animals

animals / Puppy Diaries — 10 Comments
21
Mar 12

Separated at birth? A tale of two Tebows.

Looky what I found under a car seat.

I love him.

I christened thee…Tebow II.

 

He sits when I ask him to sit.

He stays when I say “stay.”

No pooping on the floor yesterday for me to step into racing out the door to a teacher conference.

No needing to walk outside at 5 a.m. (Or 10 p.m.) No. He’s just happy to sit on my dash.

No black dog hair all over my white subway bathroom tile. Hair that NEVER completely goes away even after I tried cleaning the floor with my tongue.

No bumping my arm relentlessly as I try to type. No, he never gets jealous of my prolific, below-poverty-standards writing career.

He’s so very cute.

 

They really could have been separated at birth.

 

Well, I guess he’s not really Tebow the first.

 

iPhone Photo Phun

animals — 3 Comments
9
Mar 12

I thought you said “Go for a Coke?” Hydrating your tortoise.

I thought you asked, “Do you want to go for a Coke?”

Our Cinderella under the sea.

Which is I understand, quite uncommon for Russian tortoises.

No, silly. But she is in water.

Let me back up.

*    *    *

Yesterday, I stopped a friend at the store and inquired about her Reptile World of habitats she had built for her turtles.

It seemed  the turtle gods were against me. She  just had given all her turtles and their Central Park view digs away.

Too bad.

But then she said, “Have you ever seen it drink water?”

Actually, I hadn’t.

“Well, you have to soak them.”

Soak them? These are land creatures. That’s why I got them. NO WATER to clean. Of course, he has some water in a dish and I try to pick his greens early in the morning while they’re still damp….but soaking?

“They love it. Put them in there for 20 minutes.”

Hmm.

I went home and mentioned this to Cinderella’s keeper, my eight-year-old son.

Who immediately wanted to soak Cinderella at 8 o’clock in the evening.

No. I wanted to research this.

Guess what I was doing first thing this morning. Researching soaking your tortoise. Before I knew it, my favorite turtle wrangler was at my side with some manner of plastic container.

So I filled it with a little warm water and in Cinderella went.

Not for a Coke.

But for a soak.

 

 

She sat there a second. Freaking out I’m sure. But in a minute or two she started to drink.

Really drink.

That made me happy, but not as happy as it made Cinderella I’m guessing.

Do you soak your tortoises?

Is there anything else to soak I should know about?

animals / beach / iPPP / Pets / Puppy Diaries / Uncategorized — 13 Comments
11
Jan 12

So much to get done today. Then came Tebow.

3:45 a.m.

I got out of bed and already felt behind.

Stumbling in the dark to make coffee, I smelled…

A very bad smell.

Dog poop.

Now I had cleaned up a large mess yesterday. (At this point, I realized I was dealing with a case of doggie diarrhea.)

I turned on the light.

There by the door was a pile. Many sloppy piles.

The first minutes of my day were gobbled up cleaning and scrubbing carpet.

*    *   *

I sat down with my coffee at 4:15 to quiet my brain and reflect on spiritual matters. To draw strength from things which I believe but cannot see.

And as I looked around, what I did see is?

This place was a wreck. I’ve got writing that absolutely needs to get done, appointments with children and exercise.  (For there is always time to exercise.)

Overwhelmed with guilt on the state of this house, my anxiety bumped up a notch with how little time I have in the next few days to get things under control.

Sensing my distress, as dogs do have that my-Master’s-freaking-out-ESP, Tebow came over  and laid his head on my lap.

I gave him some love and got up to pour more coffee.

Walking to the kitchen and looking behind the couch, I saw a glistening pristine lake of dog teeter in the spot I just cleaned from the poop.

 

 

God spoke to me through dog teeter.

Forget it, Jamie.

Forget your house being perfect.

Your life at this moment  is children, a husband, deadlines and a pooping, peeing menagerie.

I hate not being in control. And I don’t feel capable to control much these days.

But I can rein in my emotions. I can chose to love, encourage and hold my children accountable.

I can love my husband the best I know how. Sans providing a nice straight, beautiful home when he walks through the door.

I can write awesome articles and turn them in on time.

And I can clean dog poop….

But that’s about it right now.

How about you? What was the moment that you realized….I can’t do it all?

 

animals / Life in Madison — 6 Comments
6
Jan 12

A muse to goats. I want one.

It’s amazing how an hour in a field can change one’s outlook on a creature.

Take the goat.

