June

Went fast! I've been working diligently on writing some articles. I have been asked to write not only for our fancy's journal, the Journal of the American Cavy Breeders Assoc. but also a little something for Domestic Rabbits. It is difficult to come up with quality topics and then to research them. Although I buy quite a few veterinary books every year which deal with exotics, they still don't have a lot on pigs.

Tonight I went and saw the play Jersey Boys part of the Broadway South series. It was absolutely excellent! You knew all the tunes, the performers were really talented, the fellow who played Frankie Valli even looked like him. If you get a chance to see it when it comes through your neighborhood,, GO! I have to order tickets tomorrow for some of the special ones we would like to see.

I am sure there is more to write about, if I think about it, I'll write more.

May

I turned 55 and am now eligible for Sr discount on coffee at McDonald's. Everything else fades in importance.

April

It's sort of sad, but I can't remember all that much about April. We did have our National Specialty show in Lancaster, PA. I did OK, not fantastic, but right where I should have been given the pigs I had to show. Another fancier and I were Co-Superintendents and we had been working for 5 months getting things lined up. It went well with a few exceptions. Supers are the ones to settle disputes and to enforce the rules. Dealing with people, even those that you have known and shown with for years can sometimes be stressful, especially when you have to issue a ruling that doesn't go in their favor. Oh well, maybe they should be worried about how I feel about them, trying to bend rules etc., instead of me being worried that I hurt our relationship with enforcing the rules that everyone has agreed to abide by when they send in their entry. If that makes any sense. The rest of April must have been pretty uneventful.

Stuff

Not much exciting happening, but I will share the "big" stuff. March- Husband went to Utah skiing, and on one of the days he took sightseeing down near Arches or whereever the hell he was (and it looks like HELL to me- I would get tired of looking at that country in about 3 minutes) he hit a mule deer in the rented car. The process is still ongoing, the rental car place hasn't rec'd all its money from the insurance folks who seem to be dragging their feet and contemplating their colon from the inside. So the rental car folks are like, get this mess straightened out. I refused to deal with it for my husband,, this time I said, the mess is yours and you can talk to the insurance folks. Our local insurance fellow is pretty much worthless, he doesn't handle much except sales, so he turfed husband to a "team leader" who said, yeah, I can see that we were supposed to pay 100% of the claim, but for some reason, we put you down for a 250 buck deductible (thinking we wouldn't notice?- they did that same thing to me earlier this year when we had another comprehensive claim). I told husband, you need to follow this up with the rental folks before they slam your credit card with an unauthorized charge, then you will have that much more of a mess to clean up. I am pretty sure he ignored sound advice since that seems to be his general mode of operations. I tend to call twice, get names and badge numbers when I deal with folks and follow up on any twists and turns. That's enough for now, in a few days I'll catch you up on April.

Maybe March will be better

This is such a tale of bad luck and misery that I wouldn't fault you for doubting it. First, for over three weeks I have had some wretched bronchial cough/ yellow sputum producing/ two rounds of abx and it's still here although much improved but still capable of making me cough until I retch malady. Then, I was robbed. In my house, in broad daylight. I spend most of my time upstairs- that's where the pigs are. My daughter left for work at about five one evening, about five-thirty my husband came home. I went downstairs to start dinner and I said to him,, why is my purse in the living room on the floor? He said, it was on the couch where I wanted to sit so I put it on the floor. I told him, I never NEVER put it on the couch, but he said, well you did this time. So I thought no more about it. Until the next day when I went to buy some fast food, opened up my wallet and between two and three hundred dollars were gone. I checked with husband to see if he had taken it, although he would take half,, not all. No, it wasn't him. So, I looked out the back to the lower gate which has a log under it so when my son comes with his dogs, they don't squeeze out. We seldom use that gate, and certainly hadn't for weeks previously. The log was away from under the gate, pushed back when the gate swung open. I went to my alarm to see how they might have come in, because the back door was locked. The sliding glass door was open about a cm which showed me the zone fault. So, they came in thru my sunroom, which is open to the outdoors- abysmal little storm door which hasn't locked for year is how you get into the sunroom, tried a door, one was locked, but the sliding glass door,, which is always locked wasn't. Why wasn't it? We had it open at Christmas because it was so warm. And when it is closed and contact made, it shows up just like it is locked so when I set alarm, everything was groovy. Why didn't the alarm go off? because I was in my house, who sets the alarm when they are home? Daughter wasn't home or they would have taken her money too, because her purse was even more out in the open than mine. The neighbors on that side have had workmen present for several weeks, the working theory is that they saw daughter leave, probably knocked on my back door, but I can't hear much when I am upstairs,, saw my purse hanging out on the kitchen desk, because we have no curtains in back because we want to watch the birds at the feeder,, tried and found a way to come in, heard me and left, or I might have lost more. They didn't have much time to look around because they left my digital camera which was sitting right there alone. Anyhow, rather bizarre. Now I keep the house locked up when I am home.. so I have to unlock it to feed birds, squirrels you name it. Let me tell you,, you feel stupid not knowing you were robbed until a day later. Sheriff folks came, made reports, dusted for prints, but nothing on the glass.

And as if that weren't enough to fill my cup until it runneth over, daughter and I were on outer loop of the beltline when a T connecting piece- 4 inch plastic pipe thingy- fell off a plumbing truck, bounced around and hit my front bumper on my new car, busted it. Although we tried to get license plate, we were unable to do so. We had pulled halfway onto the shoulder trying to avoid the darn thing, slowed down,, and by the time we got back up to speed, we were hemmed in by cars and he was zipping down the road outta sight. Comprehensive is taking care of it. It's all true, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Flattered

Last Fall I wrote an article for the Journal of the American Cavy Breeders Assoc and it was very well received. That was nice. I just had a request from a cavy club in NSW Australia to use that article and some accompanying pictures I took in their club newsletter. Permission granted. I will say, without reservation, that I am flattered.

Weekend Kids

When I came home from the national convention I put a bunch of sows into breeding, and now, I am starting to have those pups appear. I think about half have had their litters. EttaLotta had four,, all boars. Ethel had four- two boars, two sows; Lulu had four, but two were DOA,, huge pups- wish they had made it. Had I induced her, maybe I could have saved them. Yesterday we induced a sow named Eidelweiss. She has not been looking too good, belly not growing, been hypocalcemic twice- it was time to take action. Pups one and three had been dead a long long time. Pup number two came out depressed but alive, a little white boar. We are thinking of naming him Al for Al Franken. It's not a compliment. And then last night, Butterflyweed decided to give me four nice pups.

Mistletoe

In red oak tree.

It doesn't happen often

Snow- 5 inches or so. Schools canceled before the first flake fell.