a grave concern that Lily attacked and injured Shayna in the dog run, when we were not there. Usually dogs do not fight when alone. When they fight--which is more common among females*--they tend to fight over resources. Food. The dog bed. Attention. And a person can generally end the fight by walking away. That she attacked when we were not there is very abnormal behavior and is impossible to predict or prevent except by keeping the two dogs completely separate. Forever.

*Female-upon-female fighting is very common. Male-upon-male is a distant second. And male-upon-female almost never happens. Had I known this, the make-up of the canine side of the household would have been different.

These are the reasons that the decision must be made about Lily and not about Shayna.

As is true with most difficult decisions, this one has moral implications. It is generally the moral import of a decision that makes it difficult. Choices that are about pure preference are seldom difficult. We go with what we like. Chocolate or vanilla? Cake or pie? There is no moral dimension to such a decision, as as human beings become practiced choosing our preferences, we make such choices without much thought.

But a decision that involves life and death, even that of an animal, has a moral dimension. It is not the same moral dimension as such a decision about a human being. That is entirely separate. Animals--even animals as sophisticated in social structure and the ability to make decisions as a dog is--are not moral souls. They do not make a conscious choice between good and evil, right and wrong. Rather they make decisions based more on instinct, and are hard-wired to act in favor of survival. And an animal is not conscious of its own death in the future. Dogs, like most other mammals live in the moment. (Dogs are aware of the difference between a living animal and a dead one, but they do not generalize it). That consciousness of impending death is what makes the human a moral being; the myth of the tree in the garden is a story about becoming conscious of mortality and thereby acquiring the need for morality.

Because she is a dog, Lily will not be aware of her impending death--should that be our decision--even when we go to put her down. We will make sure that her passing is unanticipated and painless. A walk in the meadow. A ride in the car. Going out to the garden at the Vet. That is all she will know until she knows no more.

But we are aware of it. And so the factors of our decision include important questions. When is it proper to destroy the life of an animal? Is it ever proper to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on uncertain treatments for a dog, when a limited amount of discretionary wealth inevitably means that humans in the family will have to choose to do without certain wants, and even needs?

What about Lily? Is she ever really relaxed? Does her anxiety overwhelm the good life for her? What does it do to her brain to go repeatedly into that out-of-control place?

And, of very great importance, what about the threat of pain and suffering to another human being that Lily poses? As much as we'd like to believe that we can keep Lily from encountering another person and harming him or her, there is always chance. Dogs escape. In the confusion of comings and goings, they see the open door and the beckoning world and out they go. Lily was on a leash and slipped her collar and ran toward the neighbor dogs that she bit; they were minding their own business on their own property. She could do the same to a human being should she go into that "red zone" and get loose.

In my moral calculus, a human being's welfare is more important than the life of a dog--even a dog I love. This is so because I am obligated to respect the rights of another person, and also because I can only imagine the pain and fear caused to another person who is attacked by a dog. A dog for whom I am responsible, and whom I cannot cure.

And of course, every attack by a dog on a person creates problems for neighbors, dogs and dog-owners everywhere. Whole breeds of dogs are collectively held responsible for the irresponsible behavior of a dog owner who willfully or inattentively lets a dog harm a person. Dog owners find their lives more and more restricted, no matter how responsible they are and how good their dogs are. It tears the social fabric, making for strife between neighbors, anger and fear, and inevitably guilt and shame for the responsible dog owner. Can I keep a dog that is clearly becoming more aggressive, one that I have been warned can never be trusted, and take the risk of creating such chaos?

These are the questions that must be answered. The nature of the questions themselves predict for me the inevitible conclusion. A little time must be taken in order that every human being in the household has the opportunity to ask these questions and prepare themselves for the consequences of the decision that must be made.

A little time. But not so much time that a decision is never made. Not so much that the decision is taken out of our hands by events. A mensch--a real human being--does not let events determine her morality. This idea has been a long time coming to me, even though it seems so simple. I was raised in chaos. I did not learn until late that what I do matters. It has an effect upon the world. In fact, the home(s) or origin for both our problem dogs probably mirrored mine in that important way. But I am a human being and I can learn to be a mensch, and I am obligated to make decisions based upon my ability to think about the future and to make conscious choices. And so, too, with the other humans in the house.

This is not an easy decision. But then, life was not meant to be easy. Life was meant to be life. And it is in the wholeness of life and in the nature of a human being to make such decisions.

About Lily: We Get a Prognosis

"You didn't create a monster," Dr. Nichol assured us as we left the small exam room at Albuquerque's Veterinary Emergency Center. "You were dealt this problem."


After six months of incidents involving aggressive behavior of our dog Lily toward our dog Shayna, and two other dogs in the neighborhood--each incident of which has caused injuries, and repeated trips to the vet for the other dogs--we were at the end of the line. We had consulted a trainer, purchased crates, used calming collars, instituted behavior changes, each of which had been cause for hope, and each of which appeared to achieve a certain measure of success--for a little while. After a quiet period that lasted 4 months, Lily has once attacked Shayna again, and this time it took a dry-firing of a 22 to get Lily to disengage. Poor Shayna had both staples and stitches, and she is becoming increasingly reactive to sudden movements and loud noises. Not a good situation for a dog that lives in a house with a family.


