It seems last that everything was contrived against me last night for sleep. Frist when I got home from pupppy class, Vega my 5.5 month old puppy had hurt her carpus and was limping. This sort of injury isn't uncommon with silkens of this age when their bodies think they can do more than the ligaments are really ready for. It's not a serious injury, but one that require 4-6 of bed rest. And keeping her away from her brother and he adopted sister so they don't roughhouse. She'll only limp for a few days, but reinjury is common if she tries running hard again too soon. So since she's not crate trained I gave her a bath and put her to bed on my bed so I could watch her all night. She was restless and unsure and contributed to keeping me more awake than usual. But it was the skunk trying to kill the chickens that got me out of bed around midnight to go run them off. I've not actually seen a like skunk in person, but I found that they heads towards you, this one wasn't running away until several missiles hit it. After that I wandered around they yard picking up sleeping birds and putting them to bed int he coop. I really need to get that second coop built. I may have the dogs do some light patrols after I lock up the chicken to discourage the skunk from returning and I have to figure out how it got in. Then I heard mice running in my bathroom lights. They actually make quite a ruckus that I honestly probably normally sleep right on through, but with being alert to the puppy and alert to more chicken issues it seemed like they were having far too good a party. I need to do some serious evicting. Then at 3AM, I finally had enough of Vega on the bed, I took her out to potty and put her in a crate with some chewies. At 4AM OnDit was having digestive upset and needed to desperately go out and I didn't get there fast enough so I had to carry her outside and then clean up her crate. And not by this time I'm just watching the clock telling myself I HAVE to get to sleep. I change audiobooks to a new narrator as I've now tuned into the one playing and will never sleep with it on. Somewhere after 4:30 I know I fell asleep due to the nightmares I had about cougar attacks and protecting livestock. How the skunk grew into a cougar in my subconscious I'm not sure, but it obviously did. And then at love 5:30 my alarm went off.

So tonight I'm going to try and find out where the skunk got in and fix that. And Hopefully Vega will be more worn out from her day at work and sleep on the bed better tonight. And right now the mice will just dance. I'll try and deal with them later.

Well my 32 year ended on a high note on Sunday. I traveled to Seattle with 7 dogs in tow for the Sirius about Dogs festival at Magnuson Park in Washington. I was there to volunteer for microchipping as well as to help introduce my breed, the silken windhound, to more people. There were about 25 or so silkens that came, more than any other breed there I believe. It was wonderful to see friends from California, Washington and Oregon again, each one of these shows is a mini-reunion for all of us to catch up with each other and see how our beloved hounds have grown up. It was also a very goo PR event for our breed and many people came up and checked out our breed booth and too cards to get more information. It's always nice to make new friends and Silkens are pretty good at drawing people in.

On Saturday was a veteran's and puppy sweepstakes and it was OnDit's debut in the ring. She had a very good time playing in the ring and that's all I ask of young dogs. I want them to enjoy being in the ring and show off, so I allow the fun and antics. Most of that disappears as they get more experience and you can tone down the excitement and still keep a good performance. She placed second in her class of two against another very nice girl. The judge had a tough time choosing between them and had us do extra moving to make a decision. Also in the puppy classes, Claire competed showed very well in her 3-6 month puppy class. Claire is a daughter of Space and Ember and lives in Mt Vernon with Barb Solga.

Sunday was an ISWS specialty and I had 6 dogs entered to show. First the boys were up and Fallon and Garibaldi won their respective classes and proceeded onto Winner's Dog. Dog shows are a bit like a tournament. First you compete in your class and then all the class winner's move up to compete for the best in their gender. So now I had two dogs competing for Winner's Dog and thankfully Barb Solga was able to pitch hit and handle Fallon for Winner's dog while I handled Garibaldi. Garibaldi was awarded Winner's Dog and Fallon was awarded Reserve Winner's Dog. I believe this is Fallon's first show and I was very pleased with his placing. Garibaldi is almost 3 and it's taken him a long time to mature and come into his own, but he's looking wonderful.

