We were watching a TV show Saturday night that showed a mama dog with a new litter of puppies. The sight of that triggered a childhood memory of all the new farm and wild babies that come in the springtime.
Mostly, it triggered a memory of one spring when my pet dog gave birth to a litter of puppies underneath my bedroom.
Our farmhouse was on what was probably a concrete block foundation on three sides, but the front of the house was completely open underneath. Eventually, Dad boarded up that front, underneath the porch, to help with warmth in the winter. But for years, that open space was such fun. I played underneath the front porch during the summer because it was cooler. It was also a wonderful place to make mud pies!
But this particular year, the space back underneath the house became a puppy nursery. We knew it was time for the puppies, and we could tell that they had probably arrived. We just weren't sure where mama had stashed them. As they got to be a few days old, that mystery was solved when I woke up early in the morning to the sounds of puppies whining. At first it was sweet. Then, it just got annoying. Those puppies had a much earlier wake-up time than I would have chosen! I can remember threatening to crawl back underneath the house to move the puppies to a new home. But I chickened out as I thought about the possibility of snakes.
It wasn't all that long before mama brought the puppies out to us. It just seemed like an eternity! There were either five or six puppies in that litter, so that was a lot of noise!
Another year, my spring was disrupted by a nest full of baby birds. Our house was heated with a wood stove, and we actually had two chimneys. Since we closed off our north rooms during the winter, the chimney that sat between my bedroom and the living room wasn't used. Even though the chimney top was supposed to be covered, something jostled the cover off. And the bottom of that chimney became a wonderful place for a bird's nest.
Again, these babies had an earlier wake-up time than I did! I sleepily staggered into the kitchen and complained (probably long and loud!) to Mom and Dad. I remember Dad bringing the stepladder into the living room and taking the chimney cover off so he could carefully remove the next and take it outside. Ah, spring!
Yet another springtime found me becoming mother to a baby rabbit. Dad found it somewhere in the pasture and brought it to the house. This wasn't the first baby bunny he had brought in, and by then I had a routine. I dug out a little plastic bottle from my doll supplies. Next, I made a 50/50 mixture of cow's milk and water, with a little sugar added, all heated up a bit on the stove. Bunnies seemed to love it - they just never stayed with me long. Except this one. This bunny perked up and thrived.
I fixed him a box in the corner of the kitchen, and he became part of the family. He would get up with Dad in the morning, and Dad would feed him puffed wheat cereal by hand. When Mom would start her morning cleaning, the rabbit would play a game with her. Mom hated mice, and baby rabbits don't look too much different from mice.....especially when they scamper out from under furniture. So the rabbit would go ahead of Mom, hide under the furniture, and then run out when she would swipe under the furniture with the dust mop. He seemed to enjoy it.
Sometimes in the evening he would jump on my bed, which was next to a west window, and race back and forth on my bed in the evening sun. Then he could come jump on my lap and snuggle with me while we watched TV. We were at the point of wondering how we were going to get him released into the wild when my cat solved that problem. The kitchen door didn't latch one morning and swung open enough for the cat to get at the furry little critter he had been watching for so many weeks. The bunny had a sunset burial down by the creek.
I never get tired of watching for baby calves and horses in the springtime - it's a wonderful reminder of nature's renewal.
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