This story originally appeared in the Uinta County Herald in April, 2012. It is reprinted here by popular demand. I hope you enjoy it.

The thing about humanity is this: we tend to learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before us, and we alter our behavior accordingly. To that end, I offer the following cautionary tale, regarding the dangers of the seemingly innocuous carrot. Learn from my example, and live a long and healthy life.

If you happen to order vegetables from Bountiful Baskets, and if you happen to purchase the 25-pound bag of carrots, pay special attention. If you are like most people, and you buy regular carrots from the grocery, you can still learn, so don’t stop reading yet.

If you begin to eat a carrot, and one of your children tells you a joke, DO NOT LAUGH.

This is imperative, and the first rule of surviving the dangers of carrots. If you never laugh, you can still learn a thing or two, so please, continue reading.

If you do begin to laugh, and you inhale a huge chunk of carrot into your windpipe, it could be dangerous. You might end up at the hospital on the last Saturday of spring break, and find that the surgeon who could remove the carrot from your windpipe is still at Disney World.

If the surgeon is not available, you might find yourself on a Life Flight to Utah, to have a carrot removed from your windpipe. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but apparently, if you ask to go home, or you drive yourself to Utah, and you need to be intubated, you could potentially not make it to the hospital in a timely manner. Apparently, they can intubate a person choking on a carrot, if the need arises, on Life Flight.

When you finally make it to a large hospital, the admitting doctor might tell you to try to choke it up, which you could have been trying to do for the preceding three hours. You might sarcastically say that you hadn’t yet thought to choke it up, and thank him for the great, albeit expensive advice.

You then ask to be hung from the ceiling and beaten, which reasonably sounds like a way to dislodge a stuck piece of food from the windpipe, especially if you have been choking and pounding on your own chest for several hours. If you suggest that, the doctor might laugh. You can also ask to be punched hard in the stomach, but you probably won’t find a hospital volunteer willing to perform the procedure. At least, I didn’t. You could ask your worried spouse to pound on your back, while you hang down over the bed, but be warned that it could cause the carrot to move deeper, which is extremely painful. 

Eventually, a bronchial specialist could explain that the carrot is wedged in your lungs, and needs to be removed endoscopically, or you risk infection, pneumonia or death. 

So, you choose to have a bronchiotomy, during which you are fitted with a dental guard, which strangely resembles something worn by Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. And although you have been cracking jokes and choking for nearly four hours, it is virtually impossible to speak past the dental guard, and it might feel like a medical conspiracy intended to silence you. It is just a safety precaution to prevent you from biting down on the expensive medical equipment. 

And then, the nurse might prep you with some noxious gas that renders you quite sleepy, and unable to keep up the witty repartee of the last hours, but still cognizant of the doctors talking in the room, as they send a scope into your lungs, in search of the erstwhile carrot. 

And suddenly, you will awaken, and they will show you a large chunk of carrot pulled from your right brachial tube. And they will explain that if they had not removed it, you may have died, or become severely infected. 

And that is why you should always slice your carrots into thin strips before eating, and you should never let your children tell you jokes, especially while eating carrots. Believe me, it happened to me, it could happen to you. And that is why I have banned all laughing from our house.

Namaste, friends.

The pig experience came to an exhilarating close last week, when my three youngest children finally showed and sold their pigs.

Back in the spring, we decided to raise pigs for 4-H. You may remember my recounting Spider Pig’s journey to the farm, in the back of my Subaru. It turns out, pigs don’t travel well in cars.

After a long summer of feeding, weighing, and worming pigs, fair week finally arrived.

I thought I knew a lot about pigs, up to that point, but fair week taught me how much I still don’t know.

It started with getting the pigs back to the fair grounds. When they were cute little 97-pound piglets, they could be easily hefted into the trailer, for transport to the farm.

By last week, the pigs were each pushing the 300 pound weight limit. Loading them onto the trailer was no easy task. When a 300-pound pig charges at a 97-pound girl, if she’s learned anything at all over the summer, she jumps out of the way.

My good-natured friend cheerfully herded the pigs toward the trailer, and the kids began closing in on the pigs, trying to coax them into the trailer. As one pig reluctantly climbed the ramp, another pig in the trailer saw his chance to escape. He bolted between legs, knocked down children and fled to the safety of the mud lake at the far edge of the pen. The pigs learned early on that no children would venture into the muddy morass. It was a refuge of cool water for the pigs whenever we came to weigh the pigs. Finally, after more pigs had escaped than were on the trailer, someone grabbed a few scraps of bread. The food tempted the pigs  back onto the trailer.

Once the pigs were at the fairgrounds, they had to be bathed and shaved. Once again, I found myself asking, “Who knew?”

 Someone seriously suggested we bathe the pigs in buttermilk, to soften their skin.

Pigs enjoy being bathed and shaved less than they enjoy being herded onto a trailer. After a lot of screaming, by children and pigs, the animals were clean and ready to be judged. By the time it was over, everyone was exhausted. And this was only day one.

Judgment day came on Tuesday. As I pulled into the parking lot, Gunnar bolted out to the Jeep.

“Mom! Come quick! Sissy is crying,” and with that, he ran off, expecting me to follow.

Upon entering the swine barn, I encountered a sobbing teenaged daughter, who had apparently tripped over her pig, Bill, and had chipped her tooth on the stock fence.

I wrapped my arms around Samantha and tried to soothe her crying. She was on deck to show her pig, and her agitation was clearly upsetting Bill.

