27. January 2010 by admin.

Hershey and Taffy were their names. The only two canines to come into this house who could stand under a chair without lifting it up. Both of them were dropped off at the pet store where Pat worked; the animal equivalent of a baby left with a note “Please take care of my child.” In this case they were both of a broken home. Hershey was a male blue (blue is one of those misnomers famous in the dog world, because there wasn’t a blue hair on him – more like a grayish chocolate color), and Taffy, daddy’s little girl, was fawn.

Both the little ones went into the dog yard with Sam and Chevy. Now, it’s important to remember that Sam was about 70 pounds, with Chevy weighing in at about 60. But despite the heavy-weights, the dogs that ran their yard were the chihuahuas. Especially Taffy. She wasn’t about to take any crap from any of her other 4-legged yard-dwellers. There were 3 dog-houses in their pen, a world big enough for anyone to get exercise in. A small one for the chihuahuas, a medium house for Chevy and the largest one available for Sam. However, the one where the chihuahuas spent most of their time was . . . You guessed it, Sam’s domain. He would beg, cajole and make the most pitiful-sounding whimper, but the smaller dogs didn’t give up the large house unless they wanted to. This was especially painful to watch when it was raining. Then it seemed like Hershey and Taffy were being just plain mean. You might call Sam a wus, but when Taffy snarled, which she did whenever Sam or Chevy did anything to displease her, it was as ferocious as feeding-time in the lions den. I would have been intimidated, though neither she or her male counterpart, ever gave their mommy and daddy any lip.

We couldn’t let the small dogs into the house. Whenever they did come in, admittedly sometimes by accident, with their boundless energy and lightning-fast reflexes, the cats would scatter, barely having time to spit or sputter. Either one of the chihuahuas would pick up a ball 3-times bigger than themselves and fiercely shake it till it cried uncle. Godzilla, whom you’ll meet later, was fascinated by these rug-rats, and Cutiepie, Godzilla’s life-long companion, didn’t like these wind-up toys. Once Hershey got into the main body of the house without our realizing it, and before we were able to intervene Cutiepie grabbed the little boy by the scruff of his neck and shook him as though he were a rope toy. Hershey yelped and very convincingly played dead. It was a Sunday, so were were not able to get hold of our vet. We just put him in a dark, dry place with a blanket over him. Within hours he was back to his playful self, though he avoided the big black dog (actually black and tan, but again, more in a later posting)with all due caution.

I mentioned earlier that Taffy was daddy’s girl. Now, remember I am the guy that wasn’t especially fond of animals? Well, I didn’t like cats at all, nor did I want anything to do with small canines. Yeah, right. Those go under the heading of “Famous last words.” When we called the dogs in for the night, which we did almost every night in the beginning, then only on nights of really inclement weather, or on nights when birds of prey might likely swoop in and grab one of the chihuahuas, Sam and Chevy went right into their kennels, as did Hershey. But Taffy begged daddy to pick her up, which he usually did. Taffy buried her face into my neck, where I held her for a few minutes. Needless to say it didn’t take me long to warm up to small breeds.

After Taffy suddenly died (we never did figure out the cause of her young demise (she was only seven) called her in one night, and by next morning she was gone), Hershey mellowed to the bigger dogs, but still wouldn’t yield any ground if he really wanted something. He was one tough hombre. Tougher than almost anything. Except muscovy ducks. Those of you whom have raised ducks know that no matter what you do, muscovys are going to fly, unless you pinion them when they’re very young. Even at that I have my doubts that they will be grounded for life. More than a time or two a couple of our muscovy ducks would land in the dog yard. Now Chevy was famous for picking off anything dumb enough to fly sufficiently close to her snapping jaws. Chevy was incredibly sweet, but she was a hound dog, and a treeing walker fox hound at that. We lost a couple of guinea-fowl to her and at least a couple of quail. Now, if you know guineas you know they are not the shiniest nickels in the piggy-bank. And quail…well, quail are quail, and very difficult to control just because they are so small. However, when one of the muscovys found themselves in the chihuahuas yard, they just sat there hissing and complaining when one of the dogs got anywhere near him (or her). Nobody messed with these bundles of intimidation. I didn’t dare get too close unless I had on a pair of thick gloves. And even at that I wondered if I was going to survive with all my body-parts intact. All I can say is when they were around I was very glad I had not chosen to walk around naked (this is aside of the social ramifications, like scaring the neighbors).

