The Ballad Of The Bull

Our bull finally has a home! I just happened to be available to go with Boss Lady to meet the Cattle Men that are taking Ponson to his new home.

Through the Animal Services grapevine, Boss Lady was able to track down some Cattle Men that were willing to drive down from another county and load Ponson up and take him away to join their herd.

Boss Lady and I met up with the Cattle Men this evening at the rodeo grounds and got to see the action take place. The Cattle Men backed up their trailer, got the runs between the pens blocked off so that Ponsen had nowhere to go except into the trailer, and with minimal problems got him loaded up!

The whole process took less than ten minutes…it's amazing how quickly it works when you actually deal with cattle for a living. Cattle Men used a little batch of hay to lure Ponson towards the trailer. Ponson started to go for it, then decided he didn't like the idea of climbing up into another trailer so quickly. So he trotted around the run for a couple of minutes…checking out the horses and just bucking around. Then the Cattle Men got out a couple of long sticks to help prod him in the right direction…then with some shouts of "Hup!! Hup!!" Ponson was up in the trailer and shooed to the front. He was locked into place and given some hay, and then he was off to a better place.

Hooray for Ponson!!

Ponson checking out all this new activity

Loaded up, secured and ready to go!

Happy trails to you!!

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Today was another seemingly unassuming day at the office…

…or so it seemed.

I started the day thankful that I had gone in on Sunday and put in a few hours. I was able to get some of the tedious Monday morning tasks out of the way. Logging the weekend's dispatch calls, calculating and balancing the weekend's monetary intake, logging licenses sold. These are things that usually pile up on me first thing Monday morning…while I'm trying to stay afloat through the influx of phone calls, bark complaints and miscellaneous crap that flies our way first thing in the week.

This morning, I worked on organizing personnel files and correcting some paperwork. We were all in a jolly mood - laughing and joking as only our crew can. We were plugging through our morning and getting caught up.

And then it was ten o'clock.

Supervisor had gone off in the Mack Daddy to deliver some animals to one of our veterinarian offices for surgeries. Boss Lady and I were reveling in the fresh reorganization of her office that we completed over the weekend. Field-Officer-In-Training (FOIT) had declared today to be an organizational day for herself, and was diligently working on organizing her work bag and inventorying our excess uniform bits and bobs. The police radio was chirping away in the background…senseless babble that we keep turned on so that we have the appearance that we keep up with what is going on in the city. Meanwhile, in the shelter, Livestock Officer (dubbed as such because she's in school to become a large-animal vet) and our janitorial staff were seeing to the animals and taking care of the building.

I was chatting and joking with the Boss Lady, and was walking through the office when I was stopped cold in my tracks. I wasn't sure I had heard what I thought I just heard coming across the police radio…could it be? Were my ears playing tricks on me? It was one of those moments when I wished that I had TiVo for the radio…just back it up a bit and listen again.

I stopped and looked at FOIT and asked her, "Did I just hear that right? Did they say 'bull?'" Both FOIT and Boss Lady stopped and asked me, "What?"

"I think I just heard them (Dispatch) talking about a bull…"

Sure enough, the phone rings. While FOIT and Boss Lady are experiencing a new state of baffledness (we're all baffled at one time or another in our department), I answered the phone. At least this time M in dispatch let me get through my introductory spiel before he started talking. And when he identified himself, it was in a fit of laughter. To which I replied, "M…did I just hear you guys right? There's a bull loose?"

Yes, he assured me…there is a bull loose at the intersection of X and Y streets.

Innnteresting.

I confirm verbally to Boss Lady and FOIT that yes, indeed there is a bull loose in the city. Boss Lady is in denial - "It's a prank call…it's gotta be," she declared. M must have heard her because he said, "No…I've gotten a lot of calls on it…it's there." As I furiously scribble notes on my notepad, Boss Lady gets on her cell phone and dials up Livestock Officer.

"Get over here and get your ropin' boots on," she yells, "We've got a bull loose in the city!"

Understandably, this must have come as a surprise to Livestock Officer, because Boss Lady had to repeat herself.

