Yay! My package finally arrived. All of your orders shipped out yesterday afternoon. I can now put my feet up and think about what to do with all of these veggies I found in the garden.

Ratatouille anyone?

Does anyone know if there is a boot camp for cats? If so, my brat-cat pack needs to go for some training. Since when is it okay to wake your human momma up three times in the middle of the night? I think the cats may have me in boot-camp!

SMB is out of town again and I think that may be why they have been acting up. They get extra needy when he is away and they know that I am the softie in the family and will sometimes let them sleep with me. Not this morning! After yelling at them through my sleep-deprived fog, I eventually got up and locked them in the guest bedroom. Take that, cats!

Hopefully, if I am someday blessed with children, I will not be such a meanie mommie. Kudos to all of you parents, particularly those with infants. How do you cope when your kids won’t let you sleep and you still have to get up and function at your job? Does your body eventually acclimate to being sleep-deprived and no longer crave eight hours a night? If I have less than six, I look like one of those zombies in Micael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video.

Unfortunately, sleep has been eluding me lately, so I have been extra cranky with the naughty beasts. I’ve picked up extra hours at the day job, meaning I come in earlier and stay later. The stay later part is okay by me, but I am so NOT a morning person! I once read that most right-brained creative types are night-owls. I always get my second-wind around 10:00 p.m., so going to bed before midnight is early for me.

Does the brat-cat pack not realize that I’ve barely slept when they rattle the bedroom door and whine at 1:01 a.m., at 6:12 a.m., at 7:05 a.m.? Either they were trying to weasel an extra feeding out of me or they just wanted to sleep in my bed! The sleeping in bed with me would be fine if only they would SLEEP and not step on my head or purr like a motorboat in my ear, while drooling on my hand or kneading biscuits on my chest.

Yes, we have strange cats. So strange, in fact, that one of them has actually figured out how to open doors. So we have to lock ourselves in the bedroom at night so the little beasties don’t barrel down the door. I wish I had a video of Potter opening the french doors. I’ve watched him do it before. It’s basically a body slam coupled with the precise timing of reaching his right paw up to pull down the latch. (I just realized that my cat might be right-handed, I mean right-pawed). Apparantly they are all right-brained like me, which explains the late-night restlessness… but not their taste in beer…

Welcome HOME, cows! I look out my bedroom window and see a field of cows in our backyard. This is one of the first indications that warm weather is finally here. For some of the herd, our land is their vacation home, where they come to summer and enjoy 10 acres of fresh, sweet grass during the warm months.

In addition to the assurance the cows give that we won’t ever have to mow at least 10 acres of grass, I find it comforting to coexist with these massive, sentient creatures. They spend most of their hours, heads bent, mouths munching, ambling along, in one end, out the other. They are very efficient at what they do. EATTING. Oftentimes they tolerate me enough to hand-feed them wildflowers plucked from our yard. This, I do through the electric fence that divides our territories. OUR turf. COWS’ turf.

IT IS AMAZING HOW QUICKLY A CALF LEARNS TO STAND. FULL OF VIM AND VIGOR ALREADY, THIS LITTLE GUY WAS BORN ONLY A WEEK AGO.

I SWEAR HE IS GIVING ME THE STINK EYE. DON’T WORRY, LITTLE GUY, I WON’T EAT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY. MY DIET HAS BEEN MAMMAL-FREE FOR OVER A DECADE.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE COWS IS “BIG RED”. SHE STANDS OUT FROM THE HERD (for obvious reasons) AND BECAUSE SHE IS SUCH A NURTURER. WHEN “BIG RED” IS NOT MOTHERING HER OWN CALVES, SHE IS ASSISTING YOUNGER MOTHER COWS WITH THE REARING AND NURSING OF THEIR CALVES. SHE IS A GENTLE SOUL.

We are so blessed to have this land to share with our friends and our friend’s cows. Very blessed, indeedy.

November 13, 1993 to April 24, 2007

She was 13 1/2 years old and still full of spunk until the day she passed. We’re pretty sure she had a heart attack. She was a blessing for our family from the day my dad and I snuck her home. I have to say, Mom, was not too crazy about her at first (hence, the sneaking Hershey to our home)… but after only a couple of days, Hershey had won us all over. She was the best dog I could have ever wished for. She was my first dog. And she cared for her family fiercely, although she was a friend to all creatures large and small. She made us better people and brought us together during some particularly difficult years. An angel stays until the work is done. And Hershey was our angel.

My mom wrote this poem about Hershey after she passed:

HERSHEY

I’d never owned a dog before
Nor did I want a canine pet
But when a pup showed up at home
I took one look at those brown eyes
And fell in love, to my surprise.

She was so sweet and small and smart
I took her quickly to my heart
A pudgy ball of chocolate brown
So Hershey was the perfect name
Our lives would never be the same.

We taught her tricks within a day
To fetch and sit, roll over and stay
Her favorite trick was catch the stick
Or chase the ball or frisbee for a treat
Then take a well-earned nap beside our feet.

She took us for a daily stroll
Through many a park and wooded knoll
She sniffed and ran and swam with glee
And never let us stray too far away
She herded us together along the way.

Her tail wagged with every touch
She knew we loved her very much
And she returned our love ten-fold
She’d never think about running away
Being part of our pack just made her day.

As years passed by her thick brown coat
Had more white hair around the throat
Her muzzle and her steps were lighter
Arthritis got a nasty grip
And gave her pain around her hip.

We knew her dog-years measured old
But she was worth her weight in gold
So when on one bright day she lay
And breathed so heavy in the grass
We could not believe that she did pass.

So Hershey is now a fond memory
Her life was so charmed and care-free
We know her sweet soul is enjoying a stroll
In dog heaven where she patiently waits
Til our family joins her past the pearly gates.

Right now Potter is curled up in my lap, purring loudly. This one is attached to me like glue. He follows me everywhere I go, even if that means entering my studio with me. He’s not too fond of the sound of metal clanking on metal, but usually he curls up in the other corner of the room, basking in the sun, while I work.

Almost one year ago, we discovered 5 little kittens in the woodpile outside of our house. We wanted to keep them all, of course, but agreed that two was a nice number, which naturally grew into three. Since we are big dorky fans, we named the 5 kittens after Harry Potter characters.

Hagrid, the orange Tabby in the pic, was adopted by our friends, Dale and Harriet. We just saw him last night. Lily, who is not in the pic, was adopted by a nice lady in Annapolis, MD. We don’t see her much, but hear she is doing well and plump as a pin-cushion. Potter, is the long-haried black with white socks and chin. Albus (Dumbledore) is the larger black and white, short-hair. Sprout is white with a couple of black spatterings. She is our baby. We had to feed her with an eyedropper when we first found her because she was the runt of the litter and couldn’t hold herself up long enough to eat.

So this is our happy little kitten family that we discovered in the woodpile outside of our house. Today is their first birthday.