Some Animal Friends

Just a quick post today of some animal friends of late!  Here's one of the many goats that were at a local event recently.  I spend time with them each year.  A regional guy has all sorts of animals that he rescues and takes in and he specializes in goats, it seems.  

Last month I spent some time at the Jamestown Audubon and really enjoyed chatting with the turtles.  This lil guy is Lincoln.  I'm considering donating to his feed and care.  You can do so for at little at $20.  The turtles at the Audubon are rescue situations or those who have been neglected.

About 2 weeks ago I was on my way to work and this adorable dog was playing on a busy street and didn't have a tag.  I stopped my car in the middle of the road and wanted to make sure he didn't get hit.  Before I could get her - she jumped in my car.  She spent 60% of the workday with us in the office and then I took her to the Humane Society to see if she was chipped.  She wasn't.  They kept her.  I was already attached.  Later that day she was reunited with her family so that is good!

About a week earlier this cat followed me to my car.  I think it's a church cat - because that is where I park.  I haven't seen her since but she was pretty cool!

This is one of the cats at our local shelter/Humane Society and she was sitting inside this so matter-of-factly that I just had to take a photo!

And finally...Cricket.  Apparently I disrupted her slumber trying to take this pic!  LOL!

Vegan Finds, Vegan RVing, Nature, Volunteering, & Playing Catch-Up

First I want to say THANK YOU for those who commented on my last post and sent words of encouragement.  I truly appreciate you all!  This post will be more on the positive side.  I have LOTS of vegan finds to share with you over the last several months.  As well as some of the volunteering, family, nature, and camping posts to share!  So...here...we...go!  The photo above is one of the new vegan butters I found.  Since I found this months ago it could very well be old news but I think it's still worth posting!  Country Crock jumped on the plant-based train and came out with this new 'butter' made from Avocado Oil.  I have to say I do like it.  I found this one at my local Tops Market.

These next TWO photos are vegan yogurts I found.  The flavors were good but they were a tad on the thin side.  I believe I found these at Wegman's.

Of course, I LOVE Lemon Meringue flavored things so I had to try this one at the very least!

Here are 4 of the dressings and such that got me thru this season of camping!  I have been trying to follow more and more vegan RV'ers and vegan campers to connect with, too!  I know I have posted the Daiya dressings before but I don't think I have featured the Field Organic Goddess Dressing or the Annie's Lemon & Chive but I enjoyed all 4 of them!

Here is a shot of my cabinet for the camping season.  Of course there were other trips to the grocery store in between but I thought it was worth a corner in this blog post.  I tried the new Daiya Bac'n & Cheddar and I wasn't that much of a fan but at least I can say I tried it once.  It was too salty for me.  I'm just now getting to the point were I am eating the soups because it cooled down for a few days.  Rice is always a good choice.  Trinity and I shared the organic applesauce.  There are some Nature's Bakery items in there and a few Coconut Silk Milk's in there, too!

On to the snacks!  My father went to a snack and candy show and brought back a bunch of munchies for me.  Over the last several years he has noticed more and more vegan options!  YAY!  This was one of the new flavors back in April from Vegan Rob's!  I have to say I LOVED them!  A nice kick!  Addicting!  YUM!

And speaking of addicting...THESE GUYS!  OMG!  I adore them!  The only negative?  I can't find them around here!  Maybe that is for the best...I would eat them TOO MUCH then if they were readily available.

While camping this year we found MANY birds nests!  And some of them were in the strangest places!  This one was behind our camping in between the fence and the water hook-up.  It was built AFTER we hooked-up.  I checked on it each time I went to the camper and the eggs were so small!  Too small to be Robins.  After researching it for a bit, I found out these were Chipping Sparrows.  3 out of the 4 eggs hatched and I was actually able to see them fly out of the next a couple of weeks after they hatched, too!

Another thing that happened in the spring was another Refugee Hike.  Once again I helped with the food - as did my mother!  These kids were AMAZING!  The youngest was about 14 and the oldest of was 24.  There were also a few chaperones, too.  Unfortunately, I missed the canoe trip they did in early August because of the volunteering I do at our fair.

Also in the spring, I was inducted as a new Zonta Board Member.  I'm pictured here in the black shirt with red scarf.  I really LOVE being a part of the Zonta Organization.  My only regret was that I didn't join sooner.  In addition to being on the board now I am the Service Committee Chair for a 2nd year in a row.  This year I am also on the Advocacy and Media/Communications Committee (as I was last year) and new-for-me this year is becoming a member of the Fellowship Committee, too!  I'm VERY excited about the new year!

You may remember that last year our club started collecting bras for Free The Girls.  We have continued to do so and have collected 2,001 bras so far.  I doubt we will be slowing down anytime soon!

These next TWO photos are from some of our Suffrage Centennial Committee Meetings.  We have been discussing and planning various events with several other organizations around our county to celebrate 100 years of Women's Right to Vote.

Many of the ladies have been purchasing and making banners, sashes, flags, and more!  It's really neat to see!  Tonight we actually have an actress coming to town to portray Susan B. Anthony.  I will try and take pictures and blog about it soon!

And, finally, here are some photos from Warren County Serves that took place in Mid-May.  It's a group that formed a year or so ago and they lost many of their members even before the first annual event.  I've always wanted to do something like this to encourage and promote volunteerism in our area so I ended up joining the group!  We had projects that included beautification at our local Humane Society as well as tagging and sorting at the thrift shop they have on the other side of town.  There were several parks that also did beautification projects during that weekend.  There is a community house for those with mental and physical disabilities that a group helped scrape, paint, and stain steps, too!  We also have an organization in our county that houses and pairs service dogs and emotional support dogs to those who have PTSD and other emotional difficulties and that group helped clean-up their parking lot, outside of the building, and such.  Another place that had volunteers was our fairgrounds.  We did a LOT of painting, and I mean a LOT.  And others helped with cleaning some of the buildings and landscaping.  There were other projects, too, these are just a few.

