Xander and His Babies

Xander is my Hundred-Pound Marshmallow, a Great Pyrenees/Something-Probably-Labbish mix. He’s a gentle giant with people and small baby things.
Baby chicks especially.
It was love at first sight of those tiny balls of fluff. His ginormous heart melted.
Raising Chickens, City Living, and Finding Your Zen

Empaths in particular are drawn to animals, and find solace and healing in their gentle and unconditional love. When we’re overwhelmed from the emotional tides of daily life, coming home to our animal companions solid, anchoring presence provides soothing relief. We find comfort in giving them a safe home, healthy food, and the tasks of their daily care can become a moving meditation, and way to connect more deeply emotionally and energetically with animals, and your own Higher Self.
Wild Wednesday – Spring Chickens
Brrrr! It’s the depths of winter. We haven’t had snow yet in Seattle, but we have had cold, fog, and the ever-present rain. My garden is sleeping, buried in a warm bed of straw. It’s dark, cold and wet. But it won’t be for long. I’m already planning which seeds I’ll be starting early indoors; […]
Wild Wednesday – What I Did This Summer
For those of you with offspring, do they still have kids write the obligatory essay on summertime activities in school? I thought I’d give you a little reminder of summer if, like me, fall has closed you in with clouds and rain. Instead of being in front of a computer, this is where I spent […]
Wild Wednesdays – Taming Down, But Just For A Few Short Weeks
Wild Wednesdays will return! However, I’m putting them on hold for a few weeks. Extra days and longer hours at work are keeping me from getting my weekday posts up, but Weird Weekends will continue. Thank you for reading, and I promise, there’s more animal training, zoo tales, and garden adventures in the works. By […]
Wild Wednesday – Look! Zoo Animals!
A long, busy day, but I am determined to keep up my Wild Wednesday posts. Today I made chicken dinner, a whole lot of chicken dinners, actually. When I started the day, I had 15 of these: Now I have this: And this: But nobody really wants the details on that, and I’m too tired […]
Wild Wednesday – Taming The Wild Garden
A gardener’s work is never done, but even if you let things slide you can still reclaim what you’ve neglected. I certainly neglected a corner of my garden. It looked awful; scruffy and overgrown with weeds and grass. See how long and luxurious that grass is back behind my grape and trellis? Now picture that […]
Wild Wednesday – How To Raise Chickens In The City
What You Need To Raise Chickens At work, I am affectionately (I think!) known as the Crazy Chicken Lady. Not many people raise their own meat and egg-producers, and as someone pointed out, “You know, they sell eggs and chicken at the grocery store, you don’t need to go to all this work.” […]
Welcome To Wild Wednesday
Usually on Wednesday I post dog-training articles. Lately though I’ve been including posts on my growing chickens and spring gardening and I’ve been considering including some of my animal training stories from my zoo days. The dog-training themed Wednesday posts needed some expansion, and thus the inspiration for Wild Wednesday. If it’s about animals, animal […]
Spring Gardening
I’ve been busy NOT writing. At first, I was stressing, because I wasn’t doing it ALL! You know, 10 pages a day on the WIP, blogging multiple times a week, social media socializing, AND raising a bunch of baby chickens, getting my garden started, plus that little day job and keeping the house running, keeping […]