More camping

The area where we camped was bear country, so we were given the requisite warnings about keeping food inaccessible, away from the campsite, etc. L. was SO excited and determined that she would see a bear, despite us telling her how unlikely that would be. We did not see any bears there. We did see deer--a mother and her baby--in the road. Fortunately we had plenty of time to stop the car and watch them. They were beautiful. M & L, on one of their early morning hikes, were lucky enough to see a mother coyote and her baby. The baby was jumping up, in a meadow that was taller than her, to keep an eye on her mommy. I'm so jealous I missed that!
Anyway, L took great pleasure in making black bear footprints at our campsite and on some of the hiking paths we were on. She used her footprint identification guide to form them perfectly, staggering them just right, so they looked like a bear was lumbering across the path. Everytime she saw one of her prints or thought about it, she would giggle and go on about how other campers and the park rangers would freak out over the bears in the camp. She made some of them ridiculously huge, to make it look like a mutant giant bear.

We've inadvertently established several camping traditions that L militantly enforces. One of the traditions is that we must play Monopoly while on our camping trips. I think this actually started because we had several camping trips in a row in which it rained profusely for at least a day, so we stayed in the tent and played Monopoly. M won this time, and I'm glad he rarely wins. He's a great loser but a completely obnoxious winner! :P


Another tradition involves me wearing a very dorky but useful headlight and reading from a book of ghost stories. This must occur every single night, after it gets dark and we are sitting out by the fire. L also must be the one to hang the clothesline at the campsite. One of the first things she does is case out the trees and pick the ones she will tie the line to. She then explores the surrounding woods (after M checks for poison ivy) and designates each individuals' "potty tree".
She loves all the hiking and constantly suprises us with her stamina. We sometimes end up on some long and treacherous hikes, and she keeps us with no problem and no complaints. She cannot come near a body of water without entering into it, regardless of what she's wearing. I don't mind. It gives me an excuse to get in the water fully dressed (love water but swimsuits are not my friend these days). We've taken to wearing our 'rock climbing' shoes for hikes, as they are great all-terrain shoes. You can hike on land, walk through the water without slipping, and they dry quickly and nicely. L and I each have a pair. I've been nagging M to get some, too, but he has a foot....uhhh...thing. He won't wear any type of sandals. Anywhere. Ever.

We spent a couple of afternoons on the beach there, which was small but quite nice. It was very clean. And best of all--no leech attacks this time! She made several friends each day, which makes it a lot more fun for her. M & I take turns going into the water and/or building in the sand with her, which she enjoys, but it's just not as fun as having a big group of kids to play with. She does fairly well at making new friends, as she's so outgoing and friendly.

One more vacay post, and I think I'll be caught up and back to current life. Right now life mostly consists of trying to catch up on everything we've let slip over the last few weeks. With family vacation immediately followed by a visit from our friend Anthony, the house and garden have been sorely neglected. And, as usual, there are always cats to keep us busy. We currently have 20 in foster care, some sick or with special needs. We have no homes for them and no money for vet bills. HELP!!

Sign Sign everywhere a Sign...

Still have lots more vacay pics to share, but these pictures are from this weekend. Since this was our last weekend with Anthony here, we wanted to make sure to get a fun outing in before he leaves us. We got up early Saturday morning and the four of us (Mark, Luciana, Anthony, and me) headed to Madison for the Farmer’s Market. He pointed out as soon as we arrived that it’s more than just a farmer’s market. He’s right—there’s a lot going on there!

We noticed that there was less produce than there normally is this time of year. The weather has slowed down all of the crops this summer. It was also harder to find organic produce. We picked up some organic veggies but we couldn’t get the organic raspberries, as they wouldn’t have survived the day in our car. We found a ‘sensitive plant’ for Luciana and picked that up. The challenge will be in keeping that away from the destructive little cats we live with. It’s such a cool plant! We also picked up some organic, veggie dog treats for our pups and handmade organic catnip toys for the cats.