As I'm writing up the call on our official log, I look at Boss Lady and I can see the wheels spinning. She's thinking to herself, "What the hell are we going to do with a bull?" She scurries to the key hooks and starts inventorying the vehicles we have on site. Mack Daddy is gone, leaving us with the van and the little truck. Hmm.

Meanwhile, Livestock Officer comes blowing into the building to pull on her uniform top and duty belt. The first words out of her mouth are, "Finally!! I get to rope something!!"

As she rushes to get her gear on, Boss Lady and I shout to let her know where to meet us, and we're out the door, FOIT in tow. Boss Lady and I jump into the van, while FOIT hops into her own truck. She's coming along to observe, but can't stay because she has an appointment to get to.

Boss Lady and I take flight out of the parking lot (almost literally - there's a HUGE dip in the parking lot that you can go airborne over if you're not careful), and as we pull out to the end of the driveway and turn onto the main road, I decide to call Supervisor.

"You must not be listening to your radio," I tell her, "because if you were, I would have heard from you by now."

"Uh oh," she responds, "what's going on now."

"There's a bull loose," I tell her, knowing what is coming next.

"A what?!?"

Turns out that Supervisor has just exited the freeway and is mere minutes behind us. We let her know where to meet us and we're on our way.

As we cross the main thoroughfare through the city and approach the next stop, Boss Lady asks me which direction we're headed at the intersection. Like I know…I have no clue how to navigate this city! Fortunately, the large crowd just east of the intersection offers us a huge indication of where we should be.

And sure enough, there is our bull…tethered to a tree.

The fire department apparently received an emergency call…it seems that in all the kerfuffle of having a bullwandering the streets just one block south of the city's main thoroughfare, citizens decided to try to get involved.

Did they think that the bull was cute and cuddly? Heeeere, bully, bully. A citizen's arrest, maybe??

By the time we arrived on scene, the fire department had managed to rope the bull and had him secured to a huge tree in someone's front yard. They were still in the process of securing the ropes when Boss Lady and I pulled in.

"Livestock Officer is going to be disappointed," I comment, "She didn't get to rope herself a bull."

And then, I've never seen someone take action quite like this…Boss Lady is right there in the thick of things. Finding out the whos, whats, whens, wheres and whys of it all. A couple of police officers were on scene. (One declared, "I grew up in the city of Compton…we aint' got to worry about things like this there!") The public is standing by. Livestock Officer is barreling out of the little truck with her lasso ready to go. Supervisor pulls up in the Mack Daddy and takes the entire scene in.

Meanwhile, Boss Lady is already on the phone…figuring out how we're going to get this bloody bull transported to someplace that we can store it.

Right. Somehow, I don't think that our chain link fence back at the shelter is going to manage to contain this one…

After a few minutes on scene to find our footing…when everyone and their mother has to come by and offer their take on events, the fire fighters are taking their pictures with the bull, some older man in a denim shirt is relaying a story about how a little old lady thought she could step out of her car and coax the bull her way - only to have second thoughts when it started to charge her, some incredibly sort and sweaty man is going on and on about making sure that he gets his rope back (I think he was the first one to get a rope around the bull's horns), a topless man in incredibly loose-fitting sweat pants (surely those things were a municipal code violation in themselves!) and long greasy gray hair is wandering around the scene offering tidbits of information, and people are just walking up to the thing thinking that a petting zoo has sprung up in the middle of the city...Boss Lady has finally organized a game planand managed to pull transportation for the bull out of her ass. We'll use the mounted patrol's truck and trailer to haul the beast out to the rodeo grounds and store it in a pen there.

So Livestock Officer and I take off in the little truck and head to the police department to pick up the truck and trailer. It takes awhile to track down the keys, get the truck and make sure the trailer is still hooked up and ready to go. But we eventually get everything sorted out and are back on scene before too much time has elapsed.

Pulling back up to the scene behind the wheel of the little truck, I am amazed at the sight before me. There is Adoption Center Employee (ACE), on scene and helping with the bull. And it's her day off! It's like de ja vu!!  I whip the little truck into a parking spot and cross the street, declaring, "Well, look who it is! The Adoption Center Employee!!"

I quickly follow up with, "You know, that thing isn't going to be adoptable."

