On May 20, 2006, along with a lot of plants from Plantranch on Ebay (2/3rds of our order died by the end of the first season, or didn’t survive through the first winter, even though they were supposed to be hardy to zone 3, which is three zones colder then ours. He doesn’t help customers, guarantees little, and gets nasty when you do have problems. Don’t buy from this place!), our bare-root Dwarf Lilac came home to our house.

It looked like a beary long slingshot without the rubber band, but it was a’posed to look like that. We followed the instructions and knew lilac bushes do not flower for the first four to eight years! (We knew we would be OLD before seeing her bloom, but we can wait.)

We’ve had problems with Lilac from the beginning. She gets Powdery Mildew (PM), a fungus that steals nutrition and water from plants by covering up their leaves with gray furry stuff, and we must trim lots and lots of her leaves or branches, so it doesn’t kill her. Last summer, we moved her container away from the house, a’cuz one of the causes of PM is poor circulation. Twice a week, or after any rain, we sprayed each of her leaves – underneath, too – with a mixture of 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of dish detergent, and a gallon of water to slow down the PM.

She thanked us by making her first tiny little bloom, last August. Even if it was beary small, it came the second summer we had her!

Now, we’ve been helping Mommy learn more and more about gardening all winter, so we had her buy something called Neem, as well as a two-gallon sprayer, so our paws don’t get sore from repeat squeezing, when we apply it on Lilac, to avoid PM in the first place! Well, we know that stuffies can ESPN Peoples, so we always know what Mommy and Daddy are thinking. We don’t have telepathy with plants though, so we just talk to them, and hope they understand!

Lilac understands! This is the beginning of her third growing season, and she bloomed beary, beary prettily!

We’re in front of Lilac, and those other plants are our Blue Paradise Phlox growing back for their second season.

Lilac in all her glory! She might not look as full as most lilac bushes, but how many have you seen with big fluffy flowers before their third birthday? The metal thing next to Lady is a solar light.

The same place as last year’s little bloom. Multi-blooms on one branch! See? Can she get any prettier? And, well, Mommy got a lilac a’cuz they smell good, and our Lilac smells as pretty as she looks!

Hi! It’s us’n again – Tine and Dee – wepowting again. We dunno if you know this, but we’ve become big fans of Dilly the cwoco-wagon! (Grandma Note: Croco-dragon,” which is a cross between a crocodile and a dragon. Neither Dilly nor Dee and Tine are very good with so many Rs in a word.) It’s been bearwy hard on us, a’cuz she went on holiday for a week, so we misseded her while she was gone. (Her bwuder. Bob, was gone too.)

Anyway, she’s home again, and had quite the adventure! She went to a place with lots and lots of wagons and got to visit most, if not all of them! We were quite impressed!!! Imagine our swerpwize, when owa Gwandma told us about our wagon relationships! Whodathunk a pola-bear and stuffed doggy could from a famiwee wif lots of dwagons, too?

Nah, we’re not as cool as Dilly! We’re not welated to dwagons, our great-uncle, Gwandma’s bwuder, useded to have a wide vah-why-ity of dwagons himself. Gwandma told us all ‘bout it (but she has no pikchores to pwove it. Sowwy! Dilly’s pikchores were so cool!) She’s helping us tell what she told us, a’cuz there’s a whole lot to tell and a whole lotta words we nevah heard before.

Gwandma’s bwuder’s name is Danny! (Their cousins call him “Dan, Dan, the Mountain Man” a’cuz he lived two woom house on a big mountain in Va-gin-ya all by his lonesome for years!) He’s Gwandma’s older bwuder, so bearwy, bearwy, bearwy old now. (Grandma Note: Not that old! He’s only 53 now, but all of his collection of reptiles have either gotten away or died over the decades, since he first started collecting them.) Since he’s Gwandma’s bwuder, that makes him our gweat-uncle.

Even Gwandma says he was nevah a nowmal bwuder, a’cuz he was always collecting new dwagons (she calls them “weptiles and am-fib-bee-ans,” but we know they’re dwagons) and taking good care of all of ‘em. She doesn’t remember how old he was when he started collecting them, but he was young ‘nuff that his Mommy and Daddy thought it was safe to talk ‘bout what he was getting for Christmas, if they spelled it out! His Mommy told his Daddy that she was going to buy him a n-e-t for Christmas (so he could collect more turtle dwagons or catch fishies for his turtle dwagons to eat.) He got excited and said, “Oh goodie! I’m getting a net for Christmas.”

They nevah spelled Christmas gifts in front of him again, but he did get a long handle net for Christmas anyway. (He got a new one, evwee udder Christmas, a’cuz he useded them so often they’d wip apart in time.) Evwee time they saw a turtle dwagon walking along a road – in this country or Canada, where they used to go vacationing when they were little – they’re Mommy or Daddy would stop the car (yes, even back then they had cars), so Danny could go get the turtle dwagon. Usually, he found box turtles dwagons, but sometimes it was paint turtles, red-bellies, bog turtles, snappers, spotted turtles, and he even found slider’s once in a great while. (They’re pet shop turtle, so someone was mean enough to let them loose in the northeastern states, where they aren’t native, so they’d die, if’n he didn’t rescue them.)

