Richard, the Trapper

"This is not a skunk" to take a riff from Rene Magritte.

"Guess what I found in my trap?", Richard said. "I bought the trap to catch rabbits and I haven't caught a single one.  They are in our garden every night and it is a matter of survival for us, to stop them if we are going to be the ones to eat out of our garden.  All I have caught is squirrels.  And now look what I have."

"What did you use for bait?", I asked.

"My famous weekend crepes," he said.  "It looks like they really worked even though they were two days old."

During the evening, everyone came out on the lawn to look:  Amir, Derek, Nicola and even Wyona, Zoe and Charise when they came over later.

I didn't want Zoe to go quite as close to the skunk as she was going.

"Leave her alone," said Wyona.  "She has been very sad all summer since she didn't see a bear when there was one on the property.  Now that there is a skunk, she is going to have to get close, no matter what happens."

When Zoe came back to the rest of the group hovering far back in the yard by the wire fence, Wyona asked her, "What did you see."

"I saw its eyes," said Zoe.

I guess that was enough.

Arta

Rebecca Visits Ottawa - A Photo Essay

... blue skies, green grass and an added bonus ... snow...

 ... a rhombus inside a triangle ...

 ... I love my lizard ...

... and I love it even more ...

Griffin

The first two mornings that I awoke after getting here, this dog is what I saw at the foot of my bed.

Well, really the dog was on the bed, not down at the foot of the bed.

I grew up with dogs, but they were kept outside in a kennel.

Over the years I have known dogs:  Frisky, Snowball, Vegas, Cosette and Kiwi. 

I only considered myself an acquaintance of the dogs, and not a good friend of dogs.

I feel the same about Griffin.

I am only an acquaintance.

I step back in the kitchen and can feel my foot going down on his paw.

He looks soulfully at me in the morning when it is time for his food. When someone asks me, "Have you fed Grifftin this morning?", I wonder why they are asking for I have never fed him. I am trying to stave him to death.  It is the other people who keep feeding him.

I don't like any of this.

He still gives me that mournful look every morning because I beat everyone else awake.

I do however get fed up with Griffin.

How would you like to be loading the dishwasher and have that hound right in there with you as I do?

Here Mary is putting a dish in the dishwasher and that dog get to the dish before it can even hit the rack.

When I complained to her she said, "Look, Arta, I have to tell you something.  There was an old man who was serving dinner to his guests and he said, 'I am sorry about the dishes.  That is as clean as cold water can get them'.  That is sad, said his guests.  Why do you have to wash them in cold water.  Oh, I don't do that, said that man.  Cold Water is the name of my dog."

Arta

Our Pets

The Brooks's Pets as dictated by Naomi Brooks

1. The snake in one cage is Titus. He is a carpet python. Pythons are good pets and are not poisonous. They have many layers of skin. When our snake sheds the old skin, new skin is underneath.

2.

Rhiannon with the newt

We have two more snakes. In the first cage is Lady who is a boy. The snake in the second cage is James who is medium orange with light orange spots. James is the girl. (Grandma inserts for the reader -- don’t be as confused as I am about the cross-gender naming. Apparently the snakes' names have everything to do with Thomas the Tank Engine series and nothing to do with if they are male or female.) You know how humans have round eyes. In the snake world, snakes have different kinds of eyes. Every year Lady and James lay eggs. Mostly they have many eggs and when they hatch, we put them in a cage and take care of the babies until they get a little bigger and then we give them to people we know.

3. We have a lizard, Pebbles, who is a girl. Pebbles’s cage is in Lisa’s room. Some snakes eat lizards. Our snake Titus would, but we don’t give Pebbles to Titus.

4. We have some turtles – five. I remember only one name.

5. We have tree frogs. They have names: one is Green Lightening. The other is named Black Thunder. They eat crickets. We put a few in their cage and the tree frogs catch them.

6. We also have Griffin, a cute Beagle with long ears. He loves food and will steal it off of the counter.

Mary showing the newt's belly

7. I have one fish in my bedroom, a fighting fish whose name is Greenie, because it has a green tail.

8. Char is the name of Xavier’s newt.

The End by Naomi Brooks