Then with the girls, OnDit again placed second in her funny style in the ring and having a blast doing it. Again it seemed to be a tight decision between her and lovely Lili and even though it was a small class, I thought it was a very nice class. Maralinga competed in Bred By (a class for dogs shown by the people who bred them)and won her class. She's a lovely little girl who is a very strong mover. She can use a bit more curve to her topline that I hope to fix in the next generation without losing all her other good qualities. Sony competed in open and placed third of three and fir the first time ever had fun in the ring. Sony is a very serious girl and rarely shows that she's having a good time. So I was very pleased with her showing herself so nicely and having fun. Maralinga was awarded Reserve Winner's Bitch and Best Bred By. Winner's Bitch was award to Kristull Daiquiri (OnDit's mother) and she finished her ISWS championship with that win. Daiquiri was also awarded Best of Winner's and Best Opposite. BOB was Tuscan, owned by Elessar Hounds in California. Claire returned to the ring to compete for Best puppy in show and she won it. What a nice debut for such a young girl!!

What a way to finish out my 32nd year. Here's hoping my 33rd is as much fun and rewarding.

Recently I've embarked on raising some chickens for eggs. I've got a few chickens now, but the numbers will be decreasing as I slowly get roosters versus hens sorted out. I've got some New Hampshires, that I think are a 50/50 split on boys and girls, but I'm still waiting for verification of that. One is starting to get aggressive towards me to some degree so I'm watching that one. I also have some Welsummers that are too young (at least for my novice eyes) to be sure on their sexes, though a couple of them are developing some larger combs than the others. And Lastly I have the Marans. I've got a few that are about 4 weeks old and a few that are 2 weeks old and now today some have arrived not even out of the egg yet. I do enjoy learning things and I can say I've learned a bunch in regards to the chickens with this process. Last year I had a few chickens and I enjoyed having them around. Sadly I didn't have a place for them to survive the winter so they became dinner before the weather turned too badly. Now I've got one coop and I'm working on building another coop so that they'll have a warm place to reside in the winter. I expect that I'll have some chickens available at some point, otherwise I'll have eggs coming out my ears;-). But the cats have been very tolerant of the invaders and the dogs haven't seemed to mind them yet, no the dog and the chickens do not share the same space:-).

It's been fun and so far I'm enjoying it, but it is a new thing to learn about!

It's been a bit since I've done a dog update, so I thought I'd get one started.

Silkenfest 09 in Missouri was fun. Java when back to Sandra for (hopefully) whelping in June. She was bred to Feyd but would have only been a couple of weeks along when when Silkenfest came around. I quite enjoyed having her and I'm sorry to see her go, but I know she'll prefer the climes of Tennesee especially when winter comes again. Her daughter here, Naya will inherit all the jammies that I bought for Java.
Appley from my 2006 litter came home with me from Texas via Lynn:-). He's done his job there as a stud and so he'll be available soon after I get him through his neuter and health testing and get him up to speed. He's been a very good boy here after the first night when he kept Joyce and I awake. Since then he's been a very sweet doll and I know that he'll be thrilled to have a family of his own soon.
Space, my heart dog that I took to MO to show did very very well. He's a very good dog and moves beautifully, and has a temperament to die for, when he's not being a prima donna. I'd hoped he'd do well under this judge based on the borzoi I saw she bred and he did do very well, taking home and Award of Merit. I'm very pleased with him and I'm thrilled that he's done so well in showing. He'll likely be retired soon as the show ring has never been his true calling and he'd rather just travel to hang out with everyone adn spend quality time being a lap dog.
Space's kids now from his first litter are all at their new homes. Finney and Copper left before Silkenfest to join their new home. Bekka and Claire went shortly after Silkenfest to their new homes. Vega and Time are here to stay and grow up. I'm really enjoying this litter and I can't wait to see how they grow up. With luck some of them will be showing soon and taking off in the ring. Space and Ember are both wonderful dogs and I'm very happy that I finally got to breed this litter.
Coby, Riley's brother is spending some time with us now until I get him ready for a new home. His owner sadly is facing too many health and home stresses to be able to handle Coby and his energetic self. He's a good boy otherwise, a bit overwhelmed at the moment at my house with all the doggie friends, but he's settling in well. He would do very well in a family with possibly one or two doggie playmates and someone willing to continue working with him. He enjoys working with the people he lies and could do very well in obedience or agility with the right person.

I think that's all the news for now at Tangaloor!

