New neighbors

Thought of the day…Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

I live in an incorporated city in the suburbs. But have the wonderful luxury of living behind a small farm. Ma and Pa live there (remember them from my Puppy Sitting and Stop and Smell the Flowers posts). When we bought the house there were cows there. They were part of why we bought the house.

I could look out my kitchen windows and see them. It was a chance to escape the busy city life if only for a moment.

When Hubby would mow the backyard, they’d follow him back-and-forth waiting for him to dump grass over the fence for them to eat. It was so cute. They were like kids waiting for ice cream. At the time, we had a tiny little dog, Lady. Lady was a miniature pincher and a runt at that. She was “fat” when she weighed 6 pounds…. when we got her she was three months old and weight 1.2 pounds and fit in the palm of my hand…

… This will give you some perspective on her size. Here she’s playing with hot wheels… actually she loved Mr. Sun.

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…and here she’s eating cottage cheese (it’s her birthday)… the bowl is a 4 oz butter dish…

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…Can you tell she LOVED cottage cheese?

… sorry… I started thinking about Lady. I miss her. She was about 15 1/2 when she died. She was such a good dog… She gave GREAT neck hugs… she could tell when you needed a hug and would nestle her little nose in the crook of your neck/shoulder… ahhhh… you couldn’t help but feel loved….

… sorry…

Back to my story…

Lady would go out there a bark at the cows… keep in mind… tiny dog… big cow… it was a crack up! I don’t have any digital pictures of her doing it, but trust me… it was soooo funny!

… sorry… I got side-tracked again!

When the city decided to widen the main road near our house Ma and Pa decided to move the cows to their 40 acre farm. So we bid farewell. After a while, I took the chain link fence out between our two properties. It made it much easier to get back-and-forth between our houses.

Now jump forward four years… to well… yesterday … I was working from home and while sitting at my kitchen table and saw something moving across the pasture. I looked up expecting to see one of the feral cats… but no….

… this is what I saw…

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OK, a raccoon family isn’t really something to have just around the corner in a bunch of trees and blackberry bushes… they might start getting into stuff… like my compost bin… UGH! What a mess that would be…

… But you have to admit, this is a cute picture…

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I suspect they will not like living in the area when Pa finishes taking out the blackberry bushes… but for now…

I need to keep an eye out for this little family…

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I wonder if they paid their Homeowner’s Association Fees…