Devil's Lake Camping 7/2015

The girls and I took another camping trip with friends a few weeks ago...they are getting to be quite the little outdoorswomen!

This time around we had beautiful weather, and time for lots of hiking and swimming.  Plus, "glamping" in style thanks to the Mikkelson's awesome accessories.

Chalk rocks.  Kept all four girls entertained for hours.

"Riding" the septic tanks.  'Cause, you know.  That's fun when you are 5.

And sitting on rocks is pretty cool, too.

Photo op.

Fearless Chris, leading the way.

Up, up, up to see Balanced Rock!

 A steep climb!

Switchbacks!

View of the swimming beach from above.

I swear they weren't as close to the edge as they appear in this photo.

Sylvie had a haven't-napped-in-forever meltdown at the top of the bluff, so she and I took a detour back to base while the others trekked on.

She was much happier once she realized she could climb rocks all the way back down.

Waiting-for-a-large-group-to-pass selfie op.

The girls singing and drawing on the art blanket back at camp.

Cooking in style.

The after dinner clean-up crew!

And our favorite Cards Against Humanity combination of the trip.  Too bad he wasn't there to appreciate it!

Sylvie's first camping trip!

In honor of Elsie's 5th birthday, she asked to "please go camping!".  She has great memories of our solo trips before Sylvie was born, and was anxious to put up the tent again.  Our friends, the Watermolens, just happened to be planning a group camp for her birthday weekend, so we jumped on board!

Andy decided to stay home at the last minute, but the girls and I had a wonderful time.  There was a little rain and a few snags in the plan, but overall it was a great experience.  We made some new friends, reconnected with old ones, and even had a few wildlife encounters!

The lake was beautiful!

We had lots of fun organizing the campsite (seven families!) and trying to set up the tents and prepare dinner while the kids ran amok.  They played with stilts, beanbag toss, and hammocks, in addition to self-organizing games like "Sharks and Minnows" and "Ghost in the Graveyard".

The "other Andy Cooper" had lots of assistants setting up their tent!

The campsite was surrounded by 60-foot tall evergreens, which where filled with nesting herons!  We got to watch them swoop in and feed their babies, and the girls loved to listen to their funny honking cries.

The highlight of the trip for Elsie was our close encounter on our way to bed.  We stopped by our picnic table to grab our water bottles, and came face-to-face with a very large raccoon sitting on the table, helping himself to our garbage bag!  When he ran off, we walked to our tent past another friend's table, only to see our raccoon had a friend in crime busy trying to figure out how to open a cooler on the table!

As we got ready for bed in the tent, the herons began hooting/calling/fighting REALLY loudly!  It, I swear, sounded like a flock of pterodactyls had invaded the forest.  Crazy!  They kept it up for most the night, not the it kept the girls awake at all.

And, of course, proof that the girls did actually sleep the whole night! What big kids! 

We left after breakfast, and weren't out of the park before Sylvie began asking, "Mama, go camping again? Please?". Yep, our first family-of-three camping trip was a success!

Sister Love.

Elsie is student of the week!

Tigger comes home!

When we dropped Tigger off at the vet to stay with his surrogate mama, Muffin, he weighed just 8 oz.  In the next day or two he moved up to 9 oz, then began to decline.  Six days later (after many visits and phone calls from us!), it was determined that Muffin was just tired of being a Mama (after weaning six bigger kitties!) and was no longer willing to care for Tigger.  He was only a little over 9 ounces, and failing fast.  The vets were concerned that he might have a congenital problem or other internal issue, and was not very optimistic that he could turn around.  Home he came!

Andy was really excited to meet Tigger for the first time after hearing about him all week.

Elsie was THRILLED, as her biggest concern through all of this was that he wouldn't be able to attend her birthday party if he was at the vet.  It's been a lot of work (bottle feeding every two hours around the clock), but I am happy to say that in the four days he has been with us, Tigger has bumped up to 12.5 oz (about .75 of an ounce a day!) and has completely turned around.  He is playful, full of purrs, and is even trying to walk! 

The girls adore him, and are learning to be very gentle.  Elsie is even starting to bottle feed him! 

Sylvie thinks he is hilarious, and loves to kiss his forehead.

Group nap time is also pretty adorable.

Tigger seems pretty happy with his change in circumstances, too...nothing like a warm heating pad and some fleece covers to make a kitty feel at home!  We are slowly introducing Tigger's smell to Pongo...in typical 'fraidy-cat fashion, Pongo still prefers to avoid him completely, but based on past experience I think it is safe to assume they will be cuddling like best buds in a few weeks.

A new family member coming soon- this time it's a boy!!!

It's been a rather exciting couple of days here at the Cooper house!

On Wednesday morning, I received a call from a friend who is both a relator and wildlife rehabilitator. She was staging a home for sale late Tuesday night and discovered an abandoned kitten. With the horrible storms passing through that day, she guessed that the mama cat moved the whole litter to keep the nest from flooding, and this guy got left behind. Seeing as how my friend already had a five-day-old baby at home (and two other preschoolers), she didn't feel like she could care for him properly.  Could we do it?

Of course the only answer was YES!  Sylvie and I dropped Elsie off at school, then made a quick stop at the pet store for supplies before heading across town.  My friend estimated he was only 2-3 weeks old, so we knew he was going to need some special care (kittens shouldn't leave their mamas until they are 6-8 weeks old).

Tigger had been given fresh goat's milk through the night, but he wasn't doing well and was desperately happy to try the baby bottle of Kitten Milk Replacement (KMR) we brought.  He downed a quick 1/2 ounce before falling asleep in my lap. 

