Back to School, and Back to Work!

Posted on April 13, 2013 by boxcarkids

If you don’t follow Boxcarkids on facebook you might have missed this – I have been admitted to the IU program Transition to Teaching (or T2T) beginning this summer, and landed a part-time job with the local prosecutor’s office.

The teaching program is only one year long – classes this summer, then classes and two days of classroom observation in the fall and then full-time student teaching (plus one class) in the spring.  I’m getting my certification so that I can teach science (Earth/Space focus) in grades 5 through 12.  I’m looking into adding English as a Second Language (ESL) certification concurrently.  There were many more students applying than they had room for this year so I’m glad I got a spot.  Most of the other students are recent grads in other subjects adding teaching certification or Master’s Degree students doing the same.  There are a few (very few) older adults – a lawyer who was a public defender and an older woman returning to school whose previous profession is unknown to me.  But I think I’m the oldest!  I was invited to the orientation for the program before receiving my letter of admission (still outstanding) so I don’t know yet whether I will receive any financial aid.  I hope to hear soon about that.

We don’t get to choose our school placement – we write an application that is part resume, part job application and part sales pitch that the program head takes around to schools in the area.  The schools get to pick who they want.  I’m hoping (and writing my application with that sort of slant) to be placed in a high school in Columbus (about 45 minutes away) that is a problem based learning academy because that style of teaching appeals to me (hence the textbooks I’ve added to the Boxcarkids Amazon.com wishlist).  They have an interest in enviromental sciences so that would be a good fit.  But I could end up anywhere.  They do try to place you within about an hour’s drive (and you can’t go to the school you graduated from so I won’t be in my kids’ schools).

I’ll admit I decided to apply for this program because I was feeling a bit at the end of my rope and it seemed like it might be the way to get back into the workforce.   But I wasn’t feeling very enthusiastic about it – returning to school at my age just seemed like such an uphill battle!  After attending orientation the other evening I have to say I’m feeling a little more excited about the program and am looking forward to being a part of it.  I do wish my highschooler was taking Physics next year so we could study together though!

Job-wise I applied for a part-time job with the local prosecutor’s office and interviewed for the position on April 5th.  They offered me the job on April 10th and I started on the 11th!  It doesn’t pay well at all ($8/hr, a salary I last made nearly 30 years ago) but the schedule is good – just mornings Monday through Thursday right now and the work is relatively interesting.  I’ll mainly be dealing with the traffic and minor infraction diversion program – that’s where you agree to take classes and pay fines and your ticket doesn’t appear on your record where it will just cost you more in insurance.  There’s a lot (too much) of paperwork involved as well as some new computer programs to learn and a new language of acronyms and technical terms.  It will pay for the phone and utility bills at our new house but not much else so I’m continuing my sales rep job as well.  I’m not the best salesperson but am hoping to improve!

So, along with our new baby goat (and soon new pigs), new house (more about that later), I’ve got a new job and new school program to juggle!  And of course the four old kids ;-)   It will be a busy summer.  Oh, yeah, and there’s a garden in the mix as well!  Buy stock in coffee – demand is going up!

Posted in 2nd Career, back to school, Job, teaching, work | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

From Tragedy to Triumph

Posted on April 12, 2013 by boxcarkids

Wednesday afternoon a day that was going quite well – I had sold an ad, and signed employment papers for my new part-time job at the prosecutor’s office – turned sour fast when I went up to the goat barn.  My daughter and I had only intended a short visit to drop off some water bottles before heading over to our neighbor K’s as I’d just received a text saying their last goat was in labor.  But when I went into the barn I found Tinker, our dairy goat, standing over two tiny, limp, wet bodies in her pen.  Blood caked her hindquarters and the straw beneath the bodies.  I ducked through the gap in the fence and dashed to her pen, dropped to my knees and began rubbing the bodies.  The larger one was still and cool, but the smaller one shuddered under my touch.  I yelled for my daughter to toss me a towel and I pulled the tiny baby into my lap and roughly rubbed it.  Once it was dry and wrapped up I picked up the limp one and in a last ditch effort to revive it swung it around by its back legs.  Mucus dripped from its mouth but there was no movement, no breath.  He was dead.doty

Mourning would have to wait – the living one was so tiny (only just 3 lbs we discovered later) and weak.  Despite our encouragement she couldn’t stand – in fact she could barely lift her head.  My daughter dashed off to our neighbor’s to get a goat bottle and I milked Tinker who had nuzzled her baby but stood quietly now, seemingly in shock.  It did not take long to realize that the tiny goat was going to need some intensive care to make it.  Unlike our neighbors’ goat babies who were up and nursing in very little time this baby was just lying there.  We were going to have to bring her back to the house and feed her.

