It's been a minute, yeah? Blame it on being busy. Farm work, starting on the new house (FINALLY), family health issues, weather, you name it. It has happened. And here we are, full tilt into spring, and two batches of puppies baking.
I am expecting a litter of Chesapeakes and Labradors at the end of May. And it's got me thinking (as usual) about the people and families who will be welcoming Deep Roots puppies into their homes at the end of July. Part of my job is to make sure those people and families are prepared, truly, for what is coming. If you're really lucky, you're getting a companion for the next 15 years, give or take. Thank heaven for letting us love dogs and for letting dogs love us. But there's so much more to it than bringing a puppy home and potty training and dog food and vet visits and leashes. As your dog's human, you're responsible for his or her physical and mental well being. So much planning and work has already gone into him or her before you go home together. I evaluate your pup's mamma and daddy for great temperament, strong bones and joints, diseases, build, coat....and so much more. I have fed him the best food I can, kept him on surfaces that keep him from slipping, helped guide the development of his brain and character. But that is not finished at 8 weeks. The rest is up to you. Puppies need to be kept on flooring with good traction in order to develop healthy bones and joints. They need to be constantly worked through obedience commands and expectations. They need to be exposed to all manner of people and situations. They need to be fed properly, exercised well, vaccinated in a timely manner and groomed regularly. This is at a minimum. It's a huge commitment. If you're up to it, awesome! I can't wait to send you home with your ball of fur and challenges. If you're not, but think you could be, do a ton of research and ask questions. Get prepared. Anyone can do it. The thing is, not everyone will. If you haven't done your homework, you can unknowingly set your puppy up for future health issues and/or temperament issues. That is not within my control, which is sort of terrifying. I do what I can while they are here. But, my friend, the rest is up to you. It takes planning, luck and a ton of work! Is it worth it? Hell yes. If you have questions about being prepared to bring a new puppy home with you, and how to do the best job you can for that puppy through every year of his or her life, feel free to shoot them my way. I will always, always be happy to help. -H
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Fall is on her way. We are enjoying a little chill in the morning air, watching the slow change of colors. School days are the new normal and demands for bonfires and marshmallows in the evenings are becoming frequent. And today....today my answer will be "yes". Today we have an occasion to light a fire and sit and reflect. Today is one of those rare occasions I will spend the day looking back. 17 years seems like a long time, but I still remember the exact moment I first learned of the unspeakable tragedy unfolding in New York. I suspect most people can. Now I am tasked with explaining my sadness to my sons, and teaching them to observe and honor a day that predates them by over a decade.
I talk with them about honoring those still grieving. About never knowing what a day is going to hold. I walk a delicate line between helping them understand the depth of the horror and respecting their limited capacity for processing such a thing. We discuss the bravery and heroism and sacrifice. I tell them how this day changed our country, both for better and for worse. I show them photographs of rescue workers in the rubble: police officers, firefighters, paramedics, SAR dogs. I wonder how it all seems, taking it in from their point of view. I am thankful for frank and honest talks with my kids, but I can't help but wish this was one we didn't have to have. I hurt for people I've never met, who lost loved ones on this day and dread its coming every year. I grieve for the nation. I struggle to make sense of something that was never meant to make sense. Today, I will send up a constant stream of silent prayers. Today, I will remember. Baseball, water, backhoes and puppies... Some days around here...are wild. Saturday was one of those days for us. Early morning water problems, unknown causes. Early morning t-ball practice. Mid-morning baseball game, in a town 40 minutes away, in 90 degree weather. A rushed lunch, then another baseball game. Driving home to figure out the water issue. A leaky underground pipe gushing water into the middle of our field. Good friends arriving with a backhoe to help. Puppy buyers driving from St. Louis, taking Golly home with them, and leaving little Gus the lone ranger pup around here. Late supper and everyone needing scrubbed down twice. Fumbling our way to bed and falling into it exhausted to the bone. Although the day was much, much busier than I really like to be, it was still a good day.
Because we were together, and not everyone gets to be. Because we tackled it all, together, and not everyone can. Because we are learning to take days like that in stride and just try to catch some rest where we can later. Here's to relaxing days, may their rarity help us treasure them when they come around. And here's to those other days, and to toughing them out and finding the good in them too... Six weeks old. This is perhaps my favorite week with the pups (although, really, isn't every week my favorite?). Their personalities are completely apparent now, they look like a cross between tiny Labs and bear cubs, and they are becoming curious and brave.
