Bad Beaver Publishing

Tom got up before the crack of dawn to go saw lumber. I just don’t know why this man cannot sleep in. He’s got some kind of infernal-internal alarm clock that makes him start fidgeting and getting antsy if he is in bed after 5:00 AM. Not me, Lovie, there’s nothing I like more than luxuriating in bed with Mossy Oak camouflage flannel sheets and a down comforter reading People magazine with a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and honey.

I am in the loft at the Beeve with our two black mutts, Phaedra and Gladys. All of a sudden, Gladys makes a frustrated sound that sounds eerily like ChewBacca. She is at the top of the steep cupboard stairs and she is furious. Gladys has gone to work every day with Tom for fourteen years. She doesn’t understand why Tom is leaving her behind these days. She doesn’t realize that she is getting too old to brave the elements the way she used to, that in her senior years, she doesn’t thermo-regulate well at all.

She looks at me. She is clearly angry. Gladys is Tom’s first and only dog and he is profoundly attached to her. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel competitive with her. She’s been with us since she was eight weeks old. I adore Gladys. I just think it is sad that she can’t accompany Tom all the time on the job any more.

I say, “All right, Gladys, I’ll take you down the stairs so you can go to work.” (Tom has been carrying her down the stairs which I simply cannot do because she weighs about seventy pounds.)

I start at the top of the stairs—which have no sidewalls—and I hold onto her collar to coax her down. We get only two stairs down before her hind end gives out and she slides sideways. She slides and I fall over the side of the stairs—in slow motion—floating through the air about ten feet up with Gladys following after me. I watch this as though detached.

I land on my back in front of the sink in the kitchen. Gladys lands squarely on top of me. I swear I hear Gladys laugh. She looks at me as though this has been great fun—I have been her personal airbag. She shakes it off and gets up to go to work. I, on the other hand, think I have a stress fracture in my right heel. I check every bone in my body. I can put weight on my heel, even though it hurts like hell, so I guess I’ve been lucky and it’s only bruised.

Two days later, there is a lovely cedar sidewall along the staircase enclosing it in from the kitchen. I thank Tom for building it.

He says, “No problem. I was really worried about Gladys.”

Sometimes I don’t know if Tom says stuff like this so he’ll have to sleep alone for the next six months.

~Excerpt from BAD BEAVER TALES by Carol Leonard, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2012.

Gladys Louise Lajoie

Hopkinton, NH – Gladys Louise Lajoie, 15½ (108 in human years), died outside under the lilacs at her residence in the early evening of May 14, 2013. Gladys passed peacefully to the great field of fetching rocks in the sky, much to the deep sorrow of all who loved her.

Gladys was born on December 7, 1997 in Hillsboro, NH, one of 10 in a litter of fat, roly-poly, rollicking black and white puppies. Gladys crawled into Carol Leonard’s lap to lick some cheeseburger grease off Carol’s hand, and then curled up and fell sound asleep. Gladys was named after Carol’s notorious Great Aunt Gladys whom Carol admired as a child for her Aunt’s amazing ability to perfectly pencil on her thin eyebrow lines.

Gladys Louise Lajoie grew to be an upstanding, conscientious dog. She became a construction worker at the early age of one and was a most valued asset to the crew. She was employed by Tom Lajoie Construction and never missed a day of work for 15 years. She rode shotgun with Tom in the Dragon Wagon every day to the many job sites in central NH. She greeted visitors and workers to the sites and checked their credentials. She made sure all employees were safe and accounted for—and checked out their snacks at lunch.

Gladys was an avid rock fetcher with an incredible talent for locating the correct rock underwater. She retired from the construction business in her last year and spent her time lying outside in the shade, riding in Carol’s car and checking out the compost heap for new and interesting stuff. In her last year, Gladys was stone deaf due to not wearing hearing protection on the job. When she barked to clear the back field of possible vermin, her bark was unbelievably monotone.

Gladys’s favorite place to be in the whole world was Carol and Tom’s farm in Maine. Just two days prior to her death, Gladys made several trips from Camp Kwitchabitchin all the way out to the barn to see what the hell Tom was up to now.

Gladys was a wonderful, funny, brave dog who will always have a bright place in our hearts. There will be an internment service on Saturday, May 25 at 2:00 PM at Bad Beaver Farm in Ellsworth, Maine.

GODSPEED YOU HOME, DEAREST GLADYS

High Heels and Headlamps

For many years, I’ve had on my bucket list to observe the spring midnight mating frenzy of the ever-elusive Spotted Salamander—Ambystoma masculatum. I’ve heard about this legendary event but have never had the privilege of witnessing it in the flesh, so to speak. I say “ever-elusive” because about the only time the spotted salamanders come up from their subterranean existence is for one night in the spring when they return to their natal vernal pools to perform their secretive annual mating ritual. (Vernal pools are temporary—therefore predator/fishless—pools of spring melt-water.)

This year I was determined to be a salamander voyeur. I asked my friend, Dave Anderson who is a naturalist and Director of Education for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the way to tell when the “Big Night” was about to happen. Dave is a veritable encyclopedia of natural history phenomena, especially when it pertains to lusty mating habits and procreation.

Here’s how Dave explained what to look for: “It is the first overnight rain when temperatures remain above 42 degrees. The salamanders only move under the cover of darkness and they migrate en masse to their ancestral vernal pools. They remain there for mating purposes but need rain in order to migrate back to the woods. Obviously, rain or lack thereof, and intermittent freeze and thawing can disrupt their migration. The males typically arrive first—just like wood frogs. A really good proxy for when to pay close attention is when you hear the very first spring peeper calls—the earliest single spring peeper. Also, when you hear the wood frogs by day—like quacking ducks in vernal pools.”

Dave continued with his directions: “Salamanders make no vocalizations (even during mating!) They hide beneath leaf litter each day. The only way to watch their slimy dance is with a flashlight and going out to a vernal pool on a rainy night often called “the big night”—you’d feel the same if you only mated once a year. Males attend females while wafting pheromones with their tails and nudging the often-larger females to go down to the bottom of the pool to collect a few sperm packets called “spermatophores” from the bottom. It’s an amazing backyard ritual that few people ever see because you have to go out in the cold April rain with a flashlight and stand at a vernal pool in the dark woods. That’s a hell of a commitment.”

Now I was more determined to invade salamander sexual privacy than ever. On April 10, I was pulling the last of my traps out for the end of beaver trapping season. I was on Long Pond Road near the town reservoir. I heard a cacophony of “quacking” coming from deep in the woods. I followed the racket until I came to a large, beautiful vernal pool full of wood frogs calling and cavorting on the surface of the water. I just knew this would be the perfect place for the slithery Rite of Spring.

That night there was a light rain, more like a drizzle really, but it had been such a dry spring that I was afraid I was going to miss the show. I dragged Tom out there at 10:00 PM anyway. I bribed him by packing up some snacks and a jug of cheap vino. We trooped through the dark woods but when we got there…nuthin…nada…dit-squat. We were met by an eerie silence and no movement in the water either—not a frog-quack to be heard.

I was so disappointed. I was beginning to think this whole orgiastic event was a figment of some bio-porn writer’s lusty imagination. I gave up on seeing the magical dancing salamanders until next year.

Several nights later, Tom and I went out to dinner at the Gas Lighter in Concord. When we exited the restaurant, it was pouring rain—an unexpected torrential downpour. Driving home, frogs were crossing the roads en masse and, unfortunately, there were dozens of squished frog bodies littered everywhere.

I said to Tom, “Tonight is the “Big Night!”

Because I wasn’t counting on this and we had been out dining, I had on very high heels—of course I did. But we did happen to have two headlamps in the car, so we headed back to the same vernal pool. I stumbled through the dank woods in my stilettos, trying desperately not to break my ankle. As I hobbled up to the far side of the pool…there they were! Shining in our headlamps in the leaves in the bottom of the pool were the ever elusive, horny salamanders. There were dozens of writhing balls of spiraling salamanders weaving in and out and around each other. I couldn’t believe how excited I was—what an honor. This was the nuts!

