22 January 2026 Among my New Year’s projects has been the reclaiming of my Mud Room/Laundry Room from Jolene, Jolene Du Pré, to be specific.   This room became the Pup Room when she entered my life (my world) in early September 2023, and she’s immensely enjoyed having full run of the space.  She doesn’t spend as much time in there, now that she has full run of the entire house and the acreage surrounding it.   I therefore thought that I could set up this interior real-estate

31 December 2025 It’s taken me the better part of two years, and it has been a better part, to be able to place Jolene du Près as a fully-fleshed hound in Pets, Real and Fictional .   The deficiency lay not in this sweet, loving, adorable beagle, but in myself.   She’s worked hard, very hard, to fit into my Pantheon of Pets since first she entered my real world in early September 2023.  She was in my dream-world before then, but the wise among us know how hard it can be to re

End of June 2025 A couple of months ago, I reportedly awoke in my sleep, sometime in the middle of the night, and asked Dear Husband:  ...

23 December 2024 Hound Dog by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; Changes by Debra Milligan You, you, you ain’t nothing but a hound dog  ...

December 2024 From Mrs. Christmas Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Music by Hugh Martin, original lyrics by Ralph Blaine; changes...

20 October 2023 Bonnie Lynne Milligan, my first beagle, truly was my dog, but she truly was not a beagle, at least not a pure-bred one....

25 September 2023 On 25 September 2023, Gabrielle, the Snowshoe Cat, quietly passed away in her sleep. The Home Cat has journeyed to her...

3 September 2023 I left my comfort zone today, for at least a few hours. I can’t confirm that I actually possess a comfort zone. The...

14 June 2023 I’ve begun reading Doctor Zhivago (my first edition). I was halfway through reading this book during the autumn of 2016,...

29 May 2023 There are no words, even for a writer, to adequately and accurately address the life of Chance Beaumont. I feel equally inept...

11 February 2023 “We” — my Muse and I — have climbed down from that Uncompahgre Plateau, now that THE SILENT HEART has been completed,...

11 January 2023 This past December, Chance the wonder-hound needed to have a skin tag removed. It was supposed to have been a minor...

June 2022 The Last Waltz The Normand Hound It’s always easy for me to see, in retrospect, how a novel of mine comes to be. I’ve a fixed...

25 February 2022 Gabrielle is such a brave cat that I once wrote an essay to detail her exploits against an annoying and intrusive...

25 September 2021 The pets are heading into autumn, and, not far behind them, am I. Dear Husband is keeping pace with them! The Problem...

September 2020 Gabrielle is the Home-Cat now, in the new house called Larkhaven. After her release from 10 days of spacious...

Summer Solstice 2020 I hesitated about posting this information about my black cat, Annabella, or, as I called her, My Annabelle. She...

27 September 2019 This post is not a poem or even a song, but an outpouring of a grateful heart which is, in its highest sense, a poem or...

21 August 2019 Yesterday, almost accidentally, I found the Bridget Fabrics: layers cakes and charm packs and jelly rolls from The Fat...

February 2018 Home repairs and sprucing up the Homestead for sale have brought Chance to the local Home-Store often enough that the hound...