I'll admit it. I'm shy, and strange noises startle me.

Since we've moved to California, it seems I'm always hiding in the cupboard above the fridge, which is a very nice spot, thank-you-very-much. I heard mommee thinking out loud this morning that maybe she should put sometime soft in there for me to lie on, since I tend to spend so much time there.

Yes! Yes!

My cave, AKA safe space.

The other day, we heard a VERY strange noise, a new one. (As if there aren't enough new ones.)

This is what caused it:

Crazy humans waving as they go over our house.

See that basket? Who would even want to ride in that, hundreds of feet in the air with nothing between you and the ground? And flames right over your head. It's craziness! 

However, from what I've been told, being in one of these things, which are called Hot Air Balloons, is very calming. There's no sound of rushing wind, because it goes with the wind. 

You also don't know where you're going to end up. It really depends upon which...

Raise a paw if you love going to the doctor. Or a hand, if you're human.

Mine are firmly on the ground.

However, my teeth are falling out. I'm only 11. This is not exactly normal. 

I liked our vet in Colorado (if vets can be liked. He was pretty nice, but no fish snacks.). He was friendly, talkative, and always answered all of mommee's questions. He also believed in a minimalist approach to health care, so he wasn't going to force me to have shots I didn't need, or stuff like that. Good thing, I don't care much for needles.

Trying to find a vet that's compatible with our personalities and lifestyle in a brand new location is always a crap shoot.

Well, we came up 7's. (That's good, right?)

Once I was stuffed into the cat carrier and complained for a few minutes ("did you really have to push on my head like that???"), I was okay. The trip to the vet wasn't nearly as long as getting to our new house, and it was cool in the car. And I got to be on the front seat.

There was a wait at...

Mommee, Daddee and the dogs went for a hike. It was a slow hike, because there are some elders in that bunch (actually, the youngest are Amy and Bernadette, and they're 9 in dog years, which is mid-50's in people years. Nobody is what I'd call straight out of the egg.)

Anyhoo, they went to the ocean again. What is this thing about water? But this time, they hiked along a trail that was on the side opposite the road that goes along the ocean. No dogs allowed on the beach, ha ha ha!

They had to look out for rattlesnakes (!!). We had them in Colorado, too, but I never saw one. (They didn't see any on the hike, either.)

What they did see, though, were bike tracks and people on bicycles. This trail was hard enough to walk up. People on bikes? They were young, though. The people, not the bikes. Probably 20's in people years.

Annnnd, they saw tracks! Not everyone who was on that trail was human or canine. The wild ones are clever - why make a new trail when there's one handy? Can you see ...

Mommee and Daddee worked hard and got our catio installed.

Lookee here:

Daddeee

I'm not a very brave cat, but my brother Jackson and sister Ellie are. They're what I would call 
street cats. They would probably say they're more experienced than me in the big bad world, because they both came from places where they were semi-feral, and there were lots of cats. Jackson definitely came from a hoarding situation, and as such doesn't have great bathroom skills. But I digress, and that's for another blog.

Mommee kind of forced me through the cat door to the catio. I immediately turned around and cried to be let in. There's a window right next to the door, and I couldn't tell where the door was. It was also a long jump up from the landing pad in the catio, and that didn't work well. 

You could say I was an excellent cat to try out the configuration and see if it worked well. (Hint: It didn't.)

So some things got changed. A box is now on part of the landing pad so it's easy to go out an...

We got votes!

Cute Ree won out over Pixar Ree hands down. Not that Pixar Ree isn't cute, but he looks more cartoonish - and will be featured in other things.

But for the picture that accompanies the Blog, it's Ree the Cute. It's him, to a T. 

I'm not a big proponent of AI, being a Luddite and all (happy to tell you any time about how I went kicking and screaming into the world of Windows - and I was in PC tech support, so you can imagine how that went over). And if you're not sure what a Luddite is, look it up. Or use this handy link: WHAT IS A LUDDITE?

Now, some Luddite's shun all technology. I'm one of those people who are resistant to change. My best friend is what's called an early adopter. Not me, man. I want to make sure I still have two arms and two legs (as opposed to fifteen of each) before I'll upgrade my technology. So I have a smart phone, and I have pretty much Apple everything, after spending years supporting all the other technologies out there. I don't want to think...