When Shayna was being treated at ABQ Vet Urgent Care Center, Dr. Fizpatrick told us that we ought to consult a behavior specialist, and she recommended Dr. Nichol, who is working on his board certification for Veterinary Behavioral Medicine. "This pattern is not going to get better," she said. "In fact, it is going to get worse each time. Exponentially. Unfortunately, he is not cheap," she continued, "But Jeff is well known throughout the region. He's among the best."


So last week, the Engineering Geek worked from home for a day in order to babysit the dogs, and he spent an hour on the phone with Dr. Nichol's research assistant. We both filled out long questionnaires and submitted them by e-mail. The questions not only required that we detail the agressive incidents, we were also asked why we had chosen this dog, what her daily habits are, where the dogs sleep, how all the dogs and the cats interact, and more. From our detailed answers Dr. Nichol was able to glean quite a bit about our dogs, even before he met us--and them.


On Wednesday afternoon, I loaded all three of our canines--Lily, Shayna, and Umbrae into the Honda, and drove over to the Veterinary Emergency Clinic. There, the Engineering Geek met us, and we went into a two-hour consult.


Dr. Nichol met us in the foyer, greeting the dogs first. A promising sign, I thought. He complimented us on the use of the Gentle Leader head-collar for all three dogs. When we got into the consult, he got straight to business. He had read our questionnaires, and he had many questions. Most of the consult was related to the questions, and near the end of the consult, he also listened to and responded to our questions.



According to the information we had been given about the consult, sometimes dogs are examined and given a battery of lab tests to screen for underlying health conditions before behavioral interventions and any medical treatment begins. When I asked about the blood work toward the end of the interview, the mood got very serious.



Before we get into that, I would like to discuss with you the prognosis for this dog, he told us. Basically, he said that we have a very complicated situation. We have two dogs with behavior problems--Shayna, who is very shy and reactive and may not be using normal signalling to other dogs, and Lily, who displays fear agression that has become physical in the past six months. Umbrae, on the other hand, is a well-adjusted dog. This is not surprising because he has been raised by us since he was a very young puppy. He is not part of the problem at all, and may even mitigate it to some extent.



Now, as if a switch has been thrown in Lily's brain, her threatening behavior towards other dogs, which was always present to some degree, has become outright attacks on other dogs and threats toward people. And because she and Shayna are in the same household, they have begun an transaction in which Lily threatens and then attacks--and her agitation ramps up very, very quickly. In response to three attacks with injuries, Shayna's reactivity has increased, but that also increases the chances of another attack. If we keep both dogs in the same household and do nothing the attacks will certainly worsen in ferocity and the resulting injury over time. And threats towards people will most likely become attacks on people, something that we cannot allow.

The question thus becomes what to do. "What are your goals?" asked Dr. Nichol.

Our first response was to say that we wanted peace in the house, that we want the fighting to stop. When pressed by Dr. Nichol, we expressed that we wished to rehabilitate Lily if possible, and to bring Shayna to a point where she is less reactive and more obedient towards others in the household. (She obeys me, but if I am around she ignores commands from others).


Given these goals, Dr.Nichol discussed with us two broad actions, the second of which has two possible directions.


1) Keep both dogs in the household, treat both with anti-anxiety medication, and institute a program of behavior modification for both of them. (Umbrae would continue with his therapy dog training, as he is not part of the problem anyway).


Prognosis: We may see limited success for a period of months or even years. But we can never trust Lily with strangers or with other dogs--even our own, and the likelihood of another, and more severe attack months or even a few years down the line is high. Bottom line is that we could spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and completely change our behavior and we still will have to be very vigilant toward Lily for the rest of her life with us.

2) Remove one dog from the household, and treat the other dog.

Here, it was clear from the beginning of our discussion that the dog we were all considering removing is Lily. She is the one with aggression problems, and they pre-date Shayna's advent in the household. As I noticed that this was the subtext of the conversation, I interrupted the conversation. "If Lily is removed from the equation," I asked, "Do we have a better chance rehabilitating Shayna?"

"Definitely," came the reply. Shayna does not have problems with agression. Any aggressive looking response she gives Lily is defensive in nature. However, these attacks will eventually make the behavior more entrenched, so a decision should be reached before we end up with two aggressive dogs. Although treating Shayna's fear and anxiety, which was present prior to any interactions with Lily, will not be a walk in the park, a combined approach of medication and behavior modification has a good chance of succeeding.


We discussed two possibilities regarding removing Lily from the household: re-homing her and euthanasia. Separately, both the Engineering Geek and I had answered on the questionnaire that we had thought about euthanasia. Bruce also indicated that he had thought about re-homing. My response to the re-homing question was a little different. I had written that I had thought about it, but was reluctant to pass on a dangerous dog to others.

