For G.

Mom made this card about faith and trust but the gallery liked her crazy stuff better, so she tacked this one to the wall. Today, we dedicate it to our dear G.
May God bless you with Goodness and Joy in abundance, now and forever.
You are so loved.

Bad Hair Day

With winds gusting to at least 60 mph for the second consecutive day, and mom's haircut still a week away, things appear bleak. When you have naturally curly hair in a moist climate combined with an onshore flow and - oh! - who are we kidding? The truth is mom hates the low-flow shower here in our "green, earth-friendly" apartment building! So, she doesn't wash her hair that much. And generally keeps it pretty short but thought, given the chilly summer we just had, that longer might be better.

We testify! Not betta! The "Tina Turner" effect is not becoming, mom, and as much as we love you, the day you see Leslie and her magic scissors just can't come soon enough for us!

Even though this is actually one of the chickens she "let the girls out" photographing, it is an astonishingly accurate portrayal of Pacific Northwest hair gone crazy during an unseasonal wind "event" as they say.

And the pic of mom doing yoga a few posts back, well, not exactly her because none of us would get that close with her camera (in case she fell) but she wants us to know she can do that.

Yeah, mom, of course you can. And we love your hair. And we can fly. And you are a gourmet cook and phenomenal housekeeper. And when you walk down the street, everyone you meet turns to take in your iconoclastic personal "style" here where trends are set to be broken! Because nobody gots hair like you! (And the chicken.)

Is There a Chicken Hiding Inside That Turkey?

Nope, turns out this is an heirloom turkey, rare, and one who mom made friends with yesterday at the
Farm Store because everyone in Bellingham is a bit odd in their own special way. Reminds us of a chicken wearing a Halloween Costume but mom said to be nice, because odd ones need the most love...and we understand THAT! It was a great Centennial, mom's cards began selling, but mainly she hung out in the pen where the owner of lots of animals brought them for the public to watch.

One minor mishap...(and who among us didn't see this coming?)

Mom wore a tank-top knowing it was our last warm, sunny day. Today we have storm warnings, winds are gusting over 60 mph, and this is the "baby storm" before the "bigger storm."

So, mom wore her favorite tank top.
HOWEVER! Since it was so warm, and that is so rare, she forgot to layer it OVER another, less revealing tank top. So, there is mom, in a cage full of beautiful birds such as this little lady, and she is kneeling over to photograph them at eye level. Impressed with the gathering crowd, she also answered questions about the birds best she could, out of habit from working at the zoo so long, and giving the birds' owner lots of opportunities to go back INTO the store to work...what we mean is that nobody was keeping an eye on mom.

Or...where her assets were being deployed from beneath her tank top as she leaned over.
While nothing needed to be pixelated, enough emerged into plain view to explain the crowds...'nuff said. We don't wanna jeopardize having our dinner or our cages cleaned tonight.

You think this turkey isn't pretty? Well, this turkey prettier than -

"Yum-Yum, whatcha doin' honey?"

"OH, MOM! NOTHING. NOT. A. THING."

"O.K. Sweetie, almost dinnertime and gonna clean your cage tonight too!"

THAT WAS CLOSE!

When Pigs Fly!

We can only credit  Divine Intervention for mom actually getting all my cards made, delivered, and set-up for the Farm Store Centennial Celebration in the City of Subdued Excitement and we all had the time of her life once she fell asleep at 5 p.m. (with Raj Mahal wrapped up in my special blanket next to her) until she woke up, realized she was NOT SLEEPING ALONE, returned him to his own cuddle cup, ate, then went back to sleep. Many pics taken and gorgeous weather as a final good bye to our few hundred minutes of summer...we already have storm warnings!

Only Organica Public Market, Artisans gallery, one calendar, one magazine article, First Friday Art Walk, and mom can again stare blankly into the kitchen wondering who left it such a mess...

We'll never tell!

Will Post pics of what happens in the City of Subdued Excitement when the sun comes out...because, like a long distance love affair, we never quite know when Sol will reappear and save us from the hundred shades of gray rain we will never become accustomed to!

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WID'IT?

Apparently, not a whole lot!

Pigjes's Channel - YouTube

Pigjes's Channel - YouTube

Mom does not appear to be making cards now.

But mebbe she buy us MORE, MORE, MORE!

Watch and enjoy what we suddenly discovered

we cannot go without!

MORE! MORE! SELL MORE CARDS AND

BUY US MORE FUN STUFF!

