Grant, farm living

Cori and Nate had quite the day yesterday. They took Grant to the hospital because he had fallen out of his top bunk headlong onto the floor. Though he was admitted, they were eventually sent home but the vomiting and headache Grant was suffering from due to his fall and resulting head injury had them worried enough that they took him back to the hospital where he was readmitted, not for the injuries sake but for dehydration. A note from Cori last night said that he slept through the insertion of the IV.

 I do not know what they gave Grant to allow him to sleep but I am sure his parents were happy to see him finally resting. He has not been able to do so at home because although the injury was done to one side of the head in the fall there is always a “companion injury” on the other side of the head in such an injury. I am not sure if the brain actually bounces off the inside of the skull but it can be visualized that way.

The x-rays done at his first evaluation confirmed that he had a fracture in the skull but the fracture was not a worrisome one. The trauma doctor felt confident that it would heal quickly without any resulting bad effects. Cori told Mama that the bruise on the side of Blake’s head was a sizable one; but again, the doctor felt that it would heal without any lingering effects.

Mama and I prayed together last night about the situation and I prayed for Mykenzie and Blake who are on the outside looking on. I am prayerfully concerned Mykenzie will overhear conversations in which the worst-case scenario will be discussed by some well-intentioned individual and will be scared more than she should be.

While we were in Florida we came home late one evening to find that the dogs, Kira and Bella were not in the back yard. It was already near dark. Mama panicked and began to bemoan the potential of Victoria losing Kira after losing Dodger. Mykenzie and Blake were extremely upset – having lost their dog Sarge recently.

About the time I got the kids together and began to pray that God would intervene and help us find the dogs Nate got back from scouring the neighborhood with the dogs in tow. A neighbor had found them loose and taken them into her back yard to hold them for the owner she knew would come looking for them.

Yesterday morning Mama was an emotional wreck. She called me as she was gathering eggs to report that she was done with the farm. When she had looked into the laying boxes she saw not one but two large snakes resting there. She was in such a state that I left work to help her out. I got the two large rat snakes out of the chicken coop and killed them, but I told Mama I felt very bad in doing so. They were there to eat the mice that had been running free in the coop but had since turned to eating the eggs.

I certainly could not let them live with Mama in the panic she was in, but I still did not think I had done well in exercising a final solution. As it turned out I got a chance to redeem myself later that day when she found two more rat snakes about the same size in the coop. Mama got me a pillowcase and I put the snake in it once I got it out of the nesting box. Getting the snake into the bad was a little tricky since Mama refused to even hold the pillowcase as I tried to get the snake uncoiled from my arm as I still maintained a grip on its head. When I asked her to help she did her little no-way-I-am-even-going-to-touch-that-thing dance, waving her hands with a panicked expression on her face. I took it down the road to release it after I did manage to get it off of me and into the pillowcase.

Mama will have to deal with the other one this morning.