Christmas gifts

Li'l Ralphie, Elliot, Evelyn, and Lyla have been batting around our discarded wrapping paper after we opened our gifts. If I didn't tell you before, Elliot and Evie are the two kittens we rescued right after Li'l Ralphie came to live with us. But before we had found Li'l Ralphie by the side of the road, I had applied to adopt a cat at a shelter in North Carolina. She was brought to us by a pet shipper early one Saturday a few weeks ago. Though we have a bunch of cats already, there's always room for another in need of a home.

I have so many gifts this Christmas, but I didn't just get them today: I've had them all year round. Of course, my husband is my greatest gift, as well as my parents. I've got some special friends I cherish: like Sheryl, Mare, Terri, Tecu'mish, Samantha, Jeannie, Mary, Ruth, and Debbie, Judy and the Kennies. Then I've got my literary agent, Diana Flegal, who loves my writing and continues to forge ahead with my mss., despite the poor economy and the lousy state of publishing. I cherish her, and I told her so in a Christmas email this morning.

I am equally thankful for having most of my pets this Christmas, though I wish Fancy, in particular, could be enjoying it with us. And I'm taking time today to think about other pets, other horses, pot-bellies, and cats, llamas, and donkeys that have lived with us and have left us. Christmas this year resembles, in some ways, my special memorial day--thankful I've been lucky to have shared the gifts of those animals' lives.

I have to tell you all something that occurred to me the other day when Li'l Ralphie jumped into my lap and looked up at me. Though he has one blue, blind eye, I looked carefully at the markings on his fur coat. I never really noticed his beautiful white collar that stands out against his orange-striped coat. He sort of looks like a nun. And all his markings are so symmetrical--he's classical living art.

Ralphie's outstanding handsomeness made me think of the consideration, deliberation, and trouble that this force called Mother Nature takes for each of her creatures, no matter the vast number of them on Earth. Whether one believes in a Mother Nature as a force, an entity, or whatever, somewhere, something drives the genetics that gives each creature his or her own distinction. Each insect, fish, mammal is mapped out as an individual, no matter the sheer numbers of those creatures. Though the people who dumped Li'l Ralphie out on the road regarded him as just another burdensome cat, whatever fashioned him did not overlook him in such a way, instead, gifting him with distinctive markings and beauty that distinguishes him from the rest of his kind. Even though hundreds of thousands of cats are born each year, Mother Nature, masterminding the designs of all kinds of critters, still put her heart and soul into Ralphie's design--making him one handsome being with all internal parts working and jiving in a way that makes him the living, walking sweetheart that he is.

If Mother Nature or this genetic force or whatever, could be so precise, so detailed, so intent and careful with one kitten's design, then who are we, as humans, to discard him as though he were worthless? No human could ever fill Mother Nature's moccasins, yet some people are out there dumping her precious, carefully-fashioned gifts as though they had no more value than a clod of dirt.

In this time of gift-giving and love among family and friends, I hope that people will be able to think beyond their new iPhones and stuff and feasting and take an appreciative look at the gifts that may be already lying under the Christmas tree or sitting right at their feet or out in the barn or the field or woods: living gifts--a deliberately fashioned cat, pig, dog, bird, horse, hamster or woodland creature-- created, mastered and designed by a force that values and puts much effort into each being as though it were the only one of its kind.

Merry Christmas to all and well-being and content to all animals.

Enlightment on the Human Condition

I have been enlightened by Stella's comment on my most recent post.

Essentially, if people don't care about how animals suffer and endure inhumane conditions in the factory farms, during transport, and while awaiting death at the slauighterhouses, then perhaps they should care about the effects that kind of stress has on the meat they eat. In other words, let's examine, in an admittedly unscientific, but logical way, some facts, at least, about hormone production in people who are stressed out. People under continuous stress produce various hormones--corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), GH, norepinephrine, adrenaline, and cortisol. If people's bodies react to stress by producing hormones, it follows that animals, particularly if they find themselves continually under stress for months and for every moment of every day in factory farms, also produce hormones. These completely stress-out animals have no respite, and the hormones keep jacking up inside them during transport and while awaiting slaughter. Then, they are cut up and shipped to our grocery stores.
We meat-eaters are consuming these hormones without knowing their consequences to our health.
I'm not a scientist, but I do know that over-usage of antibiotics in cattle may be dangerous to the humans who eat antibiotic-treated meat. So, why wouldn't all those stress hormones created from continuous, inhumane treatment at these factory farms, etc., be detrimental to our health as well?
While you are slicing into a juicy steak,t think about the possible hormones caught in that tissue. Enjoy your dinner, if you can, and then do your research on meat saturated with hormones. Inform yourself, and then take appropriate action.
Thank you, Stella, for your insightful comment.