By the time he was 14, he had about 200 turtles – 197 males and 3 females. (We askeded Gwandma how he knew if it was a boy turtle dwagon or a girl. Her face turned a funny red cah-wer, but then she remembered that they have different sizes of tails and the front of their shelves was different. She couldn’t wemembah anymore, but we suspect the girl turtle dwagons wore pretty pink ribbons on the front of their shelves, a’cuz Dilly wears them, too!)

He kept them in their backyard in a turtle dwagon pen, that was about 9’ X 12’ (a little less than 3 meters by 4 meters – almost the size of our backyard, so it was bearwy big.) It was made of 4’ high chicken coop wyah, with a small corner section closed off for baby turtle dwagons, since they are so small they could be smothered by an older turtle accidentally, or stepped on by Danny, when he went into the pen to feed them. (Some times, he used it for his small snakes, a’cuz the wyah had smaller holes, so they couldn’t s’kape.)

The smallest size, plastic kiddy pool, was dug into the ground in one side of the pen, with slate rocks along one section of it, so the turtles could get out, when they went for a swim. Also, it had a few tomato vines and some cucumbers, plus Danny’s s’perment garden. One year, he’d sow some of the watermelon seeds he saved after eating a slice; another year, he grew popcorn (that’s where Gwandma gave us the idea to grow popcorn last summer), and once he let the mullberry sapling stay, when the neighbor’s tree was dropping its fruit. (That tree got beary big, before it was removed by future owner’s of the house.)

The garden grew, a’cuz the turtles loved fresh veggies and fruit, but the turtles needed more then what could be grown in the pen to eat. Just about every day, Danny would go to a near by gwoup of lake (six lakes in all) to catch a few small sunfish or minnows to add to the pond (kiddy pool), so the turtle dwagons could have a little meat, too. Even so, with that many turtles, occasionally, he had to buy a pound of raw hamburger or some mealy worms for them. (The mealy worms stayed alive in the fridge. Ewwww!)

But, he didn’t have just turtle dwagons! He also had one to ten black snakes dwagons or gardner snakes dwagons, an iguana dwagon, sometimes some bullfwog dwagons, and a caiman, which is related to the alligator and crocodile.

Gwandma told us she spent fifteen minutes one day chasing the caiman around the turtle pen with a broom, until he let go of the bearwy biggest bullfwog dwagon – it could fit in boff of her hands, and she was 14 then, so bearwy old wif bearwy big hands – in his mouth. Only the fwog legs were sticking out of its mouth, and they kept flicking back and fowf, like it was twying to hop out. Ewwww!!! The caiman did welease the bullfwog eventually and the fwog dwagon hoppeded away. They wemained in the same pen, but she’s sure the two fwog dwagons always watcheded out for caimans, aftah that.

All those critters (that’s what Gwandma’s family called her bwuder’s pets) stayed in the turtle dwagon pen all summer, and the ones not native to New Jersey were brought in for the winter. The ones from that area (which is acwoss the wivah from us), stayed in the pen all winter, but her bwuder would fill it too the top wif waked leaves to keep them in-s…in-sah…in-sah-laded while they hibernated in winter. (Most bears hibernate, too, but Teddy Bears don’t hafta, a’cuz we live in a nice warm house. Doggies don’t hibernate, but we do like to sleep a lot!)

In his room in aquariums, he also had toad dwagons, tadpoles that turned into fwog dwagons, skink dwagons, newt dwagons, chameleon dwagons (more like the one in the video then the bulgy eye ones), horned toad dwagons, which are weally desert lizards, not toads, and salamander dwagons. The baby box turtle dwagons lived there, in the wintertime, too.

Feeding all his pets was constant work, particularly since he got 50¢ a week allowance, (we don’t get any allowance) and he was totally in charge of feeding them all. In the summertime, his older bwuder and younger sister (Gwandma) would hold an annual fair for the neighborhood kids. It included a guided tour of the museum, which was Danny’s aquariums set up on the picnic table so everyone could spend 10¢ to learn all ‘bout his collection. Also, there was a fast wide alllllll around the block in their red wagon, fortune telling by Gwandma (her oldest bwuder would tell her what the person would get – a free tour, or a free Kool-aid ice cube – in their futchur, and they would get it for free right after the reading. And, the refreshments included homemade cupcakes for 10¢ each, (made by Danny and his Mommy the day befoah), frozen Kool-aid ice cubes (one for 3¢, and two for 5¢, an extra 2¢ if they wanted Pixie Stick dust on their cubes.)

