I'll Never Know and Tools

white pumpkins, Phea learns to swim, why is there a fawn in the bathtub

A reminder: For over five years I shared a blog for friends and family on all things homestead. These blogs moved to Substack in December as a test but have become the rambling writing home. These writings are a burst of the immediate, my reference notes from year to year. Within the blog I often admit stupidity, share errors and celebrate successes. There is growth, death, hand tools, dogs, chickens, ducks, and an excess of dirt. Mostly I talk about what we do in partnership with the land we are borrowing for a period of time.

These are one pass, little revision writing. Unlike my traditional essays when I spend hours and multiple drafts, these blogs are an hour of speed writing meant to be a reporting style of updating—sharing the generic and mundane with the unusual and remarkable.

Thank you for being with me, Stacy

Previous Lyric Essay - After My Ashes Are Dispersed.

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Blog – July 30, 2026

It is a long one. Grab a cuppa tea.

After I typed the blog of last week. I mean, an hour after typing that blog of last week—

“If I wasn’t such a good wife” I began, “you’d be having peanut butter and jam sandwiches for dinner and to have those sandwiches, you’d have to make them.” Then I grabbed a beer and went to sit on the porch. This is when you, as a spouse, have a choice. You can either grab your own beer and move yourself to the porch or you can go to the kitchen and pretend you hear nothing because maybe you don’t want to know anything.

I walked to the pond edge to see how low the water had fallen. Across the pond I stare. The long-legged, can it be, an ibis? Really, is that possible?

Fawns, we are told, do not have a scent. They are placed by their doe momma who will periodically check them through the day for a quick feed and relocation.

Oakley gets a lot of words. Phea, fewer.

We have an obligation as canine parents to reduce interactions with the wild that might be bad for the wild. Long ago I accepted the focused intent of Oakley, she is hard to get back once she is fixed on (insert the activity). Part of my acceptance is she might die from any of the wild that is bigger and more determined than her. This concession has come with a degree of harmony from the battlement and in return, better obedience. Phea is a bit more goofy and equally aloof. She learned to play chase from Kyia before he passed away. If doggos could talk she is the one who yells, “Fake!” when she runs beside and past you. In a sense, she learned a different set of homelife expectations and boundaries.

For the second time this summer, Phea essentially trips over a placed fawn. And bless her, she sniffs the fawn’s butt but the fawn bleats. Then runs. To the more mud than water pond.

Phea learns to swim. Or maybe move through a muck like quicksand. So does the fawn.

Now, I can yell boundaries, leave it, come but what I cannot do is go into the pond. Something is going to die today, and I am unequipped for management of this fact. When Phea gets close, she sniffs the fawn, but the fawn then heads up the outlet—it is a long way for a fawn to travel in the saturated-semi-bottom. Oakley cuts her off and after what feels like a long time, a quiet fawn, two sets of wagging tails, all three lay in the mud. Dropping my jacket and phone, and quite scared of the—have I mentioned the precarious nature of the pond—I cross to the three, the fawn’s face unmoving in the mud. She is mud. In fact, all three are mud. I can’t leave the fawn so I pick her up, wipe her face to ensure she can breathe. I am breaking all of the wildlife rules …

The pond and the house are a distance apart, but I carry her there. Put her in the bathtub and wash her down with warm water paying particular attention to her face, before carrying her back to the pond to where I thought she was originally placed before Phea stumbled over her. Then, I check every two hours until doe mom comes and takes her.

In the meantime, I wash three loads of laundry, spend two hours scrubbing walls, and give both doggos outside cold water baths (their first ever). Two days later I still find mud streaked on walls, dressers, curtains.

Phea, this is her time for words, gets really excited when she is wet. She literally runs, shakes and bounces off the walls while running laps, then up and down the stairs. She moved the couch, the recliner. She rolled in the half-stripped bed. The fawn was priority while Phea ran free slinging mud in the house.

I am not naïve enough to think my girls will not kill, it is the nature of certain breeds of which they are (that husky part of them) and I have spent a lot of time training to avoid the pursuit. But I also know how gentle the twins are with smaller dogs, older dogs. Chase is chase, and it is NOT OKAY for dogs to chase wildlife. The twins merely sniffed the fawn as she was being carried, laying on the bathroom floor while she was being cleaned, wagging their tails like they had a new playmate.

Of course, I did not have to type this incident, as it were, but it consumed my week. The frustration I have with rescue doggos. Their first trainer told me once, “the benefit of a shock collar is that it will stop a dog who runs,” but I never believed that to be true. Still don’t. Being a better parental handler can be argued.

Alas …

There are certain people that have that spouse. When you don’t hear any noise or you hear a particular noise and you can’t get out of the chair fast enough and you’ve done this enough times that you’re actually able to catch the back of the chair before it falls and hits the wall to keep it upright before you go out the door. Yep, I have that husband. He found (not that they were hidden) my stash of eight planks for a minor project. One that requires a saw and pickax. When I get to the garden, there is the square, a chalk line, two tape measures, and a can of spray paint. There is also a drill and a mallet. It is 86°. Boone has already trimmed the boards to length, cut angled edges, and attached posts for them to be banged into the ground.

The garden beds look fantastically fancy now with their raised fencing on the short edges. I wanted to regain the square feet lost through time. I might not have been clear about this: I was just going to bury them half-way into the ground.

About the gardens. There are a lot of sugar snap peas and green tomatoes. I harvested a single oversized head of cauliflower. The cucumbers are stretching; they are about as wide as a pencil and less than two inches long. The catnip has been hung to dry, the beets thinned. The black beans appear to not have minded a July planting. Raspberries are few in number and small, but the blueberries are ample enough to begin storing the extras in the freezer. Under the leaves are tiny watermelons, fast growing zucchini, and pumpkins the size of a baseball. The white pumpkins outperforming the funky pumpkins 5:1. Trays of herbs are drying in the pantry. Garlic stems are turning yellow and beginning to lay over. In the refrigerator are the excess sugar peas in a light vinegar brine. Refrigerator pickles will make their way to the Farmer’s Market this week as well as a case of zucchini salsa which I must admit is much more refreshing than I thought it would be. Tastes somewhat like a gazpacho with the warmth of cumin and chili. The supplier of peaches has advised the orchard had a near complete failure of fruit this year. What few cases were available were $110 (gads, 20 lbs) and scooped up as fast as the email notification was sent. No peach bourbon jam or chutney this season. That does make my strategy for apples a bit easier though.

The last patch of lilies have bloomed. Beak-necked hazelnuts are tucked in the bramble patch. I expect the robin chicks will fledge this coming week. Not in any hurry, the house wood stack is about half put away—not sure where the last of it will go. Oats and sweet peas have been spread over the manure pile as cover crop. If all goes to plan - 😊- there will be enough green to change the consistency of the soil for next spring’s garden beds. Like most everything, it feels like an experiment.

Off to walk the driveway. There is bear scat, a couple of half-eaten frogs, skunk or maybe racoon scat. Given that the corn is chest high and will be husking soon, I might need to work a bit on the human/animal boundaries.

It was probably an American Bittern, but I’ll never know.

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