Help Farm Animals in Factory Farms

Sometimes my blog won't always be comfortable. This one is not. You don't have to watch the video if it is your custom to protect yourself. But if you really want to see what happens to factory-farmed animals raised for our dinner plates, please steel yourself and watch the video because pictures do not lie. And know that, afterwards, you can take action that may help spare other animals.

One of Hatfield Quality Meats’ pork-producing farms includes Country View Family Farms, an industrial-strength hog plant in Pennsylvania. They also have over a hundred other farms in Ohio and Indiana, as well, and market themselves as the Trusted Producer of Wholesome Pork. Their animal-handling philosophy, as stated on their website, reads: “To be responsible stewards of the animals placed in our care, . . . to constantly maintain the highest level of integrity in animal welfare and biosecurity, . . ..”
However, Country View Family Farms are not the “stewards” of the pigs they factory farm. Caught on video by an undercover worker equipped with a hidden camera, (Please see it for yourself at www.mercyforanimals.org), the abuse is absolutely horrific: tossing piglets by their ears and legs into cages, removing piglets’ testicles, cutting off their tails—all without anesthesia—throwing sick and dying and injured piglets into shopping cart-sized boxes called “gassing carts” where they’re gassed to death by CO2. Pigs in these carts gasp for breath for many minutes before succumbing. Handling of the pigs include striking them with heavy mallets with numerous spikes. And more instances of torture and abuse and neglect abound at these farms. The video will bring anyone with any heart to tears followed by the urgent need to help these intelligent, sensitive creatures and punish those who commit such atrocities.
Unfortunately no federal laws protect food animals during the gestation, birthing and nurturing, and raising of the animals to slaughter. Likewise, no state laws, with the exception of seven states, exist to prevent neglect and abuse of farm animals at any time before and during slaughter as long as the acts are “undertaken in normal agricultural operation.” Therefore, any activity a farmer uses in raising his animals is considered legal in Pennsylvania and in other states where Country View Family Farms operates.
Here’s what you can do to help insure humane treatment of farm animals. First, please sign the petition from Animal Law Coalition’s "Stop farm animal cruelty" on Change.org. Click this link to view the petition--http://www.change.org/animal_law_coalition/actions/view/stop_farm_animal_cruelty.
Second—Boycott purchase of and consuming of any Hatfield Products.
Third—Call on USDA and Food Safety Inspection Service officials to enforce the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
Secretary Tom Vilsack
US Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington DC 20250
Phone: 202-720-3631

Alfred V. Almanza, Administrator
Food Safety and Inspection Service
United States Department of Agriculture
Washington DC 20250-3700
Phone: 202-720-3700
Fax: 202-205-0158
Fourth—Call on Congress and US representatives: <https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml%20 Call on US Senators: <http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and demand they provide laws for the humane treatment of farm animals.
Fifth--Call on Pennsylvania lawmakers at <http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/email_list.cfm?body=H> and <http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/senators_alpha.cfm> and ask them to apply animal cruelty laws to farm animals and adopt a simple law that 7 states have already enacted that would ban gestation crates and unnecessary violent handling and neglect of farm animals. Sixth—Ask the above Pennsylvania lawmakers to join forces with Michigan, Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Florida, and California in their efforts against cruel and inhumane handling and raising of farm animals. You may access this information at http://www.animallawcoalition,com/farm-animals/article/938#new. Seventh—Send an email to all your friends, relatives, and people with common sense asking them to view the undercover video of Country View Family Farms at www.mercyforanimals.org and ask them to boycott Hatfield meat products. A Country is only as civilized as its treatment of its animals.

The Case of the Missing Ralphie

Yesterday Li’l Ralphie went missing. We didn't realize it, but when Edgar and I took the horses out for a ride, several people had visited, knocking, trying doors to see if we were around. They even opened the door to our cat room to see if we were home. When we came back, the visitors were still there, but Li'l Ralphie wasn't. He was GONE!


