Animals On The Path from Dry Desert in the South to Wet Land's End in the North

*Travel Alert!  Pack Accordingly!   Following Cats, Horses, and a Dog, we will begin in the South Texas Hill Country and end after making a stop in Michigan before traveling to Land's End and Lake Superior.

                                     

Today, I began Armchair Traveling by pulling out a map and planning my route. This  usually is not necessary!  Today, however, I had thought to begin earlier in one place, found myself moving to another, then went 'off the road' for awhile before swinging back onto pavement...uhhh, I mean the Armchair Cushion!

I went from 'watching'     Letters From Mom Cat to her Kitten 

                  Mother Cat Letter to Kitten Regarding Football Sunday
   
to thinking of those Budweiser Clydesdale commercials.  

This led me back to my childhood in St. Louis, Mo, where my grandparents lived across the street from the Anheuser-Busch's in-town stable where I got to a 'visiting' Clydesdale for the first, and only, time in my long life!  Either he was very tall, or I was very short due to being only 3 yrs old..or both of these things are true!

Hence, I began traveling today before I knew my route!  Seems I have gone from Cats to Horses.

Onward,  I traveled down an Old Path to SanAntonioTx where both 'Blueberry the Cat' and 'Buttercup the Dog' entered 'My Life's Story.'  

Following are a couple 'Lessons Learned' as they say these days.  I wish they would have been saying 'Lessons Learned' when I was 25yrs old!!

Cat Lesson Learned  101                    Master Teacher:  Professor Blueberry  Fe.line

Do not invite a cat that has been born in the desert lands to become a member of your family if you have never had a cat before you are 25 years old.  Blueberry and WILDCAT became interchangeable words of the English language to me.  Maybe this was due to local chilies peppers he had eaten during his early days before Mother's Letters to Kittens were common and he joined our family.

Dog Lesson Learned  104                    Master Teacher: Professor Buttercup  Ca.nine

No matter how much you 'protect' them from those who are not the same gender,  'surprises' happen.  One morning, after my sons left for school and my husband for work, I, a newcomer to this four-legged 'birthing' experience, watched as Buttercup, my innocent pup, gave birth to 1,2,3,4,5....8,9,10 puppies!!  It was a new experience for her, too!!   I sat on the floor with her, and she came to lay beside me during each birth!  She silently, and in God's Language (dog talk), said, "What in the heck is going on??!!"  And I looked back at Her and said, "Beats me!!"

 Thank God a friend who had 3 beagles came by later to explain the legendary tale of the 'Two-Footed' Birds and 'FlappingWing' Bees to us.                       
 Buttercup looked at me; I looked at her; together we looked at 10 little things.  As far as we could tell, no birds or bees had anything to do with what we saw before our eyes!  (And would have been a surprise to the birds and bees!) 

To this day, I think these Lessons had something to do with a Change in their Environment.  Blueberry had moved from Outside and a free Environment to Inside and a controlled Environment,
Buttercup had moved with us from Dry South Texas to Selfridge, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, located on the shores of Wet Lake Huron, which was so wet you could swim south to Lake Erie OR north to Lake Superior! 

The Mother of All, of course, is Mother Nature.  She is often a HardTaskMaster!  As young Blueberry experienced Outside to Inside, and Buttercup experienced Dry Soil to Wet Soil under her feet, Mother Nature is giving me a new awareness of a Normal temperature soaring to Hot and then dropping to Cold. Hummm. Not sure this has anything to do with the Environment. Think it is the result of ... let's just say, not being 25 years old any longer.