Ah, summer. Long days, fun in the sun, and mayhem. What kind of mayhem, you ask? Although you might be imagining something innocuous, like a camp prank, you’d be wrong. This is the Summer of Bad Mojo. Broken bones, broken windows, and feathers scattered throughout the chicken yard. Something is most definitely amiss.
A Fact-Based Presentation for Bad Mojo in Castle Larson
Clue #1: One day before YMCA camp was set to begin for the big kids, Tessa plunged a harrowing six feet to the ground, breaking her clavicle clean in two. (See posted pic.) Riley admitted to wrestling with his sister on the slide of our inflatable pool and inadvertently pushing her off into the choppy, and hardly filled, waters below. Tessa spent the night (and most of the next few days) tossing and turning and yelling in pain, while issuing a moratorium on all discussion of missed YMCA activities. But Tessa wasn’t the only one missing out on something. Mommy had looked forward to that week, knowing that the days that the big kids were at YMCA and Asher was at Adventure School would be kid-less at home. Blissfully kid-less. Alas, thanks to Bad Mojo, it was not to be.
Clue #2: Not one week after the Broken Clavicle Incident, Riley and Tessa were outside throwing a bouncy ball onto the roof and catching it as it rolled off. Safe? Perhaps. Victim-less? Events were about to prove otherwise. When said bouncy ball lodged itself between two shingles on the roof, Tessa had the idea to throw a rock at it to free it. Riley agreed the idea was a shining example of clear-headedness. Bad Mojo strikes again. Riley threw the rock, lost control of its trajectory, and instead of the projectile landing on the roof, it went threw the front window.
Clue #3: A day or two before the Rock Through the Window Incident, one of our spring chickens went missing. Ash, may she rest in peace, disappeared without a trace. One moment she was trailing through the yard with her spring chicken sisters, and the next–poof. Gone without a trace. There was much talk about the circle of life and the ravenous appetite of local house cats and a neighborhood search was conducted, but all to no avail. Riley cried real tears, as he loves those chickens, and this was the first pet he’d lost to the cruel hand of fate.
Clue #4: In a summer of fantastic camp experiences (science, zoo, art, YMCA, and Steve and Kate’s), great celebrations (Forth of July in the mountains, Asher turning five, both Riley and Emmett getting their first stripe in jiu jitsu), and general fun (ghost hunting downtown and Asher learning to ride a two-wheeler), Asher has been a ball of GIVE ME MY WAY! frustration. Asher starts the day yelling to get his way (I SAID PANCAKES!), the middle of his day is yelling (I WANT THE KITTEN AND RILEY WON’T LET ME HAVE HIM!), and he ends his day with yelling (I DON’T WANT TO WATCH THAT SHOW!). He is a party-of-one in Crazytown and working hard to entice new transplants. Emmett and Asher fight like cats and dogs, over our cat and dog. Riley and Asher smack and wrestle each other over bedtime activities in their shared room. It’s mayhem. A typical case of five-year-old high jinx? Maybe. Chronic tiredness? Perhaps. But you force that little man to lay down and nap… It’s too much yelling for us.
Clue #5: We were spending the day outside in the yard on a picnic blanket, catching up on math and paragraph writing, when it happened. One moment, all was well. The next: Emmett noticed that Splashy, a winter silky, was missing and the chicken yard was dotted with blue and white silky feathers. Another neighborhood search was immediately conducted, and again, no sign of the missing chicken was found. But Splashy was almost as large as the area cats, you say. And you are not wrong. To wrestle that fantastic little feather-ball over the fence for sure took size and strength. We’ve seen the area cats carrying off baby bunnies and voles. Maybe they’ve been training for this? Maybe they were ready to up their game to a full-sized bantam chicken? But to ambush her and carry her off in a silent attack? That was no housecat, we decided. We’d just experienced the return of the City Coyote. And tears, again, were shed.
General Clues: Add to the above detailed incidents, a small car accident in the Honda that shook all four pigs and Daddy, countless nights of house-wide insomnia, lots of phantom aches and pains from all inhabitants of Castle Larson (bad aches and pains, bad enough for the big kids to learn that they are old enough to take Children’s Advil), and we’re looking at a Summer of Bad Mojo.
What’s the cure? you ask. Well, we still aren’t sure. We’ve planted vinca minor (a plant known to ward off the evil eye) and salted all the thresholds in the house. We’ve burned incense and sage. We even burned pine needles in the garage while speaking an un-binding spell, returning to sender all Bad Mojo. Did it work? Only time will tell. (Daddy did, however, take a more hands-on approach to protecting the silkies. He built an enclosure for the little chickens to ensure that nothing can sneak in over the fence and grab them. Two lost birds is enough.)
Until we’ve some sign that All Is Well, we cross our fingers, hold our breath, and wait for the end of the Summer of Bad Mojo,
The Pigs
ps We Craigslisted the inflatable pool, but so far have had no takers. Another sign of Bad Mojo?
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