Hello friends of our blogs from Ry/Ree and Huxley.

Ashara and I have been posting blogs here (on Kajabi) and on Substack for the past several months. We basically write on one platform, then duplicate on the other platform.

Ashara likes to write in Kajabi and copy to Substack.

Me - just the opposite. I write in Substack and copy to Kajabi. Oh my!

Imagine the amount of time we are using (ok, wasting) by duplicating our efforts.

WHYYYYY are we doing this?

Well, our website is hosted [tech-speak for where it lives] on Kajabi and since there is a way to write blogs there we have been doing just that for a long time. It's fairly easy but takes time to put it all together, plus setting up and scheduling the email that you get in your inbox. 

Bet you didn't know that. You see the email with a short lead-in and a button to click that let's you read the full blog post.

Frankly at this point in life writing blog posts on ONE PLATFORM IS SUFFICIENT, AMPLE, and candidly-speaking, GOOD!

St...

A friend of mine has been playing around with AI and making avatars, and she made one for Ree (who used to be Ry, but people kept calling him a bread. Since we'll continue to spell his name correctly around home and at the vet, in public print his name shall be spelled REE.).

So I want to use one of these avatars as the new face of this blog. I need your help. Which one of these two pictures do you like better?

PICTURE A - IGNORE the background and look at the cat only.

PICTURE B - IGNORE the background, and look at the cat only.

Which on pulls at your heartstrings more? Which one would you like to see on the Blog email?

I have to admit, AI and I are not friends, but when it comes to this sort of thing, well, Ree has come to life in a way I never imagined.

So what do you think?

Picture A? Picture B?

Sometimes they'll involve the dogs (sorry, cats). Sometimes they won't.

Now that we're in an area we don't know much about, it's time to explore!

Last Wednesday, we took the dogs to Kehoe Beach, which is within The Point Reyes National Seashore. We've been landlocked for a long time. It was good to see the Pacific.

Part of the beach you can take dogs. The other part, beware! Dogs stay away!

It's about a half-mile walk to the beach itself, which was fine until we got to the sand dunes, and then it was a tough slog. I'm glad we have an elderly dog, because I can blame our slowness on him (sorry, Niko). We were both panting by the time we got to the beach. Rest ensued.

Niko, the Dad, and Amy (Bernadette was behind me)

It was a glorious day, not too hot, not too sunny, and walking along the beach with the woofs was great fun. And cats, you would have been completely turned off by this place, except that it looked like a huge litter box. Water. Waves. Birds that would fight you for ...

I know it's been quiet. Maybe for you, ha ha ha, but for me, the hubs, the dogs, cats and horses, it's been a whirlwind.

We are finally in California at our new place, and this is what it looks like:

We haven't moved in a while. It's been almost 10 years, and for me, that's practically a lifetime. From the time I was 21, until this last move, I've moved 38 times. Most of those were before I was 40. Then I got together with Glenn and things really slowed down. This is only our 9th move together, and there was, as I said 10 years between the last move and this one. It's a lot of boxes, and of course the older you get the more stuff you have. You should have seen what we sold/gave away!

But enough about that. How did the animals fare?

We downsized considerably, going from 40 acres of wide open spaces to a beautiful 55+ community in Sonoma, California, where we have a large yard all fenced in for the dogs, and the cats have a new house to explore. The cats are waiting patiently (for ...

A quick blog to tell you why you haven't been receiving blogs from Harmony's Heart.

We're moving. Not just down the street, we're downsizing (read getting rid of lots of stuff) and moving to a warmer state. 

OMG, all the moving parts.

Photo by Digital Buggu

First, we sold the house we're in. We are now tenants in the home we owned for 10 years. Grateful, because otherwise we'd be on the street with our furry family. We'll be here until the end of July (unless we pack up the pod really fast and the house in California closes early - then we'll head out early).

Then, we needed to find a place to land in Northern California - mission accomplished! You'll get the details once everything's finalized.

We're downsizing our business, and what THAT means is we won't be doing coaching with horses any more - although it's not out of the question; it turns out there's a boarding place right around the corner from the house we picked out in California! The Universe works in mysterious ways....