She just laughed. Apparently, she had been across town, unwittingly running personal errands when her phone rang. It was Supervisor declaring, "Guess what I'm doing, guess what I'm doing!!" Having been informed of the morning's events, ACE dropped her morning itinerary and sped across town to either help, or watch the freak show unfold.

After a few minutes of organizing ourselves and getting our gear into place, Livestock Officer has managed to whip up a makeshift halter out of the sweaty wee-man's rope. Like she's a master of origami or something. The owner of the bull has turned up and is now under a barrage of questions. Is it halter trained? No, but I ride it sometimes.

What??

It takes ACE, Livestock Officer, Bull Owner and Boss Lady to get the silly bull moving. At this point, you can tell that Supervisor and I obviously have little to no livestock experience. We're just standing back and watching…supervisor making sure that everyone is moving together, and me with a camera snapping photos.

Yes, I've declared myself to be the official Animal Services Archivist.

The wrangler team manages to get the bull lead over to the waiting trailer. Everyone positions themselves and gets ready, and then they're coaxing the bull into the trailer. He's not too thrilled about this…apparently he's not too keen on going for a little drive. Livestock Officer is up in the trailer pulling the halter and calls down to the Bull Owner to twist the bull's tail. She later explained that if you want to get a bull to move, twisting its tail is the key. Apparently, that is also a surefire way to get a bull to take a massive shit all over the place, because that is what happened. Fortunately, Bull Owner was closest in proximity to the landing zone…

With the bull finally in the trailer and tied down to ensure that he won't go anywhere, we begin the tedious process of getting ready to go. But there is a small glitch in the plan…in the process of getting the bull up into the trailer, he tore off half of the rubber bumper. Livestock Officer is having a fit…she spent a good five minutes repairing this bumper before we even took the truck out of the police department.

Boss Lady is now in her prime operating mode. She takes one look at the bumper half resting on the street and asks for someone to go get a slip-lead. Yes…in the world of Animal Services, the slip lead is just as valuable as duct tape.There isn't anything that we can't create or secure with a hefty supply of these little nylon leashes. A little bit of wrapping, pulling and knot tying sees the bumper now securely attached to the trailer.

Amazing.

So in the blink of an eye, we've formed a caravan of animal services vehicles to escort our guest of honor across the city. Boss Lady takes the lead in the van, followed by Livestock Officer and the bull in the mounted patrol truck and trailer, ACE in her own SUV, Supervisor in the Mack Daddy and me in the little truck. We wind our way through the city, an honor guard of sorts.

In the police truck with the radio going, I hear Boss Lady log on and inform Dispatch to show Animal Services enroute to the rodeo grounds. Unable to skip a beat, I'm on my cell phone to Supervisor quipping, "And by 'show Animal Services enroute to the rodeo grounds'…she means all of us!"

It doesn't take long to get to our destination. We line up all the vehicles and locate the pens - and graciously find an empty one right up front. While Livestock Officer is backing the truck and trailer up to the pens, the rest of us are forming a game plan. I'm to brace one of the gates…with the intent of not letting the bull push through the gate and wind up in the wrong area. Supervisor is to use her body to block the gap to the left of the trailer, so that the bull cannot escape. The goal is to coax the bull off of the trailer and into the pen without incident.

Right. Like if there's any indication that the bull is going to veer off course and head in the direction of either of us, Supervisor and I aren't going to dive out of the way. We might be crazy, but we're not stupid.

Fortunately, the bull comes off the trailer with just a bit of coaxing, and no real fighting. Granted, Livestock Officer was pulling with all her might, and Boss Lady and ACE were behind pushing for all that they were worth…but it could have been worse. In a few minutes, he's in a pen and ACE, Boss Lady and Livestock Officer have removed the ropes that bound him.

The fire department arrives to reclaim their rope, and I am tasked with returning the other rope to the wee man that loaned it to us.

When I show up at his house to hand over his rope to him, he appears to have lost his shirt. eeewww!!

We all return back to our mundane existence, out in the Animal Services compound.  With the added bonus of throwing bull jokes around for the rest of the day.

Once again, all is right with the world.