I always enjoy checking out the political booths as much as the food. We ran into some friends working at the Primate Freedom Project booth and the Alliance for Animals booth. Anthony was finally able to meet Lynn (the new director) in person. Not only is Lynn beautiful, but she seems to be quite photogenic as well. She looks great in every picture I've seen her in!

There was an extremely conservative religious group with signs about hell. Those are my favorite. They had a group singing hymns, and poor Lynn had to listen to it for hours while she sat at her booth. I had to take a picture for posterity, and because it’s one of those things you have to see to believe. I don’t really know how to explain to people like that the signs about hell, heaven, god, etc. are laughable to most. How in the world are people supposed to be afraid of something they do not remotely believe in? Would they be frightened if I had a sign saying, “Repent or the Flying Spaghetti Monster will throw you in the eternally boiling pasta pot”? The effect of this would be humorous, not frightening, as are their signs. I hate to see anyone waste time that way, but...whatever works for them. The women and little girls, who were all dressed comfortably for a temp of around 60, looked hot, embarrassed, and miserable. Looking into their dead, sad eyes was heartbreaking and made me want to cry. I was quickly diverted from my sadness by a dude with a booth right across from the Alliance ’s that had the cheesiest, most ignorant creationist/anti-science signs I’ve ever seen. I’m glad Anthony was thinking clearer and faster than me and managed to get great pictures of the whole thing. I may have to send these on to Pharyngula, where they will be fully appreciated.

After the market, we went through the Museum of Modern Art . None of the exhibits really blew me away this time, though. Then it was lunchtime, so we walked down to Chautura, where we were actually able to get in without a reservation, and had a delicious lunch. We all ate too much!

We decided to walk our lunch off by going through Olbrich Botanic Gardens. They were having their butterfly event in the conservatory, so we had to go check that out. I thought there were fewer butterflies than we’ve seen there in the past, but perhaps that’s because of going in July rather than August. There also seemed to be fewer birds in the conservatory. We had a great time, both in the conservatory and outside in the gardens. L & Anthony paired up for the majority of the day and enjoyed spending time together, often picking on each other and playing like the best of friends. She had a blast, and we all got lots of good pictures.

We were all tired and ready to get back after Olbrich. We only had a half hour after we returned home to get ready for date night and get L. back over to my parents’ house. After such a huge lunch, we didn’t need to worry about dinner at least! M & I went to see the X-Files movie. We both found it pretty disappointing. We were huge X-Files fans, watching the series religiously until the end, and we also saw the first movie. This movie was just flat. It could have been so much better! We got back from the movie fairly early, and came home and watched a movie that Dej had rented and said we would enjoy watching, ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Since it was already there, we gave it a try. It was certainly better and more engaging than the X-Files movie was! It was certainly different—not something I would have picked out, but we did find it entertaining.

Sunday was unexciting but productive. We intended to get to bed at a reasonable time last night, so we could start out the week well rested, instead of on a sleep deficit. For unknown reasons, both M & I were up much too late and didn’t sleep well at all. L. was also up more than she should have been. So here we are again, starting off another busy week with only 3-4 hours of sleep!

Tonight Anthony and Allegrea will be coming over for our final farewell gathering. Anthony leaves tomorrow, and it will be really strange to not have him here!

Mother of one

I'm sharing a few more pictures of some of our small critter friends from vacation.

Today Dejanique turned 18, which makes me officially a mother of only one child now. She's an adult on the outside, anyway (far from it really, but the law says she is), so she is now her own responsibility. She's also her own worst enemy, and I can no longer protect her from that. It's freeing and distressing at the same time.

Luciana had her last swim class today but didn't really progress during this six-week period. I may have to look into lessons elsewhere, because I'm getting very nervous that she's not a solid swimmer yet.

Hmmm...I thought I could fake it through a blog entry today, but I've got nothing. I'm losing the battle this week with my pain and physical issues, which makes me pretty disinterested in life for the moment. I think terminal illness would be much better than chronic. We also lost a beautiful kitten this morning, thanks to irresponsible humans who don't spay and neuter. Not liking anyone today except my rescue friends.

