Welcome Back to the Family Zoo!

Not that my daughters don't love and appreciate their brother all the time cause, yes -really they do. But there are times when he really does come in handy.

Like he did, today -for a good example.

Ya'll know by now that this place is known for some goofy things to happen here. Never a dull moment what with Kurt and Maya here and some of their antics. Usually provides a good deal of humor to us most every day.

Then there's the silly little dog -Sammy -who insists on laying right at my feet, or as close to me as possible and frequently manages to trip me too when I don't realize he is under foot. Or the little spats that go on from time to time between Sammy and Chino -they gray cat.

Or now, there's the added attraction of the seven really cute, identical kittens Chino was so gracious to present to the family about 2 months ago now and who really do need to move out and on to other digs -soon. Cute, yes indeed they are. But we already have Chino and Fluff-Nuts, the Tom-kitten for feline fun and don't really need nor do we have adequate space to keep these seven kittens. (Still trying to locate a vet service that does affordable spaying and neutering, ya know.)

But lately, Chino has taken on another role too. She's decided -apparently -that she is a big old great huntress and almost every day this week now she has appeared at one of the doors or screened windows, hanging on the screens with some type of not-so-lovely smallish animal in her mouth. Her gift to us I guess for having been the providers of a roof over her head and food in front of her for her and her large family.

The other morning, as Mandy was getting coffee for herself and for me, Chino flung herself against the screen on the kitchen door with a pretty bedraggled little mouse in her mouth and almost scared the living crap right out of Mandy, then and there!

One evening last week, she deposited the head of a little bunny out near the front door stoop. Not exactly the kind of thing I really want laying around my already pretty barren flower garden ya know.

But this afternoon, my son was here -doing his laundry -and Mandy came rushing into the house looking for her brother.

Why? Well because she wanted him to identify what the heck kind of animal the cat had in its mouth this time!

The brother was in the basement at the time, doing his laundry but said he'd be right up and when he got to the dining room, Mandy started to tell him about this animal Chino had in her mouth and wanted him to go out front and get it from her and dispose of it then too.

Somehow or other though, while she was telling him about this corpse, and though we were all on "red alert" NOT to let the darned cat slip into the house with this gift of hers, someone managed to open the front door and in slinks Chino -dead little beastie tightly clenched with her teeth -and she heads straight for the area under the dining room table.

Amanda -the TSS -was standing in the doorway as Chino went gliding past her and she started making these goofy little throaty noises while Mandy headed immediately to the kitchen bar stool and was perched atop that -not in a seated position though but more of a crouching on her haunches type pose. Kurt and Maya were both giggling hysterically as was I too!

And Sonny Boy then went into attack mode, grabbing the cat and trying to herd it and her prey back to the great outdoors. Unfortunately, in trying to do that, the cat lost her grip on the animal and it landed with a large splat on the dining room floor which caused that much more screams from Mandy and these other sounds from Amanda!

Finally, the cat and the animal -now identified as none other than a fine specimen of a rat (ugh) -were both outside and Clate managed to dispose of the corpse somewhere in the back field.

And now the theme song for today -let's all sing it together, okay -"It's so nice to have a man around the house!"

Wonder what the heck will happen here next now, don't you?

So do I but I hope to heck it's no more dead animals!