So I've been reading a lot in the Fatansy/sci-fi/Paranormal romance, call it what you will, genre recently. And through a friend that recommended this series to me, I've tried it. I'm currently in book 5 and you know I'm still not into the series. Yes I know you are thinking that I've made it through 4 of the books I must like it. Please recall that reading is an obsession. If I'm without real reading material, I've been known to read things like shampoo bottles or chemical labels. So really I CAN get through about anything. I may not like an author enough to continue (Kathy Reichs comes to mind) but I can get through a book I've started. However, normally I'm pretty voracious with stuff like this and read it fast and can't wait to get tot he next book. But this series I'm practically dawdling through.

Anyway, the reason I can't make it through this series well, is not the vampire blood=sex gay/straight/bi dilemas that seem to take up more time that needed. I really don't care who screws who, but just move on. It's not the weird anatomical difference that witches apparently have (and how they hid that before the Turn I'm not willing to guess0. It's not the strange were wolf related issues that resolve are packs and insurance. It's not the whole demon ley-line stuff. It's not the elves though as we all know from LOTR, everyone hates the elves. It the tomatoes.

Yes you heard right, tomatoes. Apparently in this reality a virus from a line of genetically engineered tomatoes wiped out a good portion of the human population. I won't even go into how weird that is, but this caused the Turn. Where the magical folks now were a majority since many were completely unaffected by the virus. As a result tomatoes are basically a black market product and found only in certain magical population areas. So I can buy all the supernatural nonsense. But I can't buy a reality that means humans don't have tomatoes, or marinara, or pizza red sauce, or tomatoes on salads and the list goes on. So note to authors, when messing up our reality, take care not to make it completely out of reach. I love my tomatoes and I'm not giving them up!!

It was a wonderful happenstance when I chanced across some phtoos of dogs and cats available for adoption and our local humane society. i always look around there for dogs that might be sighthounds to pull out of shelters to help them get to breed rescues, but this time what I noticed was more than the animals, it was the quality of the photos. I found they were by Michael Kloth and looked him up on the internet (michaelklothphtography.com) and I really liked his work. Then I ran across him on Facebook and chatted with him some. I found that as part of a thesis he donated time to the BFHA to take pictures of the available aniamls in an attempt to help increase adoption rates. And I'm sure he has! The photos caught my eye from the very first minute I saw one. I asked him if he did private sittings as I'd been noodling an idea for a while, but I'm not that level of photographer by any means. Grand ideas, but how to do it and this seemed perfect. So Last Saturday I loaded up all 6 puppies and both parents all washed and bathed and primped and cleaned for a photoshoot. I wasn't sure how things would go given the number and age of the animals involved, but it went far better than I expect. I think the worst of it was me, to try and keep the dogs attention I kept blocking light and tripping over the studio equipment. Despite that I think we got some great shot fo the dogs, if the teaser picts are anything to go by:


This is Space and his son Tim




And this is little Vega


I'm eagerly awaiting the rest of the picts. I can't recommend Michael more highly, he was a joy to work with and Judy, his assistant was wonderful. We ended up with Casey and myself and Judy and puppy wranglers and attention getters,while Michael snapped photos.

I really can't wait to go back with some of my other adults and get some really nice shots of them. So if you are in the area and want some great shots of your, your family, or your pets, please think of Michael!

The puppies turn 4 weeks old today and they are starting to become puppies! The larval stage is coming to an end and they are up on their feet, walking around and learning to explore their environment. This weekend I'm going to have to shuffle the living room around a bit and get them some more room to play in. I hope the weather is soon nice enough for them to make some excursions outside. Right now the gold girl is the precocious one, exploring further and farther than everyone else. She's got an independent streak in there, but she always comes running back when it's time for food. She did end up in the middle of a chase by Jones and Big Guy and that gave her a fright to have two cats hurdling over her. The silver girl and boy 2 are just figuring out the exploration possibilities. The girl appears to have inherited the nose poking gene and she was demonstrating to me as mightily as she could when she felt I was ignoring her The boy is catching up to his littermates now with the switching to food so I'm glad that extra calories is helping him out. He's got a very sweet personality and I can't wait to see him blossom some more as he picks up more weight. The two white boys have a grand time together and they are also very sweet and social. The whiter boy is a bit less sure of himself at the moment and relies heavily on human contact. If he gets scared he comes a running to find me and take some reassurance. The darkest girl has slowed her growth some and she seems to have a very mellow easy temperament, she likes to be cuddled and loved on and likes exploring, but is very people oriented. Annie, who is almost 25 years old has spending some walk-in time with them while I supervise. She's very tolerant of letting the pups touch her and lick her, but they can get a bit rough for such and old cat. She's doing her best to make sure that they are HER puppies also and Ember doesn't seem to mind. Ember has been a fabulous mom and is doing a wonderful job of taking care of them and keeping them clean. She's been attentive and doting and just great!

