From 1972 to 1980, I lived in the state of Vermont, USA. A baseball fan, I found a companion who also loved the sport, and we took trips with my two children to Boston, Massachusetts, to watch the Boston Red Sox play ball!
This year, (2013), the Red Sox made it to the World Series and won that title for the third time since 2004. Unfortunately, those titles all came after I was long gone from Vermont and living back in my native Ohio!
However, my little faithful “lapper” rescue, Cee-Cee, was my fellow rooter as I watched this year’s Series. She really enjoyed it, so I let her give her version of how it all went for our Red Sox!
“C’mon, Mom! It’s starting!”
“Hmmm…What’s happening now, Mom?”
“Mom, this is kind of a slow-type of ball-playing game, isn’t it?”
“Sooo slooow!”
“Mom, why do they call it the World Series? These teams are from Boston and St. Louis in the USA.”
“Okay, I see. He got a hit. Drew…”
“No, I’m awake. Promise…”
“What? A home run! We’re way ahead now, aren’t we? Six to zero!”
“It’s almost over!? One more pitch?!”
“Wow, Mom, they’re all over the field! They’re celebrating, aren’t they? That means they won, right? World Champions! Wow!”
“This is sooo exciting… Zzzzzzzzzzz… Wha’ ?? Yeah… Zzzzzzz… Glad they won, Mom… Zzzzzzzzzzz…”
Recent competitions (August 2023) in the Animals-Dogs category at Pixoto resulted in my two small stars being rewarded with first, second, and third place finishes.
Paste the URL at the top of the AWARDS sheet to see more about Pixoto and photography competitions.
A Dachshund-Schnauzer mix, Breezi (ABOVE) currently remains my latest adopted pal (since 2017) and likes to show off outdoors. A red only camera setting resulted in her picture here, and it also won a first place showing at Pixoto on a different date.
Breezi-Girl
(BELOW) More of Cee-Cee
Cee-Cee was a Terrier-Basenji mix gifted with many winning expressions and a very curly tail. She was my little darling as an adoptee from 2010 to 2017. One other of her photographs also placed categorically first at Pixoto. In addition, she won first place in a local parade of dogs contest.
Smiley Girl
My two small stars have been the typically named bundles of joy in my life after human offspring flew the coop.
Got a pet? Share a story !
++++ Credit: Photographs from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
My last three dogs were partner gifts in my life after my children had gone on to establish their own lives and adopt their own animals.
Breezi, pictured in this blog’s title header, is still with me.
Ebony (ABOVE) was a stray Newfoundland with a slight injury to her right hind leg when I met her at a local shelter, and I immediately fell in love with her lop-sided grin. My first adoption after my family had left the nest, Ebony refilled that void and became a water, land, and snow pal with whom I shared numerous trips to Lake Erie.
Ebony was a gorgeous animal who shared my life from 1998 to 2009. In between trips to the lake, Ebony played ball vigorously !
My favorite baseball team could have used a centerfielder like this !
Although Newfoundland Dogs are water-familiar and trained for water rescue, my Ebony never had experienced water before our first venture to Lake Erie. Once I waded into the shallows and showed her how to retrieve a stick, Ebony became all about the water and swimming and fetching. She would exhaust herself, even after blindness hindered her, to chase after that stick, or rubber toy, floating on the water’s surface.
Waterland !
A vacation day at Marblehead Lighthouse State Park, Marblehead, Ohio; Lake Erie.
Less than a year old when I adopted her, Ebony took her first plunge into Lake Erie at Port Clinton, Ohio. She chased the waves with abandon. We traveled further along to East Harbour and Marblehead Lighthouse State Park where Ebony quickly learned the toss and fetch game from a watery point of view.
Ebony always welcomed snow, as well !
We traveled via two different Chevy vans I owned at different periods over our eleven years together. Despite her size (126 pounds) Ebony easily negotiated the jump into those vehicles !
The newer van pictured here had a convenient, sliding half-window with a screen. I removed the screen so Ebony could snick her nose into the wind as we whisked along to the lake. From miles away, she could begin to smell the lake water and
became very excited with anticipation of hitting the waves running.
When we walked the shorelines, awed children would ask me if I was accompanied by a bear ! They soon found Ebony to be as gentle as she was large and delighted in becoming acquainted with her.
