The Kids, The Animals

By chance, when I posted the McGuckins Hardware link in my last post, I happened to glance at the store hours and found out that it would be closed at the time we were to meet our friends there. So, our plans changed last evening from going to Boulder to eating at a chain restaurant closer to home (expensive and fat/sugar/salt laden but tasty, of course).

We had a good time.

I just had a telephone call from our daughter, Audrey. She and her husband, Jonathan, live in Arkansas. They met on the Internet and that's how she ended up moving from Colorado to Arkansas. Here is a picture of them. Every time Audrey calls, there is usually some very exciting news and this time was no exception. They became the proud owners of a rat named Andy. They think, but are not sure, that Andy is a girl. This is the latest addition to the "animal house" that includes Starla (from the homeless shelter), Tina (a dog obtained from a cardboard box by the road) and Mr. Poopers (a 3 legged cat that was saved by Audrey from certain euthanasia). Apparently, there was another rat at one time, but Starla, who consorted with canine gangs and hung out with other assorted dubious characters while at the shelter, surreptitiously observed the mechanics involved in the rat cage operation, and whilst the owners were away, she opened the cage and dispensed with that rat. I've been assured that the cage has now been rendered doggie proof. Here's a picture of Andy the Rat.

Both Starla and Tina were named after characters in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, one of our very favorite movies. Yes, it's true, Merle and I are Napoleon fans. Here is a UTube link where you can watch Napoleon dance. It's a classic, really. Here's a picture of Starla, the only one I could find. She really is a very nice dog even though she chewed a rat. You Dirty Rat!

Audrey does a great impression of Napoleon. She has quite the knack for imitating and even creating characters. One of my favorites used to be her soulful rendition of the national anthem as sung by someone like Patti LaBelle or Aretha Franklin. It's too bad she never did get the chance to sing it officially at a peewee baseball game or a Star Trek convention.

Jonathan and Audrey will be visiting us in early November and I'm sure I will be able to fill the postings with all sorts of adventure stories after they are gone. In future posts, you will hear more about Audrey and I will be sure to post some of my favorite pictures taken of her over the years. I know she will be very pleased.

SPEAKING OF ANIMALS .......

Here is the praying mantis that came to dinner one evening some time back. We live on a hillside with all natural landscape, so our home is guest to various types of critters. We've had those bugs that look like a stick - just like the one in the movie "Bug's Life". We've had wasps, various kinds of beetles, butterflies, snakes (but not as many as we thought we would have here), frogs, giant moths like the one shown below, some 1/2" dark gray, segmented worms that get in the house, die and get hard, ants, raccoons, foxes, wild cats, pack rats and our very favorite - the skunks who lived under one deck for awhile and managed to wake us up many nights with their pungent perfume. So far this year, we have not had a problem, but that is probably because we had all of our decks replaced and it disrupted their home life. During the skunk spring and summer years we investigated all kinds of ways to try and rid ourselves of them. We live outside of the city limits and our neighbor apparently has shot a couple of them. Neither one of us is a sharp shooter or furry animal killer, so that was not an option. Another Internet suggestion was to trap the skunk in a specially made trapping cage ($$$) with food containing a sedative and then take the cage to a river and drown the skunk. We don't like skunks, but that was just about the meanest thing I ever heard to do to an animal. Plus, we figured we would end up trapping and sedating one of the neighborhood cats. I also read that if you spread moth balls around the property, it wards them off, but the thought of smelling moth balls was almost as bad as smelling skunks. We just waited and now it seems our patience has paid off. We won't have to "off" the skunks now.

That's about it for now. I spent a great deal of time trying to get the Starla poster into jpeg format that would download and ended up putting it in the scanner. However, I'm sure when I learn how to use the millions of Corel PHOTO-PAINT options in my new software, it will be much simpler (?)