The Road Not Taken

Obviously not original work, but one of my all time favorite poems. It's always worth reposting for the world (or my 13 followers) to enjoy. :-)

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

- Robert Frost

Wilbur Thomas: Some Pig!

As a child my parents read me Charlotte's Web. I don't remember instantly feeling as if I needed to own my own pig, although I do know I have no desire to have a pet spider. I know Charlotte was nice and kind and the hero of the story but Spiders scare the tar out of me. They are creepy and I have this weird fear of eating them in my sleep. I once read a statistic that said you eat like a million spiders in your lifetime or something obscene like that. But....I am already getting off topic. Anyway, I have managed to make it through my entire childhood and well into my adult life without ever uttering words, "I wish I had a pet pig" until last summer.

My brother and I had a lot of animals come in and out of our lives during our childhood and adult years. He had a guinea pig named Guinea. We had 2 hamsters we got for Christmas named Silly Willy and Scaried Kat. He had a bird named Beaker. I had gerbils who multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. Who new Gerbils were so good at Math? And of course we had dogs and even a few cats until we discovered that cats hate me and they tried to kill me on numerous occasions. (I am severely allergic to cats) And of course the plethora of horses that we still own to this day. We collect animals like most people collect Elvis memorabilia. And the idea of actually selling one of our horses?? Unheard of! Who does that??

So, as some of my loyal 11 followers might know, Travis and I had 3 pet ducks that I got for Mothers Day last year. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, were white males ducks that moved from the farm to the house. We built them a great house with an enclosure and got them a pink princess swimming pool to swim in. We LOVED our Quackers. Unfortunately two of the three were tragically killed one night so we moved the third one back to the farm to "live with his chicken friends." To this day Madeline will tell you that her "Huey Dewey's" live with their chicken friends. We were devastated. During our grieving process we were trying to figure out what type of pet we could get to replace the Quackers. We knew ducks weren't safe on our property and we needed a pet that could live in the house. (Because 2 Golden Retrievers, and 9 million horses obviously aren't even mouths to feed) Travis said, "We could get a pig. A potbelly pig and he could live in our house." At first I was completely turned off to the idea, but then I took to Google! According to the Internet Pigs are highly intelligent animals, clean, affectionate, and can be house broken like dogs. So about the time I was really getting on board with the Pet Pig idea Trav changed his mind. And I quote.... "I don't want a damn pig. Why in the world would we get a pig?" Ummmm....because you suggested it? Too late....the wheels were already in motion. I had contacted a fellow horse friend who had pigs and she was planning on breeding her female and we were first in line for a piglet! YAY Us!

On February 23rd the female pig went into labor and had 2 baby piglets. The labor was harder than predicted and tradegy befell the mama pig and her babies. The mama had to put humanely put to rest and only one of her piglets survived. My horse friend is currently working around the clock to keep the only surviving piglet alive and so far he is showing excellent progress! Since that baby piglet has a forever home with my horse friend I took to Craiglist to find our little oinker. Where else would you look for a pig?

Like any other pet (minus the horses) we have bought, Wilbur came from a whole in the wall farm over run with Rabbits, Dogs, and 3 precious ponies I tried to convince the woman to sell me as well. No Dice! Wilburs breeder was missing quite a few essential teeth, and tried to convince Travis and I that she rescued animals that needed homes. Although to me it looked as if she should be on an episode of Animal Hoarders. In her defense all the animals looked well fed and for the most part very social with humans. They were inquisitive and came up to the front of their pens and cages to greet us. As we quickly made our escape with Wilbur in hand Travis promptly announced, once we were safely tucked away in our car, "You know their cookin up some Meth in that house." I silently agreed.

Wilbur road home in my lap shaking uncontrollably and peed on me twice. At one point he jumped out of my arms and raced around the back seat like a lunatic. Madeline screamed and laughed "Wilbur is loose Wilbur is loose!" and I jumped over the car seat to pig wrestle my 5 week old piglet in a moving vehicle. (Don't tell my dad I took my seat belt off) Once I had Wilbur safely in my lap again he started to slowly calm down and breath easily. That is when I noticed that my brand new piglet smelled strangely of Marijuana. As time went on the smell got stronger and I insisted Trav roll the windows down in the car as we were driving. It might be useful to add that it was 22 degrees outside and snowing. But non-the-less I didn't want myself or my 3 year old daughter getting high from the piggie hotbox we were currently creating.