Mom: "You are living in the material world,
can't you show a little spiritual restraint?"

O.K. CONVENING EMERGENCY CAVY
INTERVENTION! WHO GONNA SLAP HER?
SERIOUSLY, WHO?
SOMEBODY BETTA SLAP HER!
OR WE AIN'T GETTIN' NO MORE, MORE MORE!

Thanks, Jerry!

Jerry B. is mom's best friend she's known the longest and it was Jerry who actually fashioned her life's path for her, unconsciously. They met in 1975, after mom moved to Atlanta after a year spent meditating, half of it on top a mountain overlooking Arosa, Switzerland! Where - although she did not discover enlightenment - she discovered something betta: Toblerone White Chocolate.

Mom was maybe 18...Well, Jerry was an avid birdwatcher, folksinger, and genuine Woodstock hippie! When he and his friends, Steve and wife Sharon would take off down to the Okeefenokee Swamp or the west coast of Florida for EPIC birdwatching trips, mom just tagged along. She learned a lot about Jerry on their trips together, like how he don't like 'gaters coming up outta the swamp alongside the canoe he in! Mom saying: "Don't you HIT THAT THING with your paddle, you'll tump over the canoe and it'll eat ME, TOO!" But mainly she learned about birds. How to watch them. How to discover the world around her through them

And when she became a wildlife photographer and outdoor writer and environmental educator and blah, blah, and more blah, it was always with the memory of those early days mucking about swamps and dark, shadowy places beneath overhanging moss that inspired her.

One day Jerry sent this picture to mom. She used to give him photography but when she stopped that she started drawing funny pictures. Who knew he kept them? When he sent her this pic - and we may have posted it - hard to know without a memory, but he sent this and kept saying, "You need to sell your work."

So, tonight she finally making those guinea pig cards she been talking 'bout ad nauseum and missing Jerry. Not too long ago after someone really hurt her feelings, they were talking (he still in Hot'Lanta) and he said something she had never heard before from a guy, he said: "Awwww...Chana, I really wish I could've been there for you."

And that, dear friends, was the most beautiful gift of all.

THIS Ain't Good! But, What IS?

"SSSSSSSHHHHHHHH! I AM GETTING CALM, Calvin dearest."

"Oh Dear, Can't LOOK! Hiding in my coffee cup till this is OVER!"

Mom just came home thrilled after talking to the owner of the farm store two blocks away (yes, they still sell chickens and goats, bunnies, and guinea pigs in downtown Bellingham!) about unveiling her new guinea pig card line for their Big Centennial Celebration that she thought was two weeks ago. It was mom at her best, wheelin' and dealing like the used-car, snake-oil saleswoman she is...

"Yup, gonna be really GREAT tomorrow, what time ya need me here?"
He says, "How about ten (a.m.) that would be fine."

She said "GREAT! SEE YA THEN!"

Question IS: Where are the cards, Mom?

mom: "SHHHHHhhhhhhhh! Not when I'm doing my YOGA! I'M GETTING CALM, CAN'T YOU SEE?"

And why would mom need to get calm? Perhaps...oh, mebbe just mebbe
BECAUSE SHE HAS ACTUALLY MADE NOT ONE, NOT TWO, NOT TEN, BUT NO CARDS YET?

COULD THAT BE IT?

I am hiding in my coffee cup...can't bear to watch...

Love,
Calvin the getting smaller as I hide Piggie

SHOUT OUT TO MS. A AND MARIFAN: "HELP HER! PLEASE!"

PERFORMANCE PIECE: "SUMMER IN SEATTLE"

A song for Seattle's 3,323 minutes of summer | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News | Weather Blog

PLEASE ENJOY THE CAT WHO LOOKS A LOT LIKE CHLOE
BEFORE SCROLLING DOWN TO OUR NEW ANTHEM.
PRESS PLAY AND CRY. NOBODY WILL NOTICE,
THEY'LL JUST THINK IT'S MORE RAINDROPS.

^^^Dedicated to Meme and Ms.A and anyone else

we know who experienced what here is more
legendary than Sasquatch: SUMMER!

YES, it is true. We had 3,323 minutes of summer.

Now they are gone and we are having a windstorm.

La-dee-da...

Bring a coat...

In the summer...

Bring a coat...

In the summer...

Taj Mahal Here: WheekGrass Fest is ON!