I stroked her hair, “Calm down. Take a deep breath. You’re upsetting the pig.”

I chuckled as I heard myself say that. Upset the pig? It reminded me of an old saying, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. You waste your time and you upset the pig.” Although we were not trying to teach Bill to sing, he was growing more and more agitated with the chaos around him.

 Samantha showed me her tooth, broken neatly in half at a sharp angle. I stifled a surprised gasp. It was awful. I could see why she was crying so hard.

When the judges called her name, she took a deep breath, swallowed the remainder of her tears, and marched Bill down the walkway to the show ring.

I felt a lump rise in my throat as I watched my daughter put on a brave smile and lead her pig around the ring. What a great kid.

At the end of the day, Samantha and Bill placed third overall, out of a couple hundred pigs, and Samantha learned a valuable lesson about pulling your stuff together in the middle of a crisis and doing your best.

By the time Friday rolled around, the kids and the pigs were all sick of the fairgrounds. The air was electric with anticipation when the stock show began.

Chickens. Rabbits. Lambs. Steer. Pigs. Finally, the Demander kids headed into the sale ring, near the end of the auction. Having never participated before, we still had a few lessons to learn.

Apparently, the kids are supposed to present a gift to the buyers of their livestock. Who knew? Let me just say, to Wendell Fraughton, Don Pedro, and Alta Construction, “Your gifts are on their way. And thank-you.”

Without a lot of further ado, the pigs were sold. The kids were happy until Saturday, when they went to clean up the remnants of the project.

There, alone, stood Bill.

Samantha ran to her pig, wondering if he had been forgotten.

We headed to the fair office, and were reassured that Bill’s buyer would certainly be back, likely soon, to retrieve his pig.

As we headed out to the barn, Don Pedro pulled in to claim his pig.

Hating good-byes, Samantha left so she wouldn’t have to see Bill, loaded into one more trailer, for one more trip away from the fair grounds.

We laughed. We cried. We raised some pigs. When it was all said and done, there were some lessons that I’d like to pass on for all of you:

Never, ever, ever give a pig a ride in your car.

Pigs, like the rest of us, enjoy a kind word and a good snack.

Nothing beats a good back scratch.

You can always do your best, even when things around you are falling apart.

Namaste, friends.

I often wonder if my kids ever listen to what I say. My lengthy lectures are usually met with rolled eyes. My angry outbursts bring glares of disapproval. When I try to share life lessons, I find my kids dozing in the back seat, lolled to a peaceful nap by the droning of my voice.

Occasionally, however, I am surprised by the wisdom of my children. In a fit of sorrow, as I cried inconsolably, my daughter patted my back and said, “Don’t worry mom, everything always works out.”

Although I continued crying, I was touched to hear my own words coming back to haunt me. Funny, they seem so much more conciliatory when I’m saying them, rather than receiving them.

My son recently began moving his Lego’s to our garage attic. He had previously used a small empty room in our basement for his Lego City, but found the confines of the room to be too containing. Often I would find myself tripping in the dark over helicopters, fire trucks and villains forgotten in the hallway.

During a momentary epiphany, I realized that we have an entire attic over our garage, mostly unused. There are a few boxes of Christmas decorations and some camping gear, but the bulk of space sits unused.

The older girls decided to make a craft room out of part of the attic, and hauled up tables, stickers, and craft supplies of all sorts. I think they finally realized that I am no help when it comes to things of a crafty nature, so they decided to find a place where I wouldn’t constantly hover over them, asking irrelevant “mom” questions.

Gunnar decided to recreate his Lego City in the attic, and to help him out, I swept all the Lego’s into a box. Much to Gunnar’s dismay, not all of his creations survived the sweeping.

I admit to being a little overly zealous in my endeavor. I am thrilled to get the Lego’s out of the hallway. I may have swept them just a little more vigorously than necessary. Some of the Lego creations may have come apart as I tossed them carelessly into the box. I’m not sure that had anything to do with it, but I am admitting to my part in the destruction of Lego City.

When Gunnar discovered his millions of Lego’s thrown haplessly into a plastic storage bin, he was less than enthusiastic about my help. He stormed out to the garage, insisting that he could get the work done himself.

About an hour later, he came into the kitchen, looking somewhat abashed.

He told me he was pretty mad when he found all his stuff broken. And he tried to devise a pulley system to pull the enormous box of toys up the attic stairs. As he hoisted the box overhead, he watched in alarm as it began to slant. Then, the box crashed to the ground, thousands of Lego’s covering the garage floor.

Gunnar said, “I was so mad when all my stuff broke. Then I thought that everything happens for a reason. So I figured I could make a bigger and better Lego City in the garage.”

With that, he happily bounded back out to the garage to begin the daunting task of sweeping up thousands of Lego’s.

I stood in wonder at the brief conversation. My eleven-year old son just repeated and applied something I preach to my kids every day. And he applied it much more quickly and cheerfully than I ever have.

Everything does happen for a reason. Whether it’s Lego’s crashing to the ground, a car breaking down, or your sweetheart breaking your heart. It is a waste of time to ask ‘why’ something happens. Instead, like Gunnar, ask yourself what you are going to create out of the situation.

You can’t control everything that happens in life. What you can control is your own response to situations. Your response is your responsibility. What can you make of the things that life throws your way?

Try looking for opportunity in the situations facing you. You might just find yourself with the biggest and best Lego City ever created.

Namaste, friends.