I watched, mesmerized, at the courtship dance driven solely by odor. The salamanders themselves looked beautiful and glistening in the flashlights. They were about six inches long, jet black with bright yellow spots running along their sides. They began by rubbing their chins together gently and then circled each other on the bottom of the pond, placing their heads under each other’s tail as they spun around and around. The male then climbed on the female’s back and repeatedly rubbed his chin against her. Then he would try to lure her away by wiggling the tip of his tail enticingly—thus apparently wafting the pheromones—to direct her to his spermatophore. How unbelievably sexy is that? In this dreamy state, they spiraled around and around each other, dancing in total silence.

I was in awe. What is it about this dance that is so soulful? I think there’s something about the pheromone/lust, gentle chin rubbing, spiraling slow dance in the ancestral pool that reminds one about the cycles of the seasons and the emergence of Spring and fertility and rebirth and the wonder of life itself.

I looked over at Tom who was squatting next to me, shining his headlamp beam into the pool, enjoying the show immensely. What other man in the world would put up with my insanity like this? What a gift he was.

He said, “Looking for love in all the right places.”

Tom plucked a spinning salamander out of the pool and placed it gently in my hand.

I said, “Coitus interruptus” and let my smooth amphibian go back to his date.

Ah. But what was this? Did I just get a waft of human pheromones?

I leaned over and began rubbing my chin seductively against Tom’s shoulder.

He grinned at me with rain dripping off his nose. He said, “Let’s go home.”

BUCKET LIST # 13 ~ CHECK!

~Excerpt from Carol Leonard’s new book, MORE TALES FROM BAD BEAVER, FURTHER STORIES OF EXTREME BUILDING, BAD BEAVER TRAPPING AND LEARNING THE WAYS OF THE LAND from Bad Beaver Publishing, due out May 2013.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out my library to pack up for the move to Maine—and I found part of an old JOURNAL that I kept while I was working as a midwife in Russia (actually, it was still the USSR in 1990, right before the collapse). I forgot that I even kept a journal! Another midwife and I had been asked by an early-on, joint Soviet-American business venture to go to the USSR to try to help improve maternity care there. I was, purportedly, the first American to deliver a Russian baby. The birth was filmed and aired on 20/20 with Barbara Walters. Such an honor!

This part of the journey is about our first days there, trying to find our way around the chaos that was Moscow.

November 23, 1990.

Flying Into The Dark

Moscow. So here we were. We had left Finland sparkling in the sun, looking down on adorable miniature farms with their barns painted red. We were healthy and happy and excited.

It had been a very turbulent flight over the polar ice cap. I found myself praying to the Gods of Aviation a lot. Now as we approached our destination, we came through the clouds to a disturbing atmosphere…like impenetrable smog. The sparkling sun was gone, replaced by a steely grayness—a seemingly total lack of daylight—I thought, so this is what they mean by the “Iron Curtain.”

My traveling partner was another midwife named Karen. Karen was part Native American and had a long black braid down her back. The Russians that we stayed with said she reminded them of Pocahontas—so I affectionately nicknamed her “Poke” and called her that for the rest of our time behind the Iron Curtain.

Poke commented on the surrealness of the landscape at the time of the landing—so it wasn’t just me. The “suburbs” had weathered, unpainted shacks and dilapidated dwellings. The land was stark with silhouettes of solitary, bony black trees.

We cleared Customs without any problems, which was a miracle because we had so much equipment with us. We came out through a throng of waiting people, again darkness…dark clothes, gray faces. The throng didn’t feel particularly menacing, just desperate somehow…as if wishing we were coming for them. I realized how conspicuous we must be with our three carriage loads of supplies. I also realized, for many, we were the first glimpse of Americans that they had ever seen.

I had a momentary feeling of being “larger than life,” of being very tall. It was probably from finally being free of the bucking plane.

I stood waiting and watching and I knew immediately when the two women walked by us—yet I still approached them from behind and stood to the side when I called, “Alla!” The surprised women wheeled around and held up a little sign that said CAROL LEONARD.

They said, shyly, “Carol?” (Pronounced Karo.)

They were absolutely adorable, so wonderful, these two little women smiling enormous smiles. Alla had a dark complexion; Vera was a light blond. Both women were fiftyish with the most incredible, sparkling eyes full of mirth. We immediately hugged and in a threesome “pod,” we went and pulled Poke into our huddle, all of us laughing. I was extremely relieved. We had made it without a hitch and these two tiny Russian women were obviously very glad that we were there.

They had a van waiting for us, a van with fabric curtains and a driver named Constantine. Constantine was relatively young and very nervous but friendly and shy. As we drove towards the center of the city, we were asking millions of questions—and being asked many in return. Alla was interpreting.

Of course, quite soon the topic turned to obstetrics. Vera, who was doctor and an OB/gyn, stated that their foremost problem with deliveries was postpartum hemorrhage. A long discussion ensued about the importance of diet, with Poke doing a short discourse on the benefits of aqueous extracts from carrot seed, nettlewort, spinach, burdock root, and ocean kelp. Ah, midwives. Apparently, anywhere we were in the world, it took approximately ten minutes of foreplay before the exchange of hot information began.

Constantine drove us in the gathering gloom, which was dusk in Red Square. We stopped in front of a park with hundreds of squatters’ makeshift, cardboard shelters—they were protesting the lack of housing. As we drove on to Vera’s place, I was profoundly struck by the bleakness—street after street of sooty gray buildings with lines of darkly clothed people. A total lack of color—very Felinni-esque.

Our hosts told us that the electricity was being rationed at the time, so the streets were very dimly lit, adding to the otherworldly scene. The only color seen for miles was a garishly lit-up bright red star—HUGE—high over the Kremlin.

I remembered a friend’s cryptic words when I was leaving the US. She said, “You will soon be entering the dark. All the teachings will be about how you deal with the dark.” What in Hades did that mean?

At Vera’s, we drove through a very tall, arched entryway into a compound of old buildings about nine stories high. It seemed as though we had stepped back into the Middle Ages. In the entrance to Vera’s building, the once lovely tiled floors were destroyed and covered by pieces of cardboard. The entry hall was concrete that was painted a god-awful dark, seaweed green.

Constantine and the two Ruskie women began loading all our luggage into a rickety wire-mesh cage that was the elevator. Watching the cage dangling from cables, swaying back and forth, made my old elevator paranoia kick in full-blown. I opted to run up the seven flights of concrete stairs. At every landing, there were buckets of refuse; old potato-peelings and cabbage, etc. Alla left us, saying she would call for us in the morning.

Vera’s apartment was a tiny, one-bedroom affair, but it was very orderly and lovingly kept. Poke said she thought that Vera was comparatively “well-to-do.” Vera had been a gynecologist for thirty-one years. Lesson # 1: We may be in the heart of darkness here—but Vera is filled with joy and laughter and delight. Our dinner consisted of Vera frying up some pork chops. (That left out Poke, the Vegetarian Princess…and, yes, I did resort to eating my totem animal.) I knew those chops were very expensive and hard for her to get. Vera also sliced some tomatoes and put cilantro on them, which was a wonderful surprise!

Poke and I offered some of our American bread and cheese, and Vera brought out some Ruskie Vodka (pronounced Wodka). We commenced to laughing and trying to communicate with hand signals and hilarious, pathetic accents. Without Alla to interpret we were sunk. Vera spoke no English and we spoke no Ruskie. Fortunately, we figured out that Vera spoke Deutsch and I had studied four years of German in school (painfully, I might add). But now it finally paid off! For the rest of the time in the USSR, we communicated by doing a rudimentary job of butchering German.

I was pretty exhausted that first night from the schlep, so I crawled into Vera’s offered bed (she ensconced herself on the living room couch). I dozed off to Poke getting a Russian alphabet lesson in the kitchen. “Ah, Bay, Day…”

However, at 3:15 AM, Poke and I found ourselves back in the kitchen writing by some twinkling candles and drinking tea, our biological clocks gone totally haywire. I looked out the window and down below us was a block long wall topped with concertina wire, curled barbed wire. We were looking directly down into the compound of a prison.

November 23, 1990.