This little guy was flying over the campsite and must have noticed we were sitting at the picinic table eating. We've never before had a seagull come beg for food at a camp site, so this was a unique experience. We had lots of grapes and buns and enjoyed sharing with our seagull friend as well as the squirrels.

The red squirrels, which I mentioned, were quite loud and packed with personality. We kept giving them grapes, because they were really cute and asking so nicely, and also because we were intrigued by the way they ate them. They held the grapes in their hands, rotating the grape around so they could peel it. Once they got the peel off, they would eat the rest of the grape. They also tried to hide several of the grapes, both peeled and unpeeled, in little cracks and crevices in the tree bark. The short video, while jerky (lots of caffeine), shows one of them eating a piece of bun.




As always, we spent much of our hiking time searching for frogs and turtles. We spotted many frogs, but she wasn't able to catch any. One of the frogs was unusual and we couldn't identify it (first picture). She almost caught it, but it was just too fast and slippery for her (second picture). When we got back home, we were able to determine that it was a wood frog, thanks to the WI DNR's webpage. It's a nice, informative web page for kids. That will probably be the only nice thing I ever say about the WI DNR!

Hello, finally!

We returned from vacation Thursday and have been running full speed ever since. We have still not totally unpacked! Our friend Anthony is here, and we've been trying to spend all of our 'free' time with him, which is infinitely preferable to the housework and yardwork we would otherwise be doing. The cold, hard reality of the real world will set in tomorrow morning, when I have to get up early and return to work after a delightful time off. Unfortunately, animal atrocities don't take vacations, so there was no shortage of that to get caught up on either. :(


We camped in the northwest corner of WI, at Pattison State Park. As usual, Mark picked a beautiful location with lots of waterfalls to keep Luciana and I happy. Dej stayed home and did a decent job at caring for the animals and the house. Everyone was alive and healthy when we returned, so that was a relief. We missed the critters terribly, and I called home and left messages on the machine for them, so they could hear me and (I hope) not feel abandoned.


The first night we camped turned out to be quite cold--it dropped into the 40s at night. We have dealt with that before, though, and were able to sleep quite cozily in our tent. Getting up in the night to go to the bathroom, however, is a really rude awakening. We spent our days hiking the waterfalls in the area (there were many of them) and playing at the beach. The daytime weather was very nice--a bit on the hot/humid side, but still bearable. The second night, we got horrible thunderstorms all night, with heavy rain, lightning, and wind. I wasn't sure we would make it through the night in the tent, as it got pretty nasty for a while. We stuck it out, though, and didn't need to move into the van.


We did not see or hear any raccoons at all, which is really, really strange. We did have many other encounters and visitors at our campsite. The campsite itself, by the way, was huge! It was also quite private, so we really enjoyed the location. We were frequently visited (especially at meal times) by red squirrels. They're so tiny and cute! They are about the size of chipmunks--maybe a little smaller. They're very loud and quite brave about begging for/stealing food. More about them and the other critters later.


I have to be brief tonight, but will have lots more to say tomorrow!

This week has just been a flurry. I think life will get back to normal once we return from this vacation. I have felt like I was in a marathon all week. Today has continued in the same vein, with the garden walk, which is a working day. The seven locations on the walk were very nice, with my favorite being Cedar Crest. I love what they have done out there. CC is a nursing home, and they have nice garden plots for any residents who enjoy gardening. It was beautiful, but more importantly, I was touched by the resident gardeners. I am so happy that they are able to maintain their connection to the earth and continue to garden there. I liked seeing each individual's style very clearly reflected in each individual rectanglar plot. Luciana and I had some nice talks with the gardeners, who were proudly standing by their gardens and obviously enjoying all the visitors. L. also caught a toad, which was the high point of her day. She spent the rest of the day looking for toads at the six remaining gardens, but wasn't able to find any more.

Being at Cedar Crest made me really sad though. I suddenly miss my grandparents so much. It really sucks to not have grandparents anymore. My grandparents were gardeners, too, and certain plants always make me think of them. I saw some of those plants today, and it made me very weepy for a while.

