Animal Insting

First of all, I will tell you that Mom is finally feeling better, which means she's not so grumpy like she was for a while.  Her throat doesn't hurt anymore, but she still coughs and blows her nose and does stuff like that.  Also she uses any excuse she can to take a nap.  If she were a dog, she wouldn't need an excuse in order to take a nap.  It must be hard being a human!

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you about Mom is that she has a whole bunch of plants that she keeps around sort of like pets, except they aren't as interesting as dogs or cats are.  But the good part is they don't have to be fed as much as dogs or cats do.  I don't know why she has these plants.  They aren't cuddly and entertaining like dogs are, but she insists on keeping them anyway.

Most of Mom's plants are what are called "succulent" plants.  This means they suck up water and they store it someplace inside themselves, sort of like a camel stores water in its hump.  At least that's what I heard about camels, so I guess it's true.  Anyway, a plant can store water in its leaves or in its stem or in its roots, but not in its ears, for example, because plants don't have ears!

Mom used to have a bunch of cactus plants, but they didn't grow too well at our house because we have too much shade due to our huge oak tree.  Also cactus plants are full of spines and they are generally not very friendly plants.  So now Mom has mostly other types of succulent plants because they are not always dying like the cactus plants did.  Well, sometimes they die, but when that happens, Mom just gets another different plant and tries to see if she can make it grow instead.

So the point of all this is that Mom has all these plants, like over a hundred, and in the summer, they like to sit outside on the patio where the grasshoppers can chew on them, and they can get rained on.  But in the winter, they have to come back inside so they won't freeze to death.  Well, now that it's officially autumn, the weather is getting colder, and it's time for the plants to come inside the house.  Except that Mom has been sick, so she didn't feel like carrying them all inside, which takes a long time because she has to try to clean them up and get the spiders and acorns and stuff off them.  But yesterday she really did feel like doing that, so she brought in maybe half the plants.  Today she is going to bring in the rest of them.  Or at least that's what she says.

It's fun for us dogs when Mom is bringing in the plants because she leaves the door open, and we can go out or come in or stay out or whatever we want to do.  I even did some sunbathing, which I am not supposed to do because I might get cancer.  And we all fence-fought with Henry, and Mom didn't make us come inside because she was busy bringing plants in.  So Henry's mom had to come out and make him go inside instead.

Well, that's about all I have to say about Mom's plants.  I like it better when the plants are outside because when they are inside, they sort of block our view out the windows.  We like to watch the squirrels in the backyard, and it's hard when there are plants in the way.  Mom always leaves a little space for us to sit by the window, though, and it's right where the heat vent is, so that makes it a good place to sit.  Mom is really pretty smart sometimes, I mean when it comes to knowing how to make dogs happy!