It is amazing to me that just when I think I’ve learned all the
lessons I am supposed to get about a particular situation, more
come. This definitely keeps me humble. Grace is a willowy blonde
with piercing blue eyes and has that old money, WASP-prepschool
look about her. She is pregnant with her second baby
and has been having her prenatal care with me, in conjunction
with Dr. Faith up north, as they live out in the country. I’d like
to blame Dr. Faith for misdiagnosing this one, but I can’t. I am
the last one to see Grace before she goes into labor. I completely
miss the fact that her baby is breech.
I arrive at her house in the middle of the night. When I
check her, I am appalled to feel a single chubby leg and a huge
scrotum hanging down in her vagina. Damn! A single-footling
breech. This is not good. Grace’s labor is moving incredibly fast.
Ultimately, it will be only three hours from start to finish. I know
Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart 99
we don’t have time to make it anywhere for additional help. I
figure it is better to stay where we are and to try to remain calm.
One of the real dangers of a single-footling breech is that the
cord can wash down and prolapse when the water breaks. Grace
has already ruptured her membranes. The baby’s heart rate is
great, so no cord compression yet. We seem to be doing OK—so
far. Time for a consult with Francis. (Time for that bloody job
at McDonald’s.)
Francis’s sleepy voice is reassuring on the phone. He isn’t
very worried. He says that since this is Grace’s second baby, her
pelvis has already been proven to be adequate enough to birth
an average-size baby. The labor is moving along quite rapidly,
so we needn’t be overly concerned about disproportion. The
place where people get into trouble, he says, is by not minding
the store and allowing the smaller presenting part of the body to
descend through an incompletely dilated cervix. This will cause
the arms and head to extend and get hung up in the cervix,
which can result in premature inspiration, possible aspiration of
fluid or meconium, and drowning.
As long as I don’t have her push until I’m absolutely sure
there is no cervix left, the birth should be straightforward—just
backwards. And, he says, whatever I do, be gentle, no traction.
By pulling on the body, I could cause the head to go into an
abnormal rotation, rotating the face up when the back of the
head hits the hollow of the sacrum. If this occurs, the chin
will get lodged against the pubic bone, and I’ll lose the baby.
Otherwise, I’ll be fine, he says, just fine.
Holy Mother, now I’m really nervous.
I take a deep breath, put on my best midwife poker face, and
prepare to deal with this ass-backwards child. I wonder what it
means for this little guy to be coming into this world scrotum
first. Some kind of a statement. Grace does have a rim of cervix
left, and she does have uncontrollable bearing-down urges as
her son’s body starts to slide through the cervix and increase
100 Carol Leonard
the pressure. It’s crucial that she holds off pushing until she
becomes fully dilated.
I raise up her butt by piling folded towels under her bottom.
I hold the presenting part up out of her vagina, with my gloved
fingers in her cervix. This should take some of the pressure off
and buy us some time. I sit between her legs, pushing upward
against her downward force. I have her blow through contractions
to diminish the bearing down. I do a little vaudeville routine to
distract her from pushing. We remain this way for what seems
like an eternity, until I can no longer feel the cervix.
I give her the green light. “Good to go.”
My heart is pounding as the baby’s body starts to emerge,
mainly because it is so bizarre-looking. First, Aaron’s toes are
visible in the introitus, looking like a row of tiny pearls. Then
his fat left leg is born, and his toes search around as if he is
testing the water to see if it is safe to come out. Next comes his
hugely engorged scrotum, and then his penis pops out. He pees
a fountain of urine into the air the moment it is free. I can’t
help but laugh.
But his right leg is stretched up to his head, with his foot by
his ear. The poor guy is doing a complete yogic split. It makes
me sore, watching him stretch in half like that. When his belly
and right thigh are visible, I pull a loop of cord down to prevent
traction on the umbilicus. I am relieved to feel the cord pulsing
steadily—so far, so good. I gently cover his exposed body with
a dryer-warmed blanket. No sense getting him upset and taking
his first breath too soon. His arms are flexed properly, so the
shoulders are born easily with the next contraction.
The next few minutes are critical to this baby’s outcome.
Now, either the head comes out—or it doesn’t. I begin talking
out loud. “Come on, little boy baby. You can do this. You’ve been
doing really great up to now. It’s not bad out here. Please, little
guy, cut me some slack here—just come out. I know you can do
it. We have two really nice breasts waiting for you.”
Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart 101
He isn’t listening. It seems like all movement has stopped—and
it remains stopped for what seems like a full minute. I hear a
roaring in my head. I am thinking about getting aggressive, but
then I hear Francis’s voice in my head. I gently raise Aaron’s
body up just a tiny bit. The head slides down, and I can see his
hairline on the nape of his neck at Grace’s vulva. I watch as the
perineum retracts, and Aaron’s little face is exposed. First his
mouth, then his nose, up to his brow.
I syringe his mouth and nose. I consider giving him some
oxygen while he is hanging out on the perineum, but he is pink
and the cord is still pumping loyally.
We are out of the woods.
But this is as far as he gets. He doesn’t budge any farther.
At this point, it is pretty surreal-looking, because his face is
grimacing—and he sneezes. He is looking around between
Grace’s thighs, her perineum stuck tightly on his head like a
stocking cap.
I say to him, “Um, Bud, you’re going to look a little ridiculous
going to first grade wearing your mother for a hat like that.”
After a while, I get antsy. I don’t like the thought of the
pressure, both to the baby’s head and the mother’s vagina. I
prepare to do an ex post facto episiotomy to release his forehead.
I pick up my scissors; Grace sees me and looks horrified.
She says, “Oh, no, you don’t, damn it!” She pushes Aaron,
eight pounds and squalling, into this world.
I am overwhelmed with relief and gratitude. I whisper a
prayer of thanks to the Mother of the Universe: Whew. I owe you
one. I promise I will never be sloppy in locating the head ever again.
Thank you with all my heart for guiding my hands.
A few years later, this baby boy will be sitting on the same bed
with his older brother, watching as their sister is born. She is a
conformist and comes out head first.
Aaron says to me, “She’s naked!”
“Hm-m-m, so she is. Should we put clothes on her?” I ask him.
102 Carol Leonard
He studies his sister very closely. “Nah. She looks pretty cool
naked.”
“Okay, you guys, what are you going to name her?” I ask the
two brothers.
They look at each other and call out in unison, “Cinderella!”

~ Excerpt from LADY’S HANDS, LION’S HEART, A MIDWIFE’S SAGA by Carol Leonard, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2008,

Alright, this is probably an awkward subject, but we know our yonis can sometimes become high maintenance in midlife. And, the problems can be a bit vague and unpredictable which means our doctors don’t always know what to do for us. It can be very annoying, not to mention having a negative impact on our intimate relationships.

Carol Leonard has been practicing midwifery for more than 35 years. She has written this excellent article telling us what is happening to our vaginas during menopause, and she gives us a number of wonderful tips on what we can do about them.

A Baby Boomer’s Survival Guide to Menopause: After menopause the walls of the vagina become thinner and produce fewer secretions. Vaginal lubrication with sexual excitement occurs more slowly. As the amount of estrogen decreases, the vagina becomes less acidic, making women more susceptible to vaginal infections, including yeast. If changes are significant, women may have a feeling of dryness or irritation. Severe dryness can cause vaginal pain. Women are most likely to feel vaginal discomfort during or just after sexual intercourse, especially without being wet enough. Thinner, more easily injured vaginal tissue combined with decreased acidity of the vagina can lead to infections. The usual symptoms are increased vaginal discharge, itching and burning.

The disrespectful, patriarchal name for menopausal thinning and associated symptoms is Atrophic Vaginitis and Dyspareunia (painful intercourse), but this is not inevitable. These symptoms can be remedied with understanding and simple loving care. And, as with all of menopause, good solid healthy nutrition and exercise is key to preventing drying and thinning. Here are some important suggestions for self-care for a dry vagina:

Take 400-600 IU of Vitamin E daily. Again, only 100 IU Vitamin E if you bleed heavily, and only 50 IU if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, or rheumatic heart murmur.

• Drink at least two quarts of water a day.

• Take Dr. Christopher’s Change-Ease formula as directed.

• Start your day with two dropperfuls of Motherwort tincture.

Self-help for dry vaginas: Get Slippery! There are several “light, personal, modern lubricants” on the market today, the current favorite being Astro-Glide, probably because the name is so great. It is mostly glycerin.