We later found out that the entire police department had their radios tuned in and turned up…following the progress of our saga from start to finish. So happy that we could all provide a little bit of entertainment in their day.

In a weird twist of fate, I was wearing the same sandals that I had on when I went on my dog-chasing excursion. They're my favorite pair, but I'm beginning to think that they're cursed.

And this time we had one officer in complete uniform.

At least I got my morning cup of coffee.

Move 'em on, head 'em up 
Head 'em up, move 'em on 
Move 'em on, head 'em up 
Rawhide 
Count 'em out, ride 'em in, 
Ride 'em in, count 'em out, 
Count 'em out, ride 'em in 
Rawhide!

Light And Love

My heart swells with love when I think of my husband.

He is the keeper of my light, my soul and my heart. I can think of no other person that even begins to come close to the goodness that is encompassed by his being.

I admire him, I adore him, I love him.

He is always willing to make sacrifices that will lead to a better life for us. I can not think of any other person that would do the things that he has done for me…for us.

It can be lonely being here alone. Spending long stretches of time without him as a constant and daily presence in my life. But he is here…in a way.

Others cannot see how it can be done.

But I am not truly alone - I have his heart here with me.

I have his love.

Comfort And Companionship

My constant companions…my dogs.

They are always here with me - offering comfort and companionship. Love and loyalty. I would be truly lost without them.

They bring soul into my home. They sit with me, they lay with me. They walk with me from room to room, indoor to out.

They are lights in the darkness of lonely times.

Their faces fill with love - compassion - worry. They look at me, touch me.

Sometimes all I need is to feel one of their bodies leaning against mine. There is someone there. Another soul with mine. It is comforting.

A scratch behind the ears, a scratch under the chin. A pat on the head, a rub of the temples. Scratch the chest, kiss on the snout.

All this time I spend alone, I am truly not alone. I don't think I could do it without their comfort. Their love and support.

I am grateful for all that they offer me.

Motley Crue

Okay.  So we all know that I work for an animal control agency.  I am the office person – I manage the office, deal with the public and dispatch calls.  Generally, my days are full of a flurry of phone calls, taking complaints and dispatching officers out to field calls.  There certainly is a level of stress, but not all stress is bad stress.  I think it all keeps me on my toes.

 

But we have all noticed a pattern.  If we have a very quiet day at the office, we're all in for hell the next day.  That's just how it goes. We'll have a slow day, then we'll be too busy to possibly take all of the things that fly our way.  We've taken to not speaking the "s" word or the "q" word in the office, for fear of jinxing ourselves.

 

So today my day at the office starts off rather unassumingly.  Sadie and I show up for work as usual.  I'm taken a bit by surprise to see the personal car of one of our officers parked next to the building.  She has been working with us in a supervisory role over the past few weeks while our senior officer has been out on medical leave.  In the time that the Good Officer has been with us, we've pretty much managed to suck her into our world, and I think we've seeped into her pores a little bit.  She's no longer assigned to us full-time, but she stops by from time to time to see how things are going.

 

Sadie and I stroll into the office to find the Good Officer making coffee.  I look at her and my first words are, "See…you LOVE us!"  She laughs and tells me that she has volunteered to come in this morning because there was nobody on schedule to work on cleaning the shelter.  She must really love us if she's willing to volunteer to come in and spray poo!

 

We say our good mornings, and she wanders off to start cleaning the building and I settle into my morning routine.  (Minus the making coffee part…which has so graciously been taken care of by the Good Officer.)  It is still just before 8am. 

 

The phone rings.  I generally won't pick up the phone until I'm logged onto the computer if it isn't 8 yet.  But I look at the number and see that it is the police department calling.  So I pick up the phone.  Before I can even get through my "thank you for calling" spiel, the dispatcher is asking me if we have a field officer available.  Nope.  Not till 9. 

 

According to Dispatch, there is a momma dog and her pups that have been dropped off at an office complex on the corner of a pretty busy intersection.  Momma is wandering around in the street, and citizens are trying to catch her.  I ask the dispatcher for a description of the dog, and of course he doesn't have one.  Does he know where the puppies are in the complex?  I'm told that it'll be obvious where they are – they're in the complex. 