We warmed her mother’s milk and put it in the borrowed bottle but feeding her turned out to be more difficult than we had imagined as she seemed unable to suck and the nipple on the goat bottle was way too big for her little mouth!  Months earlier I had ordered a “Kidding Kit” from Caprine Supply.  It came with things like navel clips, iodine, probiotic paste, a record book and a leg snare to help pull a stuck kid from mom.  After reading up on all the things that could go wrong I placed a 2nd order – for kid colostrum supplement and a stomach tube for feeding weak kids.  Yes, I figured I was over prepared after watching three sets of kids being born healthy and strong to my neighbor’s goats over the past month but I wanted to have the bases covered. And it turned out to be a good thing that I was prepared – the baby goat’s first successful feeding (and the next 2 or 3 after that) was by tube.  Momma’s milk, a warm dry bed and plenty of attention got her through the first night but the next day was supposed to be my first day at the new job!  I didn’t think showing up with a newborn goat was the way I wanted to start it.getting ready to tube feed

[Preparing to begin tube feeding]

Luckily for us we have fabulous neighbors and K agreed to ‘goat sit’ for the day.  Shades of turning my kids over to daycare!  K got to see the baby goat, whom we were now calling Doty as we were all doting on her, take her first steps and got to give her the first bath!

doty walking[Up and walking!]

My day was long.  After a near sleepless night I spent 4 hours at work, then trudged through the rain trying to sell ads, ran into town for groceries, picked up my middle daughter who was at an afterschool meeting for Academic Team, ran home, changed clothes and went to see baby Doty.  Less than 24 hours had elapsed but what a change there was!  Doty was up and walking around and while she still would not suck the tube nourishment was clearly working (as were her elimination functions).  K’s little dog, Daisy, had taken a very protective interest in the baby goat, no doubt providing some stimulation and company during the day.  Then it was back home for a quick dinner, changing back into my work clothes and off to IU for the orientation meeting for the teaching program.

I was very tired when I retrieved Doty at around 10 PM last evening and as she had just been fed I tucked her into a big plastic tote with a headed dog bed and headed for my own bed to catch up on sleep.  She was unenthusiastic at the middle of the night feeding but took some milk from the bottle when I squirted it in the back of her mouth. This morning after the children departed for school, I gathered up baby and the milking bucket and headed for the barn.  Tinker must have heard us coming because she was standing up in her pen, hollering over the fence when we arrived.  Doty clearly recognized mom as she started crying right back to her.

IMG_0019-003

[Mom - that tickles!]

Minutes later the family was reunited and after some loving nuzzles on both side the light bulb went on and Doty started sniffing around mom’s udder.  She still seemed puzzled about how to get the milk she must have smelled out so I reached under and gave her a little squirt!  Mom was very patient as she fumbled around until she caught on.

Mom and Doty

Our first farm birth – we’d looked forward to it for so long, enviously eying our neighbors’ goat kids, and with such big expectations.  When it arrived it was a surprise and a sorrow, at least initially.  We are still sad we lost the little boy twin, but so happy little Doty has, with lots of attention and TLC, made an astounding recovery and seems on her way to a healthy happy life!

 

Posted in Farming, goats, hobby farm, hope, kids | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

The Kindness of Strangers

Posted on April 9, 2013 by boxcarkids

Can you imagine hitchhiking from the West Coast to the East Coast without a cent in your pocket?  Yeah, me neither. In the politest of terms I would call it extremely risky.  But in the mid-1990s a journalist by the name of Mike McIntyre did just that and lived to write a book about it.  It is titled “The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America” and yesterday it was available as a free Kindle download on Amazon.com.  Most of my Kindle books were obtained as free downloads and a lot of them turn out to be worth the price.  This one I might have paid good money to read.