You can experiment with your own natural concoction to see what works for you. Here are some suggestions:

Coconut oil or cocoa butter — smells great, tastes better, solid at room temperature, liquid at body temperature.
Honey — hydroscopic (water-drawing), will moisturize and heal a tender yoni. Apply directly where needed (and obviously, great tasting).
Aloe Vera and Slippery Elm paste — to sooth inflammations. Mix enough slippery powder into aloe vera gel (bottled or fresh) to form a paste. Apply along the labia and inside the vaginal entrance. This lubricates, heals and nourishes.
Oil from a Vitamin E capsule — use a capsule that has 400 or more IU’s. Some women say this works as well as estrogen cream. Wheat Germ Oil is a good source of Vitamin E, cool and soothing.
Almond oil or olive oil (cold-pressed) are nice. Apply to the fingertips and massage all around the vaginal opening and perineum.
Look for Comfrey-based ointments with names like “Green Gold,” etc. in natural food stores. Comfrey has an alkaloid called Allantion which regenerates skin tissue and will keep skin flexible and strong. I’ve had a long love affair with Comfrey as a midwife, using it to speed repairs of perineal tears. Comfrey could be combined with other herbs such as St. John’s Wort (Hypericum, used for burns) and Calendula (Pot Marigold) for added healing. (Goldenseal will probably be too drying.)
A commercial option is Replens, a new over-the-counter cream available in drug stores. The active ingredient, Polycarbophil, pulls water into vaginal cells and lowers the pH of the vagina, which helps prevent overgrowth of bacteria.

 
For PAINFUL INTERCOURSE: Reduced estrogen levels sometimes cause the mucous membranes of the vagina to become dry, resulting in discomfort or pain during intercourse—just at a time of life when you can be more spontaneous, without fear of pregnancy. I recommend bio-identical, compounded ESTRIOL 0.2% vaginal cream (this is made by a compounding pharmacist and requires a prescription from your friendly Naturopathic Doctor.) The compound diosgenin is found in Mexican wild yam roots (Dioscorea species) but it is chemically changed in the laboratory to produce Estriol. Estriol is the weakest estrogen and when used intravaginally, is a fabulous treatment for vaginal atrophy/dryness.
Estriol is also thought to have a cancer protective factor for women against breast, and other estrogen-driven cancers, such as ovarian and uterine cancers. Estriol may be anti-carcinogenic because it closely mimics the natural human pattern. It reduces excess blood estrogen by competing for estrogen receptor sites with a woman’s own circulating estrogen. Because the estrogen potency of Estriol is so small, it has the net effect of lowering the body’s estrogen when it binds to the receptor sites, thus reducing the risk of estrogen-driven diseases. (I am not talking about estradiol, which is the estrogen used in the allopathic Estrace and Vagifem commercial products, which is the strongest estrogen and not a good thing.)

I highly recommend compounded Estriol cream for restoring youthful moistness and elasticity and, literally, putting “bees in your bonnet”. My girlfriends call this the “Marriage Saver”.
Kegels. Remember the annoying Kegel exercises (squeezing the PC — pubococcygeal muscle) from our child-bearing years? In the car, at every red light? Well, they are back — and they still make the supporting muscles of the vagina stronger and healthier.
And speaking of exercise — of course the health of your vagina depends on stimulation like any other part of your body. It needs to be exercised regularly to keep fit. Remaining sexually active in the second half of your life, either with a partner or by self-pleasuring, is the key to maintaining a healthy vagina.

And self-pleasuring, either by yourself or with your partner is an art to be joyfully practiced. Staying in love and orgasmic with yourself gives you a more positive outlook on life. So, go on girl! There are lots of interesting new toys on the market. Be creative. Experiment! You and your yoni will benefit — and you may discover places of hidden pleasure you never knew existed.

Carol Leonard, a “foremother of the modern midwifery movement,” is a New Hampshire certified midwife who has been practicing for over the last three decades. She is the author of her memoir as NH’s first contemporary midwife, Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2008. She is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which represents all midwives in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and was elected as the second president of MANA. She is currently building a four-hundred-acre farm in Ellsworth, Maine, named Bad Beaver Farm.

We just want to KNOW what we’re up against, right? Carol Leonard has been practicing midwifery for over 35 years and is a passionate advocate for empowering women about their health. Here is one more great article from her giving a nice overview of what menopause is all about,especially if you’re into alternative treatments!

The Baby Boomer’s Survival Guide to Menopause: So this was it. My cycles had definitely become erratic and much shorter and I had to finally admit to myself that “it” was beginning. The menopause I had always thought about as “in the future” was, well … now. So, with much excitement and some trepidation, I began to gather all the information I could find to help me make informed decisions regarding my health and well-being during this confusing, transitional journey.

In addition to reading all I could get my hands on about mid-life transitioning (including some great stuff in the supermarket check-out aisles), I started to interview various types of health-care providers to see what they had to say. I resolved to keep an open mind, particularly when it came to drugs such as Hormone Replacement Therapy. Now, this was patently ridiculous. I am a quintessential Baby-Boomer. I am almost always passionately opinionated about everything. Also, I am a child of the 60′s — the pills we were supposed to take were never the more interesting way to go. Needless to say, my research took me from conventional, mainstream medicine to shamans. Oh well, so be it. The following is a couple of year’s worth of (blatantly biased) research on menopause in a nutshell:

At the turn of the century, the average life expectancy for women was 55; thus menopause coincided with women’s final years. In the United States today, the average age at menopause is 52 and our life expectancy is 80! This means many of us will live a good 30 years after menopause. And yet, menopause is still viewed as a disease of the aging associated with disintegration and dying. Menopause is only the end of fertility, not the end of life or productivity. Now, with the approaching millennium, a Baby-Boomer turns 50 every seven minutes (an astounding statistic). There will be 50 million Women of Menopause by the year 2013. A planet full of Changing Women — imagine the possibilities! It is up to us to de-pathologize this natural event and make our non-reproductive years the most powerful productive years of our lives.

It is ironic that fluctuating hormone levels have been blamed for supposed irrationality and instability, yet after menopause when our hormone levels are not longer cyclic, we are considered estrogen-deprived, and still abnormal. Has it never occurred to medical researchers to trust in our bodies’ inherent wisdom, that perhaps women are supposed to have decreasing hormone levels at this phase of our lives? The medicalization of the menopause experience describes menopause as a “deficiency syndrome” or “ovarian failure” and teaches that something is lost or inadequate and needs to be replaced.

The reality is that ovarian estrogen is already declining after about age 25, and estrogen made by the adrenal glands has already begun to increase. Estriol made by the body’s fatty tissue is mainly what supplements the remaining ovarian secretions after menopause. Other body sites make the same hormones as well; these include the liver, breasts, hair follicles and the pineal gland. With adrenal secretions, all these body sites together supply all the estrogen needed by a woman who will not be bearing a child. In the truest sense, for most women there is no “estrogen deficiency” after menopause.

So, despite the fact that some researchers point to the 50-year life expectancy common in the beginning of the 20th century and theorize that women simply weren’t meant to live past menopause (oh, please…), some of us seem to have the audacity to be living past our natural life-spans. We need more information about the normalcy of menopause and clear instructions to guide us with self-care.

Normal Menopause

Normal menopause is just that – normal. It is a definite physiological milestone in a woman’s life heralding the beginning of a powerful new phase of growth. It is a good idea to be well prepared for this journey. The following are definitions of the language used to define the menopause experience, to help you negotiate decisions regarding your health during this time.

Pre-Menopause – is the time of greatest hormonal fluctuation during the later reproductive years (can feel like horrendous PMS), when periods become irregular and other changes may begin to occur. The actual age at which menopausal change begins varies considerably from woman to woman; the norm is 45, with a normal range of 35 to 55. During the pre-menopausal years, menstrual periods may become noticeably different (closer together, further apart, scantier, more profuse). Changes in the menstrual cycle are often the first sign that menopause is approaching. Changes may be sudden and significant, or so gradual that they go almost unnoticed. Periods may be very different from what they once were. Menstrual cycle changes can affect cycle length and the amount of menstrual flow. Night sweats and/or hot flashes may come, if at all, only sporadically and are usually blamed on too many blankets, a sweaty partner, or a spicy meal.