One of my favorite things I love about raising puppies is watching their personalities develop and seeing traits from the parents and grandparents some through. It truly gives me a sense of the genetic base for personality. Now I completely agree that external factors such as environment and training can affect behavior, I do believe that a lot of personality is just set in the DNA. For example the sire of this litter, Space is the son of Fox and Mystery. Fox has a few easily spotted traits that have come through his kids, one is many of the boys have a fairly large testicular size for the breed, another is that they use their noses to poke people to get attention. Space inherited the nose poking, but I'd have to say he was skipped by the other. Now his mother Mystery also has some notably traits, one is her giggling, and another is her smiling and a third is her tendency to only 1/2 jump up on you. Space has the giggling and the 1/2 jumping up and his 1/2 brother Fallon has the smiling. It's limited though since I didn't raise Mystery, Fallon or Fox from birth I didn't get to see them as tiny puppies to compare. However I've found one puppy in this litter that is, at this age, behaving very much like his father did. they both preferred to sleep in the sleeve of my robe and be carried around in it as long as I'd allow. And they were very happy there, upside down and licking my arm. I know Ember has a bunch of influence as well, but again I didn't see her at this age, so I'll be interested to see who is going to resemble her. My gut instinct tells me the gold girl will, but I've got nothing concrete to base that on. Another boy is very very happy and wiggly and I think he's going to be a lot of fun to watch grow up. In the last set of pictures he was thrilled to have his belly rubbed, wagging his tail, for all he was worth. It is truly one of my favorite things to watch.

Well really it began around Thanksgiving when I bred two of my dogs, but now the puppies are here and the fun and work begins in earnest. People seem to think that breeding dogs is a lucrative business, but unless you cut a lot of corners or are doing it commercially I can't see how it's good money. I spend a lot of money on my dogs so I'm lucky to break even over the course of a year, most years it's a significant loss. But things that go into it are the food for all the dogs that live here on a regular basis. Routine vet care for everyone and thankfully since I am a vet I can do much of that myself, but it can include vaccines, fecals, worming, health certificates, examinations. Then there is the emergency vet care, such as any for emergency illnesses or c-sections or accidents. Then there are all the necessary accessories for them; collars, leashes, tags, license, crates, toys blankets, fencing, pens, mats, bowls, treats, grooming supplies, and the list goes on. Then there is the paperwork, registrations, DNA testing for parentage, microchipping, transfers. And then the genetic health testing, we can test for everything but we try to cover all that is common for my breed, and this includes mdr1 testing for most litters. Now we are onto show fees, travel, airlines, lodging, clothes, and other event costs for showing the dog. And then when you finally decide to breed, there may be associated costs with that, like travel to the other dog, or vet fees for semen transport, and stud fees. And you notice I haven't even touched the biggest one yet, the cost of my time. The hours and hours I give to my beloved dogs in training, playing, loving, caring for, grooming them, chauffering them, socializing them, talking to new owners, doing housechecks, volunteering time for rescue and for my breed club activities. I do it all willingly and for the most part enjoy it, but make money at it? No. I do it for the love of my breed, to produce beautiful healthy silken windhounds that get to enrich boy my life and the lives of others.

Anyway, the new litter of puppies at my house just turned a week old. I've been doing what little socialization I can do with them now, primarily some placement of them on different surfaces, different temperatures and spending time with them smelling me and getting to know me. their eyes and ears will open up in another 10 days or so and then I'll start introducing more things like cats and toys and visual and audio stimuli. then we start on seeing the great outdoors, I'll start encouraging them to go outside after meals and sleeping to put down the basics of housebreaking. they'll spend time listening to audios of vacuums and children and babies and other dogs and then we'll start having visitors come to the house to play with them. some basic leash manners start shortly there after and introduction to some adult dogs to begin learning some manners. Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it easy? No it is not. It's a lot of work and I give up even more of my free time to do it, but I love the result.

