The fire came in the night, a storm without warning. At his home in Middletown, a small town of 1900 just north of California's idyllic wine country, veterinarian Jeff Smith ventured outside after the worst had passed to find only 8 of the 20 homes in his neighborhood survived the firestorm. With communication centers down, there was no way to determine when help was coming. He had no way of knowing what he was up against, or the fact that by this time only 40% of the structures in ... Read more »
Be the Change
Paws for the Philippines: The Power of One
You, right now, are needed. By now we have all seen and heard about the devastation wrought in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan. The stories are almost too much to bear. If you're wondering why the media hasn't been more active covering the story than they have been, it's because everyone is still trying to get there. It is BAD. Bad, bad, awful, nightmarish. My heart goes out to those many souls and I will, as always, make a donation to the Red Cross to help the human ... Read more »
Be the Change with a Shelter Drive By! Small effort, big reward
As many of you have heard, it's National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, though to be fair the news cycle has been dominated by other events. Such is life. As regular readers may remember, I usually end this week with the Blogathon, a 24 hour marathon of posts with prizes and fun, and potentially zombies. But life happens and things evolve, and as it so happens I will be on a plane on Saturday, on my way back to Granada, Nicaragua. I am doing a one week course in Technical Animal Rescue ... Read more »
Disaster Response, Sandy, and Good People
It's been a rough week, right? I think everyone can pretty much agree with that. There has been an awful lot of awful going on. That being said, it's also been an earth-shattering shake-by-the-shoulders to everyone mired in the mud leading up to Tuesday's election that maybe it isn't the only thing in the world that matters. Oh yeah, there's an election tomorrow! I almost forgot. Amazing how quickly things become less important when people's lives are getting washed away on a large ... Read more »