Menopause – is the end of menstruation, defined after the fact, that is once 12 months have passed without a period. Meno (menstruation) pause (stops) is technically, the last menstrual flow of a woman’s life. The menopausal climax years include the year or two before and a year or more after the very last menstruation. The average age of a woman in the midst of her climax is 51. During the 2-5 year climax period, the bones refuse to take in calcium (perhaps so we don’t become too rigid in our resistance to change?) and bone scans will show lessening bone density; flashes, flushes and night sweats may be frequent; palpitations, emotional sensitivity and sleeplessness are common. Depending on the individual woman and her circumstances, other physical and emotional changes may occur with the climax. Or she may breeze right through. All symptoms are transient and correctable. However, it is currently the fashion for physicians to take blood samples and then diagnose “low” hormone levels in women whose hormone levels are perfectly normal for their age.

Post-menopause – the several years after the end of menstruation during which time the body completes its adaptation to its new stabilized hormonal state. After menopause, the ovaries continue to produce low levels of estrogen and androgens, as do the adrenal glands. Androgens can be converted to estrogen by fatty tissue. So, post-menopausal women have some, albeit lower, levels of estrogen present throughout the rest of their lives. Post-menopausal women who have not had their ovaries removed are not more estrogen deficient than are pre-pubertal girls. The post-menopausal years symbolically begin on the 13th new moon after the final menstruation, and continue — obviously — for the rest of the lifetime. Commitment to a healthy lifestyle in the postmenopausal years can halt and reverse the loss of bone density (the bones do accept calcium once again!) Being vigilantly health-conscious can prevent estrogen and progestone sensitive tissues in the vagina and bladder from weakening and drying out, and maintain a healthy, vigorous heart and circulatory system.

Surgical Menopause – is the menopause brought on by the surgical removal of a woman’s ovaries or by radiation treatment or chemotherapy. If the woman has not already gone through a natural menopause when she has this surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, she will go through immediate menopause at that time and will skip the pre- and peri-menopausal stages.

Menopause is a very individual experience, but all women deserve accurate information about the normal changes of menopause, safe remedies for common discomforts, and medical intervention for the small minority whose discomforts are severe. The following information is a culmination of many years of working with women as their community midwife and practicing as an herbalist working with plant allies to create healthier living for women and their families. I offer simple common sense alternatives to conventional, allopathic medicines’ drug-oriented approach. These natural treatments can be used as an alternative to HRT in all but the most severe cases. This drug-free approach preserves the time-honored knowledge of our grandmothers, as well as modern, alternative methods that work for alleviating and preventing symptoms of menopause.

Due to the constraints of time and space for this article, I will only focus attention on the two most common menopausal symptoms: hot flashes and vaginal changes . Other symptoms can include emotional instability, “fuzzy” thinking, insomnia, depression, stiffening joints, sore breasts, dry skin, and abdominal congestion (constipation, gas, bloating). I will cover self-care for menstrual cycle changes and lessening bone density in Part 2. All symptoms are transient and correctable. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms and would like more information on alternative therapies, call your local midwife, an herbalist skilled in botanical medicine, or nearest naturopathic physician for homeopathic remedies. They will refer you to the appropriate treatment

Carol Leonard, a “foremother of the modern midwifery movement,” is a New Hampshire certified midwife who has been practicing for over the last three decades. She is the author of her memoir as NH’s first contemporary midwife, Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2008. She is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which represents all midwives in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and was elected as the second president of MANA. She is currently building a four-hundred-acre farm in Ellsworth, Maine, named Bad Beaver Farm.

Think menopause and ‘hot flashes’ are likely the first thing that come to mind. They are the bane of many a menopausal woman. In fact, managing them is a big reason many women turn to hormone replacement therapy of one kind or another.

In this article, Carol Leonard, a long time midwife and women’s health advocate, likens HRT for hot flashes to launching nuclear weapons to settle a neighborhood dispute. And, she offers a number of herbal remedies for those of us suffering from these pesky symptoms. What’s to lose by giving them a try before going to a more serious arsenal?

The Baby Boomer’s Survival Guide to Menopause: Hot flashes (or “Power Surges” for women in the know) and night sweats occur in about 75% of American women; the frequency, intensity, duration of flashes is unique to each individual. They are the result of vasomotor instability. The vasomotor nerves are the body’s thermostat controllers. It’s their job to regulate body temperature by controlling the diameter of the blood vessels. A disturbance in hormone levels interferes with the signals transmitted to the vasomotor nerves, and prickly hot sensations, dizziness, and sometimes, heart palpitations result. As your system finally adjusts to the lower or different levels of hormones, the symptoms will stop. With the use of herbs and diet, it is possible to exert some control over the length and time of hot flashes and even, in some cases, eliminate them completely. The following suggestions have significantly reduced hot flashes for many women.

• Herbs – My favorite herb for hot flashes is Motherwort, Leonurus cardaca, which translates from Latin to “Lion-Hearted.” (Actually Motherwort, is a a phytoestrogen — plant-derived estrogen — and is my choice for many “female complaints,” including the crazies.) This showy Eurasian mint with spiky lavender flowering tops and early, large, indented, bright green leaves has naturalized herself in my back field and is perennially present from April to late fall. The bees love her. Motherwort’s medicinal component is the alkaloid Leonurine, which is a mild vaso-dilator. The medicinal properties are in the flowering tops and leaves and are soluble in alcohol. Motherwort is common in New England; it is very easy to tincture to extract the medicinal alkaloids.

Here’s how: Once you have a positive identification of the plant (you could enlist the expertise of a local root-woman if you’re unsure), gather the flowering tops and leaves, being sure to leave at least half of the mother plant and always thanking the plant as you do so. Chop the plant material coarsely, pack fairly tightly in glass jars, then cover with regular, inexpensive 100 proof vodka. Cap tightly. Label with plant name and date and put away in a dark closet for at least six weeks, then pour off the medicinal liquid (decanting) and compost the used plant material. The tincture will last for a long time. You can take half a teaspoon of this tincture up to four times a day when flashing heavily. Expect results in two to four weeks. (NB — Do not use if you are experiencing menstrual “flooding.”)

Motherwort tincture and all of the following natural remedies should be available in your neighborhood health food store or organic co-op.

Take Dr. Christopher’s Change-Ease formula three times a day. This is a formulation of phytoesterol-rich herbs by a master herbalist, available in natural or health food stores.
Diet – Switch to a grain-based diet and eliminate all sugars and sugar-rich foods including fruit and fruit juices.
Soy – Adding 50 mg of a soy-based food daily to your diet (such as tofu, tempeh and soy milk) could significantly reduce the incidence of hot flashes. Soybeans contain compounds called isoflavones, a natural plant form of estrogen. Also, soybeans and yams contain a preformed steroidal nucleus so your body can easily manufacture steroids and hormones when you eat them. A typical Asian woman ingests about 30 to 50 mg of isoflavones in her diet daily. The Japanese and Chinese do not have a word for menopausal hot flash in their language.(14)
Exercise – Daily exercise diminishes hot flashes by decreasing the amount of circulating leutinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), by nourishing the hypothalamus and by raising endorphin levels, which drop when flashing. As little as thirty minutes three times a week can produce positive results.
Keep Cool – Drink lots of water and herbal teas. Turn down the thermostat, literally. Eat smaller meals, more often. Walk away from aggravating situations. Soak your feet in essential oils of basil or thyme. Breathe deeply. Visualize the heat as Kundalini energy rising up your spine, as the very life-force, Chi, combusting within you. Harness the energy, ride it. Wear silk. Envision polar bears. Put ice on your cheeks. Fan yourself in public. Take your clothes off. Jump into the tub.
Buy a Safari Hat with the battery-run fan in the front. Print “Red Hot Mama” on the top.
You could yell, “I’m hotter than a red-assed bee!” That’s what my grandmother did every time she had a hot flash (I am entirely serious).
Vitamins – Take 400-600 IU of Vitamin E daily. Vitamin E supplements have a well-documented and long-standing reputation as a remedy for hot flashes. Be sure to check for freshness when purchasing Vitamin E. Taking rancid Vitamin E will have a negative effect. Use only 100 IU Vitamin E if you have bleeding problems, and only 50 IU if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, or rheumatic heart murmur.
• Take Ginseng (2 mgs daily) to normalize the body’s response to hot and cold.