The moment we found Ralphie absent from the living room and garden room, our relatives and we headed a full house search, but no one turned up a little orange kitten: nothing--no Ralphie. After an hour of searching inside, I figured he must’ve gotten outside somehow, sneaking out when they had opened the doors. I was frantic Li'l Raphie was gone but reasonably sure a little kitten couldn't go far and that, since it was only late morning, I'd have plenty of time to find him before dark. With better things to do, our visitors left with the salutations that they hoped Ralphie would turn up soon.



They couldn't have been more wrong.



Edgar and I approached the search analytically: "Where would a kiten go? Why wasn't he answering us or appearing to us when we called?" The answer was obvious: he must be stuck somewhere--in a pipe, a vent, a cabinet. It was more likely, we reasoned, that he was still inside the house, so we expanded the house search to opening every indoor space capable of harboring a kitten-sized object--every drawer, cabinet, closet, etc. We searched each room several times, calling his name—no Ralphie.



Finally, with the inside exhausted of finding the kitten, we took our search outside--driving our cars through the alfalfa fields surrounding our woods, taking the golf cart along the brush beside the road, and walking through the woods calling Ralphie's name—no Ralphie. At 2:30, after opening every door to every outside building and callling inside, shining the flashlight around, after getting on hands and knees and prying our heads down an opening of the deck to look around underneath, I really began to worry.

Li'l Ralphie wasn't anywhere in the house, not the basement, the furnace room, the exercise room, the pantry where I stored my canned products from the summer harvest. And he appeared not to be outside either. We had literally looked everywhere humanly possible--even down groundhog holes in the woods. I had bounced across the alfalfa fields, searching and calling through the brush under the power lines. I had roared with the cart through the fields scanning the rows for something orange--nothing, except for an occasional fall leaf. I called down across fields, inspected the Pig Palace where lived four of our pot-bellied pigs, and I had driven alongside the road in search of a little red body--nothing. And all of the searching Edgar and I did separately, together, and numerous times. Each out-building was inspected three times, at least. And, in between searches to the outside, we went back into the house, checking the rooms upstairs. It was simply unfathomable that a kitten could have walked half a mile away, yet a small woods a half mile away was another area we searched: not once, but twice. Going back inside again, we tore up a couple of ceiling tiles in the exercise room, shut down the air exchanger and tapped on the huge python-like pipes leading to away from it--no movement or cries for help.



Finally, in late afternoon and without anymore options for searching, and absolutely exhausted, Edgar gave up, but I continued to walk the woods--calling, pleading for my kitten to magically appear and come to me. I had already changed to my winter coat, a scarf and hat and gloves--the temp was plummeting, which only made me more anxious and tearful because Ralphie was too little to survive freezing temperatures. Behind every bush, every tree stump, I imagined finding Ralphie, sticking his head up. I imagined his running up to me and purring as I held him in my coat, but my images never panned out, and the day steadily darkened.



Finally, I, too, could go no more. Darkness made searching outside impossible. So, imagining him somewhere out in the alfalfa field or woods alone, lost, and scared, I came in and just stared outside into the woods—no Ralphie, and we had absolutely looked everywhere, under the pool cover, even under the hoods of cars, in the barn loft, listening and tapping on the air-conditioning vents. But Ralphie had, simply, disappeared into thick air. I resorted to tears because I was out of all other options.

At around 6PM it was completely black outside, so the only place we could hunt was in the house, and we had already searched each room several times. The search seemed futile. In one last ditch attempt to locate the missing kitten, Edgar decided to turn off the air system in the house: perhaps we could hear a kitten’s meow better when the swooshing noise was silenced. He flicked the switch, and the house went quiet. At the bottom of the stairs, I called for Li’l Ralphie. The next moment I heard a tiny meow. I ran to the kitchen and called again: nothing. I ran back to the foyer and yelled: a tiny, tinny meow answered. I tore upstairs and opened, for what was probably the sixth time that day, the door to my craft (junk) room, and, suddenly, out ran Li'l Ralphie. I gasped. He ran past me, down the steps, with me following in a fury (in an instant my worry turned to anger: Why hadn't he come to us all the times when we called for him in that room?) I followed him to the litterbox where he hunkered down and peed for what seemed like a full minute.

It’s certainly good to know that, to Ralphie, we rate lower than a litter box. The only thing that mattered to Li’l Ralphie was having to empty his bladder. One piece of advice I can offer anyone with kittens is to teach a kitten to respond and come to his name as soon as possible. Had I conditioned him to do that from the beginning, he might have come to me from behind wherever he was hiding in that room.