Ebony’s favorite treat after a hardy swim was a banana split. Every bit of it !
I’m certain Ebony has been playing water games in Doggie Heaven throughout the last decade ! Thanks for the incredible years, my sweet Ebony !
Do you have a favorite pet? I’d love to hear your story !
+++++ Credit: Photographs are from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
L’l Gray (BELOW) was a victim of relocation gone wrong this Spring, and she is greatly missed.
(LEFT & RIGHT) Multi-colored beauties were a sample of the many healthy and hued variety L’l Gray produced over her tenure as a devoted mother. Over a period of five years, her numerous families of kittens were a gift to residents who enjoyed the backyard venue.
The first two photos of kittens were one of L’l Gray’s first broods, four little lovelies from an orange mate. The photo (ABOVE) of the strong-shouldered, protective mother is her family from the Fall of 2020. Only three kittens are visible. A fourth is huddled farther under the board pile.
LITTLE GRAY (ABOVE), aka L’L GRAY, a mother superior.
(ABOVE) The last two. Solo (RIGHT) and Specks, or Elsa (LEFT) were the last two kittens L’l Gray gave us. They were born in the Spring of 2021.
L’l Gray’s Spring of 2020 kittens (ABOVE) demonstrated the familiar colorful offspring she nearly always produced. The gray on the far right is long-haired, also a feature that occurred now and then in L’l Gray’s babies. These tykes were fathered by a long-haired gray mate.
No matter where L’l Gray actually birthed her families, she habitually brought them to this board pile beside a utility shed for show and tell and protection.
All of L’l Gray’s kittens pictured here were happily adopted. For that, we remain grateful.
Peek-a-boo… I have a twin. We’re Chip (white chips on my face – right side in the photo BELOW) and Chap (my twin pal ABOVE).
We like playing hide-and-seek around this fence post! Then we nap in the sunshine.
This is our cousin Tig-Tig, with the Linx cat tufts on her ears. Isn’t she a beauty?
Tig-Tig looks a bit sad because we snatched her lunch away from her, but we really have to learn how to stuff down that yummy bread and milk from one of our human benefactors, simply because Mama can’t feed us with breast milk forever.
Sometimes Mama lets me catch a nap on her back (ABOVE) because she is so devoted to me and my twin, Chap.
This is Breezi, our canine friend who gets to live indoors, but who comes outside often to visit with us. That’s what friends are for !
Good-bye! (We have to track down a mouse — Mama said !)
Thanks for listening!
+++++ Credit: Photos from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
New ordinance readings would change the way stray cats and dogs live in the small city.
Lucky birds; they can fly!
It is proposed that feeding and watering stray cats and dogs should be against the law. When this ordinance passes its required three readings in public city council session, or is unscrupulously passed in one “emergency” legislative reading, citizens will no longer be allowed to feed, or water, a stray cat, or dog, no matter where the stray cat, or dog, is located within city limits. A first offense of same will result in the person being charged with a minor misdemeanor. Fourth degree misdemeanor charges would follow after further offenses by the same individual.
A former humane society director claims this new policy will force stray cats and dogs who previously have partially lived off handouts to hunt through more and more garbage locations in order to survive.
While the city would enforce this new legislation, it also would seek government grant funding to finance a trap, spay/neuter, release program at the price of $150 per animal surgically altered. That would mean citizens still would be held to non-feeding/watering legislation after treated animals are released with no capability to reproduce.
What is the point of the cost of alteration, altogether, if these animals can’t be fed even after reproductive capability is lost? And, would the surgical program really be handled with care?
The numbers versus the need, alone, say the alteration program wouldn’t be very effective because trapping would become a massive undertaking manned by… who? That part of the problem takes precedence over even the troublesome cost of the program for one small city — $150 per animal. Realistically, how much continuing funding is available in grant form from the government for this kind of operation?
What are we really trying to control? Is it animals, or citizens?
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Credit:
Photos from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
Kittens:
“We don’t know where we are. Buddy thinks we may have landed in Kitten Heaven because there are a lot of other kittens here who don’t seem to remember too much of a life.