So please before you plunk down you money at a pet store, think of people like me that work so hard for their breed and all we put into it and ask yourself if that puppy you are looking at was brought into this world with the same care and consideration and effort as one of my puppies.

Support reputable breeds and shelters. The dogs' lives depend on it.

It's getting time for Ember to have her pups. I've been looking for to this litter since 2005 and I sure hope that it is everything I dreamed of. Time will tell of course, but I do have very high hopes for this litter. Their sire, Space if my heart dog, he is kind and gentle and loving and sensitive to people. He's also a beautiful mover and is growing a full male coat now that he's an adult. He's too large to be my ideal, but if I could clone his temperament, I'd have a pack of those. Ember is a tiny girl with lovely angles and movement as well and has a ll the refinement I'm hoping for in the breeding. Her headpiece is just wonderful and lovely eyes and dark pigment and beautiful topline, I could just go on and on. Her temperament is a bit more high strung than his and she's more of a one person girl than a social butterfly, but overall I'm hoping very much to get a blend of his temperament, movement and solid structure and her conformation, angles and refinement. Of course I have hopes for colors and boys versus girls and only the whelping day will see how lucky I am in those hopes. Mostly for now though, I hope that all the puppies are born healthy and well and that Ember has an easy labor and is a good mom. If we get through whelping day with that, she and I will both have a toast to this litter. Thank you Lynn for sending me such a wonderful girl and thank you Francie for allowing me to lease Space's mom, Mystery.

Winter, especially around the holidays can be a crazy time for everyone and this year Nature joined the fray as well. Normally here in Eastern WA we have cold for winter, but not ever much snow that sticks around for any real length of time. Well this year we are getting our share. It's been below freezing for almost 2 weeks now and we've got about a foot or so of snow on the ground at my house. The dogs at first were over joyed, the horses frolicked in the white fluffies. I was glad of my forethought to get all the heated water installed and the hoses pulled into the garage to prevent freezing. Now, the dogs are sick of the snow, the horses are tired of the white fluffies. I'm still glad that I've got trough heaters and even more glad that the pipe for the horse water hasn't frozen just yet, I'm leaving it running slightly in hopes or preventing it freezing. I'm using the snow to refill the horse troughs, which actually works well. It's nice to put all the snow I have to shovel to some good use and save me dragging the hoses in and out. Also I've needed to get to the West side of Washington for the past two weeks but haven't made it. I'll get there at some point, but it's sure felt pretty frustrating to be trapped. It should soon be over, there's hope of 40 degree weather this weekend and that should give us some melting. Hope everyone else if having a good holidays and enjoying the time with friends and family.

Granted I always say that my job can be interesting, some days I have unusual requests. But today was ummm special. A project that some of my coworkers are working on required them to find a way to get the bubbles and air pockets out of grout samples. After several theories were concocted, vibration seemed the way to go. So many types of industrial vibrators were looked at and while all of them were powerful enough, most of them were too large to fit inside the sample container. Well guys,being guys, didn't want to face up to the fact that what they really needed they were not going to find at Harbor Freight. Castle Megastore, maybe, but those might not be up to the engineering standards. So they came to, you guessed it, ME for help. I guess since I'm the main single woman they figured I'd know where to find something that would work. I'm not up to snuff on all the types out there, but my friend Joyce, in CA pointed me towards www.goodvibrations.com and up we found a vibrator that met all the required engineering standards. And thanks to the people at GV for publishing those ever important technical details that helped us find the right tool. When explained to my brother about this purchase he was dubious at best. I told him he gets to defend this purchase for DCAA or I can just allocate it under"employee morale." Tomorrow unfortunately is very unlikely to produce such results as today provided. But I can always hope.