Looking ahead to two weeks from now, when they go to their new families...is a bittersweet thing. It's technically the culmination of why I do what I do; the finish line, so to speak. But it also means losing nine little beings that I've put approximately 1,300 hours worth of work and love into. It means, usually, never seeing them again. It means sending them out into the world and hoping for the best for them. Hoping for long, happy lives with loving people. Therein lies the rub, I suppose. I love what I do but it is, necessarily, incredibly hard. To part with them, to listen to my gut about the people I'm entrusting them to. Some breeders don't care. They'll send their pups with anyone willing to pay up. There are times I wish I could operate that way. I would sleep better at night. I wouldn't become so attached, I wouldn't lose sales because I asked someone more questions than they were willing to answer. But in the end it's worth it to me. I need to be at peace about adding puppies to the world. I need to be at peace with what my children see me doing, with what they are learning from this process. I need to be at peace with what I ask my girls to do; birth and then give up their babies. So, say what you want about how much easier it would be to do this differently. Say what you want about how much money I could save if I didn't do this, or that. Say what you want about the unnecessary extra steps I take, or how ridiculous it is that I cry when they leave. Say what you want. I suspect I will keep doing it my way - the Deep Roots way - anyway. -Photos courtesy of Ashley Hallmark Photography I should be doing a lot of things right now. I just fed the puppies their mush-lunch, took the big dogs out for a bit, moved the baby chicks outside (another story, another time), got my youngest human child fed and now laid down for a nap. There's a long list of things needing done. But.
I'm going to sit here for a minute and savor. Reminisce. Monday my oldest child turned 6 and yesterday my youngest turned 4. Logan ends Winter for us and Hagan starts Spring and I find that somehow fitting. They are so much more than I thought they would be. All those years between deciding we were ready to be parents and Logan's actual arrival, I formed ideas and images in my mind about what being a mom meant, what my kids would be like, how my days would change. I had no idea. They changed everything. On a marrow-deep level. I occupy a completely different and parallel universe now; it is nothing like the one I inhabited before. Other mothers who read this will nod and understand: Having my children changed me on a cellular level. I not only go about chores differently, or grocery shop differently, or speak a different language or sleep differently...I blink differently. I breathe differently. I am pretty sure I even digest my food differently. My boys make things fifty seven times harder than they were before, these little wild heathens. They make me question myself. They make me worry and cry and wish for a goddamn second alone. But dear sweet Moses. The way their eyelashes lay against the softness of their cheeks when they sleep. The curve of their back. The unconscious way they reach for my fingers when we walk. The undoing I feel when they lay against my chest. Their uncanny insight. Their old souls. Their inherent kindness. The spectacular shiver of joy they bring to "regular" things. Their observant and wild nature. Their charm and empathy and moxie and curiosity. They make things harder. True. But they make things worth it too. Please excuse the photographic-gushing that follows. Most who've known me very long, or very well, know I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day. In fact my family knows if they plan to call me on February 14th with wishes of any kind it is to be addressed as BarfTimes Day. This is the first year of my life that simple fact has ever caused anyone distress. That anyone was my child, my firstborn, my observant, kind, wise old-souled five year old. Almost six year old, Logan. Let me explain.
