Last night I couldn’t fall to sleep right away. Weird, since I was finally home in my own bed and was happy to be there!  You know that kind of night, don’t you?  When you just can’t shut off the thoughts?  Well, last night I finally succumbed to exhaustion but before I did I was thinking about my pets.   Not the adorable Buddy and Holly that I have today…but my pets when I was growing up.

Maybe I should rephrase that.  They all were not really “my” pets.  But they were family pets so I guess I claimed them.    Now I don’t have a picture of any of these pets but I can find pictures that kind of look like them I think. Well, some of them.

There was Pepper the parakeet that was given to my sister, Paula.   I am not a huge bird fan but Pepper was okay in my book.  Didn’t do a whole lot.  Just kind of hung out in his/her (not sure which sex Pepper was come to think of it) and chirped, ate and pooped. This picture is obviously not Pepper.   Looks pretty exotic and not really a very good representation after I look at it a bit longer. Oh well. You get the idea.  Sad thing about Pepper—-one time when Pepper’s cage was being cleaned our mama cat, Peek (short for Peek a boo) spied Pepper hopping around.  Crouch, leap, chomp.   You have the picture, don’t you?  Just a cat doing what comes naturally but very sad.   Peek 1, Pepper 0

Peek was probably the best cat ever.  She was a prolific breeder and gave birth to many, many kittens.  This was before spaying was the trend, obviously.  We always had kittens around.  Always.   Some survived, some didn’t.   Of course there were some pretty original names for them including Pumpernickel and Amaryllis as a couple of the more colorful selections.   Peek had a stubby tail—I guess she got it caught in the car door if memory serves me correctly and my mom and dad did surgery right then and there.  EEEEEWWWWW.    Her tail was shortened then with no hair on the end.  But we loved her.  She was the only cat I ever knew that actually looked both ways before she crossed the road.  We watched her and she did it all the time .  Smart cat.

Then there was Sniffy.  Sniffy was a rabbit that somehow came into our lives.  I know I am sketchy on a lot of the details but they don’t really matter.  Sniffy was a great bunny.  Black and white.  Adorable.  Not quite like this picture but hey—this is a pretty adorable Oreo bunny, isn’t it?? Well, Sniffy had a great life when we let him/her (once again I am wondering why I do not know what sex this pet was!!!) out of the cage.  Sniffy loved Sniffy bushes—-aka hydrangeas.

These will ALWAYS be Sniffy bushes to me.   One thing that Sniffy liked to do was go under the front porch.   It took a bit to get Sniffy out and we often had to employ the use of the Stoney Stonewell to get Sniffy out.  Now I am not saying that we were weird creative children but we did have pretty good imaginations.  I mean who names a stick a Stoney Stonewell???   It was actually named after a man who came and visited……I am telling you—-we were a crazy creative bunch.

So last night when I was trying to fall asleep I was thinking about all of these great pets how even if I don’t remember what sex they were I remember them!  Hope you enjoyed my journey down memory lane…….