While Mark will still have to go back to the wrap-up party tonight, L. and I will stay home and pack. It will take the remainder of the night to get all our stuff packed, the food packed, and our animal-care lists done. Tomorrow morning we will get up early and pack the van and will be on the road by 10 am. This is our first family camping trip that Dej won't be joining us. She doesn't want to go this year, and as sad as it will be to have her missing, it's better than dragging along a teen who doesn't want to go.

I'm missing my sweet furbabies already, though!

Thursday we took Luciana to Six Flags Great America. The weather wasn't very cooperative, but we did have some fun. L. wanted to start the day with a ride on the Demon. She loves that one. We got to ride Willard's Wizzer and Batman, and then it started to rain. Since we were already wet, we decided it was a good time to go on the water rides, so we jumped onto the Roaring Rapids and the Logger's Run. We were much wetter, and the rain was still coming down. We tried to stay under shelter until the rain stopped, and then watched a show, hoping to dry off. It took a couple of hours of walking around before we finally got dry enough to go back on the rides without freezing. L. wanted to climb the rock wall there, and she made it almost to the top before her little legs got tired and she came back down. She won a Batgirl cape, that helped keep her warm later. I was begging her to go on Superman or one of the other big rides with me, but the first ride she wanted to go on was the Wizzer. Again. So after waiting in line, getting in and getting all buckled up, it started lightening badly and raining again. They decided to shut down the rides at that point. It then started to pour buckets and became extremely windy, so we ran to the car in a blind, cold and painful run. We were beyond soaked, so L. and I changed in to dry clothes in the car and decided it was time to go home, even though it was only 7:15. We watched the stunningly beautiful storm all the way home.

We will return from vacation on Thursday, which is the day our friend Anthony Marr arrives. He will be talking Thurs. night at 6:30 at Leeson park, on Global Warming and how we can help protect the earth. Please feel free to join us! He will be with us until Monday. He's such an amazing person, we have all been anticipating this visit for months!

if we fall, we all fall, and we fall alone

L & Hunter giggling on my parents' front porch. The swing they were playing on was built by my grandpa, nearly 30 years ago.

Sunday we went to Madison for a going-away party for our friend and former director of Alliance for Animals, Lori. It was a wonderful party, with so many great people there, but we're all so sad that Lori is moving to CO! She's also taking our soon-to-arrive vegan and animal rights activist away. I suppose that's bound to happen, since our little star is currently hanging out in her uterus. We vegans never breed (at least on purpose), so babies like this are a rare, once-per-decade event. And I have to say, she is one of the cutest, even sexiest, pregnant chicks I've seen. She brought her banjo, and Rick brought his guitar, and they played some great music for us. I knew Lori was really into the banjo, but I hadn't yet heard her play. She is quite good, and it's the first banjo music I recall enjoying. Rick is pretty good too, and I had no idea he was a musician along with his many other talents. Helene was able to attend also, and it's always great to see her! We ran into horrible traffic coming back. The interstate wasn't moving at all, so we hopped over to 14 as soon as we could and took that route back home.

Oh, and I had a great talk with Lori's very smart and fabby (practicing my British words that I've learned from the UK ladies on my boards) partner Tom. He is so fun to listen to. I love his great British accent!

Today when I came into work, people were already waiting for me to fix things! It was only 8:25 am! My brain had to wake up must faster than it normally can on Monday mornings. I was able to get everything resolved, though.

We went to L's baseball game tonight in the 90+ degree weather. She was pretty unhappy that she only got to bat one time.

When we got back from the game, Dej had just arrived home from attending Jake's visitation. She was a mess! It's very hard to see her that way, and I can't provide any comfort. The whole thing is a tragedy that should never have happened but can never be fixed. She left with Jake R and Courtnee, and hopefully they can make her feel better than I could.

The garden continues to bloom with new and exciting things, which is great, because it distracts from all the weeds that have grown at an alarming rate! Here are more of my beautiful poppies.