According to Dr. Nichol, rehoming isn't really an option for Lily at this point. First, he pointed out, she does have issues with aggression and they are persistent and entrenched. Even if we managed to find a new home for Lily, having been direct about the problems, and even sharing with the new owners the report for Dr. Nichol and getting them to sign a waiver of liability in blood, they could still come back and sue us later should Lily injure someone. Further, part of the genesis of Lily's problem is already that we are at least her 3rd home. She probably had at least one home prior to being a stray, she was then a resident of the shelter, and then she came to us. By the time she came to us, she had made and broken attachments in at least two other places. Each such transition is hard on most dogs, and particularly hard on one that has fear-aggressive issues. "Frankly," Dr. Nichol said, "Your home is the last stop for both of these dogs." He was talking about Lily and Shayna.

So at this point, we stand on the cusp of a weighty decision. Rehoming Lily is off the table. So is doing nothing and hoping the problem will go away. Shayna cannot take more of this. So the decision is whether we ought to begin treatment of both dogs with anti-anxiety medications, along with behavior modification supervised by a trainer, or whether we ought to euthanize Lily and treat Shayna. Certainly this issue has financial considerations attached. It is also a highly emotional decision that cannot be taken lightly, and that despite the emotional cost, must be decided rationally and thoughtfully, taking into consideration the impacts on every member of the family and upon the household as a whole.

And making such a decision is going to take some time. How do we deal with the dogs in the meantime? There are more questions than answers at the moment. We (the humans) of Ragamuffin House have to each make a choice of our own, and come to terms with it, and then we have to talk it out, reaching a choice as a family. We must take into consideration the needs of all the non-talking residents--Lily, Shayna, and Umbrae--who are involved in the dynamics that have gone so terribly wrong, and who are impacted by our decision. In the process, we will undoubtedly wrestle with the mistakes that we have made with these dogs, as well as the problems that we were dealt unknowingly, and the sense of failure that humans feel when no choice has a happy ending.

It is hard enough to consider and make the choice for euthanasia when a dog is old and ill. To contemplate putting a dog down before end of life decisions would ordinarily be made is harder.

What a Long, Strange Monday it Was . . .

Talk about a bad Monday . . .

Yesterday, I started my 15 minutes a day 12 step writing regime, and I even have a sponsor.
I had already had a conversation with the family about mom needing to finish her graduate school career. At 50, it's getting ridiculous! And that means starting the dissertation. Because 90% of dissertations that are not finished were never started.

And yesterday I did several hours of housework in order to get some order back after First Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), Second Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), followed immediately by Saturday--an all-day seminar (no work done). I was feeling proud of myself after I put in my 15 minutes of writing that expanded to 30, followed by phone calls and getting a necessary form filled out for the Catron County Assessor--for the Ranch!!!--and a trip to the Albuquerque Uptown Borders store to purchase Strunk and White. (That's The Elements of Style, and oldie but goodie!)

I was feeling on top of things. I was doing my life pretty well indeed.
Or so I thought . . .

I picked up the Rasta Jew from Cross Country practice at about 6, and when we pulled up, I asked him to bring the dogs in. Shayna was already inside, but Lily and Umbrae were in the dog run.

Now usually, the Rasta Jew waits a while before bringing them in. He generally needs to inhabit his room alone for a while, and reassure himself that he is part of his space. So, looking forward to sitting down to read a book about a city girl turned farmer, I went about putting away some clothes in the closet. And was suddenly surrounded by two very excited, wild and crazy dogs. (I usually make them all sit in the dog run before I open the gate, and again at the door before I let them in. I do this to avoid what happened next. And when Lily jumped up on the bed, I ordered her down. And she jumped straight over the footboard and right onto Shayna.

We had a repeat of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in my bedroom.
Except that the Rasta Jew had to dry fire his pellet rifle next to Lily's head to break her away from Shayna. So it was a Monday evening trip to the Vet Urgent Care with Shayna, who had multiple abraisions and wounds on her left foreleg and chest. She was more serverely injured than I thought by looking at her.
Over three hundred dollars later, I was ready to take Lily in for immediate euthanasia.
Rehoming her seems irresponsible since I'd just be passing the problem on to someone else. . .

The Urgent Care Vet gave us the name of an animal behaviorist, and the Engineering Rancher Geek, who had initially said we should euthanize Lily today, spent 45 minutes on the phone with one of the researchers. I filled out a very long questionnaire, as did the ERG. To see this person will be quite expensive, but that expense includes a full medical evaluation and lab tests. If this leads to a definitive answer that either something can be done or it cannot, it could give us peace with whatever decision we make.

In the meantime, upon return from the vet last night, a groggy Shayna went into her crate and has refused to come out in nearly 24 hours. I cannot give her the antibiotics--the priciest item on the estimate for her care--but I think if I can just entice her to eat one of the liver-flavored pain tablets, she will come out and eat, drink and take the antibiotics. And take a short, halting walk outside . . . this is the longest Shayna-on-strike we've had since we brought her home.

Whatever hard choices we make in the next few days, for sure we cannot let this happen to poor Shayna again.

Oy. I don't like Mondays. At least, not Mondays like this!