In the words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that. When next we meet I will tell you about . . . No, I won’t tell you. Mainly cause I don’t know. But I do know I love to see you smile.

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22. January 2010 by admin.

I must apologize for having not posted for the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t inspired at all last week, and so far this week it’s been really hectic around here. But I finally decided to use a few minutes to jot a few more words.

For this entry, I have to fast-forward a few years. When daddy shows a picture of Selma, the usual, and most often the only immediate response is “that’s a fat cat!” Selma is one of our older cats, though we brought her home before Butternut, who was the last one to set up his litter box here.

Selma is a cat. At least she’s supposed to be. And she is big. At her biggest she probably weighed something along the order of 20 pounds. She now tips the scales at about 13 or so. Her weight loss was not the result of Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, nor of an exercise program (her legs aren’t long enough to reach the pedals on my recumbent bike). Just part of her aging.

The saga of Selma started at least six months before she came to live here. She was part of a home of what some call a hoarder and some call a collector. Whatever you might call this lady, she had close to a hundred cats when she became physically and mentally unable to care for them. An anonymous tip sent animal control into this woman’s home, where they found 96 cats in varying condition. Those who were still alive were very undernourished.

This collection of poor souls included the cat the pound would refer to as Selma. She was made healthier, fixed (ah, there’s that term again), and put up for adoption. She was skinny as a train rail when she met the other kitties here. Scrawny and scared to death of everything. We did all we could to make her feel comfortable, including a period of getting used to one room without other cats. She would come out of the room from time-to-time, warily so. And when she did it was to grab a few morsels of food and skitter back to her insular world. It was painful to watch, but we did notice progress, so the panic button was not hit. Well, not by Pat, but I had my doubts.

The other cats eventually learned to tolerate Selma, and when the little girl discovered she would be allowed to eat without harassment, she did just that. She ate and ate. I was beginning to wonder if she had somehow become permanently fused to the feed canister.

We have referred to Selma as our bullcat for some years now. In case you wonder why, picture a bulldog with it’s rolling gait, especially as it walks toward you, then you will get a snapshot of Selma.

This is Selma

The photo above was taken at Christmastime some few years ago. It’s hard to get a good look at her impressive girth, but you get an idea. Oh, and the ribbon and the reindeer atop will give you some idea how tolerant Selma is of our foibles.

The walk is not the only thing that makes one compare her to a canine. If you scratch her just right the hind leg starts going. And if she is laying down and wants to be petted, besides being very vocal about it, she will often turn over so you can rub her belly. What can I tell you? She is a feline-challenged cat.

Seeing Selma get onto a platform or a chair a couple of feet off the floor is something to marvel at. And probably cause a huge laugh, too. It’s like watching a repeating frame of film that directors will sometimes use to get a laugh. She starts to jump, runs in reverse, starts again and repeats the process three or four times. She will eventually get onto her perch, not the least bit insulted that she was laughed at. She just lays down and does whatever she does.

Selma has the loudest purr of nearly any cat I’ve ever known. If she’s in my lap while I’ve got the TV on I have to turn the volume on the television up. That’s almost an exaggeration, but not quite. She is loud. Her meow is more like a demand, but it does not sound like any meow I’ve knowledge of. It’s like a guttural version of “Hey!” And yes, it actually sounds like the word “Hey.”

As noted above, our fat cat is very tolerant. You can do almost anything to her as long as she is getting loved on. We’ve never tossed her in the air (I’m not sure she would truly appreciate that), but we have picked her up and rocked her in our arms. She just stretches out and enjoys the ride. She minds her own business but will smack any other animal that invades her space; dog, another cat, it doesn’t matter. Nor does the size of the dog at whom she takes a swipe at. She’s not nasty or mean. She just wants to be left alone in case some human wants to love on her. She wants those goodies all to herself.

Well, there is a ton of other things I could tell about our small bit of kittie tonnage, but suffice it to say she has given us a lot to smile about and just plain laugh about. And dear reader, that does it for this installment. I will try to be more regular and add one or two entries a week. Until next time, keep smiling. It throws people off-base.

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8. January 2010 by admin.

