Tuesday, May 31, 2011

With Malicious Intent

A pump brings water from the Earth.  Water gives life.  Without water we would surely perish but this pump is doing something else.  It is caring for life and I thought it an appropiate picture.  I'll show you what is inside at the end.

Someone shot my cat, Pippin, the first week of May. Do I have 100% proof of who did it? No. Do I have 4 possibilities of those that might have? Yes. Do I strongly believe I know the probability of what happened? Oh yes! Am I going to accuse one of the possibilities of doing the nasty deed? No, that would be libel without 100% proof but I am going to share the long story of the #3‘s and how they have impacted our lives. Why? Because putting it all down on paper helped bring the past into prospective for me and gave me some ideas of what to do with the future.

#1- when they heard about my cat they were truly sorry and were positive about not shooting him. Do I believe them? Absolutely. Any time a stray has shown up in the area I’ve gotten a call asking if it is mine. This neighbor has been known to dispatch strays but has stopped since discovering that two of his neighbors find this practice upsetting.

#2- the look on the face of the person told me what I wanted to know. That and they examined their target practice area to make sure they had not been the cause. We are also reasonably sure the night they shot and the evening Pip disappeared were not the same.

#4- shoots varmints only, coyotes etc. I’m 100% sure no animal even remotely resembling a pet has ever been shot by this person.

And so the tale starts of the series of misfortunate acts of Fate that involve us and the #3’s. My DH didn’t get along with my father so when it came time to build our own house, he chose this piece of property-20 acres with creek and woods. Having both lived in the suburbs; we decided to put our dwelling and outbuildings roughly in the middle of it to insulate ourselves from the intimate view of future neighbors on either side. Seems sensible to us but evidently this should have been my first clue to the #3’s mindset. The major part of their property is cut off by a large creek. So right off the bat they had major construction to fiord the creek. We helped with that. Then they built a very large steel construction garage roughly 25-30 ft. from our property line. Their intent was to live in it while their house was being built (illegal without proper permits which they didn’t have) and to use the building to run a business from (again illegal since we aren’t zoned commercial).

Let’s see what else did they put close to or right on our property line. Their house sets slightly further in than the garage but that does nothing to lessen its ugly looming presence from our view. One side of the fenced pen for their beastly barking dogs is our fence. We are ever so lucky that whenever we use our pond or track, their mutts announce our presence the whole time. All their bits and pieces of junk cars, implements and giant machinery are stored around the extra large garage. We also have an unadulterated view of all their personal garments as their clothesline which seems to be constantly in use is 10’ from our line. Still, back then we had friendly relations.

Now they have added a chicken house which could house raptors (the neighbor on their other side said that) right behind their dwelling. They neglected a proper pen and opted to string chicken wire all down our fence line. It looks so nice. Not! Does it work? Nope! Two hens escaped and destroyed 2 of my rose bushes scratching around my gardens. One enterprising gal laid 22 eggs on our side. I’ll add right here that I have raised chickens. Here and at the farm. I always had a proper pen to protect them and if they were out my cats never ever bothered them.

So there are 2 fateful accidents right off the bat, we moved here and so did they. Now for the big one! 1998, thirteen years ago I accidentally saved Road Kill Kimmie’s (the name will fit just wait) life. Most assuredly I never looked at it that way. The life saving bit that is.

Having a young child back then nights out were rare but it was a holiday weekend so we had one. Out late with friends and adult beverage or two might have made the sun shine a little too brightly for me the next day. In fact, I would have been happy to start my morning sometime in the afternoon. But I had promised to take RK out in the middle of nowhere to see a colt. Actually I was pet sitting a menagerie for a friend. RK called first thing saying she was ready to go and as I said, I promised to take her. So despite the lingering effects of my evening we went.

I was 36 at the time and she was several years younger but her life as she knew it was ended that day by a major stroke. Did I realize it was a stroke when she came around the corner of the house with her hand to her head? I’d gone through EMT training so that might have helped but it was one of those moments where clarity is instant. My neighbor was in dire need of medical help. I’d let the dogs out for a run. Cutting their play short would they come to me? I couldn’t leave them running. Animals never fail to amaze me; they must have sensed the urgency of my calls to them. My immediate concern was where is the nearest phone to call for an ambulance. I didn’t have keys to the house. There were NO neighbors. So I picked up the neighbor (she is small and I’m a fair sized girl) shoved her in the car. I raced to town, not wanting to waste time, stopped at the first house I saw people and called for help. I’m usually a slow plodding thinker but that day I made what seemed the best choices instantly. Medical help came and transported her. Then the second half of this awful day began. Finding the DH and medical info on her. If you get nothing else out of this story, get this! Always carry In CASE of EMERGENCY information on your person. Have it in your cell, your wallet but just have it! Also make sure the ambulance attendants are taking down what info you (if you find yourself in the position I did that day) do have. Like the NAME of the person! It took us a couple of hours to track down relatives and in the meantime the neighbor had been transported as Jane Doe. Great! The MIL yelled at me for that when I called the hospital to check on Road Kill. How did we manage to find a relative? No info came from the #3’s house or cars. My DH remembered the name of a close friend. We called information, got the phone # and made the call. Thank goodness that person was home and could give the name and number of the MIL. She was home too and headed to the hospital as soon as I called her. Where was the DH in all this? Fishing on the river with his dad. He arrived home well after 9:00 pm that day.