I can't tell you the relief Edgar and I both felt at sight of Li'l Ralphie in his litterbox. I was happy because now I didn't have to imagine him in a fox's lair, being ripped limb from limb by the predator. I didn't have to worry about his being lost and scared and freezing through the night. I didn't have to worry about my own state, how I'd cope during the night and the next days and weeks wondering what ever happened to the kitten we rescued from shoulder of the highway. I was, at once, so irritated with him for ignoring us when we searched that junk room, yet so glad he was all right.

The rest of the night Ralphie was playing with my hair and romping all over me, but I refused to indulge him. I was pissed and wasn't speaking to him--just as he hadn't spoken to use when we called for all those hours--his disappearance had sucked up my entire day; I had been exhausted from worry and had walked through woods, fields, barn lofts for hours. Who knew how far he had driven up my blood pressure?--probably to dangerous heights. He had deliberately ignored our calls until, so bursting full of pee, he had no other choice but to ask for help.

This morning Ralphie greeted us when we came downstairs. I shook my head, remembering yesterday's awful experience, and still feeling a twinge of anger with him. But I'm over it now. I'm speaking to him this morning.

I am anonymous.

I posted the comment about Li'l Ralphie and his two buddies a moment ago. It was in response to Stella's and Jeannette's comments about their rescues. However, I didn't realize that my comment wouldn't have my name--so much for understanding computers and blogsites. I'll take my animals any day.

Li'l Ralphie Revisited

A month has passed since I snatched a tiny orange and white kitten, eyes and nose pasted shut, from the side of a major road. Li'l Ralphie is a survivor: he has endured being thrown out of a car onto a highway; he has conquered a terrible upper respiratory illness and an abscess; and he has found himself a lasting home with us.

Li'l Raphie, named after our old Ralphie who died a couple of months ago, entertains and warms my heart in mysterious ways. The typical kitten, he struts when he's feeling proud; he hides when the tea kettle whistles; he skips sideways in a threatening stance when I sneak up on him. And when he's all worn out from playing, he jumps onto the sofa with me, sprawled out, and drapes himself along the front of my neck. With his two-pound weight on my throat, I have a little trouble swallowing, but it's all right: Li'l Ralphie's is in sound sleep.

Admittedly, I'm a person who thinks too much and too weird thoughts; it's why I write--you know, the old "outlet" thing. But this two-pound, fur-wrapped creature is so puzzling and endearing at the same time. For instance, I watch Li'l Ralphie skipping along the carpet in a prelude to an attack upon his catnip spider. He springs then wrestles it into submission, and I marvel at the ferocious creation packed within those two pounds. And then my imagination takes over, and strange things begin to happen.

Two pounds of fur and wonder. Two pounds composed of guts, a little brain, bones, tendons and ligaments to make the bones and muscles work, a pancreas, liver, stomach, lungs--all put together so ingeniously as to allow this creature to jump, stalk, leap, twist in the air, and, in all ways, thrive. It just seems as though there's not enough "stuff" inside the fur-covered skin to allow it to manifest itself as a playful, curious, proud, wild being. And I can hardly fathom, too, how all the organs and whatever else inside him allows him to wrap his arms around my neck and purr his love for me. Such manifestation of what I consider, in many ways, human behavior, all comes out of a body weighing only two pounds. For some reason, I can more easily comprehend a human being mysterious, vain, egoistic, etc., because there's obvious size and capacity to contain the machinery for such feelings. In Li'l Ralphie's case, his being a character with strong personality and loving attributes just seems harder to fathom--yet it's all there--inside that tiny body: at times contentment, ferocity, playfulness, trust of another, very different and, in comparison, very huge body--i.e. mine--that sweeps him off his tiny paws, into the air, and plants sloppy kisses on his nose.