Drink several cups of Sage tea daily. Use regular garden sage, Salvia officinalis — you can grow it yourself in your backyard; it’s perennial. Harvest only half of the plant in the fall and hang the sage to dry then use one tablespoon of dried sage per one cup of boiling water. Infuse it for 20 minutes. Sage is a “yang” or grounding herb and is renowned for its ability to reduce and eliminate night sweats. The effect is fast acting (NB: Do not use sage for night sweats from nursing — sage will dry up breast milk.).
Lastly, a personal opinion here: To prescribe synthetic hormones to eradicate hot flashes is like calling out nuclear weapons to settle a neighborhood dispute.
Some other homeopathic remedies for hot flashes are offered by Susun Weed in her book, Wise Woman Way for the Menopausal Years (1992):

Lachesis – For when the flashes emanate from the top of your head, are worse just before sleep and immediately upon wakening, and are accompanied by sweating, headaches, or easily irritated skin.

Sepia – When your flashes make you feel weak, nauseated, exhausted, and depressed.

Pulsatilla – If you flash less outdoors, but your flashes are often followed by intense chills and emotional uproar.

Valeriana – If your face flushes strongly during the flash, and you have intense sweating and sleeplessness.

Ferrum metallicum – When your flashes are sudden, your general health is good but ordinary activities bring exhaustion.
Sulfuricum acidicum – If your flashes include profuse sweating and trembling, and are worse in the evenings and with exercise.

Sanguinaria – when your cheeks are red and burning, and your feet and hands feel hot.

Belladonna – When the flash centers on your face, which burns and turns bright red, and you feel restless, agitated, and have palpitations.

Carol Leonard, a “foremother of the modern midwifery movement,” is a New Hampshire certified midwife who has been practicing for over the last three decades. She is the author of her memoir as NH’s first contemporary midwife, Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2010. She is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which represents all midwives in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and was elected as the second president of MANA.. She is currently building a four-hundred-acre farm in Ellsworth, Maine, named Bad Beaver Farm.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on Flo. Looking back, it’s interesting, because she showed up in my life right before Christmas in 1986, a month before my husband Ken died. Of course, I had no idea he was going to die. Just as I had no idea at the time about the significance of a black dog appearing mysteriously in my life—about the Celtic mythology that the black dog was a messenger from the Underworld, and that she would portend death.

I was returning home from my midwifery office and was turning into my snowy driveway, when I saw at the entrance to my drive, a medium size black dog sitting tensely erect and looking at me intently.

I lowered the passenger side window and said, in jest, “Oh, hello, have you been waiting for me long?”

The black dog wagged her tail tentatively. As I drove down the driveway, I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw her begin to trot and follow me down the drive.

When I opened the front door, the black dog shot past me, and ran upstairs and hid under my bed. I put groceries away, and then I went upstairs and lay on the floor, talking to her gently as she cowered under my bed.

‘What’s your story, my friend? What’s your name? Do you have anyone who is missing you right now? It’s okay, you don’t need to be afraid.”

Her tail bumped a nervous rhythm but she wouldn’t come out. I gave her a couple of stale cookies that I found in the pantry.

When Ken came home, he went upstairs to try to get her to come out. She bared her fangs at him and growled ferociously. He called her a “cur”…among other things, mostly the “B” word. I lay down again and looked at her more closely. She was trembling beneath the undercarriage of the bed. She looked to be in fairly good health, although very skinny—her ribs desperately needed more flesh on them. But her eyes were clear and intelligent and—what? Something about her eyes riveted me.

I let her stay under the bed for the night, despite Ken’s protestations. After Ken left for the hospital in the morning, I managed to get her to come out. I gave her a bowl of water, opened the front door and sent her on her way. I have to admit, I didn’t really think too much about her after that.

A couple of days later, as I was driving to work, I saw the black dog in a neighboring field in the snow. I pulled over on the side of the road and watched her. It appeared that she was playing. She would cock her head sideways, looking intensely at the snow, then leap up in the air, slam her paws down, and bury her whole snout in the snow. When she surfaced, she had a mouse in her mouth that she swallowed in one gulp. Ah! I had seen coyotes do this—hearing their meals scurrying under the crust of the snow.

The black dog saw me watching her. She came over to my car and cocked one eyebrow. I got out like it was customary and opened the back door like a chauffeur, and she jumped in. What can I say? I certainly hadn’t planned on adopting a feral dog. But the black dog sat in the back seat of my car as though it was her throne, placidly looking out the window.

I convinced Ken that someone would certainly claim such an obviously intelligent dog, so he allowed her in the house while I contacted the police and the local pound. Nobody had reported a lost dog. The more I looked at her, the more I was convinced that she had been on the road for a long, long time. I didn’t tell Ken that. I put a “Found Dog” ad in the local papers. A young couple responded and said she matched the description of their lost dog. They came into the house eagerly, but the woman’s face crumpled when she saw the black dog was not theirs. She started sobbing as though her heart were breaking.

“I’m really very sorry that I got your hopes up,” I said to the couple. It was starting to dawn on me that I was about to have a new dog.

Ken was actually the one who named her. He was standing behind her and said loudly, “Who are you? Are you Muffy?”

No response.

“Are you Fifi?”

Nothing.

“Are you Flo?” With this the black dog whipped her head around and looked at Ken with clear recognition. Florence. Really? It seemed incongruous to name a semi-wild dog after the matriarch of the Brady Bunch—but Flo it was. It was the name she answered to for the rest of her life.

I brought Flo to my friend Jim Paine, the local veterinarian, to be checked out. Jim said he thought she was around five years old and seemed to be in good health, despite being on her own for who knows how long. He said she appeared to be a terrier, mixed with—what? Perhaps a coyote. A terrier-coyote hybrid. Jim also believed that Flo had been spayed previously, as she had no obvious signs of having had litters.

I let Flo come and go as she liked. I left the sliding glass door open just enough for her to squeeze through to the unheated, back sun porch, where I put a dog bed down for her. In the beginning, she would be gone for several days, so I didn’t know if she would be coming back or not. But then, there’d she be, waiting to come in and have some dry dog food and get warm in front of the woodstove. We both liked this arrangement.

It soon became clear to me what Flo was doing on these disappearances. One day as I walked out the back door, I found the carcass of a baby goat lying at my feet as a trophy present for me. Uh oh, I thought, some farmer is not going to be very happy with my black huntress.

Then Ken died. Out in our back woods, Ken put a 12-gauge shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his toe. There is a strong possibility that Flo was with him when he died. Perhaps that was why she was terrified of guns. The day he died, my girlfriends all appeared as if by osmosis to be with me. I was so grief-stricken that I got intense tetany in my fingers from hyperventilating, so my sister had to wipe my nose as my hands clawed up like a chicken foot.

Late in the night, I woke to see a bunch of lumps on my bed in the moonlight. I sat up, disoriented, until I realized all the lumps were my girlfriends sleeping, or passed out, scattered in various positions all around me. I turned to my right, and there was Flo, with her snout on the bed, staring at me quietly with one eyebrow cocked up. She wasn’t wagging her tail at all and her eyes were full of concern.

I have to say, Ken’s death kicked the shit out of me. As time went by, I didn’t get “better”; I seemed to get worse. I knew I was dangling precariously close to insanity. I gave myself permission to be crazy for as long as it took to heal. It ended up that it took one full year of crazy to come out the other side. That was just the way it had to happen. I had to feel it all. I wasn’t going to drug away the pain.

I built a hut at the base of The Tree where Ken died. I bent heavy saplings in an arch to create a dome shape and lashed them together until the frame was pretty sturdy. I wove smaller saplings through the frame until it was strong enough to handle the elements. Then I covered this structure with blankets and then with waterproof tarps. I dug a fire pit in the center of the lodge and made a small smoke hole in the roof. I had a heavy Indian blanket covering for the door. The door itself faced east.

I spent as much time as possible in my lodge in the forest. In retrospect, I’m sure my family and friends did think this was insane, but they only conveyed to me their love and support. Flo was my constant companion. During this time she only left occasionally to hunt. Most of the time she was by my side. She was probably extremely worried about me too, but we had an amazing time out there. It was an intensely healing time full of sorrow and joy. It was magical.

Even in the dead of winter, we were all right. I had a great sleeping bag that was rated for 40 degrees below zero, and I had Flo, who would curl up next to me on the insulated mat to keep warm. So we were good. The only downside was that the smoke from the fire pit started to seriously hurt my eyes after a while. But by then it was warm weather again so we weren’t so dependent on fire for warmth. I began to get better.

