Loved your story of the animals.? Think we all need to write books.? They all would be best sellers with us buying each others stories.? Just like Vee would do. Connie -----Original Message----- From: marysaerie <marysaerie@stny.rr.com> To: padutch-life@rootsweb.com Sent: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 1:02 pm Subject: [PD-LIFE] You make me chuckle Hello, List. I'd like to say "Welcome" to all the new list members, and "Welcome Back" to Richard Emlin. I have missed your lessons and your wit. I've been lurking a lot over the last three months and only piping up every now and then as I have been preparing to retire from the job I've had for over 38 years. I have cleaned out, hoed out, and provided training to my temporary replacement. I am on vacation for three weeks, then officially retire on September 1st. It will be the best birthday present I have ever given myself. More on that later if I have time. Any way. I have been reading the 'pet' communiques and the 'hunting/eating' communiques. They have provided a source of much entertainment for me and have made me chuckle a lot. I can tell that a lot of you are thinking, "EEEYOUUUUU" "YUCK" about the hunting/cleaning/eating part, and I can't help but chuckle to myself. I was raised on a farm which, by todays standards, would be called a 'gentleman's farm'. It was 60 acres large. We had cows, chickens, cats, dogs, and rabbits. We raised a bull every other year for our freezer, and 2 pigs in the in-between years. For some reason, my Dad always named the bull calves Snodgrass. I learned how to call the cows in from the fields and the pigs to slop. I learned how to mix manna with water as a replacement/supplement for our calves, how to grain the chickens, protect myself from the spurs of the rooster, and collect the eggs. For my 5th birthday, my father handed me a tiny lantern (which I still have) which was a perfect replica of his, and started me in the barn doing small things. At age 7, he taught me to drive our N8 Ford in the fields so I could help him with the haying. We planted 3 huge gardens every year and my Mother spent all summer canning for the winter. She taught me how to churn butter (I still have the churns, butter bowl and paddle), then work it to get all the water out of it. We also made our own sauerkraut (I still have the crock and the shredder). We made our own apple cider, too. The only time we had homemade icecream was in the winter when the icicles would form on the gutters. My father hunted deer, grouse, squirrel, pheasant, turkey, rabbit, and anything else worthy enough of spending a shell on. We had bobwhite, too, but they were too small a bird to warrant wasting money and time. When I turned 8, I was given the job of plucking the chickens my Mother had ordered up for dinner. Dad would lop off their heads, let them run around like the headless horseman until they dropped, then bring them in the house for Mom to scald. After that, it was my job to pluck them and singe them. I am surprised that I eat so much chicken, but I could eat it every day in one form or another. When I was 10, my Dad gave me the N8 for my own and he bought another tractor so we had two to use in the fields. When I was 13, I started taking voice lessons (I had 5 years of piano and 1 year of clarinet before that), and at 15 I took on the job of nanny for for 3 small boys who lived a mile up the road. >From the start of school until it was over in June, I sat every night after school and on Saturday. Once school was out, I worked six full days a week, except when their family took vacation. The pay was good for the times: $25 a week during school and $75 a week during summer. It allowed me to pay for my music lessons, my music, my clothes, my books, my lunches, and whatever else a teenage girl needed at the time. I had pets as I grew up, but they were NEVER allowed in the house. I always had a dog; and, of course we had barn cats to keep the mice and snakes out of the hay and the graineries. I always had a favorite cat or two, and my Dad bought me a Welsh pony named Midnight when I turned 13. He actually bought me a young thoroughbred colt to begin with, but my Mother made Dad take him back. My Mother, God bless her, did NOT like animals too well. But my Dad always wanted a farm, so farm life it was. She was good to go as long as the animals were on one side of a fence and she was on the other. The animals always seemed to like her and always would come up to her, especially the cows. She would reach over the top wire of the fence and with two fingers gingerly scratch them on the head or nose, then quickly walk away. It wasn't until many years later that I got my first indoor animal. He was a gorgeous sable purebred collie named Sam with a nose a mile long that my husband rescued and brought home to me. He was very skittish and meek because he had been beaten severely. Sam and I became great friends and he learned to trust us. He loved children inparticularly. The next pet I adopted was named Whiskey--a long-haired, orange-colored, tiger kitten that was left behind in my cousin's apartment building. Doris had rescued it, but was allergic, so I took him. He was small enough to hold in the palms of my hands, so he was probably about 8 weeks old. He and Sam became great friends. Whiskey would climb up my curtains and hide behind them in the window just waiting for Sam to walk underneath. Whiskey would pounce on Sam and ride him around the living room like a drunken cowboy until he fell off. Sadly, the neighborhood children let Sam out of our fenced in yard and we never saw him again. When my husband and I divorced, Whiskey went to live with my Aunt because I could not have animals in my new apartment. I now have two cats, Missy Lou, the Princess in Training of the household (I am still the Queen); and Bear, the big ol' boob. Additionally, my husband brought Dancer, a black lab/dalmatian mix, with him last year when we got married. They are all rescues. Missy is an 11 pound domestic long-haired tortoiseshell who loves to play fetch, and has to know everything that is going on. Bear is a 16 pound black Persian who is the king of all he surveys, likes to bully Missy, and is just very laid back. He also a great cuddler. Dancer looks mostly like a black lab except she has a white bib and 4 white socks, all with black polka dots. She likes to play with both of the cats, but she is rough, so they don't play too long. She is also a great watch dog. All of them love to be brushed and combed. I'm now working with Missy to get her to let me clean her teeth. She just had her teeth cleaned by the vet and had three teeth pulled. I didn't know that, like we humans, they can get periodontal and gum disease. When I got Missy, she was an 'only child'. She got to the point where she bugged me so much that I decided I needed to get her a pet, hence Bear. I used to tell Missy that if she didn't straighten out I was going to change her name to Al Po and feed her to the dogs. When Bear would mis-behave, I threatened to change his name to Ken L. Ration. Of course, they never paid me any mind. The only time they disappear from sight is when I get upset enough to raise my voice, which isn't often. When I do, though, all you see are two streaks, hear the scuttering of their claws across the kitchen floor as they try to make a turn for the cellar door in full flight, and the thud of the folding door as they come up a little short, followed by the pitter-patter of feet as they go down the cellar stairs and into ghost mode. When they re-emerge, they are like two kids. They quietly come up and peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear. I have to laugh at them. All the animals are a great source of entertainment and of comfort. They never hold a grudge, and they will always be there to love you and give you a 'hug' when you need it most. Mary ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PADUTCH-LIFE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.

Just like she DID :o) Lynn Connie wrote: Think we all need to write books.? They all would be best sellers with us buying each others stories.? Just like Vee would do.