What would the outcome have been if I hadn’t answered the phone that morning? I really thought about that the other day because being blamed for saving R K’s life seems to have been the cause for her malice towards me, my son and maybe someone or something else. She couldn’t talk within a few minutes of the stroke so she couldn’t have called for help. She managed a short walk to where I was but movement on one side failed minutes later. So if she had managed to think “find help” and gone outside she might have ended up lying in her pasture. I wouldn’t have gone looking for her because it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d blown me off. I would have thought nothing of not hearing from her. Would her DH have looked in the field for her? Would she have just died? Or would she have suffered brain damage to the point of being a vegetable? We’ll never know because I did what I said I was going to do and ended up being with her that day. I’ve always thought that I really had nothing to do with the saving of that life. It was the medical doctors and the greatest of all doctors who affected the outcome of that day.

Mind you, from 1998 to 2007, I’d tried to be a supportative neighbor. I mowed the grass, brought over food and generally kept on eye out for R K. Let’s start with the first of the “complaint” phone calls that started coming my way, “Dog poop at the gate“. I was having some health issues and was on the way to the DR when this call happened. “Your dog is pooping so badly at our gate we can’t close it”. Seriously? “Look I’m on my way to the DR” “Well, what are you going to do about it. This is a real problem!” “I have to go I deal with it later.” Should I have called her DH, Goat Roper Wade, at work and discussed this with him instead of leaving him a letter on his porch apologizing for the dog and asking what he wanted to do. Oh yes! My first clue should have been when I looked at the gate and there was no poop. Then to be told by R K not to worry about it after leaving the letter. Why is hindsight ever so clear? I suspect now that all the complaints and that came from that point on made on his behalf were without his knowledge. Do I believe now that RK should have been taking the antidepressants the Dr recommended then? Oh yeah! Because there were a lot more complaints about really weird stuff. Why pick on me? Good question. Mad at me for accidentally saving her life? Maybe. Or was there just no one else available that she could get away with such behavior towards? Hmmm. Goat Roper wasn’t close friends with my DH so he wouldn’t have been suspicious of a lack of contact.

Much later while wakeful at night after the last incident in‘07, I thought about all the times the nastiness towards me happened. Each and every one matched to a “door closing” event in RK’s life. Complaining about the dog poop happened after she realized she could no longer do her former job. Going back to school didn’t work out for her either. The stroke hampered the ability to get her thoughts out clearly so that curtailed some of her productivity. I had started keeping my distance. Even though I was sick of the complaints by now, I would still say to myself “how would I feel if that were me. She deserves more of a measure of kindness”. Stupid me! When she discovered she couldn’t do the job of occupational therapist (I didn’t think she had the personality for that before the stroke!), I stopped speaking to her for weeks at a time.

Then the beginning of the end came in the form of an invite to a BBQ. R K had houseguests which she wanted to give a party for. She told me the only reason we were invited was so I could bring my homemade sourdough bread. Go ahead say it. “You dumb ass! Get a clue!” Especially after the party when she gleefully told me all the kind and wonderful compliments her houseguests gave to everyone. Uh, no we were not included in the praise filled comments. Again. Feel free to call me an idiot because while it hurt my feelings I just thought, “Poor Road Kill, how would I feel if it were me?” We ended up becoming friends with some at the BBQ and the DS ended up filling R K’s former stable hand job.

Here is the middle of the end, complaints started about the DS climbing her gate and breaking it down (he didn’t), driving the 4 wheeler too fast and scaring the horses (he didn’t) and leaving our gate open which would allow the horses she was boarding to escape if they got loose. It is this gate which hung open for years that really did us in. I tried to point out that if any horses got out on Road Kill’s property their logical path would be straight down her driveway, thru her open driveway gate and out onto the highway. The path to freedom they could clearly see. Winding around her property to and thru our gate (it was open wide enough to allow a 13 yr old thru, a skinny one), finding our heavily wooded creek crossing, making it across our front property and then thru our driveway gate onto the highway didn’t even begin to make sense. Oh NO!, Goat Roper said the gate had to be closed! Ok. I locked it. Poor Goat Roper couldn’t ride his motorcycle on our track anymore with the gate locked. That complaint rather backfired.

