Saturday, January 30, 2010

"Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived" by Ralph Helfer

As I posted in a previous post, I am an avid reader.  My latest read is "Modoc" by Ralph Helfer.  I am so enjoying this book.  The author has a wonderful "way with words", and you can "see" the book as you read it. 

Often, when you read a true story, it tends to be a little monotonous, but not this book!  I would highly recommend this story to all fellow bibliophiles.

To see my reviews of other books I have read, feel free to go to:  http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/245357

Friday, January 29, 2010

My Furry Children


After posting about strays yesterday, I thought it might be appropriate to introduce you all to my two furry children, both of whom we rescued from our Animal Control Center.  The gray is a girl named Willow.  We got her first, and then she started putting on a lot of weight.  We thought if we got her a little pal, perhaps they would play and she would lose some weight...enter the black and white boy whom we named Buddy.

When we first got Buddy, Willow, being the friendly gal that she is, was all about welcoming the newcomer.  Buddy, however, spent his time hissing and putting up a strip of hair along his backbone, making him look like he was sporting a mowhawk haircut!  The day after picking Buddy up from the vets (all animals must be neutered/spayed when you adopt from the animal control center) I headed for a week in California, leaving my dh alone to deal with all the growling and hissing.  He put up with that for a day or so, then had enough.  He says he chased them around with the squirt bottle whenever either of them looked like they wanted to pick a fight with the other.  By the time I came home at the end of the week, they were best friends!

Willow is the strong silent type.  She rarely speaks.  Buddy is a little talker.  When he was at the vet to be fixed, they intubated him for the surgery.  That intubation injured his vocal chords, leaving him with a funny little voice.  One time a visitor came to our house and Buddy started to talk in the other room.  She looked incredulously at my gray hair and my age and said, "Do you have a little baby?  I just heard them cry."  I laughed and explained that the little "baby cry" was from our cat, Buddy.

Our plan for weight loss for Willow didn't work.  Oh, they are buddies, but she would rather spend her time laying on the hassock, watching as Buddy streaks around the house.  The most exercise this gives her is the turning of her head has she tracks his latest path.

In the picture, the basket is really Willows.  She loves that basket.  Buddy rarely bothers to get into that basket as he is much to busy zooming around the house seeing what kind of mischief he can get into.  But for some reason this day, they both wanted to be in the basket, so they really squeezed themselves in there.  I just had to get a picture of that!  Aren't they great?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Animals are my favorite people

Today we went to lunch with our son and grandson.  After we ate and let Max play on the McDonald's playground for a while, we went to the animal control shelter in town.  There were several cats, and many dogs.  There was a little terrier mix that I thought was so cute, and then there were two black lab mixes who were wonderful.  Both of the lab mixes were females and smart as could be!  I would say sit, and they would immediately sit.  There was a big chocolate lab, too.  He was full-blooded lab, and is on the docket for distruction on Monday.  It is so heart breaking that so many animals that end up at our animal control center end up being put down!  I would take them all if I could, but that isn't possible.

There is something we can all do for stray animals, however.  If you go to this site you can click on the purple button and it will provide food for animals in shelters.  It doesn't cost a thing but a few seconds of time to do this.  In fact, you can set it up where this site will send a daily reminder (which is what I do because I am so forgetful.)  Here is the link to the site: 
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=3&ThirdPartyClicks=ERA_012810_ARS_Html

You may have to copy and paste into your browser, but please consider helping the strays in shelters by clicking daily.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I'm Back!





I haven't posted anything to the blog for a long time. I finally got a couple of pictures of the turkey cookies we did in young women's in November and I will try to post those pix, although I am very new to this and don't really know what I am doing. Okay, so it looks like I at least got the pix to upload.
I've seen some pretty cool blogs and pictures added in a much better fashion than this, but I'm still learning.
Anyway, these cookies are really easy to make, and the girls really enjoyed that night. It was a project that we were able to accomplish in the hour we have for activities. It can be really hard to find a project that is interesting and fun for the girls that can be done that quickly. Please feel free to comment.

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