I'm already pondering my post for tomorrow.  I still have a lot of catching up to do.  Let me know if you think these posts are too long or if you prefer them.

Animal Photography - Color and Black & White

Thank you to those who are helping me narrow down my photos for this years fair!  I was able to get my hands on the categories and I have some MAJOR narrowing down to do now that I know what I am looking for!  I was hoping you could help me YET AGAIN!

First up...Animal Photography!  I think I have narrowed it down to 3.  A cat, a dog, and a Prairie Dog!  I can enter ONLY ONE in each category BUT there is a color category for animals and a black and white category for animals.  These first two are the Stray Cat.  

Next up is a Blue Lab.  This first photo is the color one and below is the black and white one of the Blue Lab.  

I guess the best way to ask is...out of the 3 animals which one do you think I should enter for the color and which one should I enter for the black and white?

The last of the 3 animal photos I have is this Prairie Dog!  Above is the color and below is the black and white version.

I'm not sure which I should enter in each category!  Can you guys and gals help me!?

I Acquired 25 Pounds of Mushrooms Over The Weekend...FREE...And Other Weekend Happenings

Over the weekend our region had one of the largest seasonal folk art craft fairs in our area and one of the vendors asked if any of the volunteers wanted free mushrooms so a friend of ours said that he knew someone who would want them.  They were already washed, sliced, etc and ready to go.  When he brought the box of mushrooms over I was SHOCKED!  There had to have been a good 25 pounds of mushrooms in there!  Here are some of them!

 After sharing with 4 other people who only grabbed about 5 pounds each I still had LOTS left.  So last night I made soup!  LOTS and LOTS of soup!  More on those soups in future posts but today I thought I would post some other random photos from the weekend.  After 4 large batches of soup - my mother and I did a few other things with them including a favorite from my childhood that we veganized.  POM (Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms).  We cooked them in Earth Balance Vegan Spread instead of the butter/margarine we used to when I was a kid!

At this same folk art fair was this lil guy...a Prairie Dog!  My father and I adore them!  There is a man who brings his fur friends each year - and we have seen him at other events - I believe he rescues a lot of the animals - you can tell he really LOVES them!  Each animal has a name and he remembers ALL of them!  He also currently has about 300 goats and mini goats, too!  He was telling a lady that he will NOT bring a goat who doesn't want to come that day.  They all want to go (he doesn't force them).  He says "ok - who wants to go" and a bunch of them will run over to the truck(s)!  He had some turtles, large rabbits, and a mini horse, too!

Oh yes!  And the goats!  They were adorable!  All so friendly and well behaved!  I really connected with a few of them!  I have wanted 2 goats for a while now but don't know the first thing about caring for them.  Regardless they are so cute!

I can't believe it's fall already!  Oye!  It bums me out because I know that snow is right around the corner!

I will cherish the non-snow weather for as long as I can, tho!

In other news...

The decorated rocks are popping up all over for various groups so we decided to do them for the radio station.  Here are a few that I started already!

I'm not the best drawer but I try and it's FUN - it gets me out walking a bit more and it helps relieve some stress!

Interested Animals & Container Garden Progress

I'm still doing a little bit of catch-up with posts.  I figured today I would do a few collages of two subjects and combine the blog post.  This first photo collage is of some of my favorite animals from the fair a few weeks ago.  The two birds I just LOVED the colors of the feathers and they were so cool.  Their temporary living quarters were very clean and of the most spacious I have seen.  The Rabbits had their whole family there and chillin' in their own pen area.  They were precious!  This horse was nodding off while standing...or maybe just blinking...but it was cute and I LOVED the brown and white color combo and spots!

I've been trying to update you all on the Container Garden and Rooftop Garden Progress!  Well, here is some more!  The Dragon's Tongue Beans have been a real hit this year!  We've had great luck with those!  We are already sure we are going to do them again next year!  I'm almost wondering if we can do them year-round indoors...we might try!  Then the other two photos here are of the Brussel Sprouts!  We have one that is doing REALLY well.  Another one that is doing ok.  And the other two are up-in-the-air.  I think we might pull one of them today.  I think the branches are too close to grow the sprouts and they aren't really sprouting much.  But we are very excited about the ones that have 'nubs' on them - like the ones you see here!

 

World Wildlife Day!

Today is World Wildlife Day!  The United Nations has more info on this program on their website if you haven't already heard about it.  In short...World Wildlife Day is an opportunity to celebrate the many beautiful and varied forms of wild fauna and flora and to raise awareness of the multitude of benefits that conservation provides to people. At the same time, the Day reminds us of the urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime, which has wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.

 So...I thought I would not only show some photos that have been shared on that website but on others.  I was also checking out the World Wildlife Fund's website earlier today.  It's been a while since my last visit.  I used to frequent the site often.  YEARS ago - and several blogs ago - I used to post about random endangered species.  I sort of miss doing that so I might start posting about them on occasion.  I love learning about them and their habits and history and really hope that we can bring them back from the brink.

According to the WWF Website -

On March 3, the government of Nepal, WWF and other partners celebrated 365 days without a single case of rhino, elephant or tiger poaching ending February 2014. This is the second time that the country marked such a milestone after 2011.

Their efforts are focused on Elephants, Tigers, and Rhinos.

I signed a pledge online to support their anti-poaching and anti-traffic campaign.  There are TONS of other animals and endangered species to check up and check in on - on this page!

I may not always be able to donate with money but the least I can do is educate myself and others, eh!?

Questions of the Day:
What did you do or learn this World Wildlife Day?


What are some of your favorite endangered animals that are near and dear to your heart?