Must have really pissed her off when the gate was allowed to be cracked open once again allowing Goat Roper access to the track. She took to tying it shut everyday. Why? Good question. How badly did it being open disturb her? Judge for yourself. Mind you this is ‘07 and my Mom has been in & out of the hospital with a broken leg. In and out of rehab and returned home late June. July 4th I get a call saying something is wrong. The 5th she and I go to the Dr. She is admitted to the hospital. July 8th her cancer Dr says her breast cancer has returned with a vengeance and she has 3 months to live. Stupidly, I call R K the 9th to ask about a flea product. Should have called the vet! R K asks about Mom. I tell her. Then she started in. Yes indeed, she started complaining about the gate being open and my DS stealing the string she was tying it shut within seconds of hearing my Mom would be dead within 3 months. Turned out to be even less time than 3 months. Remember, I’m a little raw right now and not thinking clearly. We (my sister and I) were told after running back and forth to the hospital, rehab and Mom’s house caring for Mom she would be good to go for a few years. I didn‘t need someone complaining about something so incredibly petty. I had bigger things to deal with. One being a distraught sister who would insist on caring for our Mother at her home. And just what everyone needs during a time of grief; a bible quoting, God fearing sibling who would proceed to try and steal as much as he could while being as malicious as all get out. As if the knowledge of losing Mom wasn’t enough.

To say, I couldn’t believe R K would start an argument which escalated until I told her, “I hope you have a long and happy life with Goat Roper but I never want to speak to you again.” is an understatement. Should I have handled this differently? Oh Hell, yes! Did I feel like I had been cut in half and both halves were being rubbed with rock salt. Oh yes! Was it difficult to think Mom would be dead in weeks or days? Duh! Was I about to deal with nastiness I couldn’t begin to imagine due to my brother? Again, you be the judge. I will let you see one of the worst memories I have from those days. There were many but to me this is one of the worst.

I’m standing in my Mother’s hallway out her view. She has just woken up from her nap and is sitting on her bed like a child waiting for someone to come and tell her it is time to leave. That is the last nap in her bed and in the home my father built for her she will take. From where I stand I can also see my brother and sister arguing in the dining room. Rather my brother is browbeating my sister about, of all things, which funeral home is going to take care my mother’s remains. I turn my head and look in her room again. She sees me and asks,” Is it time to go?” I say, “Yes.”

Believe me that isn’t the worst my brother, the excellent Christian, did but this story is about RK and what I think she is capable of not him. So let’s git to gittin!

What is the behavior towards animals of the #3‘s? Have the #3’s put dogs to sleep because they decided they didn’t like them. Yes. Have they shot stray cats? Yes. Did they shoot the neighbor’s dog and leave it on the highway? Yes. The dog had been hit by a car so instead of calling the owner so he could decide what to do, they shot it. Leaving the animal on the highway was to teach the little twelve year old the dog belonged to not to let her pets run loose. Do they regularly sit on their front porch and shoot any bird that dares to build in their purple martin houses? Yes. I’ve got to get some wren houses because I’m sick of hearing their lovely song silenced. I wish I could shoot all of their purple martins but it goes against what I believe in. The birds have not harmed me nor will I eat them so I can not shoot them. And the giant houses on telephone poles add a certain something to the overall white trash look of R K’s place. Have the #3’s watched the neighbor’s horses & cows get onto our back pasture and neglected to call anyone? Yes. I guess it doesn’t matter that these are #3’s friends and were out of town. Heaven forbid, R K and Goat Roper call us but they could have called (having the cell #) the owners who in turn could have called us. After all the other neighbors removed a section of fence allowing excellent access to the highway. Good thing my son saw the animals and we penned them up till their owners could get them. Now for the last 3 things I wish to share about these nasty little people. Did Goat Roper on Mother’s Day stand 10’ away, with the wind blowing into my orchard, and spray poison on some wild plum trees that have been there for the last 18 years. We watched the little b------- so that‘s a yes. Is an apple tree and lilac bush of mine suffering from this? Oh yeah. Has Road Kill Kimmie live trapped a raccoon and then shot and ate it? Yes. Is this illegal? Yes. The raccoon’s transgressions, eating their outdoor cat’s food. Did Road Kill Kimmie, by herself, pull a dead deer out of the ditch in front of our property, tie it to the bumper of her car, drag the deer down the highway, up her long driveway and proceed to skin it? This story comes via the neighbor R K called to help with the skinning of the deer. Nice fellow but not given to exaggeration. When I say dead deer, I mean someone HIT the deer and it lay in the ditch a couple of days. DEAD! I thought the road crew picked it up. Now I know what happened to it.