Last night I went on a Halloween Cruise here in the Tri-Cities. It's where people in costumes all climb aboard a boat, drink alcohol, dance to music and cruise the Columbia River for two hours. I admit halloween isn't exactly my thing, my brother got the serious halloween gene and if you know him, you know EXACTLY what I mean. So I went as a bloody surgeon, not my best costume, but hey I had everything but the dye for blood. My only problem is that the surgeon's gowns are really cover in completely stain resistant fabric and formula so it was quite a process to even get the dye to take and guess what, 95% came off in the first washing. Yup, why can't they make other stuff out of that fabric? anyway, I don't drink at all and I do think that this event is probably one of those things that is best experienced with the warm anti-freeze component of alcohol. I had a good time, but I still felt like I'd missed the boat (pun intended) somehow. That sort of event I guess is worth trying, but I feel pretty safe saying that it's probably not something I'd repeat. The cruise itself was lovely and seeing the Tri-Cities at night from the boat was great. That part I enjoyed. But I was sure happy to get home to my furry friends and some peace and quiet. My first halloween in a long time without a black cat in residence, and I miss them. I hope they are enjoying their holiday.

Last Friday I had two puppies make a trek from Kentucky to Iowa and then to Austin, TX where they boarded a plane and flew to Washington. I'll be figuring out which of these boys will be staying here and the other will be moving to Portland for a home with a lovely lady that I met in September. And from what I've seen it's going to be hard to choose between the two of them. Both of them are very sweet and outgoing, though Green is a bit on the quieter side. He can take a little bit of coaxing into something new and then he's fine. His brother, Red, is far more a leap first, oops afterward kind of guy. I'll be getting them out over the next couple of months and watching how they respond to things as well as watching them grown and change before I decide who goes where.

So I've got two little dogs here with no coat, Java and her daughter Naya and Java is beginning to think it's Jammie Time. Jammies are what I call the polarfleece clothing that she'll wear, pretty much 24/7 once it gets cool enough here. She's already a housedog for saaay 23 hours and 15 minutes of the day anyway, but she'll wear the jammies everywhere she goes. So how do I know it's becoming Jammie Time? Nope it's not because of the thermometer which is starting to dip into the 30's at night. It's also not because of the frost on my car in the AM, nor the earlier and earlier evenings. It's because Java raided my closet. My closet is where her 3 pairs of Jammies have been residing for the spring and summer until now. She went into my closet, got one paid of her jammies, took them into her crate and tried to figure out how, without opposable thumbs, she was supposed to get them on. Having failed with Jammie pair number 1, she went back for Jammies pair number two. That one worked out no better that the first pair. Unwilling to give you, Java headed back for Jammie pair number three. She now had three pairs of Jammie and her fluffy bed and herself inside her crate. She was still unable how to get them on herself, but now she at least had enough polarfleece for a pile to bury herself under. She proceeded to do that and I found myself laghing at her and she had finally figured out something that would work. I took pity on her later and put one of her jammies on her fully and she's been warm and toasty ever since. It will soon be Naya's turn, but convincing a young for excitable dog to keep her clothes in good repair could be difficult

Yup three's my soon to be age in Black and White. I've often wondered how I'll feel about aging, but so far it just means survival to me. So scratch another line in the wall, I've made it another year. And this year, I'm happier and healthier than I've been in a long time, I've got a good share of friends, and animals that enrich my life. Maybe things will just keep getting better. I guess you can count me in the "fine wine" category :-). Lord knows I'm an acquired taste.

Spring is starting to arrive here in SE Washington and I'm enjoying the change. The cold is lessening and my roses are developing leafbuds and it will soon be time to start pruning some of the older ones as well as see if some of the more precarious of roses made it through winter. I'm betting that my Wal-mart Queen E's didn't make it, most of them were never very happy at all last year. But I've got a bunch of roses picked out to fill in the spots. I was hoping to buy a bunch of Buck Roses this year, but the funds are going to be too tight for a ll that I want to bring in so I'll save that for next year. Griffith Buck has become a hybridizer that I really admire, he worked hard to produce some gorgeous roses that also were extremely winter hardy. I have a few of his roses here already, but I wanted to try and get more of them. I've got 4 places to get them from, some as far away as NC. But again that will wait for next year.

