Thank you, sjerin and everyone who has said such nice things. About the yogurt. It is in one of the Bayou Tales...I will eventually post it here...but one of the first possums I got had metabolic bone disorder. I called a possum expert in California and consulted with her on what to do. She told me to mix a portion of all kinds of chopped vegetables with a portion of Purina Cat Chow....had to be that brand...stir it together with enough yogurt to moisten it. I hand fed the possum for weeks and she never got any better and eventually died. I found out though that all possums love yogurt...most animals do. And I started giving them all some, since it is a good source of calcium and they have high calcium requirements. The possum...well "opossum yahoo group" wouldn't let me join, but I became good friends with one of their members. If any of you ever received one of my possum Christmas cards, she designed them. She truly loved her possums...had just one at a time, but one was quite elderly....they have short life spans...at 4 yrs. old and she even took it to an acupuncturist to relieve her arthritic pains. Anyway, she was telling me about a possum she was helping rehab and they couldn't get him to take the medicine they had for him. Their method was to take one of those little Baskin Robbins Ice Cream sample spoons and try to give him the medicine from that. I told her....that's not going to work. Under the best of circumstances, possums will gape their mouths open. It is a common behavior...even tame possums will do it....it is a response to show their teeth and growl, feign they are ferocious...if that doesn't work and they can't escape, they may play dead, or even bite you. Anyway, the way to give possums medicine, you mix it in a little yogurt. They eat every bit of it. (So see, I could have taught the experts something.) :-)) I like giving it to little possums because it is very filling and even fattening. They are much less likely to chew on each other if they are full and sleepy. I have never had a possum develop metabolic bone disorder, out of the hundreds that I have raised. Meanwhile, back at the possum yahoo group, the original possum expert...the one who taught the one that I had the phone conference with...a vet in Orange County, California, who spent 17 years studying possums, died. The possums group was beside themselves because Purina changed the regular cat chow recipe in some way, and now they were afraid to use it any more. Some of them decided not to ever feed meat based foods to their possums ever again. It made me so glad that I wasn't a member of the group. I am sure I would have made many enemies because don't tell me that an animal with 50 razor sharp, triangular teeth should not eat meat. People who can't figure out simple things like that....get on my nerves. So I am not a member of their group but I am going along without them. ;) No. I don't get any vacations. In a way I don't mind because I have traveled quite a bit...but there are a few places I'd love to go again...mostly east of the Mississippi. If my husband is home, I can go like to the iris convention for Louisiana irises in Lafayette, La. It is just three days. I haven't been in awhile but would like to go next year to see my old friends. I really don't mind staying home....I love it here. I have a million things to do...I don't ever get bored. Sometimes I get sleepy though. We do plan to do some work on the place, as soon as my husband can get back to work. If I was better set up to take care of all the animals...chickens, horses, possums, pigs...it would be a lot easier. My husband was very sick with a UTI about two weeks ago. I didn't sleep well because every time he woke up, I woke up, and he was so very sick and it was so stressful, and I felt so run down when he finally did get well. I am just now getting my strength back. I felt so wrung out. But I am much better now. I am glad you enjoy hearing about the animals. I don't think my rehab group likes us talking about them because it is their fear that someone will think they make good pets, but I always tell people, they aren't good pets, but I think by writing about them, it helps some people to understand them a little better.

Oops, sorry for the very delayed response, MGMum and gemcap :-(. Thank you for your kind comments . MGMum: Of course I don't mind, I'm tickled white! ;-) gemcap: Thanks for your warm wishes, really appreciate it! Yes, we are truly enjoying our kitchen - a year later. Clean-up's the best part - so easy and such a pleasure! Yes, I did put in a great deal of thought into this kitchen and researched a great deal, too. Thanks for intuiting that! ;-)

What a cutie! I am so happy he was told early. My friend and neighbor never told her daughter that her dad wasn't her real dad...she found out at school from her friend who is in reality her half sister! Her friend and her share the same dad and she never knew it! Her half sister knew for years and when they were in junior high she told some friends and it got back to my friends daughter. They were 13 at the time and things have never been the same around their house. It destroyed the relationship between her and the dad that raised her since birth. Terrible resentment and it really put a strian on the whole famly. I think it's better to tell them young and let them grow with it. Zach is so lucky to have 2 families that can do this for him! He's such a cutie...looks like Caryn, I've always thought so.

Lisa - glad you're not sick of me. Are you feeling better? I got busy & haven't followed along, but I saw that you were quite sick. When I'm not totally self-absorbed, I've thought of you. I called the counter top company & was told that they could arrange for a service call... at a price. I declined. I figure if I keep damaging it, and don't want to live with the damage, I can get someone out when there's enough damage to make it worth my while. I really am thinking that a brown or grey Sharpie might diminish the look of the scratches enough to make me happy. No one else would ever see them unless I pointed them out, and then they'd probably say "but I can hardly see them."