He also started raising bunny rabbits to have a litter or two to sell to local pet stores for $7 each. The first year, with one boy and two girls, 25 babies were born foah days before Easter.) Both bwuders would twap muskrats for their hides, (we don’t know what that means and Gwandma says we don’t want to know?!) and 25-30 pound snapping turtles for local restaurants to serve as soup. ($1 a pound.)

Of course, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back then, burger was only 69¢ a pound, and mealy worms were only a penny a piece. (Ewwww!)

One summer, Danny found 3 pray mantis cocoons. He put them in his toad and frog aquarium, but each cocoon hatched about 100 baby pray mantiseses, so he had too many. When they forst hatch, they are bearwy small, so some escaped too, and he had a couple of hundred baby pray mantiseses loose in his room for a while.

And, since black snakes and caimans like rodents, he also had an aquarium full of gerbils or mice. Gwandma was never sure, if they were pets or merely food, but they had babies whenever the big reptiles needed dinner. (We’re not shor what that means, but Gwandma says we don’t wanna know either.) His critters always had plenty to eat.

Danny’s love of dwagons didn’t end when he grew up either, but this is a story about his many dwagons – not his chickens living in trees, a peacock, lots of fishies in his homemade ponds, bigger snakes and caimans, dogs, pigs, goats, even more turtles, and bunnies. (He used the bunnies as lawn mowers, not to eat. Not as good as Aunt Valentine (Dee’s aunt, Tine’s Mommy) has it, but it’s a good thing to be an animal living with Danny and not ending up being dinner for him or his critters!)

Unfortunately, his life got too busy to keep getting new pets, so all of his critters have died over the years. (Did we mention he is bearwy, bearwy, bearwy old?!) We will never get to see them. Mommy thinks it is good news though. His current girlfriend didn’t know about his love of critters, so she askeded him to marry her, and he said “yes.” He’s getting married this month, and won’t have a single dwagon at the wedding!

We understood as Gwandma told us ‘bout his dwagon pets, but we might have falling asleep, when she got to the yucky kissy-wissy, lovey-dovey, gooey, boy-cooties, stuff! Ewwww!

We hate baths! We were promised it wouldn’t be another year before our nexted bath, and we’re making Mommy stick to it – a whole ‘nother year before we get another one. (Mommy Note: That was promised last June, so the year is almost up. Still, in their minds – selective thought – it will always be a year away from today – EVERY today. I’m getting that blank, “your point?” look from the two brothers, who are impatiently waiting for me to stop writing so they can tell their scathing story.)

Scathing? Maybe. (We don’t know what that means, so we can’t say.) Story?! Oh, no! This is quite real.

Well, apparently, Mommy just can’t help but give baths, and she was unusually cruel. (Mommy Note again: I’ve run out of teddy bear cleaner, and these stuffies have had this done before with no terrible consequences.)

Again – we don’t know what con-sa-quens-sis means, but it sure was terrible! Mommy gathereded all our neighbor-stuffies/distant family together (Grover, Dino – the Jersey Devil, Philly Phanatic, Tigger, and Raggedy Ann, although she’s both a stuffy and doll) and batheded them in the clothes washer!!!!! (Mommy Note again: I used the gentle cycle, only used the two-minute wash cycle with no extra rinse, and planned to let them air dry, so they didn’t have to face the dryer, too. How would you wash a two and a half foot Raggedy Ann – all by herself? She’s 30 years old!)

It was terrible! Raggedy Ann’s legs fell apart and there was stuffing everywhere! (Mommy Note again: The striped part of her legs, must have rotted. She’s 30 years old!)

AND, Mommy couldn’t fix her right away, a’cuz she has to dry out! How would you feel seeing your inners hanging out while YOU dry out? (Mommy Note again: I ordered some new fabric to match the red and white stripes on her leg, that’s actually called “Raggedy Ann red and white fabric.” She’ll be OK.)

At least she had her wet family with her – Grover, Tigger and all! We went downstairs to visit her, and she was sadly singing, “I Fall to Pieces.” We had to cry with her. It was terrible. And yet, when Daddy and Mommy heard her singing that sad song, they laughed! (Mommy Note again: Oh, come on! It was funny!) They laughed! Stuffies simply should NEVER get ANY baths EVERY! It’s just too dangerous!

(Mommy Note again: Fortunately, I bought some socks a while ago that must have been mislabeled, because no grown woman could ever fit in them. Once Raggedy Ann finally dried, I rearranged her legs to go back to their normal shape, and stuffed them into the socks, while her family sat next to her to make sure I was taking good care of her. The socks were just the right size, so she doesn’t have to look at the falling apart legs, while I wait for the fabric to come in. Once it comes in, I’ll sew the bottom half of her legs again, and then re-stuff them, so she’ll be as good as new. She’ll be fine, and no one will ever be washed in the clothes washer again. I really do feel terrible doing that to her, but I’m glad the repairs I made on Tigger’s mouth a couple of years ago, held up during the wash. I must be getting better at sowing, if all the repairs on my stuffed animals are holding up so well.)