Lukki, such a great idea for a post - thank you! This post got me to finally set up a Flickr account to be able to post pics, somethinhg I've meant to do for a long time. So, here's my motley crew, who keep my life interesting, oh-so-busy and never, ever a 'normal day'. The matriarch is a Siamese mix, Annie, who at 20 years is still going strong, despite failing eyesight and being nearly stone deaf. I've had her since she adopted us at about 6 weeks old. My beloved Chow Chih Nu, who lost her battle with lymphoma cancer at 13 (one of the hardest times of my life) - 2 years later and I still miss her every day. She was a treasured member of the family for 13 years. In memory of Chih Nu, a year ago we adopted Tuscon, a BMC, rescued from the kill list from a high kill shelter - this is her at 4 mos, curled up in a cat bed. And a recent picture of her at 14 mos., in a rare calm moment (she's a tremendously high energy girl!) So high energy, in fact, we decided she needed a 'sister' to romp with, so a couple of months ago we adopted 4 mos old Sierra, a Chow pup. This is her doing her impersonation of a calm puppy - trust me, it's just an act! These two have to qualify as the world's worst garden dogs - it's amazing the damage they've done to my garden while romping at full speed! But, hey - they're also sweet, loving and true clowns that make me laugh daily, so I look at it this way - now there's no reason to not hire out the mulching, because there's nothing the yard guys can do to my plants that these two haven't already done! And then there's my Yellow Naped Amazon, Coqui - he's at the very center of the universe, just ask him and he'll confirm it! He's 10 years old now, and I've had him since he was 6 mos old - he really, truly does think he's in charge, and is often heard telling the pups to 'stop, stop' when they're barking or romping in the family room. The final furred/feathered member of the family is Aradia, my 16 year old Persian mix. It's impossible to take a good picture of her because she walks right up to the lens, even of a phone. She's been battling hyperthroidism for the past 2 years, and even with twice daily doses of thyroid meds has dropped from 16 lbs down to about 4.5 lbs. Think of the "Grisabella, the Glamour Cat' song from Cats and that's a good description of my poor Rady-girl. She knows she's still beautiful, and so do we. So, that's my merry band of hooligans - the Koi don't count in this because they stay nicely in their ponds and are only demanding at feeding time. :-)

It's sad the way some folks treat their animals and have the nerve to say they love them. Pets/animals are so often seen 'as easy come easy go' and it's g-d's will, etc on how long they'll live, and how they die. But pet ownership is very subjective. The way I treat my pets may not be your way, and it's hard not to judge others. When they allow their animals to be in harms way or dangerous to their own community, well then I feel I can judge. But my friend who has 3 dogs, I know she loves them, but they're untrained, and so filthy, it's sad to me that she has them. Yet I have a hard time saying she shouldn't have them all (and the 5 cats, ugh too many pets in one house for me!) It's awful to think those horses could get loose, and break a leg and suffer yet the owners are so...casual about it. I bet they'd get another horse to take its place too. Pity the person who finds the injured horse though, that would be traumatic to experience. What about carrying some yummy smelly treats for the dog? Try to get it on your side. I know that may be encouraging it to come over but it sounds like that's going to keep happening anyway. Good luck, that's one of the drawbacks of country life I guess. I wouldn't know, being a city slicker myself:)

Kaiser, our Rottie, is the sweetest guy. He's only 15 months old, so still very puppy like attitude. He loves to go to PetSmart, only problem he gets really excited when we first get there. Takes him a few minutes to realize it socializing and shopping time, then he calms down. Majority of the people scoop their little dogs up, grab their kids, and head the other direction when we are shopping. The people that aren't bothered by him will come up and ask to pet him, he immediately puts his "hand" out to shake when they ask. He loves to go to the bird area and watch the birds in the cages. One day we were watching the birds and a little girl that was about 5 and as tall as Kaiser walks up (no parent in sight) and asked if she could pet him. He immediately shakes and gives her a kiss. Still no parent. She tells me she likes him and he smells good, continues to pet and kiss him. Still no parent. She wraps an arm around his neck and they both watch the birds about 5 minutes go by. Finally, a parent frozen in place and wearing a horrified expression. I introduced us and explained that I watched her daughter for the last 10 minutes and Kaiser kept her company. She began to loosen up a bit and explained she was terrified of them because of their reputation. The little girl explained to her mom that he was the "most nicest dog ever" and refused to leave until her mom shook hands with him and gave him a kiss. Mom did and spent about 15 minutes loving on him. Little girl kissed him and hugged him bye. It was such a sweet moment, with the little girl loving on him and a mom that left with a little more knowledge and a changed opinion.

One of the current problems with recycling is that China used to take a lot of the plastic film and mixed plastics, but stopped. I figure demand drives the business, so I still put them in the city recycling pickup (they didn't say not to) even though I know a lot of it must go to landfill. Most of my kitchen garbage is paper, like kleenex. There's not much of it. A little food garbage. Lots of vegetable remains that go to compost. A bigger bag of recycling, but little mass--mostly air. It's not that I go out of my way to use less packaging, but the kinds of things I buy and the places I choose to shop, don't have that much excess packaging. I'm weirded out when I get a stray package that has a lot of excess stuff. I think there's hope in general. They're trying to come up with packaging that doesn't require an additional plastic bag once it's open, even if they're not entirely successful yet. They're using more recycled paper internal packaging rather than plastic. Lego announced that they were switching to paper for that because the children asked for it, but I don't know what kind of paper. I received one product which was trying with a paper tray, but then had a heat sealed plastic film cover over it. They haven't gotten it figured out yet, but it was still minimal mass of packaging, so maybe a step ahead. Amazon is trying with their minimal packaging for items that don't require display packaging. As a child, I took an adult to task when she was picking up styrofoam cups for a meeting of a fledgling environmental activism organization, but she didn't get it. Today, we should think to foreswear even paper hot cups for bring your own mug. That might fly with the younger people nowadays, where the ones my age used to think that was too extreme. I have hope.