Posts by KrisSmith
Cover Sheds with Repurposed Vinyl Banners
Need to cover your critters’ sheds, or hay, or your own outdoor equipment? Get repurposed VINYL BANNERS! Forget about tarps that fall apart every year. Been there, done that! In Colorado there’s a great place called (and yes, I’m typing this just as they have it) repurposedMATERIALS. They have water-resistant, weather-resistant obsolete vinyl signs with…
Read MoreBroody Hen is Sitting on Eggs Again
One of my Wyandotte hens has gone broody AGAIN! None of the other hens are laying right now… But she has at least a dozen eggs underneath her. I’m buying eggs from the store while I allow her to honor her maternal instincts. I think she has been on them for at least three weeks…
Read MoreBeyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
Book Review: Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.” I read (this is a conservative estimate) at least forty full-length books a year…probably closer to a book (or more) per week. Whenever I’m not writing for clients, writing blog posts, riding…
Read MoreLeapin’ Leopards and Flying Tigers–The Adventure Continues!
I love my brain–especially when I’m asleep! My dreams about big cats (last night it was leopards and tigers) are continuing, even as my daytime brain is observing and abhors the current crises facing our nation and the world thanks to our C.I.C. (Charlatan In Chief) and his racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, (and the…
Read MoreCougars in the Car-Pet! And One Other Dream
Cougars invading cars and dogs in plays visited me in my dreams last night. I’ve had critters on the brain, day and night, recently. With the air quality here in the Pacific Northwest for the past two weeks at “hazardous” levels because of fires in BC Canada and elsewhere, we’ve been advised to stay…
Read MoreMuch Appreciated!
Thank you to my awesome webmaster, Lisa Twining Taylor of Dancing Goat Web Design, for appending a “$3 hot chocolate” button. Every click of the button at the side of each blog post will help bolster my anemic post-retirement income and offer further encouragement to me to keep writing these blogs for fellow animal…
Read MoreIn Memory of Animal Advocate and My Writing Mentor Ted Crail
Reprinted from YellowBalloonPublications.com I just learned today that my friend and professional writing mentor Ted Crail passed away in April, 2014. I tried to find him several times the past few years–including writing to his last-known email address and snail mail address in Kalispell MT. No response from him or his wife. That…
Read MoreBook Review: The Girl with No Name … Raised By Monkeys
Once in a while I spot a title that raises a big red flag. It leaves me saying, right out loud, even when nobody else is around to hear it, “Seriously?!?” That’s what happened when I saw “The Girl with No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys”. “As an…
Read MoreBook Review: Alex and Me is a Fascinating Study
Amazon link to Alex and Me http://amzn.to/2vC3tc7 “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.” For anyone fascinated with human-animal communication, chimps and gorillas named Washoe, Koko, and Michael and an African Grey Parrot named Alex need no introduction. Nor do their human compatriots Roger Fouts, Francine “Penny” Patterson, and Irene Pepperberg. …
Read MoreWhat My Cat-Sized Cat Thinks About My Babysitting a Rat-Sized Dog
My sister is off on a cruise with her family this week, so I’m babysitting her dog, Kiki, on my end of the house. (We share a “duplex” of sorts–we have completely separate living spaces but we’re connected by a door in between her kitchen and mine.) Kiki, bless her heart, doesn’t weigh two…
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