Time is running out for getting your cat or kitten's photo into the contest for the Kingdom Animal Shelter's 2014 calendar.  Go to the Kingdom Animal Shelter website and follow directions.  Then, be sure to vote, and alert all your family and friends to send their votes - I think you are limited to one vote per address per day.  You have until August 31st to get the pictures in, and voting will take place from August 31 to September 29.  Votes will be counted and the picture with the highest number will be on the cover of the 2014 calendar which will be available in mid-November, and will cost $15 -  proceeds going to the shelter.  The 12 pictures receiving the next highest votes will each be featured on a month.  I'm going to enter a couple photos of Woody today.

We moved our rhubarb yesterday.  My rhubarb has been healthy and plentiful until this year.  It was puny right from the start, and went down hill from there.  I'm hoping moving it away from the buildings where it should get more air and light, will be beneficial.  Normally I'd transplant it in the spring, but I wasn't certain it would winter over the way it has been looking, so figured I don't have much to lose.  With the nice weather we've been having, perhaps it will get a good start before really cold weather sets in and with lots of mulch and some good fertilizer next spring, may become vigorous again.  If not, I'll replace it - I like to having rhubarb early each spring.  It's about the first thing available other than dandelion greens, cowslips and fiddleheads, none of which I'm partial to.  I've heard cowslips are great canned in a brine when the blossoms are still in those tight little balls.  I have always meant to try that, and somewhere I have a recipe, but getting to them at just the right time isn't easy - they naturally hang out in swamps which aren't the easiest places to navigate.  I do like dandelions, though - I like the leaves in salads better than cooked, and goodness knows, they are very easy to come by.  They're everywhere, and there always seem to be plenty of young ones in among the older, more bitter plants.

This time of they year there are lots of berries and pretty soon nuts available, even in the wild, but you have to watch carefully or the birds and critters will get them first.  That seems fair, somehow, and buying them from someone who has put the time and effort into raising them is not only a lot easier than scrambling through pucker brush, getting scratched and bitten and risking bumping into a hungry bear, it helps a neighbor trying to make a living.  And we don't rob the wild animals of their livelihood.

Now I need to go select some pictures of Woody for the cat calendar.  I have a rather large file of "Woody Pictures."  I selected about a dozen when Helen Morrison first told me about the contest and put them into a separate file I call his "portfolio," and I'll pick two or three from there to enter in the contest.   Fred should have had the camera yesterday when he discovered Woody in a stand off with his cousin, Rico, on the driveway going to Jamie and Marie's.  Woody outweighs Rico, is taller and probably stronger, but Rico seems to manage to beat him up whenever they tangle.  That happens less often than when they were both younger, but I think Rico is still the wiry little "street fighter" while Woody remains the big underdog.  Fred said they were both crouching on opposite sides of the driveway, growling at each other, so to end it without bloodshed, he picked Woody up and brought him home.  Woody's tail was still blown up to twice its normal size when Fred put him down in our kitchen.   We think Woody has mellowed with age as far as hunting at night is concerned, but one thing that hasn't changed is his attitude towards other cats - Jamie and Marie's Rico in particular.  We appreciate that he's gentle with dogs, humans and particularly with babies, even to the point of waking up from a nap to get up and socialize whenever someone comes to the house.  Now we'll see if he has it in him to be a "model."