I’m not sure that “rakish” and “Trixie” belong in the same sentence, but Trixie got into a little spat with some barbed wire yesterday and now has a rakish pirate scar. She felt sorry for herself for a few minutes, but got over it pretty fast.
Poor silly thing. This isn’t the first time she’s cut herself up. She’s got to learn!
Our crazy puppy, Ditsy Trixie, is becoming quite the favorite in our house. After a couple months of on and off disaster, Trixie has settled in and is learning the ropes around here! As a puppy, she has the attention span of a flea and the spazzy energy of a chipmunk, and no matter how worn out she is after an outing she always makes a beeline for the garbage to wreck havoc. But she has actually been learning, and is becoming quite the hiking buddy. I’m so excited. 
This morning while Dad was down in the crawlspace working on our plumbing, Trixie sneaked in and pulled a few stuffed animals out of storage – Stuffed animals that were supposed to be “keepsakes.” Being the generous person that I am, I thought I could pick up a stuffed animal for her from Goodwill when I went in this afternoon. She’d chewed the faces off her couple of stuffed animals, and disemboweled her favorite one, so it seemed right that a new one was in order. 
So I found this hideous blue and yellow stuffed fish – It had plastic eyes, which I thought she might like (she loves to go straight for the face), and lots of appendages to chew on. 
The long and short of it: she loved it. For all five minutes that it survived. Sure enough, she went straight for the face, after whipping it around to break its neck. Within two minutes, she had popped off the little plastic eyes, and about three minute later, we looked out the window and she was surrounded by white stuffing, and meticulously pulling out the rest. She completely gutted the fish. 
It didn’t last long, but it was a nice idea.
Another favorite destination for Black Hills locals is Big Falls, also known as Hippie Hole. We’ve hiked it a number of times from the Foster Gulch trailhead off of Rockerville Road, but Sarah, William, and I decided to try it from the Highway 40 trailhead, and it was well worth it! The trailhead is about halfway between Rockerville Road and Hayward, on the north side of the highway. I would say that it is a more strenuous hike, but given that there is no easy way down to Big Falls, that is somewhat hard to estimate.
The views were beautiful – Sunlight sifted through the pines in the higher elevations of the trail, then through an emerald canopy of deciduous trees as the trail dropped into the canyon. Birch trees and huge granite boulders lined the trail. Splashes of wildflower color sparkled here and there, and there must have been roses earlier this year, since there were rosehips! Little gems of the wildflower world.
We saw a mama and baby mountain goat pair down closer to the creek, and seeing them so close was quite the surprise! We’ve seen them near Big Falls at a distance that nearly required binoculars, but this darling pair was no more than 20 yards away! God has designed His creatures so beautifully. It was amazing to see the little baby scrambling around like a pro with his mama.
It was rather quiet at Big Falls when we went, which was a nice change from the usual. Weekends are not recommended for Big Falls, since that is when the younger, rowdy, bikini-clad, beer-drinking, smoking crowd tends to show up. But there were only a family or two and a young couple there, and it was fun to watch them deliberate and try to get up the courage to jump off the Falls into the pool below. Sarah and William climbed up to a good vantage point for watching the deliberations.
Once again, Trixie came with us for the hike and she loved it – When she is better trained and we can trust her to come when called, we’ll be able to let her swim and run around by the creek. She was great on the trail, though, where the distractions were fewer. She is becoming quite the hiking buddy!
Keep an eye out for garnets along the trail – I read in a book on gemstone hunting that the Big Falls/ Battle Creek canyon area is a great place for garnet hunting, and this proved true. The girls and I are seasoned garnet hunters, and the best garnets we have found have been in the vicinity of Big Falls! Yesterday did not disappoint!
One warning: there is a lot of poison ivy on this trail. Wear protective clothing and wash afterwards! Trixie was very much into the poison ivy, so even she got a bath – She hated it.
In case you were revolted by my previous Motherhood post, maybe you’ll appreciate this one more. Unless, of course, you’re a cat-hater. Then I’m afraid the case is hopeless. But we have new kitties on our little homestead! The Kashka-Cat finally had her kittens, one week ago today, and they are little charmers.
Little Kashka would have had six babies, but this is her first litter and her motherhood awareness is underdeveloped. If my mom hadn’t been there to clean off a couple of kittens’ faces, all six would have suffocated. As it was, only two survived. But they are beautiful.
Other than the first day or so when Kashka was a bit nervous and protective of her precious babies, Kashka has allowed us to handle them a little bit and pet them and marvel at them. They sleep and nurse and squeak like crazy when we stroke their fur or when their mama sits on them. And their skinny little newborn kitten bodies are becoming chubby little kitten bodies – They eat well, just the two of them!
The little calico-looking one is more of a cuddler, always cuddling up against Kashka’s belly. The little black one, though, seems to like to cuddle against Kashka’s back. He’s very active, and one of his little eyes started to open today. They’ll be a handful when they’re no longer blind and helpless!
I could watch them forever.
People who hate cats just haven’t yet met the right cat. That’s all. My uncle’s cat, Kitty-Q, is one of those perfect cats. “Perfect” in that she is a delightful blend of normal cat and abnormal cat. She has all the grace and poise and haughtiness and independence and self-sufficiency of the average capable feline, but she has a desperately sweet side, the side that manages to knock down all sorts of barriers, even those created by cat allergies. She never gets tired of cuddling. She is quite the beautiful feline, and none of us would be surprised if she had a little bobcat in her.
No one knows where she came from. She adopted my uncle and his family about seven years ago – She wandered in as a stray and stuck around when they started feeding her. But for weeks she wouldn’t allow them to come near her. One day, my uncle was flat on his back underneath one of the tractors, and the cat came and sat on his chest. From then on, she was their cat.
Sarah and I are house-sitting for my uncle while he and his family are fishing in Alaska. Kitty-Q, without fail, greets us on the porch in the evening when we come inside, and greets us on the porch in the morning when we come out. She meows at us, begging for attention, roughly shoving her bony little head under my chin or into my hands, to insist on affection.
I can’t help but wonder if this is how Adam and Eve were able to interact with God’s creatures in Eden.
On the way to work, I made a short detour to drive through old Rockerville. In the early morning light, Rockerville still slumbered. This old mining town had its heyday in the gold rush years, but those years are long gone. Just the memory remains. How fast the present passes into memory!
A forest of Queen Anne’s Lace sparkled in the waking light, and a cat groomed herself on the porch of an old tumbledown storefront. A few people still live in the area of Old Rockerville, and a single restaurant is a favorite local stop. The past and present mingle in this place.
How many miners made and lost their fortunes in this place so long ago, yet not so long ago? What sort of men were they who spent their best years breaking their backs for a myth of easy riches, or breaking other men’s backs because the other men believed the myth? What professions did they leave to come mine placer gold at a rough and wild gold camp? How many drifted from one gold camp to another, and how many put their roots down and attempted to build up a life for themselves, and perhaps for a wife and children? Where were they born? And where did they die? 
Where are they now? Where will you be, 100 years from now? Who will remember you, and what will you be remembered for? What will the point of your life have been? Whom are you serving?
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.” 1 Peter 1:24-25
The world tells me that today is the only day that matters, and that I am the only person that should matter to me. But the Bible tells me that every day matters, into eternity, and that what I do with each day matters. Do I serve myself, or do I serve Yahweh, Christ, the Risen King? The Bible tells that the person of Jesus Christ is of eternal importance. This life will fade away, and all will one day face our Maker.
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9
Song Dog Journal 