I would have helped the babies as well. After all, it was interference with the Momma that put them in that predicament. We have skunks, racoons (VERY few), foxes, hawks (more than one kind), people's dogs & cats, and others. The worst attack on our chickens was a dog. The racoon got in the chicken coop one night, but our Roo stood up to him, and called us: we had no casualties. The fox got hit on the nearby main road, and frankly I was saddened & relieved at the same time. I was sad for the loss of a beautiful creature, but I was relieved for our chickens. I have helped wild birds and animals. I have a decent success rate. I have taken in lost dogs and and cats/kittens, and either reunited them with their owners or found homes for all or them--without euthanasia being a part of it. This story saddens me because all of the wildlife rehabs were unavailable in one way or another--even for just some information. I prefer Victoria's approach: action out of caring. I am sure she did not incite a population explosion in raccoons by helping here. I am sure many more than 4 will be run over this summer in her area by cars. We cannot micromanage nature. We can only do what we believe is right based on the information (or lack of) that we have at the time. As far as the ants being effected, what if one of the raccoons doesn't make it, becomes extra food for ants, causes a population explosion in ants, which means extra food for birds, the owlets get fed along with starlings who carry disease to humans. I personally know 2 people were seriously ill because of this. I still have no problem with starlings coming in my yard. What I am trying to say is that there is no way to know what happens. it is not quite the same as placing a fox in a hen house. At least the raccoons and their new surrounding s have a chance to seek what nature will deal them. As far as I can tell, nature prefers equilibrium. I like animals and will help again in the future. I like that everyone can put their opinions down here. It is always good to consider ideas other than your own. You go, Victoria. Robin

Dogs who have a rough time make the best friends. They are so grateful for your kindness and love that they bond completely. I have two greyhounds, rescued from the track and they are so wonderful. Don't be surprised if your new dog goes through a "second puppyhood" once she trusts you completely. I think many dogs who have bad experiences when young go through this play stage that they could not do before. Luckily, they already have gone through the potty training stage. I am so happy for you. Tina

Amy, Are y'all of Greek descent? It must be a tradition for the Greek churches to have festivals in the fall, because when we lived in Fort Worth they did the same thing, and I think it always was in October too. It sounds like y'all had fun and the weather sounds lovely. We still have tons of grasshoppers---take a step in the grass, and a cloud of grasshoppers arises from it. Usually they are gone by now, but we are so hot that I guess they just keep on keeping on. These are newish ones that hatched after the July and August rains. We didn't have many until after the rain finally fell. Nancy, I think animals know so much more than they can communicate to us and they'd teach us what they knew if only they could make us understand. When we have a pet die, we always let the remaining animals see the deceased one, sniff it, etc. We do that so they will understand where their beloved animal companion went instead of thinking it just disappeared into thin air. I also think the animals often know when one of their animal family members is sick because I've often seen the other animals snuggle and cuddle up closer than usual to the dying animal, as if to comfort it. I absolutely think that the remaining pets grieve for a deceased one after it passes away. When our beloved dog, Biscuit, was dying, he took me down to the 'graveyard' where we had buried his much-loved companion, Sheila, a couple of years earlier. He loved on the rocks that covered her grave, he walked circles around it, he looked me in the eyes and laid down there. My heart sank. In all the time she'd been gone, he'd never done that, and he had been in a slow, steady, recent decline, so I felt like he was telling me that it was time and he was ready to go. I told him no, that I couldn't leave him out there. So, he got up and relocated to the shade of a cedar tree about 15 or 20' away, scratched out a place beneath it, and laid down there in the shade. I let him lay there a couple of hours because he refused to come up to the house with me. As twilight approached, I went and got him and told him he had to come up to the house with me. I knew he was lying down there to die, and I was afraid that if he died slowly, the coyotes would get him that night while he still was alive. I couldn't bear the thought of that. I called Tim and told him that Biscuit was ready to go and explained it all. When Tim got home, we fed Biscuit his final meal, and we gave him 2 cans of canned cat food (because he loved stealing cat food out of the cat dish) and we knew he'd love being fed cat food on purpose. He did. He wolfed down that cat food enthusiastically like the treat that it was, then laid his front paws over the dish and laid his head down on his paws to signal he was done. Tim carried him up the stairs to our bedroom to sleep, and the next morning we made the final trip to the vet. It was so hard to let him go (his photo all these years later still is the wallpaper on Tim's cell phone) but he told us