The first fall after our arrival, we decided to sell stuff at a permanent flea market “in town.” Okay, now I will admit, coming from a very big city, this is not a term I would have ever thought I would use. This word is something I would hear on Bonanza or some such TV show. But, still, any store you would have to travel to for anything was “in town.” And that, as you would expect, was pretty much everything. Oh, there was this dinky little store in “downtown” Josephine, but the idea of paying $5.00 (this was in 1994, remember) for a dozen for eggs was just too much for me to bear.

Well, we opened up shop in a city just north of Dallas. Of course, since it’s a flea market where most folks selling are not professionals, we had a lot of competition for the same types of items. As a result, we didn’t exactly turn much profit. In fact, we often barely made our rent payment.

But, all was not in vain. A few doors down from our booth was a couple selling puppies. Okay, I don’t approve of puppy mills, but Pat, being a sucker for animals of all sorts (I was still not convinced I was animal person. Patience dear reader. My being sucked in will become obvious as this blog continues), had to check it out. This went on a couple of months, till one day in the spring she came back to our booth with a puppy. The dog, I will admit, was cute as a button. I noted that he had large feet. I thought that just meant he was healthy. What did I know? Pat just smiled and handed him to me. Pat said he’s a catahoula, which is a breed raised to herd wild pigs. She said he looked up at her and said “My name is Sam.” I’d been with Pat long enough by now to know she was about as close to “Dr Doolittle” as I was ever going to come, so I didn’t even raise an eyebrow. I just patted the little fella on the head and welcomed him home, since I knew it was pointless to argue.

We came home with Sam, not knowing exactly what catahoula’s were like. Mind you, Pat knows more about canines than anyone I know, but even she didn’t know as much about that breed as she should have. For example, Sam had his own yard to himself, a pretty good-sized section of land we’d fenced off just for him. But we didn’t realize Catahoua’s, for all their size, were scared of their own shadows. When he saw a rock in the yard that he hadn’t seen before, we had to move it out of his sight or we would not get a chance to have a decent conversation in our house. He barked and whimpered at that rock until it walked out of his line of vision.Well, the yard didn’t turn out just for him. But more about the other denizens of that yard as we go forward.

The first fall after Sam was spending most of his day in the yard, after many trees had fallen bared by nature, Sam started barking and barking. Sam had a very shrill bark for a 60 pound dog; the kind of shrill that tore through your bones and bored into your brain. It did to me kinda like I imagined that insect that Khan did to the crew of The Enterprise in the second Star Trek movie. At least it had much the same effect. This barking went on for what seemed like days. Then we figured it out. And it wasn’t something we could easily move from Sam’s line of sight.

What Sam was carrying on about was a couple of fields over there was a horse standing in a pasture. During sunny days it was keeping warm by just standing still, letting the suns rays caress him. We were more than sure that the horse did this very often, but now that there were no leaves on the trees blocking Sam’s view, he could see the horse. And it was something different. Catahoula’s don’t like anything new and different, and to him the horse was invading his territory. Hence he barked…and barked…and so forth. By early February we were praying for spring and leaves.

As time went on we got one more dog from the puppy-mill people, Chevy. I gave her that name since she was a treeing walker fox hound (okay, let’s just pretend these dogs are pure-bred). When she was just weaned, as all of the animals this couple were selling were, she had round markings just above each eye that, to me, a creature of the city, looked like headlights. Hey . . . You find your metaphors where you can. Hence, the dog became known as Chevy. Very sweet, and the perfect companion for Sam. She kept him in his place, even after they were both “fixed.”

If I may digress for a moment (did I just hear someone sarcastically say “what a novel concept?” And hey, did the words “oh, here we go again” just pass my ears?), why do they call having an animal rendered incapable of making or having little animals of their kind “fixed?” I mean, if a child removes the wheels off its new wagon, you would say the child broke it. So why not call the practice of removing an animals sex organs breaking it? Now please understand this does not in any way mean I am against cutting an animal. Ultimately it’s the best thing for all concerned; the animal is healthier, lives longer, doesn’t have babies that may wind up being euthanized through no fault of the animal’s, and most of the time a better pet for it. But still, one has to wonder about the “code words”.