Before last week, my main memory of a goat was when I was about five and visiting some poor man’s petting zoo that smelling of hay. At some point in my visit, I felt a tug at the back of my coat. Turning around I saw a goat held the hem of my all-weather in his mouth.

This caused quite the panic in my little self — but I remained calm on the outside and darted away.

That’s when I learned  goats will eat anything and they are scary.

 

Which of course they are not. On both counts.

My children and I ventured out to Angelina and Mark Bellebuono’s farm on the last warm day before the cold — New Year’s Eve — I think.

Miss Angelina as my daughter refers to her. Miss Angelina is not only a goat herd-ess (or goat heiress) she is an amazing award-winning photographer.

But that day, we ventured out in the country to see her…peacocks.

 

 

And the chickens.

 

 

 

 

Then we trekked to the field.

I trust Miss Angelina, not with blinding love as my daughter, but I trust that she wouldn’t lead us to some crazed coat-eating, kicking critters. (Or so I hoped.)

For the next hour we sat in the field amongst their goats. And I fell in love. I learned all their names and how she raised many of them as orphans, feeding them with a bottle. And those whom she bottle-fed came and sat amongst us like the best-of-man’s friends.

 

 

Sniffing the coat. But that's all. :)

 

Dining on some privet.

 

Pearl, the Great Pyrenees, is their guardian from predators.

 

 

Then there was Lucinda. The baby. Angelina got the call that someone found this orphaned babe.

 

 

After a bit, Lucinda crawled up in my daughter’s lap just as a tired puppy.

They were so very dear.

Funny how spending an hour with something can change a lifetime of perspective.

If that can be said of four-legged hoofed creatures, wonder about the  two-legged human kind?

Any goat fans out there?

animals — No Comments
20
Oct 11

Musing on worms. And our snake.

What the heck is this?

 

 

Today, I stood in Wal*Mart staring at my list.

An item I scribbled looked like “worms.”

What in the world is it?

Oh yeah. I need worms.

 

*     *     *

Children do things and you say “It’s their mess to worry about.”

Then they bring a snake into the house.

This is really their mess to worry about. 

Then the only one who worries about the snake is me.

Well, I almost killed the thing because the cat was playing with it. I thought it might be poisonous and didn’t want it killing the cat. I called my teenager to come check it out.

So moments away from death, snake’s life is spared and carried up to teenager’s room.

 

*     *     * 

Every day I asked, “Did you feed the snake?”

“I will.”

His standard response to “Please mow the lawn.”

My seven year old was good about making sure the little critter had water.

With my son’s perpetual “I wills,”  I decided to forage the grassy plain and find something to eat for my newest charge.

The baby snake.

No problem, just catch a cricket.

Do you know how hard it is to find a cricket much less catch one? Right when you get about two feet from it, they fly a block away.

I was working on the porch and saw I huge cockroach crawling along the wood. I race over and scooped him up in my hands. (I really did. Even I can’t believe it.)

That’s how much I was worried about the snake. I carried a wriggling live cockroach in my hands upstairs.

He didn’t care for the cockroach.

So I googled it.

Garter snakes like fish and worms. Not bugs. I read a comment that they might take some cat food. I tried that.

No.

Finally I took matters into my own hands. And cue me standing in aisle at Wal*Mart realizing that “worms” indeed meant worms.

 You can get just about everything at Wal*Mart.

FYI. If you open them in the store thinking there must be some wrap over them, there isn't.

I brought them home and had my daughter cut one up.

We dropped it in and he wriggled right over.

And swallowed it.

I was so happy and so was he (or she).

Here’s my baby.

He's so happy now. (or She's so happy now.)

 

Do you have a snake that you worry about?

Or have you ever picked up a live cockroach?

animals / Life in Madison / Uncategorized — 2 Comments
1
Oct 11

Moos muse. Cow Day in Madison, G. A.

Nothing like a ton of cow flesh to get the Saturday off right. So children and I went down the street to see the herds loitering in front of the Cultural Center.

There were cows on the lawn.

Those to look at and admire their beauty.

And cows on the grill.

Yes, cows and people alike milled about the Cultural Center lawn.

 

 

There were faux cows.

And sweet creatures you’d really like to get to know.

I adore donkeys.

 

Cows that were inside.

 

.

And friends that were not.

Then there was this brave bovine who sacrificed his hot body for art — and look what he got.

See what happens if you stay out in the hood along all night.

Got Cows — in your hood?