A great week !

Another week has passed by so quickly.  It is overwhelming at times trying to keep our family schedule straight!  We celebrated Laynie's 5th birthday this week.  Her real birthday was Tuesday, and then we had a party on Saturday for her at Delgrosso's.  The rain held off and we had a great time there.  It is finally nice to get a true taste of what May is supposed to be like.  I Love the month of May and there is always so much to look forward to; the smell in the air, the new flowers popping up, and of course mother's day!  I always feel so blessed and special on this day.  The kids all made me things in school, church and at Nanny's house, so I was flooded with Love, flowers, and pictures.  My day started out a little rough but ended well.  I have been battling a head cold and sore throat.  Russie pretty much had to drag me out of bed.  I felt pretty lousy most of the day, but the excitement the kids carried me through.  It didn't take long to notice how excited the older girls were that it was a special day for them as well as me.  I was thinking about it and how it must have felt for them to wake up and have a mother to celebrate.  The last 7 mother's days for them have been spent in the orphanage probably with hopes that they would once again have a mother.  I have always had a loving, amazing mother and never wondered what it was like to have it any different.  But this mother’s day, I realized what a blessing a mother truly is. I was watching a movie last night before I went to sleep. It was such a great ( and sad) movie. There was one line in the movie that stuck out to me and brought me to tears.  The boy in the movie said, “I would never want to miss out on something great, just because it is difficult”  I think that one line may summarize my life and duties right now.  Being a mother to 6 kids is difficult in so many ways, and there are so many times I don’t know if I will pull through, but I would NEVER want to miss out on the joy and greatness that motherhood brings, just because it is difficult.  I am so very blessed with 6 GREAT kids !

Russie took Anslee to Pittsburgh yesterday, along with Mick and Vika McCracken to get her official citizenship paper.  If you are over 14, when entering the country you have to get fingerprinted coming thru the border, you then have to have an appointment to obtain your citizenship certificate a few months after you are here.  Vika’s came in the mail because she is 13.  Anslee came home yesterday and said, “mama, I drive all day in the car to sign my name”  I chuckled at her when she said this.  The guy that was helping them at the appointment told Russie that this is the most important paper they will ever have and will need this paper the rest of their lives.  Although to Anslee it seemed like a long day just to sign her name, it was a very important step for her new life.

All in all this was a very good week for us.  We are getting ready to enter into our busy time, with fawns starting to come any day now.  We have to bottle feed the fawns four times a day starting out.  It is a round the clock job.  Russie will be sleep deprived in no time at all.  Beyond all the feedings, it requires a lot of extra time spending with the fawns to make them tame.  The little kids usually are ready for this job of petting them, naming them, and caring for them.  Laynie is our one that has a special way with the fawns.  There was a certain fawn last year, that would only let her feed it.  At any given time she could go in the pen and recognize which fawn was which, we bottled feed close to 30 fawns here last year, so that was a lot for a 4 year old to remember! We are hoping with 4 extra hands this year that the load may be lessoned a little. We are also praying that we have a good fawning year with no major outbreaks or incidents like in years past.  We have had several different happenings that have killed a lot of our fawns at once.  I am reminded of a day last year when Russie woke up to find a few fawns laying dead in the pen.  He had no idea what had caused this, there were no signs of bigger animals that may have gotten in the pen so he was at a loss.  I remember him running around and coming to get me saying there was something majorly wrong.  I went to the pen to see the ones that were already dead and the rest of the pen laying down fighting to stay alive.  It was a devastating feeling seeing our whole pen of fawns dying.  Most of these had already been sold to people, and the rest were the ones we were depending on for our lively hood.  I stayed in the pen while Russie rushed the dead ones to PennState to try to figure out what was wrong.  So many thoughts ran thru my head as I sat there trying to nurse the fawns back.  I noticed that they wanted to get up and walk and would try, but they couldn't.  I said to the kids to try to get them up and walk around.  So for hours, we would go around fawn to fawn helping them walk.  We found that we gave them too much worming medicine. It was a new brand and Russie used the same dose as he did in the past, but this one was much more concentrated and caused them to overdose on it.  It was attacking the fat in their brain, making them disoriented and slowly shutting down their breathing.  As horrible as a reality it was that day, that we almost lost our entire fawn herd, there was an incredible moment I will never forget.  Each year, Russie lets the kids pick a fawn to name and care for.  Bubba had picked one and named it Obie one ( after star wars )  He loved and cared for this fawn everyday.  It had grown great and was one of the bigger healthier fawns.  When he came out and saw her near dead, he was crushed and was in tears.  She was one of the sickest ones in the pens and she looked like she was not going to make it.  We sat there and he put his hand on her and we prayed for her to live.  I told him to keep trying to stand her up. So for hours he followed her, helping her walk the whole time.  When Russie finally got back with the vet and some treatments for them, Bubba was still trying to make his fawn walk.  I told Russie he had been doing that for hours and was not giving up.  We walked over to give his fawn some of the IV medicine and what we heard was precious.  Bubba was praying again, by himself, and said "God I know you are always listening, but just incase you didn't hear me before, please don't let my fawn die" Sure enough all the fawns in that pen lived and were running around the next day like they have never faced death the day before.  I know the determination and prayers of that little boy helped to save our fawns.  We do know God is always listening, but sometimes, just like Bubba, it doesn't ever hurt to ask again.