Because this tiny, two-pound creature is capable of reacting, feeling pain, and expressing, in his own way, love for me, and because I always like to share, I have a favor to ask of my followers and anyone else who happens upon this blog. Here it is: Li'l Ralphies exist in animal kill-shelters all over this country. In these facilities in cages stacked high, sit gorgeous two-pound kittens just like Li'l Ralphie waiting for a chance to blossom--skip, leap, purr--have a decent life. They never asked to be born and never did anything wrong to warrant being taken to a shelter to live one or two weeks in a cage before being euthanized. So, as a favor to me, to the Li'l Ralphies in shelters, and to yourself, please go to the website of your local shelter--I beg you. Scroll down the images of the cats and kittens that have never been given a chance to skip, play, be curious, and run and leap through the grass as Li'l Ralphie has. Look into their faces and make the decision to adopt one or even two. And then call, ask about the kitten and commit to adopting him or her. I promise, you won't regret it. In return the kitten will reward you with hours of entertainment--little two or three pound wonders that will make you laugh and feel a warmth of spirit that, in this world, we feel too few times. If you're worried about the commitment, don't. They don't expect much--just a small breakfast and dinner each day and a dry, warm place to sleep. And a litter box would be a good thing. If you give one of these cats a home and basic care, they will repay you hundredfold just as Li'l Ralphie has repaid me.

Adopt a cat or kitten--two kittens, if you can afford it, from your local kill-shelter. Relish the experience of rescuing a creature who really, truly needs you and appreciates you, and then write to me on this blog and share your experiences of your two-pound wonders. Your efforts will not go unnoticed or appreciated, and I promise you will feel more complete, more fine, more satisfied than you have in years.

Li'l Ralphie

Our bellies filled with a sumptuous outdoor lunch of smoked chicken wings and baked potatoes, we drove towards home on one of the last beautiful, sunshine-filled days of autumn. What a difference from the day before when our rain gauge reported an inch and a half of rain.

Going 50 mph on the main drag towards home, I saw something sitting by the side of the road, but the form didn't register with my brain as the typical groundhog or possum. Suddenly I knew what it was, and then a second image flooded my brain: a paw stepping out onto the road. "TURN AROUND!" I yelled to Edgar. "HURRY! Turn around! There's a kitten by the side of the road!"

Edgar whipped the SUV around in a cut-out alongside the highway and pulled out just as a school bus came charging up behind us. "Where is it?" Edgar said, peering ahead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"Just up here--in this wooded area. It was . . . " Up ahead we could see cars' break lights going on and off.

"Where is it?" Edgar repeated.

And then we saw the kitten--an orange one the size of a Campbell soup can--crouched in the middle of our lane of traffic. "THERE! RIGHT THERE! PUT ON THE FOUR-WAYS. STOP!"

Even before Edgar had brought the car to a complete halt, I was out the door and running. Cars zipped past us in the other lane, and the kitten turned away from the whoosh of the traffic-wind. I called to the kitten, and it slowly turned toward me, its face a mass of crusticles and snot. Surely it couldn't see where it was walking. I scooped the creature into my arms, turned, and ran back to the car.

Back in the car I held the tiny creature against my chest, plucked a Kleenex, and began pulling the pus-scabs from around the kitten's swollen-red eyes. The nose, too, was concreted shut with dried snot. He must've known he was in kind hands because he let me pull all that junk from his fur without any fussing. Then, as we headed down the road, I noticed a quarter-sized scab dried on his fur. I scraped at that with a fingernail, and it opened up, allowing a river of pus to run down his side--an abscess. I caught the pus with another Kleenex, and a fleeting thought passed as to whether my cashmere sweater was also catching any of the nasty fluids. But the sweater didn't concern me much All that mattered was the kitten's welfare and comfort.

As we drove toward home, I held the trembling kitten against me. Though he was safe now in my hands, I broke down into tears. How many other kittens are disposed of so violently, so nonchalantly by people who have no sense of responsibility, no sense of charity or empathy for an animal that can't care for itself? I cried because of our unfathomable inhumanity, our crass egoism that values cell phones and blackberries more than creatures that can feel pain and misery. I cried because the little creature in my lap didn't deserve being discarded like some piece of trash. I cried because, had we not rescued him in that perfect split-second, the school bus would have pulverized him for sure. I cried because luck and good timing had been on the side of this kitten but that luck and good timing usually didn't benefit most creatures cast off by heartless people. Most creature-trash succumbed by the side of the road.

That was yesterday afternoon.

This morning, after an evening of intensive nursing, antibiotics, ophthalmic treatments, and nutritious food, Li'l Ralphie, named in honor of Ralphie, one of our barn cats who died about a month ago from old age, came running to me from the garden room: one eye wide open, the other half shut with more dried pus. He squeaked at me but suddenly fell quiet--his feline enthusiasm interrupted by a fit of wheezing and sneezing. But he was happy, and he was grateful to be alive. And I was just as ecstatic for him and for me.