On the one-year anniversary of Ken’s death, I decided I was going to go to a holy place to learn hands-on energy healing. I wanted to become a healer. The joke was on me, however, because as I began to heal myself, my rebellious nature began to re-emerge. I broke all their rules, and ultimately got kicked out of the ashram. But I came back home feeling whole and strong and back to my regular naughty self.

I had been gone a month. I walked to the backyard and saw Flo heading home across the back field with a large bird in her mouth. When she saw me she dropped the bird and let out a plaintive howl that made the hair stand up on my neck. I had never heard her howl before. She sounded just like a coyote. I laughed and said, “Well! I guess you really are a coy-dog after all!” She ran frenzied circles around me, yipping like a puppy, delirious in her joy at my return.

“Okay,” I said as I hugged her tightly. “I promise I will never leave you again.”

As Flo became more socialized, she hunted less and less. Except for the occasional frog or the time I found a bloody baby deer skull with tiny antlers, still covered in cartilage and fur, perched proudly in one of my planters—she embraced her domestic dog side. Except for one thing. She hated small yappy dogs. Probably the coy-dog instinct was too hard-wired genetically for her to be able to resist killing a small obnoxious creature. I think she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—distinguish a small domestic dog from a rodent or small game.

The first time it happened (at least while I was present), Flo and I were walking down a remote dirt road in central New Hampshire as an elderly couple walked toward us. They were walking a small, longhaired dog—probably a Pomeranian. When the dog saw Flo it started barking at her in a high-pitched, frantic yip. I felt Flo tense and then run at the dog in full kill mode. In a flash, before I could even react, Flo grabbed the dog and shook it like a rag doll, instantly snapping its neck.

The people were screaming, “Lady! Lady! Lady!” I was horrified. After many apologies and negotiating and groveling, that little episode cost me $1500.00. Not that this could ever replace a beloved pet, but this was the price for that breed.

Back in the car, I yelled at her, “Jesus Christ, Flo! What the hell am I going to do with you? You just can’t kill someone’s pet! You do that again and you’re going to be dog meat. I mean it!”

She looked at me serenely, deliberately obtuse. “What? What are you going on about? I thought that was a ground hog.”

a

More than once, I believe Flo saved my life. When I turned forty, a Mexican shaman woman named Quinn suggested I do a vision quest to celebrate this milestone birthday. She designed it for me. She said I was to do three days in the wilderness with water, but no food, and she allowed me to take a knife, matches for fire—and my dog. My dog? I said I thought it was pretty unusual for me to be able to take my dog along on a quest that was supposed to be solitary. She agreed that it was—but she said she had seen that my dog was also my spirit guardian and she needed to be there to protect me.

I spent three days deep in the solitary wilderness of coastal Downeast Maine, and it was miserable. At first it was foggy and misty and rainy, as only the Maine coast can be. Then it got humid and the mosquitoes came out in droves. I wondered wryly if the Native Americans of this area, the Penobscot (which means “first light”), had to contend with horrendous mosquitoes on their vision quests. I resorted to rolling “stogies” out of dry oak leaves filled with dry pine needles and “smoking” these cigars, blowing the smoke around my head to keep the mosquitoes away.

On the final night, the mosquitoes were so bad that I dug a body-sized hole in the forest floor with my knife and I buried myself in it. When I woke, it was pitch dark. A light rain had started, and it put out my fire. Then I heard a growl, a low threatening growl very close to my back. All of a sudden Flo attacked whatever it was, and there was a screaming fight between the two animals. They were ferociously locked in a battle to the death. For many minutes, I heard guttural snarls and jaws snapping and screaming and howling—and then nothing.

Dead silence.

Then something started walking slowly toward me where I sat trembling in the dark.

Ho…ly…shit. I braced myself for the worst.

Then Flo rested her snout on my shoulder.

a

Flo and I had been together for eight years when I fell in love with Tom Lajoie. Tom was a registered Maine whitewater guide and extreme whitewater kayaker. Flo adored Tom, and she became a great river dog. The outdoor life suited us well. We did a lot of traveling in search of breathtaking rapids for Tom and his paddling friends to run.

One fall, Tom was taking a group of Boston secretaries rafting down the West Branch of the Penobscot River. He was certified to take them down the Exterminator Rapids and the Cribworks, a Class V rapid. It was early October, but there was a definite nip in the air, so I declined to go and instead decided to walk along a small portion of the Appalachian Trail to Nesowadnahunk Falls. Flo and I ambled along in what started out as a rather mild day, but as we walked the temperature seemed to plummet. A cold drizzly rain began to fall. I wasn’t really properly dressed for a freezing rain.

I was pretty chilled by the time I got to the falls. I sat down to eat my sandwich. I hadn’t seen Flo in a while. I took a bite of my sandwich and then Flo was at my side. She shook her neck and FWAMP! the side of my face was covered with orangey brown excrement. My head was dripping in runny human diarrhea. Flo’s whole side was covered in human shit where she had rolled in it on the side of the trail, thinking it a lovely perfume.

“Oh my god!” I was gagging. The only thing I could do was dive into the water to get the shit washed off me. I had to pull Flo in the water with me to wash the crap off her too. On the walk back to my car, I got way way too cold. I was drenched and dizzy and disoriented. I could just see the headlines:

“PERSONAL HYGIENE CHALLENGED MIDWIFE SUCCUMBS TO HYPOTHERMIA”

By the time I got to my car, my hands were so frozen that I almost couldn’t get the key in the lock. Once in my car, I turned the heat up full blast but I was still shivering uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering. All I could think about while driving back to the rafting company’s guide loft was taking a long, hot shower and putting on my warm, dry clothes. Half way back to the lodge, I heard Flo retching and heaving until she finally vomited partially digested human diarrhea—right into the open basket holding my clean clothes.

In the lodge’s shower facility, the showers were coin operated. I managed to get my quarters in the slot despite my shaking hands. Then I watched in dismay as only a couple of drops dripped out. The showers were on the fritz. At this point, the Boston secretaries returned from their rafting trip and their faces were all aglow with excitement.

They were giggling, “Oh my god! Don’t you think our guide was so CUTE!? What a gorgeous blonde, blue-eyed hunk!”

I stood there glowering at them. Okay, that did it. Be-atches! I stomped off to the bar for some liquid antifreeze—with smelly, disgusting poop in my hair.

It was when Tom and I and several of his paddling buddies were traveling out West in search of snow-pack-melt rapids that I realized my dog was getting older. Even by conservative guesstimates, Flo was probably somewhere around fifteen years old. The first time I was taken by surprise was when I found her shivering in the night air on a lovely, crisp Spring evening. All of a sudden, I realized that she wasn’t able to thermo-regulate very well any more.

I looked at my dog’s face closely and saw that, seemingly overnight, her muzzle had become all white. Her black and white coloring reminded me of a nun’s habit. Flo had also, as she aged, acquired a serene and saintly demeanor. I took to calling her “Sister Florence Agnes” because if ever there was a Catholic dog, she was it. Sister Flo fooled a lot of people with that saintly shtick.

On this trip, all the boaters and their dogs hiked several miles into the rugged, dry mountains of Kelly Forks, Idaho. But on the way back, Flo crapped out completely. She refused to move another inch. I was frantic, because it was still quite a way back to our campsite. Stalwart Tom just took it in stride; he acted as if it was no big deal, so as to not embarrass her. He picked Flo up and wrapped her around his neck like a big fur collar and kept walking back to camp. I have a great photo of Tom peeing off the side of the trail with a furry nun wrapped around his shoulders.

When we returned home to NH, Flo had her first seizure. It wasn’t so bad, I guess, as seizures go—but it was definitely scary. I brought her to DVM Jim, who did a complete physical, including X-rays.

As we looked at the X-rays, Jim said, “When did she get capped in the ass? See that peppery looking stuff? Her butt is full of buckshot.”

I immediately visualized the baby goat carcass, and I knew.

Jim put her on Prednisone. Tom and I adapted to living with a noble senior citizen. We thought she could depart us at any time—but Flo ended up living another astounding four years.

She was a huntress up to the very end. In her eighteenth year, I was walking with Sister Florence along our beach in Maine when we came upon a woman lounging in a beach chair reading a book. Too late, I saw the two little yappy dogs under her chair. Flo bolted toward her prey but she was no longer able to outrun me. I flew after her and tackled her just as she got to the chair. I crashed on top of her.

