by Kathy Brasby | Apr 21, 2015 | Stories
You know that some people show dogs and some show horses so it shouldn’t shock you that some people show rabbits, too.
At these shows, rabbits are required to have a tattoo in their left ear. A rabbit missing a tattoo is disqualified from a class.
Josie had three rabbits to show in one class and she had crutches after knee surgery. So friends offered to carry her entries to the show table.
“Check the tattoos,” she called out, “to be sure you have the right rabbit.”
Nicole peeked in the ear. “Um, Josie, there’s no tattoo.”
“None? Oh, dear.” Josie looked around. She was surrounded by other rabbit breeders and she lifted her voice. “Who has a tattoo pen with them?”
Somebody always had a tattoo pen.
“I’ll do it.” Terry held up her tattoo pen. “What is the tattoo in the ear?”
Josie checked her paperwork. “SPCOCOA.”
“Really.” Terry studied her for a moment. “In that ear you want me to put all that?”
Nicole fidgeted. A muffled voice blasted from the speakers above. “They’re calling for entries. We need to hurry.”
Josie threw her hands up. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Get whatever you can and we can substitute at the table.”
So that’s how a little brown rabbit named Cocoa ended up, for life, with the number one in her ear.
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 17, 2015 | Seasons
Lola had already staked her spot in the front row before the singers arrived because she knew them and planned to catch up on life.
They were, after all, on the outside while she was tethered to her walker and assisted care. She was anxious for news.
They came in late and she settled in her chair, knowing she’d have time afterward for some news.
This was a weekly hymn sing in the nursing home and the group made their way through a dozen hymns before the singers closed out the morning’s entertainment.
“Susan,” Lola called out as Susan and the others gathered the hymnals. “Susan, you all need to talk louder. I couldn’t hear a word you said.”
“Really?” Susan came over to the table. “Not a word?”
“Nothing. I think you need to bring a microphone or something. You all have such soft voices. I couldn’t hear anything!”
Tess joined Susan at the table. “We have soft voices? I’m so sorry.”
Then Susan brightened up. “Lola, did you put in your hearing aids this morning?”
“No,” Lola said. “I need new batteries. Why?”
Susan and Tess smiled at each other. “Oh, just wondering.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 14, 2015 | Stories
My husband, sometimes known as the salvage king because he can spot diamonds in the rough from the far side of a yard sale, found a satellite dish for the taking a few years ago. You know the kind: 9 feet tall and once proof that the homeowner was a techie pioneer but now are older than your grandmother’s television.
He dumped the dish in our pasture until he could make a run to the recycler. “I put it face down so the kids wouldn’t get caught under it,” he assured me. Good plan because at that time our kids were pretty good at exploring in places where they didn’t belong.
He dumped – er, tenderly laid – the dish in the far corner of our 35-acre pasture. Shortly after, as the lovely prairie grass began to wave in the wind, we turned our sheep and goats loose to fend for themselves. It was much easier than tossing hay to them.
A few weeks later, I was doing my daily check of the herd and I could not find three baby goats. When you have 35 acres of rolling pasture, three little goats can find a lot of places to hide. I marched all 35 acres.
I was more concerned than their mothers, who munched the endless supply of prairie grass with no worries.
As I was completing my pasture sweep, our daughter said, “Be sure to check under the dish.”
“Oh, right. The dish that is lying face down on the ground so that you couldn’t get under it.”
She shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to look.”
So we looked. Three baby goats staggered out from under their dark cave.
I don’t know how they got under there. I don’t know why their mothers didn’t stand guard. I don’t know why it occurred to our daughter to suggest we search there.
But I do know those baby goats survived. And, boy, were they thirsty.
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 10, 2015 | Seasons
Shirley was studying the lawn outside her window when her daughter arrived.
“Good morning, Mom,” Janice said. “How are you?”
“I’m looking for my little boys. They were outside the window a little while ago. And I think they just came in here.”
Janice scanned the tiny room that Shirley shared with Mabel at the nursing room. What little boys?
She asked and Shirley laughed. “Can’t you see them? Sometimes they hide, I guess.”
Janice saw no signs of little boys. So she leaned down and wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders, leaning her cheek against Shirley’s cheek. “It’s good to see you, Mom.”
Shirley patted Janice’s hand and gave it a tender squeeze. And a second little squeeze.
“Bring him up here,” she said to Janice.
“Who?”
“My little boy. He’s behind me. Bring him up here. I want to see him.”
Janice glanced around again and then felt Shirley squeeze her hand again. “Mom, that’s my hand.”
“Your hand?” Shirley said. “Hmmm, I didn’t want your hand. I wanted my little boy’s hand.”
Janice sighed. ”Well, it was mine.”
Shirley leaned her head to one side. “I don’t mind your hand.” She patted it gently. “But you’ve messed up my story about my little boys.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 7, 2015 | Hope
“You have to help me with this,” my mother said, swollen with a belly containing my younger brother. “I can’t do this alone.”
I pulled away from her. Dad had heard dogs in the night and chased them away, but not before they had torn into the lambs my older brother and I were bottle-feeding.
Death seemed to hover near the little shed where my lamb lay and I, at age 5, had a pounding heart and heavy feet.
Mom held out the glass bottle with a black nipple stretched over the mouth. “You have to help me.”
I gripped the warm bottle, the sweet smell of milk tickling my nose, and followed Mom out the back door of our farmhouse, across the yard and into the low shed where the two lambs lay in a bed of thick yellow straw.
My brother’s lamb struggled to its feet and searched out the bottle Mom held.
My lamb lay on its side, too weak to get up. I had named him Johnny and I whispered his name while stroking his wooly head. I tried not to look at his raw leg, slashed open by dogs’ teeth. It smelled like death to me.
I dropped into the thick straw, smelling its sweet scent, and lifted his tiny head. He could still suck on the bottle so I held it for him, his head cushioned in my lap.
He drank most of it and then closed his eyes and slept.
We trekked to the shed three times a day for weeks to feed little Johnny. He gained strength and soon was able to stand while he took his bottle.
In that time, my brother was born and then Mom took me aside. “You’ll have to change the name of your lamb,” she said. “We’ve named your brother ‘John.’”
I nodded quietly. The deed was done; the baby had been named.
So I didn’t argue with my mother about renaming Johnny. But, after all my lamb and I had been through, I didn’t do it, either.
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