as clearly as he could that it was his time, he was ready and we needed to get with the program. The vet agreed. We buried him right beside Sheila of course. So smart, wasn't he, to know he needed to tell us it was okay for him to go? Then, several years later, when our Honey developed a brain tumor, she kept taking me to the doggie graveyard where Sheila and Biscuit were buried, and I kept telling her no, no, no. I wasn't ready to let her go, and the vet wasn't sure it was a brain tumor. He thought it might be canine vestibular disorder and suggested we take our time and treat her for it. If he/we were wrong and it wasn't CVD, she'd get progressively worse and we could decide then what to do next. When it became clear it was not CVD and was a brain tumor and we knew we had to let her go, I walked her down there and told her it was okay and that we could let her go because we didn't want for her to suffer (she had just had her first seizure as the brain tumor grew). We took her to the vet the next day. She now rests beside Sheila and Biscuit. I still am in awe of those two dogs, their ability to know it was their time, and their method of communicating to us that they were going to depart and we needed to prepare ourselves for it. When Honey's son, Duke, developed heart trouble and his end was near, he let us know---he stopped going for our daily walks--he'd always loved to walk, walk, walk, and just decided he was done, probably because his heart was weakening. I guess he couldn't do it any more. A couple of weeks later, we buried him beside his mama. It sounds like a lot of deceased dogs, but all of them were old and had been our pets (and they had been one another's family) for many years. That's how we went from 8 dogs to 4 dogs over a period of several years and it was hard to lose another dog every couple of years, but they don't live forever. I think Sheila lived the longest--about 18 years and Honey the shortest--about 8 or 9 years. Jet is Honey's sole surviving child and he is 12 years old and really gray-haired now---not just his muzzle and face, but his paws, chest, etc. I wonder how much longer he'll be with us. Jersey is 10.5 years old and she was our 'baby' for so long, but she is now white haired, having skipped going gray and going straight to white. One more thing about pets. When Princess and Ace showed up together, I told Tim I was worried that we were about to lose two dogs. He asked why and I told him that God always brings us a stray dog or two, or a cat or two, right before some of the old ones die. Sure enough, shortly after Princess and Ace showed up we lost Sam, who was about 15 years old, I guess, and then Honey, only a few months apart. No new dogs or cats have shown up lately, so maybe the pets we have currently will be with us a good long while yet. Shortly after Pumpkin showed up three years ago, we lost Spotty the cat, who was 15 or 16 at the time. It is almost eerie, but it reminds me that the universe works in ways we mere humans do not always comprehend or understand. If Titan is like our dogs, he'll grieve for his lost companion too, but also will be accepting of a new animal companion. I think our dogs warm up to a new cat even more quickly that our cats do, as odd as that sounds. I know you'll miss Daff forever, but what a blessing she was to all of you while you had her. Dawn

Amy, I guess I was in Texas shopping, but we had a long list of things to do at home, so we only went as far south as Denton in order to go to Sam's Club, and I guess we'll hit CostCo next weekend or the one after since it it a much greater distance to drive. We wanted to hurry back home to work on projects and to watch the OU-UT game. It was hot, hot, hot here yesterday so we were just barely hanging on and hoping for cooler weather, which finally rolled in sometime in the pre-dawn hours this morning....and not too long before our fire pagers went off (while it was still dark) for a multi-vehicle accident on the Red River bridge (because we never get to sleep in on weekends----it is like it is against the rules or something). Today was pretty mild, but tonight is supposed to be cold. We're looking forward to seeing what temperatures in the low to mid-40s feels like. It's been a long time since it has been so cool here. Tomorrow morning will finally be long-sleeve weather for sure. Amy, Pets in cones are the cutest and sometimes the funniest things. I bet that cats do smirk. I'm sorry about your mom. She's at such a sensitive age in terms of medical complications and it always seems like surgery sets off something or another in people who've reached a certain age. I hope she's better soon. Jennifer, Your chickens likely will eat the peppers and probably poop out seeds later that might (or might not) germinate. Pepper volunteers aren't a big problem. They're easy to pluck out if they do germinate. In a working (hot) compost pile, the seeds likely would be rendered sterile by the heat. If your compost pile stays cold and never achieves that sort of heat, then the seeds might remain viable. Nancy, It is my understanding that dogs should not be fed hot peppers because their stomachs cannot digest them well, and we've never tried feeding them to our dogs for that reason. I love cats and could have a billion of them were it not for the litter box issue. I remember about 20 years ago, I saw a house featured in BH&G magazine, and it was designed by the architect for himself/his family. It was in Florida and was very well-designed and with very practical features. I was entranced with one specific room