The woman looked from saintly dog to me. I was panting mightily as I crushed my ancient dog. She lowered her sunglasses and said in an acerbic voice, “Over-reacting, aren’t we?”

For one second, I seriously considered letting Flo loose. But the woman was just another sucker who got conned by Flo’s Catholic ruse. At least this time, Flo and I went home without having to shell out any more bribe money.

For several years at the end of her life, Flo went down our road to steal a Milkbone from her friend Bailey the Bassett hound. Every single day at the same time. It was about a half-mile trek and our road was fairly heavy with traffic. Flo always looked both ways when she crossed the road and stayed way over on the shoulder. People called her the “Commuter Dog.”

One day, as I was looking out the window, I saw Flo come tottering down the driveway with a stolen Milkbone in her mouth. Directly behind her was a police cruiser with its blue lights flashing. A police officer got out and walked to my door.

He said, “Is this your dog?”

I said, “Why, yes, she is. Is there a problem?”

He said, “Well, I saw her walking down the road and I realized she was, um, elderly. I thought she might need an assist. So I tried to get her to get into my cruiser…but she bit me!” He held out his hand and there was the tiniest nick.

I said sweetly, “I’m terribly sorry about that, but I’ve always taught her to never accept a ride from a stranger.”

He smiled.

I said, “Thank you, Officer, for the police escort. That was very thoughtful.”

At nineteen years of age, I knew the end was getting near. Tom and I had many discussions about the quality of her life and how to determine the end without making her suffer needlessly. In the end, I think I may have kept her here one day longer than I should have—but that one last day was a powerful one.

I was stopped in traffic at a red light and Flo was in her throne in the backseat. Her window was open. A car pulled up beside us slowly. In my rearview mirror, I saw Flo serenely appraise the people in the next car. Even though her eyes were cloudy, she nodded ever so slightly, like a Queen acknowledging her subjects. Then she turned her head regally to survey her kingdom.

By the time the car came abreast of mine, both the driver and the passenger’s faces were wet with tears. They smiled gratefully at the chance to have experienced Flo in her ancient, serene wisdom. It was a split second interaction but I knew, somehow, that it meant the end.

The next morning, as I helped Flo hobble out to pee—I noticed that her urine was filled with pus and blood. She became very anxious, and was agitated all morning.

She cocked her eyebrow up and squared me with her eyes, as if to say, “Really! Carol, you’ve got to do something. I am done!”

She was panting hoarsely. I realized she was in pain. I called Jim and told him that today was the day. He said he would be there in the evening as soon as his office hours were over.

All day, Flo was anxious and looked frightened. She knew. Finally, I started chanting to her. I sang repeatedly:

The river, she is flowing…
Flowing and growing.
The river, she is flowing…
Down to the sea.
Mother carry me…
Your dog I shall always be.
Mother carry me…
Down to the sea.

This seemed to soothe and comfort her tremendously. I must’ve sung it to her a hundred times. Oh, I loved this dog so much. My protector. My best friend. I so didn’t want to see her in pain like this. Please, Jim…hurry.

I said to her, “I know you think I’m a knucklehead and that you need to protect me. But I’ll be okay…honest. You can go now. You’ve done a terrific job. I will see you on the Otherside.”

My dear friend, Kudra, came to be with us that evening for the crossing over. We sat quietly talking and waiting, with Flo lying between us on the couch. Flo seemed more at ease then. Jim arrived and I told him that we were ready. Jim crouched down in front of us and shaved a small area on Flo’s leg. Then he injected his lethal potion. Tom, Kudra and I had our hands on Flo as we felt her breathing still. Her head was in my lap and she closed her eyes…and she was gone.

With tears streaming down our faces, we wrapped her in some rich brocade fabric I had and we made a beautiful shroud by wrapping brightly colored ribbons around and around her. I adorned her with some antique Celtic silver jewelry. Kudra lit a nine-day candle. Tom dug a grave next to Ken’s memorial bench. We placed Flo gently in the ground—her snout facing East. I sat by her grave for a long time.

Godspeed, my good friend. May your spirit fly with the Great Spirit.

a

That was a long time ago. I’ve had other dogs since. I used to dream about her all the time after she died. Now she appears in my dreams only rarely. But, always when I wake after a dream about Flo, I have tears of joy and my heart is full. I know she remembers me. My Spirit Dog. She is waiting for me. She is waiting on the Otherside.

~Carol Leonard, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2013

For many years, I had members of a heretofore-unnamed religious group plaguing me by knocking on my door every couple of weeks. While I appreciate their fervor in wanting to save my soul from eternal damnation—and I agree, I probably require more assistance in that department than most—I feel that I am the captain of my own soul, so to speak, and I have the responsibility to find my own way to a safe shore or go down with the sinking ship.

Also, I belong to the Unitarian Universalist Church. While most churches have a cross over the entrance—the Unitarian church has a big Question Mark. We don’t tend to get rabid about the superiority of one doctrine or denomination over another. I don’t presume to speak for all Unitarians, but I’m pretty sure one of the core beliefs is that God isn’t going to bail on whole groups of people because they don’t have all the right answers—directly from the horse’s mouth. Besides, my God is made in my image…in that She has breasts and a vagina.

Because of my refusal to be saved by them, I swear I became a training ground for new recruits. There they would be when I opened the door, all fresh-faced with rapturous zeal. I would mutter, “Oh, for chrissake” and they would beam in agreement. Let me explain: I have a very long driveway that leads to a secluded property in the country that has a sign that says “Private Drive.” It actually takes some effort to find me…and because of this seclusion, I like to putter around outside in varying degrees of dress or undress.

The crowning invasion of my privacy was one day when I heard a muffled, “Help.” It was coming from the other side of my front door. I heard it again, a little more insistent this time, “Help!” I swung open the door and there was one of the proselytizers standing stone still with my dog, Florence’s teeth firmly embedded in the man’s wrist. Every time he tried to move, Flo would growl ferociously and sink her teeth in a little firmer. I wanted to grin and say, “Good dog!” but instead, I said politely, “I already have a vacuum cleaner, thank you” and I closed the door.

After this episode, I visited our local police to see what I could do to stem the tide of saviors. They said if I had a sign that said “No Soliciting” then it would be illegal for anyone to come down my drive for that purpose. So that’s what I did. I made a sign that said:
“NO SOLICTING—AND THIS MEANS YOU!”
and I put at the end of my driveway. It seemed to work like a charm for quite some time.

One day, on a blistering hot, muggy summer day, I was nailing up some wooden lattice on my grape arbor/outdoor bed in the back yard. On this particular day I had on a fabulous outfit—which consisted of nothing except a beautiful swath of antique, hand-beaded needlework that I got at a Native American auction in Los Angeles. The exquisite beadwork was on very soft doeskin that I assume was meant to be a bib front for a ceremonial dress or shirt. It was a beautiful piece and I tied it around my waist and wore it like a loincloth. There wasn’t enough material to cover my butt, but that was okay, I thought it looked stunning. (Please do not panic. Now, in my sixties, I would never attempt this look. It would be way too terrifying.)

I was sweating bullets. It must’ve been 102 degrees. I had rivulets of sweat and dirt running down my torso. The dirt caked under my breasts and in the creases and rolls of my fat. I was covered with a sticky film of grime and perspiration. My face was streaked with mud. That’s when I heard Flo give a warning bark. I turned to see some people getting out of a car in my driveway. The women had on dainty lace collars. My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe it. It got many degrees hotter as my blood began to boil.

My friend, Kudra, was working in the vegetable garden. To this day, she still talks about seeing this barbaric, prehistoric being—a dirty blur of slick skin and fringe and bright colored beads streaking across the back yard. An apparition that was slowly raising a hammer as it ran. I knew my bare breasts were swaying crazily from side to side as I ran but I didn’t care. By the time I got to the car, the hammer was high above my head. I was shaking with rage.

I roared, “Tell me you’re not soliciting!”

The group looked horrified. They dove, en-mass, into the car and screeched in reverse and peeled out down the road in a cloud of dust.

It’s been years now. I haven’t seen anyone since. I highly recommend this technique—kind of a knockers for knockers technique—to rid yourself of unwanted, evangelical visitors.

~Carol Leonard, Bad Beaver Publishing, Copyright 2013.