Bet you thought I had a widdle tongue, didn't ya? Well, it is as pretty as my
bi-colored lower lip!

(Raj so proud of his bi-colored lower lip and foot, but we bro's and I got my own and is handsomer: whenever we go to the vet, the techs just croon over my chocolate-colored whorls!) but I digress...Am preparing my tongue for our annual fall WheeKgrass Festival, about to begin RIGHT NOW!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The Great WheeKgrass Fest of 2011

Hey, what YOU  DOIN' HERE?!

Looks like enough for every-pig to share nicely...but looks can be deceiving!

                                      YumYum, come out and play with us! 

My soft-house is pink because I the girl! I love it and drag all my food in it

so I don't have to share. Nobody said I was a GOOD GIRL! 

Now that we are all sharing mom's bedroom so the living room can be an art studio, mom has set up a new Runabout for us that we love! You may think we like wide, open prairies to roam: WRONG! We have no natural defenses to prevent

us from becoming some predator's Happy Meal, so we much prefer our cages spaced "just so" and we can chase each other through the maze, in and out of soft-houses, like the pink one here you see with Coconut...they have openings on two sides so we run through them, hoard our food there so nobody else can have it, do our bizness, and then nap once we tuckered ourselves out! Yeah, this gonna work real good. Calvin can't play with us because he not neutered and our Coconut, well, we gotta protect her. Female piggies' hips fuse if they haven't had a litter by the time they are nine months old or something, and then they'd need a C-Section or they would die in childbirth. So, Calvin not invited to hump our girl!

And me, why am I not there? Because I never got over losing my PandaPig and I will chase, charge, chatter my teeth, and do everything I can to intimidate them boys before lunging at them with gnashing teeth in a wide-open MOUTH! If you ain't PandaPig, I gonna BITE YA! (Or whoever sticks her hand in to protect anybody...) So, me and Calvin gotta Runabout Solo, if you please and me and Calvin gotta runabout solo if ya don't please. But now that we got our bedroom PlayGround and the wheatgrass ready to "harvest" (giggling!) we's some happy piggies! Even if Raj Mahal does keep standing on his hind legs asking me to come out...

and mebbe I wanna, but mom said not if I gonna try to eat the others...but gettin' the whole place to m'self NO PROBLEM!
I remember how me and PandaPig used to play chase and tag and pretend he with me when I play...and Calvin ain't never had guinea pig friends no ways so he don't even know he IS A PIG, thinks he's a person! So mom plays with him.

And that's the way we do it!

Millie Bea, doesn't this look fun? You can come and play with us...if ya didn't live in Wisconsin!

Who loves ya, baby?

YumYum is ON THAT WHEATGRASS!

WHAT Mess?

Back when we still had Bear the Beaver Pig, he chewed EVERYTHING!
Turned stuff upside down, inside out, moved everything into his box-house, then chewed up his box-house once all his favorite things were inside it!

When asked about his housekeeping, Bear could assume such a "Who, ME?" expression that mom just went: "Awww, Bear! You are so funny!"

We adopted him one Christmas Eve, after he smiled at mom from inside his lonely cage at the Farm store where he had been dumped with two bulging tumors sticking out of each side of his belly. The Farm Store people were dumbfounded because he looked preggers but he was a boy, and they knew nobody would want him so he was separated from all the other Christmas pigs...where nobody would really see him. But he called mom...with his heart he called her.

Then, he smiled from behind the bars of his lonely prison-cage, beckoning her to please take him home and love him, as if he knew he hadn't long to live but wanted to experience love before dying...

She took one look at Bear and knew he was very, very ill. Then reluctantly drove home, back when we still lived at the wildlife refuge. She didn't want Heartbreak Home For The Holidays...although she did call a friend to say "He smiled at me." Friend ordered mom to go back and get him! Next day, Christmas Eve day, mom did, unsure if he would even live through the New Year.

This lonely, dying guinea pig went into spontaneous remission and became the favorite of everyone who came to visit, pet, admire, and love us. He lived a happy, fun-filled life until just days after PandaPig died, also of cancer. Bear waited to keep Panda company, then died along with him. The vet had never seen anything like it. How those giant tumors completely disappeared since the only "medicine" Bear received was love, companionship, sweet affectionate laptime, RunAbouts
with us, fresh, nutritious food, and his first chance to love and be loved in return.

Why does the healing power of Love still mystify vets and doctors when it works when nothing else will?

We miss Bear. He kept such a tidy place.