I mentioned that Chevy was the queen of the yard Sam and her shared. Chevy would more often than not steal Sam’s toys and horde them. Not sure why she did that, other than because she could. No, Chevy didn’t play with those toys. She just took them from Sam and kept them from him.

Then came Hershey and Taffy, our two chihuahuas More about them in my next installment. Until then, dear reader, have a great week. And keep smiling. Makes them wonder what you’re up to.

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2. January 2010 by admin.

The Texas triumvirate started to unravel when Herbie started spending more time at his owner’s house, mostly because as much as I was really beginning to warm up to dogs, Herbie just couldn’t behave inside our house. I have no idea what he did in his person’s house. Maybe the guy had a doggie commode (my guess is one wouldn’t have been enough. And how did Bob ever train that dog to use a commode?).  But there was no way that canine was coming back inside our new house.

Blue Eyes and White Boy spent most of their nights staying warm inside our place. They were both well behaved. Okay, White Boy wasn’t so much well-behaved because he was just a nice little doggie (the vet referred to his lineage as “lab mixed with something with short legs”), but he was scared of his own, or anyone else’s, shadow. And he was such a whiner. He would make such a racket when one of us drove up after working all day. No, not barking, exactly. More like a bark combined with a horrific howl that would normally attribute to a wolf in dire pain. Our guess was that Herbie’s person, who claimed White Boy was his dog, didn’t really give a damn about the white dog living in his house and just ignored him except when it was convenient. That poor dog’s spirit wasn’t so much broken as it was eaten away by neglect. As an example of this, his dry food was left outside, where White Boy was mostly relegated to. This would be okay, except here in Texas we get fire ants in abundance, and fire ants especially like meat. Of course White Boy had to eat his dinner with the uninvited dinner guests in attendance. Blue eyes suffered much the same fate, but was never affected in the same way. We think that the latter simply took care of herself more than White Boy did.

Blue Eyes had a ton of character, and was incredibly smart, as I alluded to in a previous posting. Her e is the best illustration of this: our newly acquired land was formerly farmland, and as such still had the irrigation terraces. Every afternoon Herbie would trot over to our place from his person’s house. At least the dog, obnoxious though he was, knew who his friends were and enjoyed their company; no, not us, but White Boy and Blue Eyes. And every day Blue Eyes would see him coming before Herbie saw her, and every day Blue Eyes would crawl on her Belly to just behind the top of one of the terraces. At just the right time Blue Eyes would jump out and terrify Herbie so dramatically I could swear I saw his ghost leap out from Herbie for just a few seconds. It was like watching a Merry Melodies cartoon. Herbie either never figured it out or enjoyed being scared out of whatever wits he had left. I’m pretty sure it was the former. Herbie was not the shiniest penny in the piggie bank..

Well, Blue Eyes met a very untimely fate. One Thursday evening, while dusk was fading to black, we called Blue Eyes in for the night. No response. Several calls later we finally figured since it was such a soft night out Blue Eyes had simply decided to enjoy the temperate weather. After all, despite her getting food and shelter within our humble home, she was accustomed to fending for herself.

The next day was rainy. I came home from work to see Pat and Barry coming from somewhere in the back of the house. I’d found out that Blue Eyes had not decided to spend the night outside, but had in fact gone for a swim. She’d gotten bitten by a snake and had tried to make it home. Our poor Blue Eyes had made it to within a couple hundred yards from the house. My wife and best friend buried her where she succumbed.

That was a few months after we had moved to Texas. We have never forgotten her, and she will always be remembered.

Herbie moved away with his person a year later. And White Boy was officially turned over to us after his previous person was nearly cited for letting the dog run wild. White Boy lived to the ripe old age of about 20, living with us to the end. He was happy, if a bit cantakerous.

I will tell you more as this year unfolds. Until my next posting, take care of yourself and those you care about. They may be the only people to keep you sane.

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1. January 2010 by admin.

Pat ran into a very dear friend of ours here in Texas today. Barry, AKA the water terminator, encouraged me to write more. So, with a tip of the hat, Mr Edwards, the irrigation expert (he runs his own irrigation company, Barry Edwards Irrigation), I dedicate this entry to you. Now, before you go accusing me of shameless plugs, let me tell you, that is exactly what it is. But I offer that only because he is a friend. Actually, without getting all maudlin and sentimental, I will tell you never was there a person kinder to two Texas imports than Barry. But besides all that, Barry knows more about back-flow than anyone I know. Before I met Barry, I just assumed back-flow was something that happened when it was time to drain the septic. And believe me, Barry is very clear when it comes to explaining that a zone is not just a football defense. So, Barry, this, bud, is for you.