 

Uh…ohhhkaaay.  Well, then.  I tell the dispatcher that I can see if the officer that volunteered her free morning will be willing to go attempt to catch the dog.  We leave it at that, and I hang up the phone. 

 

I go to see the Good Officer, who is wearing galoshes and is in the process of starting to clear out the kennels.  "I hate to do this to you," I start, "but there's a momma dog wandering in traffic while her pups are in an office complex on this busy intersection.  Would you be willing to go try to catch her?"  I see the wheels spinning.  She's torn…oh, what the heck.  She'll do it.

 

So she returns to the office to put on her shoes.  Looking at her, I offer to ride along to see if I can help her out.  (I'm going to throw in a sidebar here…it has been previously noted in our department that I do not run.  Period.  I will scurry…I may even scamper…but I do not run.  The Good Officer is in the same camp as I am – she doesn't run either.  She has since notated that she is willing to learn how to scurry or scamper if it might make life easier, but run she will not do.)

We pile into the great big tank of a truck that we have – it is HUGE!  We've dubbed it the Mack Daddy.  It's an extended cab truck, with all the stainless steel compartments in the back.  You can't see out the back window, so you have to rely on your side mirrors and a backup camera.  To complicate matters even more, you have to juggle the key on one ring, and the key fob on another ring.  Because if you hop out of the truck and leave the key in the ignition, you run the risk of locking yourself out.  How embarrassing is that?  One of our officers did it the first time he drove the truck and we haven't let him live it down yet.

 

On the way to the scene, the Good Officer decides that it might be a good idea to contact the supervisor of the day and let her know what we're up to.  The phone conversation starts out like this: "You know you're in trouble when I volunteer to come in to clean the shelter, and the secretary and I end up going out on a call to chase dogs."  Our supervisor offered to come on-scene with us, but noted that it would only be to watch us in action for her own entertainment.  Thanks.

 

Then the Good officer suddenly seems to realize that neither of us is in a uniform of any kind.  No big deal for me – I don't have one.  I'm wearing a glittery Mickey Mouse t-shirt, my favorite capris and sandals.  She's in jeans and a t-shirt.  At least she's got her gun (!) even if she left her badge at home. 

 

We arrive on-scene and see a small, white fluffy dog sniffing around the grass in front of the complex.  We stop the Mack Daddy out front and hop out.  I step into the grass and look at the little dog.  I then look down at my feet and the slide-on sandals that I'm wearing. Hmmm…not only are these not suitable for running in, I probably shouldn't even attempt to scamper or scurry in them.  I might break my neck.  So I step out of my shoes right there in the grass and leave them. 

 

Well.  This little white fluff ball DOES NOT want to be caught.  The good officer and I spent awhile chasing it around the complex (I'm barefoot!) and soon see a second one.  So now we've got two little dogs to try to catch.  I'm quickly learning that dogs can be mighty difficult to catch if they don't want to come to you.

 

At some point, the Good Officer decides that we're not going to be able to get close enough to these dogs to lasso them with our little leashes, so she walks back to the truck to get one of the longer control sticks.  While she's walking back to the truck, she sees my shoes in the grass.  Her first thought is, "That's an odd place for shoes."  It takes her a minute, but it finally dawns on her that they're my shoes (remember, I'm barefoot) and throws them in the cab of the truck.

 

While we're working our way through the complex, an older couple decides to try to help us.  Even the four of us can't get the dogs.  So the Good Officer and I decide that there's just no catching these pups, and start asking where the puppies are.  The couple looks at us and asks, "What puppies?  Someone dropped off five dogs in this area this morning.  These two, a larger one that got hit by a car and ran off, and two other ones.  There were no puppies." 

 

Score one for the accuracy of getting your information second-hand. 

Well, the two white fluffballs are the only things we've seen in the area, and they've taken off down the street (technically crossing the border out of our jurisdiction) so the Good Officer and I decide to take off.  

 

We turn down the street we saw them take, and there they are.  Now it's like they're taunting us.  The Good Officer jumps out of the truck, tosses me the key and tells me to follow her in the truck (!!) while she takes off down the street to follow the dogs.

 

Uh…I've never driven something so big in my life.  And I have to back it up to get to where she's going.  Holy cow!