I’ve been saying since ‘07 R K is to be held accountable for her words and actions. And in turn so is her husband. He is her caretaker after all. Everyone else tends to excuse her. Saying things like, “oh does she really know what she is doing? She has had it so rough….” True but she is not the only one in this world that has had something horrific happen to them. Which are we to believe? That she has no control over her behavior or her actions? Then why is she allowed to drive a car? One of the last things she said to me which I truly believe now, “I’m worthless and a liar.” I do believe she lies when it is convenient for her. I do believe she feels worthless and it has caused her to brood and act out.

At first, I really tried to get past all of her nastiness. I even had a friend say, “You know all the tools to use to get past this. Why aren’t you?” Because everything R K did towards me was with malicious intent. Every word or deed was done with the intent to hurt and the last episode came when I needed all my wits in order to deal with my siblings and my Mother’s death. I did not need to be distracted by a malicious act.

Did the #3’s shoot my cat? There are possibilities and probabilities and all I can say is-

The past is the past and I have thoroughly examined it. For the present, I will do my utmost to provide the healthiest environment for all my pets. What will the future bring? I don’t know but a pacific way of dealing did come to me while I was writing all this down. Wind chimes. Yes, all kinds of wind chime to be hung around our property. I read once that their musical tinkling confuses and chases away malevolent spirits. Can’t hurt and they sound nice. Money is still a little tight around here for now so if you have some old ones you would like to send my way, I’d appreciate it. Or if you know how to make your own send me the plans please. And most assuredly thanks for letting me vent!



“The stupid neither forgive or forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”

THOMAS SZASZ







A mother chickadee placed her nest in the pump.  I welcome the wide variety of bird life that come to my yard and gardens.  I would never chose one type of bird over another.  Nature works best when in balance.














Friday, May 13, 2011

Excuse me, just a Tabby? I think not!

My name is Pippin.  I am more than just some plain old tabby cat!  I'm a fearless hunter.  I can run like the wind.  I'm strong and capable of great feats.  Or at least I was until someone shot me.  This is my story and I'm sharing it not so much for me but for the human I own, Mama Cat.  We'll call her MC for short.  MC loves me dearly and was horrified when she found me with my gunshot wound.

This is what I looked like before.

So what happened?  Well, I don't really remember.  I remember asking to go out and that is about it until MC found me 2 days later.  Actually, I helped her out and crawled up high enough for her to see me cause I'm so clever.  She started calling and calling for me to come in that night.  She didn't worry really bad until I didn't show up in the morning.  Like I said I'm really smart.  I hid in places like this when MC couldn't find me so she wouldn't worry. 
Told you I was smart.  One night I actually pushed that screen out and got in the house by myself.

Um, on to the hard part.  When MC got me to Doc, he just looked at her and asked if I was a stray.  As if!  MC took the news pretty well about my leg.  Bones completely shattered.  It would never work again.  MC had to decide to amputate my leg or not.  I guess lucky for me she decided she could do without some stuff and said, "Yes, operate."

WARNING!!!!! These next pictures are rather harsh.  They are after my surgery!  The incision is long and the stitches are big!

I just got home and MC let me out.  She was worried how I would get around.  Geez, I'm great!  Let me out!
OK, it is great to be home too!


MC had concerns about my rehab so she had fixed up the basement for me.  I didn't think I needed it but she was right .  I'm sitting on the the huge dog crate that has a vey soft blanket in it.  She covered it so I would feel safe.  She also thought of food and water.  Even put a short litter box next to it for me.

I thought I was ready to go but being upstairs for awhile sends me back downstairs for long naps.




See I can get around.  It hurt MC to watch me stumble in the litter box and it hurts her to see me forget I don't have a leg anymore.  I still want out in the fresh air.  MC thought if I could sit and look out the window that would be enough.  It was, then I was tired again.


MC looked at all kind of websites to see if she could help me.  Someone named cheepchick sent her a great link that got her ready for me.  The other sites gave her some info.  One of them suggested sunshine would be helpful in the healing process.  YES!  Finally!  She is going to let me out.  OK, so it is MC we're talking about.  We went out into the fenced backyard.  MC hovered and I discovered I wasn't so sure it was a great idea to be out.  Something might go wrong again.

 No!  I'm not hiding like a scaredy cat.  I'm merely being cautious.

MC grows herbs.  Lots of herbs!  So she picked some catnip for me and let me enjoy it in the sun!



Yum!  And MC says it has healing properties for me.  She has really been great.  She even poached a boneless skinless chicken breast for me to have as treats after my meds.


Don't worry I'll look so much better when my fur grows back.  And if you see MC give her a hug, she worries too much about me I  think.  She just wants me to be happy.  I catch her crying when she thinks I'm not looking.  She's just a mom worrying if she did the right thing, she doesn't really care at all how I look.  Good thing cause you ought to see her in the morning before coffee.  Well, maybe you shouldn't.  It's scary. 

Till the next time MC let's me use the computer.

Happiness is a state of mind.
     Pain is inevitable but
       Misery is optional!