Pet Cemetery

We have two dogs, two cats, and a guinea pig, all living in our house. Jill has her horse at the park where she works, thank God, though when she bought him, we did let Dan think for about ten minutes that we were putting him in the backyard. It was pretty funny,and by the end of that ten minutes, Dan was so glad Speck wasn't coming here that he forgot to get upset that Jill was buying a horse.

Mama didn't raise no dumbie.

The number of animals in our house, though, pales in comparison to the number of animals buried in the backyard. I've often said that if someone decides one day in the year 2200 that they'd like to do an archaelogical dig in our yard, they're gonna think it's some kind of animal graveyard.

Jill's other guinea pig is out there, after being found in rigor mortis one morning. Actually, there are two guinea pigs out there -- I forgot about one. We got that one from an acquaintance who no longer wanted it. Imagine her embarressment when we discovered that OreA was actually an OreO. The shock must've killed the pig, cause it went belly up shortly afterward.

Jill used to do animal rescue, and adopted out over 100 cats over a period of two years or so. Some of them came to us sick, and at one point, she lost two litters of kittens, all of whom are lined up in the backyard. And our dear departed Chelsea, our first cat, who Dan gave to me shortly after we met, and who lived for 19 long years, is out there as well. And a sweet little runt kitten that Jill rescued, who had a horrible eye infection that resulted in him a)getting his eye removed and b) being named Wink. I carried him around in the bib of my overalls, and even took him to Putt Putt with us once. When he died of a post op infection, I thought we might have to bury both Jill AND me back there.

All in all, there's probably more than a dozen animals out there. Kinda creepy if you think about it, but it's the mark of an animal lover, I guess, and Jill is surely that. I think we're done with the burials back there, though, cause I don't want to put my dogs back there, and Speck is way too big. I'm sure that the neighbors will be happy about that.

So, I went looking for lions, and tigers, and bears -- because those are a few of the animals I'm sure will never cross my threshold, and I came across this vintage child's hankie, from Yesterday's Timeless Treasures, on ebay. Lions, and tigers, and bears........oh my!