"These guys are watching Rio in the theatre."

family moments

stop! in the name of love

kitchen dancing

evening cycle

snack time on the go

bugs - most notably, ticks

Oh, there ain't no bugs on me, on me.
There ain't no bugs on me
There may be bugs on some of you mugs
But there ain't no bugs on me.

[traditional]
*

Oh, there ain't no ticks on me, on me.

There ain't no ticks on me.

There may be ticks on some of you hicks (or sticks)

But there ain't no ticks on me.

[our variation #1]

Oh, there ain't no ticks on Ziah, on Ziah.

There ain't no ticks on Ziah.

You can search both low-uh and high-uh

But there ain't no ticks on Ziah.

[our variation #2]

If non-farming persons like ourselves were going to move to North Dakota intentionally, it would be nice to live on "the edge" - of something. And as it turns out, we do! I mean, the exact geographical edge. Beyond the front yard are farms and fields; beyond the back yard are hills and forests. Things that normally go along with edges are wildness, danger, and intrigue, and our life here has been no exception. It's just that you have to think on a smaller scale. Bugs, my friends. Bugs of flight and bugs of bite. 

The first bugs we noticed were the ticks. Lands alive, we noticed the ticks. They are supposedly a spring time phenomenon, and they do appear to be waning in number as it gets hotter, thank the Lord. Rarely have I felt such animosity toward an entire class of living things as I now do toward the tick. We have picked ticks from every conceivable crevice and flat spot on each human and dog who calls this family their own. Only one tick has attached itself to Ziah before we could wipe it away, but the rest of us - not so lucky. And the thing is, these ticks can be apparitions if they so choose! You will search yourself or a fellow sojourner high and low and find nothing. Moments later, you will randomly reach back to scratch your back, and there's a stinking tick. There's no way it crawled that fast from the ground to your back, and yet it wasn't there a moment ago. They say ticks only crawl upward from blades of grass; they do not fly, and they do not fall out of trees. The all-knowing They.
*

One day, Zoralee and I happily skipped into the forest beyond our yard. Mind you, we were on a mowed grass trail. Zoralee was singing. I was taking photographs. Ziah slept peacefully in a pack on my chest. All at once, Zoralee noticed a tick on my leg. As we looked closer at ourselves, our eyes adjusted to tick vision, and we realized we were both covered in them. It was disgusting and really disconcerting. We ran back to the house, slapping at ourselves, tossing articles of clothing, wondering how we'd get this many of the horrid creatures off of us at a faster rate than they could attach themselves and sap us of our life blood. Zoralee had three in her ears alone.

my skirt, even after picking some ticks off

Ticks do carry diseases, but I was glad to learn the other day, via google, that they do not burrow themselves into your brain and stay there indefinitely. As a kid, I believed you had a narrow window of time to get the tick out of your scalp before tweezers, matches, and all the tools of the lay person were insufficient and it became necessary to secure a good surgeon. Hey, I also believed that we kids, playing in the fields behind our neighborhood, could be seen by the pilots in airplanes flying overhead unless we hid our fingernails, because duh, the sun could reflect off our fingernails, alerting them to our presence. How a pilot would land an airplane before we'd run the 100 yards back to the house, and what he or she would do with a handful of children building scrap wood forts - these were questions I didn't ask myself back then. So, let that be a lesson to you about the hazards of home schooling. Actually, that was before we were home schooled. Hmm. Maybe that's why we were home schooled. Anyway. (I'm teasing; I'm all for good home schooling)

Once ticks ingest their mammal blood meal - over a couple days, if I remember right - they drop off and go about their business, which probably includes breeding. Yes, making more ticks. They serve no other purpose, none of beauty and none of filling a niche in the ecosystem, at least no purpose that I'm willing to validate. The thought of a single tick laying hundreds and hundreds of eggs makes me want to spray our yard, and indeed, the whole of North Dakota, with whatever poison would do the trick, however dangerous and nasty of a substance it may be. And that's why overly emotional people should not be in positions of power whereby they make decisions that affect the health and welfare of the country's population. Ticks make people overly emotional.

A final gross tick story. Mere hours ago, I was carrying a pile of books from one room to another and saw a piece of gum stuck to the edge of one. I picked it off, and again, my eyes adjusted to tick vision, and I saw that it was an engorged tick, so huge that its legs were all curled up into itself and barely poking out. Ticks are oval shaped, you know, but if they were circles, this one would've almost been dime sized. Into the tick jar it went, which is our chosen method of disposal, and it made all the other dead or dying ticks totally jealous. It was NASTY on steroids. And it obviously dropped from someone around here, having satisfactorily partaken of a blood meal, heck, a whole blood buffet. It came from Kaladi, no doubt, though again, we search her pretty thoroughly whenever she comes into the house. Apparitions, I tell you.