“We know we were separated from our Mother and run into a small, hot container. Then we took a ride…
“Now we’re somewhere strange. We hear our Mother’s cries, but we can’t find her, and she can’t find us. We miss her warm body and her cuddling and her milk.
“It all happened so quickly. We barely had learned to climb on our board pile home and to play with one another.
“Everything now is different and frightening. We wonder how long it will last. How long will it be before we see Mother again?”
Tiger Mom. Bursting with milk and waiting on Earth to find her babies.
“The thing most wrong with the animal kingdom is the human animal that controls it.” – BA Helberg
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Credit:
Photos from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
House Sparrows will create a house just about anywhere, even on the side of a house ! Some of them cleverly use sticks and straws to wedge open a vent cap so they may slide inside.
They work tirelessly to get things looking like a home.
Father’s asking: “How do you like our house so far?”
Notice how the Sparrows use their tail feathers to help balance themselves on the side of this brick building. They easily can spike their claws into the rough surface of the bricks, then they spread their rear feathers to enable them to hold fast.
In the beginning of the nest building, pairs may take turns hauling up material and opening the hatch by pecking under its edge with their sturdy beaks.
Father’s about to deliver a bunch of bedding,
while Mother waits her turn to do the same.
Mother (left) tells Father: “No lunch breaks, dear. Open the cap and then go for more grass. We need lots of soft bedding material.”
Father replies: “Yes, dear. Got it !!”
Mother brings branches to hold the bedding together.
Sometimes it gets crowded (BELOW) as the work is nearly completed and Father’s lunch is long anticipated and overdue!
But in the end, the nest is finished, and Mother is pleased when she checks inside, then peeks out to see all is safe (BELOW):
The nest is ready for offspring.
Nature’s wondrous cycles continue every Spring, free for humankind to observe… and, perhaps, learn a trick, or two !
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Credit:
Photos from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg
This is where we have fun, some of which is poignant, with talking animals. Also, this particular story represents a time when I was experimenting with pseudonyms. Thus — Grace Strange. My given middle name is Anne, which interprets to “grace”, and my first name, Barbara, means “strange”. Have fun with that! I did!
The short story Firefly came about as an experiment, too. For a writing project in the Writer’s Digest School’s “Writing and Selling Short Stories”, 2002, we were asked to play with POV. I created three different viewpoint characters to relate this horse racing drama.
The version presented here from the racehorse’s POV, I created as a fantasy. For extra fun, I’ve scanned the copy of the story as it was edited by my WDS instructor! Enjoy!
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The original short story, Racing Dilemma, from which this fantasy was taken, may be read at My Writing Life Xposed
my Primary Blog here, at WordPress. Excerpts of this story, and other versions of it may also appear at some of my other numerous WordPress blogs.
My short story The Assignments appears in the third The Box Under the Bed anthology series edited and produced by best-selling Amazon author Dan Alatorre and titled Nightmarelend. The third book was debuted in 2019, and soon climbed to a best-selling rung in the horror genre ladder at Amazon. Be prepared to be spooked! Credit: […]
FULL continuing chapters of Seawind can be found at: Moon Glow Select Excerpt from: Seawind: A BAT Publishing Novel by Barbara Anne Helberg …In the next instant, he would have flung himself at Carlson’s legs, but his silent adversary’s shuddering knees caved in and his unfired weapon slowly slipped from the hand no longer able to grip. Carlson’s […]
Our lives exist because we have experiences that create memories. We remember our childhood for the better, or the worse. Elementary and high schools shape our lives in ways that we forever remember. We marry, join the military, divorce, have children of our own, learn trades and professions. These experiences are similar to those of […]
Dark Visions Kitty, kitty — we’re friends, aren’t we? Me–OW! BUT WHO IS WATCHING? Relationships the second time around in the world of Amazon anthologies are just as rewarding and exciting as the first time we — over 20 authors — connected with Dan Alatorre’s editing and compiling skills last year (2017) for the production […]
Short Stories and Story Art The date on this original Short Story, Racing Dilemma, presented BELOW, is 1967. Its creation was a result of my passionate interest in sports, particularly in Thoroughbred horse racing. The story was one of several sports stories I wrote as I was continuing my writing studies with the Famous Writers […]
Horses and Animals Are Talkin' 