In my last entry I mentioned the beginning of my love affair with animals, or what might be casually called “my life of crime.” Well, this will be a recurring theme throughout this blog. Animals define, indeed, embody, the love God put on this earth. They love unconditionally (okay, okay, maybe love isn’t unconditional with cats, but if you’re a cat person, as I am, you’ll understand that, while cats are more demanding, they simply deserve as perfect an existence as they can be given. The purr, they will remind us, is nature’s perfect sound. It is neither trill nor bone-shattering. A purr is simply a cat’s way of saying thank you for loving me. Now, scratch me there just a tad harder. Oh yes! Down a little bit. And so it goes). Though a cat defines “unconditionally” a little differently than Webster does. But more about the felines in our lives later.

June first, 1994, a day which will live in infamy. Our arrival in Texas. It had been a wet spring. So wet, in fact, that the mobile home transport company had to be threatened with a lawsuit to finally get my house placed on the five acres we’d bought. How did I know the wet muck jokingly referred as soil around here would cause tire tracks that would make the moon proud? A Mobile home?, you ask, your right eyebrow raising questioningly. Yes, the finest in disposable housing, made by people who swear up and down they are doing you a favor by selling you $100,000 worth of house for less than half that. The truth is you get $5,000 worth of barely standard shingles slapped together with spit and roofing nails for $40,000. That is just my opinion, but it came from experience. Don’t believe it? Try getting the floor of a mobile just a tad wet.

The first obstacle: the incumbent energy utility had not hooked up our electrical as of yet. The aforementioned Barry, who along with his wife at that time, were our new neighbors just the other side of our road, offered us a very long extension cord so we could at least enjoy a bare bulb at night. I mean, we were newlyweds, for heaven’s sake. Who needed more than a bare bulb? We accepted the offer, but as fortune would have it, the utility crew happened to be in our area that day (a Saturday, no less), and hooked us up before the sun set. I was terribly grateful, though in retrospect it was more a move of expediency on the utility company’s part. Nobody likes to come out to our town unless absolutely necessary. It’s not a bad place; just very out of the way and, therefore, inconvenient. Even today unless you’re handy with everything from plumbing and electricity to carpentry, you’re dead in the water. And remember, I am a city boy who never had to learn any of that stuff; and I have no patience for directions. Hence, very little gets done until it’s absolutely necessary. Hence my credit card bills. But, gotta keep the economy going somehow. Washington doesn’t seem to know how.

Okay, okay, I have gotten way off track. Let me cast out the reel, hook myself by my pants, and ease back to the topic at hand. Which is . . . Give me an A somebody . . . Animals!

Earlier in this blog I mentioned the three neighborhood dogs that were the first ones to greet us on our initial visit to Texas to choose the piece of land we would call our own. Herbie, Blue Eyes and White Boy. Herbie was supposedly a spitz. If ever there was an obnoxious dog, it was Herbie. Maybe it was his way of thanking us for the hospitality of letting him get cool inside our new home, but the first thing that animal did when we let him inside was to hike up his right leg on a corner. Needless to say Herbie was no longer welcome in our house. Then there was Blue Eyes. Blue Eyes was the first dog to show me how smart animals can be. During the month of mobile home life without skirting, Blue Eyes and her friends would rest in the cooling shade of the home. Blue Eyes was the tallest of the Texas triumvirate having shepherd blood in her lineage. And without fail was our watchdog. For no matter where we were in the house, if someone just as much as drove past the front of the house we would hear the inevitable bark bark, bark, clunk; the sound of the trio rising to greet the new menace. If we missed the barks, we would definitely hear the clunk. The clunk was Blue Eyes cracking her head against the metal frame of the house. This went on the better part of the summer (yes, my dear observant reader, this means it took a lot longer than 30 days to get the skirting around the base of the house).

There is more to tell you about the interesting band of brothers. More in my next installment. As always, stay safe, and have a great 2010.

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