 

Somehow I manage, and get to the area where the Good Officer is with the dogs.  But they just don't want to be caught and take off. Again.  So it's back in the truck and around the way back to the complex.  We hop back out (I'm still barefoot) and circle the complex.  By this time, the supervisor has shown up and is checking out the situation.

 

Supervisor is wearing her khaki uniform pants, a gray t-shirt and her duty belt with badge.  I look at her and greet her with, "Hey! It's the girl with the badge!"   She looks at me, gets a puzzled expression on her face and asks me, "Where are your shoes?"

 

So we resume our chase of the dogs.  They run out into traffic, across the street, and back to our side of the street.  And then they take off down the street.  And keep going.  I watch them and see where they head…and the Good Officer tells me to get in the truck and meet them down the way.  But being in the state that we live in, there are concrete barriers in every median – you generally can't turn left out of a parking lot.  So I have to drive this HUGE tank around the block (backing it up first to turn it around!!) and meet up with them in the neighborhood.

 

So I circle the block (Good Officer is much taller than me…so I keep having to scooch the seat up so that I can reach the pedals...driving barefoot!) and catch up with Supervisor and the Good Officer…back in the office complex parking lot.

While I'm tooling around in the giant truck, I happen to hear another animal call coming in over the radio.  Apparently, there is a dog loose in the gated parking lot of the police department and dispatch plans to turn the call over to us to take.  Yeah right.  I pick up my cell phone and call them – as soon as I identify myself, the dispatcher says, "Oh! We have another call for you!"

 

I then inform the dispatcher that we are ALL (and I helpfully define ALL to her as the secretary, the Good Officer that volunteered her morning to come in and clean the shelter and the Supervisor that isn't even on the clock yet) out on the first call that they gave us this morning.  "Oh," she says, "I'll just hold that call for you, then."  Yeah…you just do that.

 

So back on the chase.  I join the Good Officer and the Supervisor back out on the main street trying to catch these critters.  By this time, the two little dogs have been joined by a larger dog…I assume it is the one that had been hit by a car earlier in the morning.  I'm at least a hundred feet behind Supervisor, so I decide that it'll be easier to just call her on her cell phone to let her know that we have another call pending than to try to yell it to her above the traffic noise.  In talking to her on the phone, we decide that the dogs keep running across our jurisdictional line, so we'll just call out the other animal control agency and pass the call on for them to try.

 

So I start to dial the other agency on my cell phone when two of the funniest things happen…

 

(1)   I see a person run out from the very end of the office complex to help catch the dogs…it's our Adoption Center Employee!  Of course, not in uniform.  You couldn't have put together a uniform out of anything the four of us were wearing.  How sad is that?  I just started laughing as hard as I could.  Here we all are – the barefoot secretary, the Good Officer wielding a control stick and a gun, the Supervisor in her non-uniform with a duty belt and the Adoption Center Employee in a t-shirt, athletic shorts and flip-flops.  Are we a motley crew or what?  Apparently, Adoption Center Employee happened to be driving by and saw me on the side of the road (barefoot – she must have thought I was some crazy lady!) with a leash and she thought to herself, "Hey – she has one of those leashes that we use at the shelter…hey…that looks like Supervisor…wait a minute…that's Good Officer!"  So she pulled a u-turn (with the dog she's rehabbing because of a bad leg flailing around in the back of her SUV) to see if she could help.  What are the odds?

 

(2)   While I'm on the phone, waiting to get through to the other agency, I hear a vehicle pull up and stop next to me.  I turn and look, and it is the other agency's animal control truck.  My only thought is, "Damn…these guys are fast!"  He can't roll down his window, so we're forced to communicate through awkward hand gestures and reading lips.  I see him point in the general direction of where these dogs went and mouth something that I can't determine.  So I approach the window and hold up two fingers and yell, "THERE ARE TWO SMALL DOGS," and then I change my gesture to two hands held apart and yell, "AND ONE LARGE DOG," and then I point to where they went.  He nods and drives off to try his hand at it. 

