Have you ever read any of the “Clifford” books? It is the story of Emily Elizabeth and her big red dog Clifford. Clifford started off life as a small little puppy. He was so small that once he fell in Emily Elizabeth’s aunts purse and wasn’t found until she went to the bakery. Then Clifford grew and grew and grew until he was larger than Emily Elizabeth’s house. Lil Miss’s puppy Chloe is getting to be our own little Clifford. She was a normal sized puppy when she came here a week ago for us to pet sit. During that week she has decided that she prefers to eat our big dogs food instead of her own puppy chow. I can’t blame her there as her puppy chow doesn’t have much flavor (don’t ask). Look at what eating big dog food has done to her. She has turned into Clifford overnight. I took her out for a walk while Lil Miss was riding her bike and she was larger than Lil Miss! My eldest son is going to have to rent a U-haul to take her home when he gets back in town next week. Actually we are going to be sad to see Chloe go.



I will be even sadder to see Babs the bunny go home next week. Babs has become my bunny while she has been here ever since we found out that G-man is allergic to rabbits. This morning when I got up Babs saw me walking down the hall and started jumping against the side of her cage to get my attention. I took that to mean that she wanted to get out and go exploring. She did. So I put her in the TV room for 3 or 4 hours and I even cleaned her cage while she was out. Did you know bunnies poop about 4 cups full of poop each and every day?! It could be the fact that I give her bunny food in the morning and in the night and carrots, lettuce and celery in between. And you wonder why she likes me the best. Hah! It was fun playing with her. Did you know bunnies have a personality? They do. I laid on the floor and she would hop all over me and nibble my hair. She even licked my hand at one point. At least I think it was a lick. I started wiggling my nose back at her like a rabbit and she got freaked out. I think she thought I was part rabbit then because she hopped over and started rubbing her whiskers on my hand. I guess that is some sort of pre-mating ritual that rabbits do. We’d have to ask Jules that as I am sure she would know all about rabbits mating rituals.

You see, in the winter of 1995 just before we moved to Indiana G-man, my eldest son and I went to visit Jules and her family for a weekend. G-man and I are laying in bed on a quiet Saturday morning and all of a sudden we heard Jules hollering “Don’t put those rabbits together, I’ve told you time and time again not to do that.” Now we are all for drama so we glued our nosy noses to the window and listened in. Her son Justin said “But mom, it’s funny to watch them shake when they play together. They like to play with each other”. Her son and his friend were putting the make and female bunnies together. And bunnies will be bunnies soooo…… It was funny to watch Jules handle it. You could see that she wanted to laugh but she was trying to fight it. It was funny though, at least for us. But then again we weren’t the ones that had to deal with the baby bunnies several weeks later like Jules did. I have a feeling that Jules won’t be raising bunnies anymore for awhile.

Now I have talked about my hillbilly neighbors quite often. In fact, I talked about them the other day. You know, Hannah’s parents, the faith healer mother and the father that thinks he is a prophet. This morning I noticed that they have a piece of wood over where one of the garage windows should be. I’m taking bets on how long they have the board over the broken window. I say 15 years. And considering the fact that they still have had a board over half of their sliding glass door where their son accidentally broke the glass 7 years ago, well it is safe to say that 15 years is actually generous. 20 years might be more like it.