The girls had just enough time to get properly introduced before we needed to bring Tigger in to the vet for his appointment.  He hadn't passed any stool since he was found, so we I didn't want to give him too much to eat (his tummy was awfully bloated).  You can hear his sad cry in the video.  Sylvie's immediate reaction was, "Kitty wants his Mama!  Please bring him to Mama for mama milk?"  Yep, we have a future veterinarian on our hands!

The wonderful Dr. Kay was able to confirm that Tigger was a boy, would likely be a snow-shoe tabby, and was only about ten days old.  Other than being a neonate, he seemed very healthy with no signs of fleas, mange, ringworm, or ear mites.  She was happy to tell us we'd done all the right things for him, but she had one more idea: a rescued mama cat in their shelter area had just weaned her litter over the weekend, and was acting quite sad.  She wanted to see if the mama would "adopt" Tigger for us! 

The introduction went very well, and we left him at the hospital overnight (Elsie was heart-broken, but understood that Tigger would be better off with a mama).  In the morning, we got this photo sent to us by the veterinary staff:

Yep, looks like everything is going great!  As long as Mama Cat is willing to care for him, we will leave Tigger at the hospital until he is old enough to be on his own.  We have already been 'round to visit, though.  We can't wait until he gets to come home!

So this is happening in our yard...

Our neighbors decided that offering us free babysitting in exchange for letting their dog out during the day wasn't a fair trade for us, so they delivered this to our doorstep today.  The girls are thrilled!



Can I just say one more time how much we love our neighborhood?  Best people in the world!

And our yard now hosts a fire pit, two swings, a swing set, a teepee, and a trampoline.  Yep, we are ready for summer!

Hermes

Hermes is our neighbor's cat (one of four- he is part of the PuppyKittyHedgehogChicken House Zoo Crew).  He likes to visit us pretty regularly, and particularly likes relaxing on our porches and chatting through the screen doors with Pongo. 

Sometimes dinner gets interrupted by impromptu kitty petting sessions.  And even Andy thinks he is pretty cool.

He and Sylvie are good friends.  He leads her around the yard like a dog, and she gleefully follows him wherever he goes (he even climbs up into our swing set clubhouse on occasion).

Here's a little video of him being is cool, cool self:

And here's another one of him trotting around the yard, keeping an eye on the activities of everyone in the family:

The Pond: 2.0 or "How the Cooper Family Grows"

When we moved into our house ten years ago we were (erm, I was) delighted by the little pond and waterfall in our front yard.  Two goldfish were its happy occupants, and all was well.  Then a sneaky raccoon moved in, the fish disappeared, and the pond began to leak.  A lot.

As Andy so delicately put it, the pond became a "mosquito cesspool".

This spring, I decided to rectify the situation.  Since Andy has repeatedly vetoed chickens, bees, and a pony, I knew the only way to increase my brood was by way of the pond.

A long weekend of rock moving, digging, and building (being supervised by Hermes the Cat):

A new liner, lots more rock rearranging, and some planting, and we finished with this:

A running waterfall, two filters, and lots of "floater plants" to aerate and clean the water, and all that was missing was....fish!

I was still a little leery to add fish to the pond considering our local wildlife situation, but when I took Sylvie to the pet store to check out our options, I decided that something had to be done.  Small (runty) goldfish are apparently kept as "feeder fish" for other bigger fish, and are packed 100 to a tank until they are eaten.  I figured that even if my new fish only survived for a few weeks, a short life in a pond was going to be way better than a REALLY short life in an overstocked tank.

When it finally got warm enough to bring our pond tempt into the acceptable range then back to the pet store we went.  Based on our pond size, we decided to stock it with three "feeder" comet goldfish, three "feeder" minnows which will devour any mosquito larvae in the water, and (ahem) a pair of cheap, small Koi (that were NOT part of the original plan) but that Elsie fell in love with and subsequently named YellowWhitey Fish and Sunshiney Fish. 

They should all coexist nicely, and since they are all significantly faster swimming breeds than the Fancy Goldfish we previously inherited, they should be better suited to avoiding predators.

We added a broken pot and some carefully arranged rock "bridges" to provide cover and hiding spots if the neighbor animals do come crawling.  At $13, though, I think the fish have already provided enough joy and entertainment to be worth the investment (even if it is short-lived).

They are happily exploring their new home, zooming around like lightning and finding lots of places to hide.  I managed to catch one (really bad) picture of one of the Koi as he swam under the pump hose (the white in the lower left corner) and one little goldfish (the orange in the center).  They look huge, but they are actually only about 3" and 1" respectively.  They might grow, though!

Sylvie and Sylvie.

Every day fun at the Puppykitty House!

What better way to celebrate St. Patrick's day, than with face paints, puppies, and Irish pride? 

Spring is coming!

Puddle walks, rain boots, and sunshine, oh my!

Crappy Dinner Party Fridays

A group of mama friends and I get together with our kids every Friday night for crappy dinner parties (no cleaning, no special trips to the grocery store, nothing complicated) with our kids. 

This last week was so beautiful (65F!), we all brought bikes and spent the afternoon and evening playing in the cul-de-sac, splashing in puddles, and burying dinosaurs in the last of winter's plowing snow piles. 

A picnic dinner, lots of desserts and wine, lots of dogs on walks, and even a stray puppy rescue made this one of the best in recent memory. 

Sylvie's 2nd birthday- blowing out candles like a pro and other videos.

Because Grandma wanted another video...