The day started in the usual rush of getting out the door to get to school on time, with the extra fun of Valentine's cards that he was convinced I would forget to send. At two o'clock Hagan and I joined him in his classroom for his party, which was chaotic and loud and deeply loved by both my boys. Then home a little early and since the weather was nice and Daddy wasn't home from work yet they got to play outside. I should have known. I subconsciously did know. They found mud. And oh the joy that followed. They alternately bossed one another around while they, very seriously, went about forming up a "slab" and pouring it and dragging it and floating it. They are much more cognizant of their dad's work than one might guess. Following playing in the mud (we had a family date dinner planned at a restaurant in town) they had to be stripped to their skivvies and tossed in the bathtub. There was no way around it, so I got on my knees and grabbed the soap and went to work. Logan asked me if it was going to be Valentine's Day again the next day. Saddened by my answer of 'No', he sighed largely and said, 'Why do all the good days only get to be one day long?'. I smiled while I continued to scrub his hair and said, 'Son, they're all good days when you do them right. That makes them long enough.' Once everyone was clean and accounted for we piled into the car and headed out for our date. Logan has wondered aloud before, but on the drive he pinned me down and demanded to know why I do not like Valentine's Day. As with all questions from my boys, I took a moment to gather my thoughts. 'It's not that I don't like what Valentine's Day is supposed to be about; showing those you love that you do, in fact, love them. It's that the holiday has become so commercialized, and seems to represent an acceptable excuse to save all your loving gestures for one day a year. That's not okay with me. I think, if you love someone, they should know it every day, not just on February 14th. And I don't like that media and advertising companies have put all this pressure on people and made them feel like they have to buy all these wildly unnecessary things.' (I could have gone on and jumped on my soapbox about diamonds and Africa, but I figured that might be a little much for one conversation). This was followed with some minor explanations of words like "commercialized", but once we covered that he took some time to ruminate. He leaned his head back on the car seat and said, 'I think I see what you mean', and went on to offer his own thoughts and give examples. I wish I wouldn't have been driving. I wish I could have looked him in the eye while we talked. I wish I could have watched his wheels turning, expressions clouding and leaving his face. He is such a perceptive little guy, and I cherish being able to talk to him like this. I hope he always talks to me like this. Dinner was normal and wonderful. We made it home and tucked everyone in, only a little later than usual. I laid in bed thinking. About the day, about all the February 14th's that preceded this one and all of those to come. I hope my answer to his question was a good one. I hope he got something out of it. I hope Hagan, the little sponge that he is, absorbed a little of it too. I am grateful for my boys. For the things they make me see, for the intentional conversations we have and the way I'm watching them grow. It was a good day, yes it was. BarfTimes Day or not. These last few weeks have been heart wrenching. There is no softening it. Words have escaped me and I have found myself wanting to curl into the fetal position and cry. Life is hard. It always has been, and I've never made an effort to pretend otherwise. But sometimes...sometimes it reaches beyond hard and into incomprehensible. Some loss is too much to bear. No parent should ever bury their child, and watching people I love going through this is agonizing. I hesitate to write about it. The hurt is so deep; to write about it is to offer it to the world. I wasn't sure I was ready to do that. I'm still not. But then, my sister sent me an Instagram link. It was written by a woman I've never met. In all likelihood I never will. But she knows me. She knew what was burning and slashing and screaming and whimpering inside me. And it helped me, in some small way, to read what I needed to say being written by someone else. Mother Theresa once said, "Because she can, she must," so because I can potentially help ease someone else's pain, I must. Please take the time to read this. Even if you never met Lucas. Even if you don't know me. Pain is inevitable. And reading this....it helped me realize someone else felt this and is still fighting and still surviving. Click on the button below to read her words....thank you, Miss Jainee, for these words. A visit from Aunt Brittany (or Aunt Benty, if you're Hagan). My family has always been dear to me, but in this season of my life they are particularly so. I don't have to explain myself. I don't have to explain my kids. I don't have to explain my dogs. I don't have to explain my mess or my activities. They just know and get it. To spend time with someone who really sees you...it is a gift. Explaining the importance of proper kindling materials. (We finally have enough moisture to start safely burning brush piles). Gathering said kindling materials under the watchful eye of Molly. Showing off evolving dribbling skills. Also being attacked by lady bugs. Running to make sure your brother hasn't discovered something awesome without you. He had. He shared. The littlest of my siblings being bossed by the littlest of my children. Sharing revelations, three-year-old style. The lady bugs pee! Everyone was glad Aunt Britt came over. Everyone got dirty. Everyone ran and played and loved every minute of it. We didn't do anything extraordinary. We just enjoyed being outside with someone we love. Could have done without the lady bugs though...
Friday the 13th. No school. Warm, clear day. Plenty of time for brothers who miss one another to catch up on playing. Let's see what happens, shall we? *Spoiler alert: This story does contain a bleeped out curse word. As do most of the days of my life. It's lunch time and he's getting hangry. It's hard being three. What seems to be the problem? Gesturing accusingly. The highly prized, scavenged lime rinds refuse to stack cooperatively on the toy semi. Life as we know it is potentially over. Ever the big brother, Logan has a solution. But... Ever the little brother, Hagan says it's no good. Now everybody's mad. I walk away to facilitate self-regulation and team-resolution. Fancy way to say, I like to make 'em work it out themselves. Chessie-girl Molly has been taking it all in, and has on her worried face. Don't worry Molly, they'll figure it out. Watch. New plan. Forget the lime rinds. Let's stuff sh*t in our pockets! Sweet! I have pockets! The end
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