Mike, a well traveled, yet surprisingly fearful journalist reaches the end of his rope just after his 37th birthday.  A little young for a mid-life crisis especially as in his own assessment he really hasn’t starting living his life; he’s been too afraid.  In a move guaranteed to force him to face his fears and kick start his life he decides to hitchhike from San Francisco, California to Cape Fear, North Carolina.  I’m not sure exactly why he opts to do it with no money in his pocket, and what’s more, to do it without accepting money along the way.  He is going to rely on the kindness of strangers for transportation, food and lodging along what is to be a six week journey.

It’s the middle of a recession, and when he leaves on September 6th, two men from the Midwest are on a cross-country killing spree, but even so I can’t help but think that you could not do today, what he did now nearly 20 years ago.  I think it’s more dangerous out there now.  Of course the people in Mike’s family thought it was plenty dangerous back then – “You’re going to get raped out there.” His grandmother warns him.  So in some ways it might seem that the most amazing thing about his journey is that he doesn’t get molested, assaulted, robbed, or killed and in fact the only ills he suffers are hunger, discomfort and one or two unnerving situations – close calls with drivers who appear to contemplate harming him or at least seem unconcerned about harming themselves and taking him along as collateral damage.

But it is clear that Mike thinks the most amazing thing about his journey is the kindness of the vast majority of the people he meets.  The drivers who pick him up, the people who buy him dinner or, even more startling, take him home for dinner, who let him campout in their yards or even offer him a bed for the night.  The drunks who buy him a beer; the Illinois contractor who invites him out for a game of golf; the many women who have weathered abuse and privation but who still see the good in people and willingly give him a ride or a meal; the retired basketball coach who lets him camp free at the campground he manages and whose home is a shrine to his ball player son; the potheads, the poets, the proselytizers, and prostitutes over and over again offer him kindness without strings.

I wondered (purely hypothetically) could you undertake the same journey with similar results today? Or has the Great Recession hardened us?  Have we become more self-centered? Have our financial losses made us more tight fisted and less willing to lend a hand?  Or, as some researchers speculate, has the prevalence of scams and the anonymity of the Internet made us more cautious or callous?

I wanted to know – are we less kind now than we used to be?  I went looking for the answers in studies on kindness and this is what I found: kindness is contagious and being kind makes you happier and more popular.  So even if times are hard it seems likely that people would still want to be happy and popular, right?

Apparently the answer to that depends on your age or location.  A study in 2010 showed that college students are less compassionate towards strangers and less empathic in general than were students 30 years ago possibly due to increasing social isolation. A study on kindness towards strangers worldwide found that poorer cultures, smaller communities and countries with a slower pace of life were all more likely to help a stranger in need.

One of the reasons I downloaded (and read in a single day) this book is that kindness has always been a quality I hold in high regard.  Our family motto, as my kids can attest, is “If you see someone in need and you can help, then you do help.”  I believe children learn by example and they’ve participated in putting this motto into action as we have rescued lost dogs and returned them to their owners, stopped for stranded motorists or offered battery jumps for stalled cars, given a lift to a woman who just missed her bus in the rain, and helped and befriended the homeless.

My children have seen kindness in action in many other ways as well, since we began our difficult journey through homelessness and poverty.  Strangers, people who have never met them in person, have sent gifts of food, clothing and school supplies, paid for their sports physicals and glasses, cheered on their successes and worried about their illnesses. Strangers have shopped through the blog link to Amazon.com, bought items from my Etsy store, and stepped in time and again when I thought we couldn’t weather another dark before the dawn, sending the help that got us through another day.

My kids are very aware of the big part my blog readers have played in our journey and I want you to know that they appreciate you.  I hope I am imbuing my kids with a variety of good character traits – resiliency, fortitude, flexibility and a sense of humor.  I hope they take after me in those ways.  If they are kind adults then they will be taking after you as well.

Posted in blogging, help, hope, kindness | Tagged | 4 Comments