Jason has always loved animals and other critters. I don't think I knew that when we got married, but I realized that soon after. For example, our first Christmas together (one month after our wedding) he gave me 2 fish and 2 frogs. Live ones. Not toy ones. Luckily we had a little fish bowl we could use until we borrowed my parents big aquarium shortly after.
Well, those fish and frogs were the beginning of what I'm only assuming can be called a lifetime of pet ownership. No more easy, spontaneous, worry-free vacationing for us. (Fortunately we have awesome neighbors, so we can go on vacation here and there!)
In the 9 years we've been married, we've had quite the pet collection. (Fortunately not all at the same time.) We started with our fish and frogs. After they died we were pet free for a short time since we were renting an apartment where pets had to be approved. Jason just had to get pets, so we asked for permission and unfortunately it was approved because we were good tenants. I was thinking one small hamster, since that was what Jason was wanting... we ended up with 3 ferrets. Yes, I said 3. Crazy? Also a yes. Kit, Fran and Shells. They were actually a lot of fun though. Like permanent kittens. Everybody loves kittens! It's what they always turn into that nobody likes! Even though ferrets were a hoot and I honestly can say I enjoyed having them, they were a bit of work to keep their area clean. When Sam started crawling I decided it was best to not have large germ-bombs crawling across the same carpet as him. So we sold them. And since being pet-free doesn't last long, we got a bird. And named him Toby. Very pretty bird. But also very loud. We got tired of that fast. And sold him right before we moved to our first home in Springville.
Ahh, at last, again we were pet free! But now we were in our own home. And we didn't need to get any sort of approval. Jason could not contain his excitement for this new freedom. Oh, wait. I put a damper on many of his dreams.... including his dream of "let's get a dog RIGHT now!"
Then came his birthday. And a serious lack of birthday gift ideas. I got desperate, and that's how we ended up with Maggie.
We've had Maggie longer than we've had 3 of our 4 kids. She's part of the family I guess.
In the meantime we've had a couple of cats, Cowboy and Archie, too many bunnies to count, starting with Berdie and Benji. And now our latest collection due to Iceberg and Fergie. Here are a few of their offspring.
They are so fluffy! I always think of the cute little girl on Despicable Me, and how she says fluffy.
Now, living in a more rurally-type of area, I worry about small rodents again, so I insisted on getting kittens again. I fell in love with these two little sisters immediately. (Ok ok, maybe I'm not much better than Jason...)
This is Dixie (left) and Pixie (right) before Dixie went through a traumatic experience. She got lost while we were out of town, we found her hanging out with the strays across the street, so we trapped her in a raccoon trap and returned her to our yard. She now lives here again, but we've only been able to touch her shortly after trapping her. I'm determined to hold her again though. At least she is ok with her sister again and they still play together.
Here you can see them sitting together in the doorway of the dog house.
Sorry it's so far, Dixie only lets us get so close these days...
And any ideas of what to do with this lovely area? The blue tarp is covering our pizza oven, so we won't be using it as a dog run like it was before we came. (We're open to fabulous design ideas.)
Jason has been talking about getting chickens, goats, horses, pigs, cows... you name it, he's thought about it. Well, because my role in life is to keep him in check, you can about guess that I'm not as eager as he is to have a mini farm.
But....
Then our next door neighbors moved and didn't want to deal with moving their chickens and coop. So they gave them to us. So, yes, we now have chickens. We started with 7, but now we have 6. The next animal on the list is the reason we are down one chicken.
Speaking of our neighbors moving, now that their trailers are gone, check out our view of Utah Lake.
Which brings us to our final addition. Jason's boss was taking care of his father-in-law's horses, and needed a new place for them. Obviously Jason offered our back yard. So basically we are horse-sitting. And if the weather would lighten up we might actually try going on rides!
Meet Gracey and Smokey.
Plus these 2 little monkeys:
Yes, I have my hands full. And my heart. :)