he had added off another room (might have been the laundry room). It was a 7' x 7' cat room, and that was where they had the cat's bed, food and water dishes, litter boxes, toys, etc. It seemed like the cat could come and go through the rest of the house if if wanted, but all of its 'stuff' was in that room. I loved that idea of having a room just for the cat....though we have no such luxury as that here. When company was coming, or whatever, they just put the cat in its own room and closed the door and no one had to see it or smell the litter box or have a cat sitting in a guest's lap, shedding hair. It was such a practical solution that it made me wonder why every house doesn't come with a cat (or dog) room like that. I've been on quite a break from gardening for a while, except for occasionally harvesting, and I haven't regretted the break. I think the extra-long gardening season and all the heat/dryness got to me this year and just wore me out. We aren't expected to get cold enough for freeze/frost damage this week, so I should be able to coast along, just harvesting, for a while yet. I was looking at the surrounding countryside the last couple of days and noticing how much the pastures are drying out. That's not a good thing, but with low rainfall, low dewpoints and lots of wind, it is expected that the vegetation really dries out in autumn even before freezing weather arrives. Kim, I'm sorry dealing with your mom is so stressful. There was a period in time when my mom was like that (most of my life), and finally I just laid down the law and said she needed to change or we'd cut off all contact with her.---and I made it clear that I meant it and was not making an empty threat. She completely changed her way of interacting with us once she understood that being able to see her only (at that time) grandchild was at stake. I'd had enough of her crap, by then, and absolutely would have packed up and moved across town (as I threatened to do) and had nothing to do with her ever again if she hadn't straightened out. She was only in her 50s then, and it was such a relief to stand up to her and make it stick. I realize that technique wouldn't work with everyone, but in our case, it save my sanity and saved our mother-daughter relationship. Jennifer, It is hard to see our parents age and become less sharp than they once were, but that's part of the price we pay for having them around for so long in the first place. I remember when my mom was only in her 50s, I was sure she was losing her mind. My sister and brothers and I would laugh about it, but it wasn't really funny to see her mental sharpness decline. We always thought if Daddy went first (as he did, and as expected since he was 10 years older than she), she would lose what was left of her mind and health and would go quickly after him. We. were. wrong. He's been gone for 14 years now and she is still here....and still driving her children and grandchildren a little crazy at times. Luckily, her great-grandkids don't seem to notice how peculiar her behavior is at times. I think they are too young to notice. She's 88 now and I am just in awe of the fact that she has lived so long, because she never really has made any effort to live a healthy lifestyle. She lives on thanks to modern medicine, though. Good heavens. I wonder if Chris thinks I'm loopy now the way I thought my mom was when she was the age I am now. Hmmm. That is food for thought. (grin) I don't think he does, but maybe he really thinks I am a nut or half-senile and he's just too polite to say so. Now I'm laughing at myself. Bermuda grass just does that--and it is just one of the reasons we hate it so. My brother tried to smother it out by covering it with thick (6 mm) black plastic. He cut holes in the plastic, planted a few perennials in the holes, heaped up 2" of white marble rock on top of the plastic and 'gardened' that way. Eventually, after he'd had back surgeries and was not in good shape, I removed all the white marble rocks (it took forever) and lifted the black plastic for him, intending to add organic matter and give him more great soil to grow more plants, instead of plastic/rocks. Well, underneath that black plastic was long, white (from lack of sunlight) runners of bermuda grass running everywhere on the soil surface, somehow surviving beneath that thick plastic and 2" of rocks for over five years. Five years! I'm not sure anything on this earth ever has truly killed bermuda. Oh, I think it lets us think we've won the battle sometimes, but it always is lurking there, waiting to come back. Bermuda grass is evil. It reminds me of the running forms of bamboo. We had some neighbors when I was a kid who tried and tried to get rid of bamboo. After they thought they had gotten rid of it, they poured a concrete foundation and built a garage. Guess what? After a couple of years the bamboo came out from underneath the concrete, and surrounded their garage on 3 sides (not on the side where the concrete driveway was poured). That was in the 1960s. Finally, in the early 1990s, a guy who bought their house hired a guy with a backhoe to dig out all the bamboo but I think some still comes back sporadically. I have been able to get rid of bermuda grass by shading it out, but that only lasts as long as the heavy, dense shade lasts. If a tree or shrub dies and you lose the shade, the bermuda grass magically re-appears in the sunny spot---like it has been lurking there for years just waiting for sunshine. Okay, having more or less caught up on this one, I'm off to start the new page for Week 3. Dawn