 

I don't know what he must have thought if he saw our big truck advertising who we are, and then looked at all of us running around in such an assortment of outfits.  Not a uniform to be had among all of us.  And the secretary is the only employee actually on the clock.  And she's not even wearing shoes!  Yup…we're a high-quality operation, we are!

 

So I finally catch up to the rest of the group.  They've seen the other agency vehicle and we've all decided that it is now out of our hands and belongs to them.  We've spent an hour in pursuit with no luck.  When I get with the other girls, I make the declaration that if the otheragency catches the dogs, it's only because we tired them out.

 

So after my morning of attempting to be an Animal Control Officer, I put my sandals back on and we called it a morning. 

 

Did I mention that this was all before my morning cup of coffee?

Six Months Gone

Today marks six months since Hubby officially left home on his journey to the sandbox. What has happened and changed over the past month?

- Number of meals cooked this month: 0 
  Running total for deployment: 0 
(Note that I do not count frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets or baking a hamburger in the oven as cooking.)

- Scrapalooza saw the completion of 0 pages. Scrapbooking seems to have hit a hibernation point. My weekends are taken up with gardening tasks and now I've even started going in to work on the weekends! Plus, I just received a huge box of photos from my mom that I need to digitalize in order to get them preserved…hmmm…we'll have to see what I manage to get done next month…

- Body Count. All the stuffed animals are gone. All that remains is Humpy Bear, and he is sacred. Fred and Sadie continue to bring such joy into the house. I cannot wait for Hubby to come home and meet his little girl. I've become so attached to her since welcoming her to the clan, and I just know that it is going to kill me to have to put her in a kennel when we embark on our travel adventures.

- Mechanical Emergency Number Four - My car's steering column started smmmoookkkkkin' on my way to work one day. Suddenly, I realize the fear that my air bag could deploy on me while I'm driving down the freeway at 70+ mph! Turns out the switch on my turn signal had burnt out and needed replacing. Huh. I guess that these are the things that happen to people that actually use their turn signals.

- Additions to the garden this month include dahlias, zinnias, delphiniums, coleus, two new rose shrubs, marigold, celosia, petunia, lobelia, lithodora, white osteospermum, cosmos, skullcap, fuschia, and Asiatic Lily. My Freesia has finally blossomed, and I thoroughly enjoyed basking in the fragrance of the blooms. My rose bushes continue to produce gorgeous blooms that I use to create small bouquets in the house. Yes, I've added more roses to my garden…I'm in love with them. The tree in the front yard is a flush with leaves - heralding in the official arrival of spring. My gazanias have done much better than I anticipated - all have taken hold at the foot of the garden and are actually in bloom! The Jasmine is in full bloom, and the breezes bring the heavenly scent into my bedroom and to the back patio…is it any wonder that this is a favorite of mine? I've turned my attention to some maintenance tasks - pesticides, snail bait, tree trimming and mulching. I've also picked up new solar lights to light the walk and flower bed, as well as indulged myself with a few quirky garden decorations to add some more cheer to the beds.

- I've been absolutely exhausted lately.  Work is kicking my ass, and I just want to shut down when I get home in the evenings.  Add to that having to keep the house up and going all by myself...it's a wonder I can keep track of what day of the week it is!  Can't wait for Hubby to get home - his being away is really starting to wear on me and I just miss having him around.  Only about three more months to go...

- Reports from the Front...I spent a morning attempting to be an Animal Control Officer. Barefoot. Not an easy task when you don't run. It was a fun morning, anyways. The office "Life Rat" was killed with kindness…all we wanted to do was provide him with a clean apartment, but he just wouldn't hold still! Poor Templeton…RIP. And only a week later, we find ourselves with another rat. You've got to be kidding me. "T2" is not as cute as Templeton. We've also had an office squirrel (Rocky) and today we got a Guinea Pig (Yet to be named.)  Kitten season is starting, and I'm starting to see what everyone at work has been warning me about. So many kittens coming in! And if there's no momma, they don't stand much of a chance. SPAY AND NEUTER, PEOPLE…SPAY AND NEUTER!! Also, staff members are starting to realize the importance of just shutting ourselves away from the office for an hour each day - some know it as lunch, we look at it as a mental health break. We just have to find time to laugh…otherwise we might go insane!!