My special little guy!

dunno if hed be called a pet exactly.. more of an inhabitant. lemme explain.. last year, our house was infested with crickets. everyday, wed scoop a few up.. and toss them outside over the porch, as we just couldnt kill the little things. over the course of few weeks time, they were gone. save one.. this particular one.. with a stripe across his side which made him easilly identifiable.. would crawl in under the front door frame, sit upon the threshhold, and chirp. my husband spent an entire day playing a semi-game of cat & mouse. picking him up.. tossing him over the railing out back. further and further he tossed the little guy, thus making his entrance take a bit longer each time. after the fifth time, my husband said "f*ck it! you can stay if it means THAT much to you!!" and stay he did, made himself quite at home in fact. so much so that hed crawl across the floor.. climb up on the toe of my husbands boot.. and sit there. yes, yes.. while he was wearing them. hed join in and chirp when i had the stereo up (he seemed to like e.s postumus the best) and i caught him on film playing with his reflection in a mirror i had put on the floor while i was stripping walls. and another pic of him hanging back in my elder childs palm. we all took great caution when stepping anywhere in the house to make sure we didnt squish our new little friend. even the cats and dog wouldnt harrass him, but would just simply watch him as hed scurry across the floor. when the weather grew colder, he stopped coming in, and hes yet to make an appearance this year with the arrival of spring. whether he shows up or not, we wont forget the summer we got adopted by a strange little bug. (if someone could tell me how to upload pics to a post..?? id be glad to share the ones i have of him)

Well... barring the fact that my house is fastly becoming a wildlife preserve what with a falcon taking up roost in my pine tree, a flock of wild turkey's living in my compost pile, a fox near my cellar door, and a... pack?... of wild rabbits scampering about my backyard... I have chosen two of my favorite "pet" stories. The first is actually my mother's story. When I was 17 I signed up for the Navy, and left at 18 after graduation. The day after I left, my mom got a very interesting visitor. It was a huge bull turkey. He took up roost on the porch (leaving huge piles of nastiness I might add) and would gobble gobble throughout the day while my mother worked about the house. She sent me pictures of the magnificant bird through boot camp and training as their relationship grew. She would leave food on the porch for him, and of course my dad would complain about the food he left behind... post digested. The odd thing is, the last day she ever saw him, was the day before I came home from the Navy. Yes, that's right, nature saw fit to replace me with a turkey so my mom wouldn't be lonely. The most ironic part of the story? My mom used to call me her turkey boy when I was a child. The second story is of my very first pet, which was not mine at all. When I was an infant, my mother would take me out in the yard and put me in one of those old wooden playpens that was raised up like 8" from the ground while she did yardwork. Within three minutes of her putting me into the pen any day any time, my protector would arrive. It was a large hound dog. I don't recall the stories enough to remember the exact breed, but as soon as I was put in the pen, he would show up and crawl under it. He would not let anyone near the pen while I was in it save my mother. Not even my dad. He would growl, snarl, bark, and if you got too close, attack you. We found out that the dog actually belonged to a neighbor a few streets down who would allow him to run free throughout the day. Oh, I do have one last rather funny story. My mother used to hang hummingbird feeders all around the yard. She loved birds and loved especially the sound of humming birds. She had never gotten to see one up close before... until one day... I was visiting and we were enjoying a cup of coffee on the porch as we often did in the summer just talking about the days. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the hummingbird appeared. Maybe he felt I was a possible intruder as I didn't live there at the time. Maybe it was just my animal magnetism. I don't know. The darn thing flitted right up in my face about 6 inches away and looked at me. My mother's jaw dropped as the bird did not act scared at all. We stared at one another for a good 2 minutes and I finally cocked my head to the side curious of this new animal friend. Here's where it gets wierd. He cocked his head to the same side and stared back at me. I cocked my head to the other side, and he mimicked me again, apparently just as curious of me as I was of him. A moment after, apparently he decided I was safe to have around and he flitted away. For the rest of my mothers life, that was the introductory story she told any of her friends upon meeting me for the first time. Which was quickly followed by the turkey story. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my experiences, I know I enjoyed sharing them.

I'm afraid of things that kinda look like rodents and scurry around. I stick to my little Puggle! :)