If I'm lucky there's a few roses that I'll be able to pick up from Heirloom in May or so. John Clement, the founder and hybridizer passed away last August and so some of his last roses are being released. I expect he'll have a few more int he next few years as seedlings he started will mature, but these last will be very special. I just found Heirloom last year and I spent some time with the staff there and I really enjoyed them as people as well as the great service they offer. I've got a couple of roses here that he bred, Sunita, Star of the Nile, Sunrise at Heirloom and some others. The Magician is a new one that I want to have a few of, it reminds me of a similar rose bush that is in downtown Richland. That one only blooms once a year, but I sure enjoy driving by it and watching the blooms change from yellow to scarlet. The Magician does the same, but continually. I can see it will have a very special place here.

And next fall I've promised myself that I'm going to find some bulbs to plant for color. Crocus or daffodils I like, so I'll be after some of those and working them into the rose garden to give some early color before the roses get going.

Ahhh spring!

I've had a candy craving recently and it's been Junior mints that I've been craving. So I indulged and bought some and over the last couple months have indulged that craving. And I noticed something. In the Junior mints box, most of the mints are soft and chewy and minty, but always in every box there is one hard, dried out sort of mint that seems like it's been aged more than the others. There is also always one mint that is stuck to the inside of the bucket that it takes some serious heroics to remove. So I was pondering the significance of those unique mints. Sometimes I feel a lot like them. At times I feel a lot older than my peers, as if somehow I missed out on parts of the youth they shared. My parents always said I was "four going on 40" so maybe I did grow up too fast. I'm trying to unlearn some of that, but at some point, it's just me and I can't do a whole lot about it. I'm not saying I don't have fun, but sometimes my definition of fun is on the outside of the bell curve to the people I know.

And then that lone mint stuck int he box. I wouldn't identify with it so much if there were two. It's always easier to be stuck in a box with someone else. I'mshy around people I don't know and it takes me a while to open up to people. So I do take a bit of dragging to get out of my box. For the most part, I like my box and my world that I'm in. But sometimes I long for another mint to share it with. I enjoy having guys as friends and I miss that. I like sharing a guy's perspective on things, serious things and silly things.

Well maybe he's in another box ;-).

Alison

Back in November I posted about a domestic bunny that had adopted us as her new family. She has been living off my horse hay stack and some winter grass in the pasture and she's helped prune my roses. But I still have wanted to catch her all this time and get her out of the weather and somewhere where she could be taken care of. Well this weekend I saw that she had had babies, when she had found time to have them I have no idea, but I saw three little ones in my garden that look like mom (dad must be a wild rabbit)and that really put me into motion on catching them. Usiung a humane trap I caught the babies, a fortunate snowfall helped cover their food supplies and made my offering of hay that much more enticing. I still wasn't sure how to get a hold of mom, who was much more experienced on finding food and didn't need the bribes so much. Well providence and quick reflexes helped me out. I was crawling under the tarp on my haystack and the noise of the wind and tarp hid my entry. Mom was up on a hale bale and didn't notice my approach. i stuck up on her and with a quick lunge got a hold of her. I then carried her inside and reunited her with her babies. Now what to do with the bunch. There is no rabbit rescue and while I'd found a friend that wanted the one original rabbit, but I didn't know if she'd want all four. I called around to people I knew and no one had any great suggestions so I waited and for my friend to get a hold of me and bless her she took all four of them. She's got facilities to take care of them and will give them good food and water and they'll grow up nice healthy and tame with her. I'm sure glad that this story has a happy ending from when it started back in November. Bali however seems to miss his bunny friend.

Recently I made a purchase from an online classifieds section, and paid via paypal. Then later I saw exactly the same thing listed on Ebay and my radar went off. Email to the seller expressing my concern over the similar items and place it was being sold. They sent back an email that I assume was supposed to be reassuring, but was just plain odd given what I had asked. A few days later I sent another email, no response, then this morning I sent a third email and it was returned saying the account no longer existed. Well I'm in full on alert claxon mode by this point. So I've now opened a case in Paypal's resolution center and it should be interesting. So far I've not yet received anything from the seller. I sure don't expect to receive what I bought, but I doubt I'll see a thing. I alerted the classifieds section to the scam and I'm just ticked off about being taken that way. Typically I'm pretty savvy on that and had I seen the item listing on ebay originally, I sure would have been much more leery about buying it. The price seemed too good. And what a price to have paid. I hope Paypal can help get my money back.