There are lots of other bugs too that have been around in unusual numbers, the high waters no doubt contributing. Mosquitoes, common house flies that seem to cover entire sides of buildings, and beautiful dragonflies in two varieties. Dragonflies have always been, in my mind, a rarity. Something you point out to your walking partner when you see one perched on a rock. So, it's magical when they are flying all around you at every level of vision, close up to far away. When one hits your windshield, you kind of get the feeling you've just killed a fairy. They don't make as big of a thud as, say, hitting a bird, but they're not as inconsequential as a mosquito either.

in this little corner of sky alone, 8 dragonflies show up on film

A couple weeks ago, the little stream by the house suddenly had several varieties of life in it, thick schools of what looked like baby crawdads, minnows, snails, and one or two other things. I mention them, because they were bug-sized and some may very well have turned into bugs. Who knows? Each morning, when the stream was full, they swam around and around the eddies. As the day wore on and the stream subsided, more and more of them got stuck and died on the rocks at the edges. It started to smell. But by the next morning, the stream had washed the dead ones away, and there were teams of new ones, still the variety. 

I often wonder what we'll see next when we step outside. But however they travel, whether by swarm, troop, or drove, the main question I have for them is, "Do you eat ticks?"

the train ride

four people, four bags, four pillows, and seventeen hours

Zoralee in the Observation Car, observing not so much the scenery
as the rowdy preteen boys with their electronic games

from the mountains to the prairies

The kids (plural -whoa) my mama, and i came by train to north Dakota a few weeks back, Jason and kaladi by station wagon. No Internet yet, but by gum, when we get it, I've got stories and photos galore. This blippet alone is taking forever by iPhone, and blogger won't allow pics from the device (or I don't know how yet).

We'll catch y'all soon!

what we see in Ziah Dwight by day 3

Ziah - light; working; to tremble; a type of grain
Dwight - Mountain of Zeus; devotee of Dionysos (Greek god of fertility); but most importantly, the name of Jason's father and grandfather 

our Ziah Dwight

only cries occasionally and briefly
easily soothable (wow, what a delicious trait)
will have brown eyes, per Papa
will have blue eyes, per Mama
likes to cuddle, have his face close to yours, or somehow be touching
stout little guy - broad shoulders, thick thighs, 2 discernible starts to biceps
likes to eat
quick grower (8 lbs, 13 oz on day 3, which is up 4 oz from birth weight)
has toots of sulphur
at the opposite end of the anxious/mellow spectrum as Zoralee
contemplative and quiet
has Mama's toe and foot style (where Zora has Papa's)
laid back
cutest freckle on top of the head (which, sadly, will be covered by hair most of his life but could make a reappearance in old age)
peaceful to be around

a few pics of our new guy

Ziah Dwight Stoffer

8lbs 9oz. born at home June 11, 2011 at 3:41am

This is Rachel, posting for Lori. She will be posting more pictures, more details, and more awesomeness just as soon as she's more fully rested. Right now, little Ziah is nursing like a champ, loves to lick arms, boobs, and shirts, and has a super melllow and easy-going personality. We have all fallen in love with him already, our little line-backer.

she's here! meet the new addition!

Cruel blog title, I know. And no, there's no baby yet. I'm 41 weeks, and there are starting to be some signs of coming labor. So! Believe you me, there'll be a sincere post or several when he or she makes their grand entrance.

Anyway, since the baby has been taking its sweet time, and since we've been planning to add a dog to the family at our earliest convenience, and since Jason has this precious window of vacation that he could be spending training a dog, we went for it. I think it's a neat full-circle sort of deal that we got this dog at the tail end of this pregnancy, and we had to put down our last one, Beth, in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Zoralee. 

So, who is this delicious goddess of a dog? you may wonder. She's a year old Lab/Shepherd mix from the Humane Society, and we have absolutely fallen for her. We visited her several times before taking her home, and she exhibited more and more of the traits Jason wanted in a family watch dog. We also visited dozens of others, but we kept coming back to Dotty, whose name we are transitioning to Kaladi. We couldn't see sticking with the name Dotty for the next decade but figured a rhyming name would be less confusing for her. Kaladi Brothers Coffee was the local roaster up in Anchorage, so it'll remind us of back home. Dotty Kaladi, as we currently call her, is as dark as the darkest, thickest coffee you could brew (just our style), and her eyes are a delicious brown, the way coffee looks after it has been properly doctored up with Sugar in the Raw and whipping cream. (Oh, yes we do use whipping cream.)

Dotty Kaladi is super duper smart and wants to please. She is sweet and licky, excitable like puppies are, but with a gentleness that reminds us a lot of Beth. Fully house-trained, doesn't chew - I mean, come on! She's a dream boat! We felt comfortable with her background; she was given up strictly due to her owner moving, not behavioral or health problems. Granted, we haven't let her totally roam free with the chickens or cat or baby Bennett yet - we're doing slow, gradual introductions with a long line leash - but she sleeps in our room quite contentedly and shows no aggression toward Zoralee or Molly the Schnauzer. Within a few days, she has caught on to heeling and several other commands, and she acts like we're her long lost family. It's fun being dog-owners again, and we're excited to see how many times she saves our lives from burning buildings and whatnot.  

Zoralee's first force ride

(and by "force," I mean horse, not forced)

Jason had long been anticipating giving Zoralee her first horse ride, which he got to do on Harley, whom he had trained three summers ago, when I was pregnant with Z. All was well for the 10 minute ride around the yard, until the bumpiness apparently bumped the excitement and bravery out of little Z and she broke into tears. Still, it was a beautiful experience to witness, and hopefully she won't remember the ending so much.