Meditation

The sound of the shower shutting off means, to Dimitri, the morning practice of watching drops. The pet who is "no trouble" never gets any blog time and that's just wrong.

Ridiculous

Right in the middle of the day, them big eyes, open.

So then? I was driving home?

Driving away from a coffee house in the U-District I cut up a sidestreet. A quick bolt of movement slowed me down automatically, eyes darting for the cat or dog who had gone roaming.


It was not one animal but two, and they be goats! One stared at me dead on, curious, unmoved, unmoving. I idled, not wanting to scare them, hoping I'd see their human next. But nothing. A large bus loomed into my rearview, startling me out of my inertia. I parked in a driveway and headed into the street, shooing them back to someone's lawn. 


Useful and earnest 4-H presentations at state fairs have taught me that goats really don't eat everything (though they were trying), so I really wanted to find where they lived.  


A house with an open front door produced a guy who identified them as the neighbors' goats. We pulled them by their collars back into the front yard, where they live.They were very stubborn and stopped in their tracks but then when I talked to them they'd move again. But a doghouse was right near the fence so I think they might get out all the time.


Now I want three.

Murmuration

Canoe. Water. A sudden gift.

An Honor

So many people have written so beautifully of this great teacher. If you are a cat lover you know the power and the magic of a purr. The gift of it, the interaction, the knowing  you caused it in some ways and in other ways are just a lucky witness. Imagine hearing one from a cougar. 


Windwalker, you didn't mess around: Thank you for the gift of your whole being. 


I encourage a read of all the other testimonials because they all seem to agree: He understood the Great Wheel deeply and was urgent to teach it. 

And in this, Jean's testimonial, you'll see why the animals love living with Susan and Jean.

Margaret!

From my friend Margaret, comes the tale of Margaret, the baby giraffe. Her eyes are beautiful.  Most babies measuring 5 ft would be considered big, but newborn giraffe, Margaret, at Chester Zoo, UK is seen as unusually small for her species.  She is one of the smallest giraffes ever born at Chester Zoo, but pint-sized Margaret will soon be an animal to look up to.  Tim Rowlands, team leader of the Giraffes section, said: 'Margaret is one of the smallest giraffe calves we have ever seen.  Fay isn't the largest of giraffes and Margaret was also early which might go some way to explaining her size.  'Margaret was having difficulty suckling so our keeping team are now hand-rearing her. Read more...