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There he is! I’m SO happy to see you pop up—I was starting to wonder if I needed to send out a search party, maybe borrow a bloodhound or two from the farm. (They’re unreliable, but they look official.)

I swear, I can't seem to keep up around here anymore. I saw you bravely reviewing some of my recent nonsense—bless you—but it’s been hit-and-miss for me these past few months. Between wrangling the daily shenanigans on the farm and ghostwriting for THREE different people (who, for reasons unknown to science, actually PAY ME), I’m basically held together by caffeine, duct tape, and misplaced confidence. I really need to get myself together and start catching up on the mountain of past-due reviews before someone sends me a polite message shaped like a threat.

I’m genuinely so glad you’re back, my friend. I’ve missed your brand of craziness, but more than that, I’ve thought about you often since Diana’s passing. Getting back into the swing of this place will feel a bit like old times… only with about 200 fewer people, a couple more gray hairs, and slightly lower standards. (Let’s be honest.)

Now, if we could just locate Nathan, we’d really have the old gang together again. We haven’t seen his cheerful reviews since August, and at our age, you know how it goes—we start worrying when someone skips a week, much less a quarter.

Anyway, let’s crank this circus back up! Sending you a big hug, and I’m truly thrilled you’re back.

MJ

ROFL, Bill! You’ve been holdin’ out on us all this time, haven’t you? Ten purr-cent—now that’s comedy gold right there.

Oh JR, you nailed it! You read the story in the book where John and I tried to get away for a vacation and found an animal sitter for the farm, and how annoyed John was when the sitter kept calling every few hours. Well, when I made the questionable life choice of leaving John in charge of the farm, he made that previous sitter look like an amateur. He burned up the line between Georgia and Utah and kept me in stitches the whole time! I should’ve known better. I swear, it was like he was calling into a live radio show—hourly updates, dramatic sighs, and at least one emergency about Herschel the parrot “turning judgmental.”

By the time I got home, he and Herschel were apparently best friends, bonded through some mysterious man-bird adventure that I still haven’t gotten the full story on. The John Deere has a new dent (something about “racing Gerald the emu” and “bad traction”), and Mildred Huggins-Peebles, my arch-nemesis, had John and me divorced in print in the Possum Trot Gazette before I even landed back in Atlanta—apparently John’s refusal to tell her where I was qualified as “marital abandonment.”

Meanwhile, Kevin the goat turned my rose bushes into abstract art, Scooterbug hid John’s favorite truck-stop hat (the one that says “I Brake for Biscuits”), and my phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. The preacher’s wife—you know, the one I rescued from her undercover “mission work” at the brothel—called six times demanding to know why I didn’t send a cake via John for the church social. Lazarus, our big-eared cat, got into a full-on brawl with Randi the Raccoon over one of her babies eating his favorite treats, and he came out looking like Van Gogh—one ear stitched and the other twitching. The golf cart wouldn’t start (because, shockingly, gas helps), the lawn mower needed new blades (they normally do when they leave streaks in the middle of what you've just cut), and John’s oat-and-maple biscuits refused to rise in time for the town hall meeting, which he claims “nearly sparked a rebellion.” The washing machine was broken (just turn one notch to the left and press the ON button), and the UPS guy complained again about Ethel the goose not letting him open the door to the porch to put a package inside.

So yes, John dared me not to write about any of it… which, naturally, means I absolutely will. Bless his heart.

Baby Bee was so mad when I got home she went on a full-blown hunger strike—sitting by her bowl glaring at her kibble. Apparently, that’s her love language: emotional starvation and side-eye because she missed me.

Hunky and Dory, the donkeys, spent a solid ten minutes sniffing me like airport security—seventeen sniffs, to be exact—just to confirm it was really me and not some impostor woman who wouldn’t walk through fire to bring them their treats.

Buddy the dog? Oblivious. Didn’t even know I was gone. He’s a total daddy’s boy, and as long as John’s around with a biscuit in hand, I could move to Fiji and Buddy would just wag.

Meanwhile, Bandito and Little Ralphie are absolutely traumatized because John cleaned their litter box after every single poop. I mean, the horror! No “tootsie rolls” left to chase across the floor like midnight hockey pucks. The nerve of the man—he destroyed their entire recreational system.

So, I have a few things to get to the bottom of (like a bottle of red wine), and then I will be back here catching up!

Happy trails,
MJ

I owe you 1.000 reciprocations and thank yous! I’ve been in Utah for the last few weeks… got a brand-new great-granddaughter, and John has been in charge of the animal kingdom! If that tells you anything!  But I have returned and am about to get started on my paybacks!

So you're saying you don't need to title it, just put the picture? Okay, that works, too.

Ah-HA! At last, the truth is revealed! So Sol, noble guardian of the storage folder, holds the keys to the kingdom. Of course! It all makes sense now… like discovering your cat has been running a secret side business out of your garage. Or maybe not?

Thanks for your research, Bill and Kdot. Just makes me wonder if I'm the only one this has ever happened to... strange... anyway, onward we go!
MJ

Have you finished editing it, or do you need help? Let me know if you do. Always there for a friend!!

MJ

It never works for me. It throws little boxes into my lines. I've mentioned it before, but it hasn't been fixed as of yet. I don't know if everybody has that problem, but it's better for me to just do it myself.

We finally had to draw the line because Lazarus and Bandito want to be completely covered up under the cover, and the others jockey for position on top of the cover. Even in a king-sized bed, there is not enough room for 7 squirmy cats. So now none of them are allowed in the bed at night. We close the door, but if you try to go out of the room at night, you need a light turned on because they hear you get up and all rush to the door to hop on the bed.

Every morning we have a meet and greet. We sit at the end of the bed and once the door opens, they all rush in at the same time. They have to smell us to make sure we didn't turn into new people during the night.

A few times a day is normal, but ten times seems excessive. Allergies maybe. If you use a room deodorizer, or if you clean with strong cleaners like Pine-Sol or ammonia... any kind of scent he's not accustomed to could cause allergies. If he keeps up the excessive requests for scratches, it may be time to check with a vet. If he scratches himself with his foot frequently, there may be flea eggs that didn't get killed with the flea treatment. I always treat with Bravecto... it lasts three months, enough time to kill any fleas and flea eggs. There may be better ones out there, but Bravecto has been my standby for many years, and I trust it.

As for the poop smell, you'll get used to it! You'll become "nose blind" like the rest of us who own cats. But for what it's worth, I've found that poop from wet food doesn't smell as bad as poop from dry food. And if you feed wet food, don't go with a mixture of flavors, like chicken and salmon, or tuna and chicken. That helps his digestion to have only one flavor in his system. In the wild, cats eat only one flavor at a time. Consider getting an air purifier with a HEPA filter if you don't already have one. Put it in the room that the litter box is in.

There will come a time when you'll say, "He threw up!" Oh, yes... get ready. They get hairballs from cleaning themselves for six hours every day, and they will throw them up with a little other "stuff" in it.

So you have several "cat lovers" on here... yell if you need us.

MJ