Y’all. I have gotten so many (in other words, more than one) request for “more puppy pictures please!” and so, without further ado, eat your puppy-loving hearts out, people!

I tell you, these puppies have had more visitors than any of my babies ever did. I’ve heard that in order to be properly socialized, puppies should be exposed to a wide variety of people in the first couple months of life.

This is what the dog kennel looks like on any given day:

I think we’ve got socialization covered, no problem.

This past weekend, Charlotte gave us quite the scare.

Over the course of a day and a half, she stopped eating and started drooling and eating dirt. She developed a stiff-legged gait (kind of dragging her hind legs), her eyes glazed over, and she became lethargic. We spent Sunday morning researching on the Google (we were skipping church anyway, but no one needs to know that) and attempting to tempt her with tuna, beef, eggs, and cheese. She didn’t bite (literally). I conferred with the vet hospital. We were pretty sure this was eclampsia, or a calcium deficiency, but was it an emergency? If not yet, when would it become one? Could we wait till the morning?

And then she started with the shakes. Trembling all over. We took her temperature (after another quick visit with Google)—no fever. And then she started the pacing, and the shaking worsened. That did it. Off to the vet went Charlotte, my daughter, and husband.

Five hours later, they were home. Yes, she had been suffering from a severe calcium deficiency. (At its worst, her muscles were jumping a half-inch out from her body. I read that sometimes the tremors are so severe that they actually cause a fever.) They had given her an injection and some saline for dehydration.

On the way back, my husband purchased two cases of canned dog meat (which we have never, ever bought) and TUMS. Upon hearing our tale of woe, some neighbors gave us an enormous bag of unwanted liver they had stashed in their freezer.

Over the course of the evening, Charlotte’s appetite gradually returned. At first, my daughter had to blend the meat into a sauce so she could lap it up, but by bedtime she was wolfing it down and desperate for more. She has continued to eat voraciously and is, we think, completely back to normal.

As for the puppies, we increased their feedings of gruel to alleviate the strain on Charlotte, and she has been able to continue nursing them (and Luna) throughout the day.

All is well, whew.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (7.8.13), let’s talk, the quotidian (7.9.12), zucchini skillet with tomatoes and feta, simple creamy potato salad and French potato salad, peanut butter cup ice cream, and tempero,    

This same time, years previous: let’s revolutionize youth group mission trips! please!, our 48-hour date, French yogurt cake, grilled flatbread, butchering chickens, in their words, red raspberry lemon bars, the green-eyed monster and me, putting beliefs into practice, playing make believe, and raspberry lemon buttermilk cake.

On Monday afternoon, amid much jubilant cheering, sign waving, and camera flashing, the first Fresh Air bus of the season pulled into the sweltering mall parking lot.

 Two nights later, the families in my charge—our region is divided into a handful of smaller areas called Friendly Towns—came to our house for a (very laid back) ice cream social.

That evening, fifteen minutes before start time, the skies opened.

Forty people, the majority children, would be showing up at our house in the middle of a deluge. FORTY PEOPLE. There was no back-up plan.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked my husband. “A house full of kids and ice cream and muddy feet?”

“They can’t fit in here,” he said.

“What about your barn?”

“No.”

“Okay then. Here goes,” and then I yelled to no one in particular (except maybe myself), “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE HOUSE. IT’S ABOUT THE PEOPLE.” Because really, in this type of situation, an attitude adjustment is the only viable option.

At six-thirty the rain stopped. Blue skies peeked through the grey. With thunder still booming, we moved the table out from under the now-dripping tree and set out the trays of cones and bowls, crushed Oreos, sour cherry sauce, and syrups. My husband tossed a tarp on the ground and threw a blanket over it.

And then the people came.

They held puppies (and held puppies and held puppies) and peered at the garden. Children swarmed the trampoline and the ice cream table. One of the host moms brought homemade vanilla ice cream in her six-quart maker—it disappeared before I got to even taste it. A large gaggle of teenage girls took off for the spot below the garden where they stood around, talking, for the entire time.

An hour or two into the fun, the clouds shifted and the yard got dark. Everyone stayed put. Someone’s phone started ding-ding-dinging, announcing a tornado alert. The skies spit water. Still no one budged. Only when it started raining in gentle earnestness did the girls come running up from their pow-wow and the adults shifted to stand under the tree to continue their conversation. The situation was vaguely reminiscent (in a sweet, Far Side-ish kind of way) of a herd of cattle in a storm but without the cud chewing.

Soon after, most families took their leave, but a couple of them lingered in the gloaming. We gathered on the porch to visit while the children ran shrieking around the yard.

By ten o’clock everyone was gone, the children were passed out in bed, and … the house wasn’t even dirty.

This same time, years previous: creamy cauliflower sauce, when the wind blew, the big apple, berry almond baked oatmeal, linguine with shrimp and cilantro-lime pesto, spaghetti with Swiss chard, raisins, and almonds, yogurt, fruit cobbler, and orange julius.