The rest of the ride home was pretty uneventful. Everyone made it home safely and I promptly did a wardrobe change while Trav set up Wilbur's new accommodations. The days following have provided entertainment for my colleagues, friends, and family. Wilbur's arrival at our house is worthy of quite a few blogs and I have a feeling he will be the topic of conversation for quite awhile amongst my social circle. A colleague suggested I read Animal Farm....from what I understand it's really about Communism and not about pigs so I am not sure what he is implying.....but I might pick it up and give it a go.

So stayed tuned my followers because there are many more Wilbur stories to come!

Love, ET

The Fisher Fiasco of 2012

I may or may not have blogged about Travis dog hierarchy before. In Travis' world he only has room for 1 good dog and the rest are "just alright dogs." He plays favorites and in order to move up in the dog chain the Alpha dog has to pass away. This could also be the reason why we only have one child. It might be pretty traumatizing for our second child to have to wait their whole life to be the favorite child. Currently Fisher is the favorite pooch and Tucker has to take a back seat to his older, more docile brother. (Don't feel too bad for Tuck, he is a mama's boy anyway) A few month after we moved into our new house we noticed that the Gold Fish was disappearing. He started taking short jaunts into the woods behind our house and would come back a few minutes later. But as time when on Fisher could disappear faster than fish on a Catholic Friday. You would open the door to let the dogs out and he would literally disappear before your eyes. Let me take a few moments to remind you that the "just ok dog" always trotted out to the yard did his business and then waited by the door to be let back in. But..... Like any good dog owner, we shrugged, grumbled about what a pain in the a$$ Fisher was, and instead of actually taking the time to "train" our Gold Fish (who does that?) we ignored the problem and assumed it would fix itself.

Well as time went on Fisher stayed away for longer periods of time. On Christmas Eve he was gone until almost 1:30am. We started to grow extremely concerned when he returned home one day without his collar. Both dogs wear nice leather collars with their names and phone numbers engraved on them. We bought them both in Kentucky from Shelby Tack and they have been sporting their "Horse Trainer" collars ever since. Travis complained, said some cuss words, and then put our back up collar on his Fish. So for a few days Fisher showed off his green and white MSU Spartans collar. But within the week he showed back up at home lacking his Spartan pride. At this point we started to get concerned. So for the next few weeks Fisher went naked. No collar.

Then in the beginning of February I got a very disturbing voicemail message. The mystery woman on the other end said my neighbor who lived on Gentry Ct, our street, has been calling her and saying mystery womans Golden Retriever is in my neighbors yard. The ironic part is myster woman has a Golden Retriever but every time she gets a call from my neighbor her dog is sitting right next to her. So, mystery woman wanted to let me know if we were looking for a home for the dog she would take him. Great.... So I call mystery woman back wondering how in the world she got MY number and how my neighbor got HER number! Turns out mystery woman has the exact same phone number as me except her area code is 517, the area code of our city, and my area code is 502. Fisher had been wandering into my neighbors yard and she has been calling the phone number on his collar, except she is dialing 517 instead of 502 as the area code.

So....this still begs the question how did mystery woman get my phone number? After convincing her that I am a good dog owner, and I have no intentions of giving Fisher up, but kindly asking her if she would like my husband instead, she explains to me that my neighbor refused to believe that Fisher's real phone number started with 502. She was convinced it was a typo on his collar and has been insisting that Fisher really belongs to mystery woman.

So....mystery woman gives me my neighbors phone number and I put Travis on the case. It is his perfect, most wonderful, best dog ever, that is causing all this confusion after all. The whole time this is going on my dog has remained closed to my side the whole time, and refuses to step foot off our property. AND still has all his collars. Anyway, Travis calls our neighbor and finds out that she has been hoarding Fisher's collars. Apparently he shows up at her house with sticks in his collar and she feels obligated to remove the sticks and the collar and send him home naked. AFTER calling the wrong phone number and insisting he belongs to the wrong person. Travis kindly asked if she could return Fishy's collar and she said absolutely she would bring them by the next day.....It is now March 3rd and we still don't have Fisher's collars back. To make matters worse Travis is making both dogs were nylon collars from the vets because "Fisher's feelings are hurt because his leather collar is gone."

Seriously.... I'm not making this stuff up.