AtoZ of Animals I have met: “H” is for Hairy and Mercurio #AtoZBloggingChallenge#

 When I decided to name the baby buzzard that Nino brought home for me to mother (have I mentioned that there is a sort of affinity between birds and me?) Hairy, they all thought it was for Harry Potter, because of my obvious liking of the magical boy; I had to tell them that I was thinking of the word “Hairy” because he still had a lot of his down, which hung like strands of hair.

Okay, I have an affinity with birds, as many can tell you, but man! I had never played the part of a mother buzzard before. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’ve seen a documentary or three on rapacious birds, so I knew that the mother bird ate the food and then shared it with her babies.

And no, there is no way in this world that you can get me to chew up raw meat. That’s why they invented knives: to mince chicken livers so you can feed baby buzzards; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Also because it’s true. So, I whipped out my handy dandy knife and minced my chicken livers and started my life as a buzzard mom.

Nino wasn’t really certain where Hairy had come from, but since a couple of days later my daughter’s boyfriend brought me another, which he named Mercurio, and which he had found in the same place Nino had found Hairy (the restaurant where Nino was the Chef) we surmised that they had probably both fallen from the same nest.

The common belief that buzzards and vultures look alike is a terrible misconception, although I will admit that I could wholeheartedly believe it at the time, covered from head to ankles with a mixture of pinfeathers and down, as they were. No, buzzards are beautiful birds, and are also a protected species in Italy – as well as in the US, I have just discovered – so what we were doing was also illegal; there is, however, no way I can turn away a baby of any type that needs my help.

I did my very best to be a good mom for those two bird waifs. And for once, Nino also did his part. He brought a big cage home where they could stay unharmed (we had a dog and a cat at the same period). They knew us; whenever they saw Nino or I they started to trill. They also graduated from chopped chicken livers to whole rabbit livers and moved from inside all day long to being outside during the day.

Their feathers grew in and suddenly they looked just like the bird here to the right, and we knew it was time to teach them two more things: they had to learn how to catch their own food and last, but not last in order of importance, how to fly.

The first wasn’t terribly difficult: we would toss the liver in the air and they would jump up and catch it. The second was a little more difficult, and a bit stranger. They had learned how to imitate, so Nino would run, flapping his arms and I would nudge them off my arms and they’d flap their wings and fall beak first into the soil. Oops! We’d try this several times and then let them rest.

And then, the long-dreaded day came; they took to the air without doing a beak-break dance, circled, trilled and flew off. I was heart-broken, but then, what mother isn’t when her fledglings take off on their own.

Epilogue

A couple of years later, Nino was out with one of his friends, herding the friend’s sheep. The sheep were grazing, and Nino and Gino were stretched out on their backs in the lush green summer grass. Suddenly, they heard a trilling sound; looking up, they saw that a bird was circling above them. It took a lazy downward spiral until the buzzard landed next to them on the grass.

It stayed with them for a couple of minutes of minutes, trilling the whole time. And then, as slowly and lazily as it descended, it spiraled up again, circled twice, and left.

Coincidence? Nino didn’t think so, and neither do I. My only question is: Was it Hairy or was it Mercurio?

 

 

Copyright © 09 April 2021. Mary E. Purpari. All Rights Reserved.

AtoZ of Animals I Have Met: “E” Is for Endless Black Cats#AtoZBloggingChallenge#

It seems that from the time I moved to Italy and got married, that I had nothing less than an endless stream of black cats. I’ve always loved cats as much as dogs, and usually gave space to both of my loves, but this is a different sort of endless black cats. It’s one of the tales I could tell about my first Italian cat, Panterina (Little Panther).

Panterina (or Rina Bina, as I usually called  her) was a feisty little character and was curious about EVERYTHING. One day she was curious about what would happen if she were to sneak up on me and insert her claws in my rear end while I was studying on my bed. I believe that was her first (and only) flying lesson.

She did a fine job of it, too, flying 10 feet and landing on her feet, as cats are wont to do. She had her question answered… And she never tried it again, so I guess she learned the lesson well.

She was also interested in learning how to knit. Ah, she loved those knitting needles immensely; she always tried taking them out of my hands. I will admit that she made it rather difficult for me to knit with her hanging on the needles while trying to add new stitches. One thing could be said about living with Rina Bina: life was never boring.

When she reached a certain age, Nino decided she should have kittens. He thought totally black kittens would be nice and he knew just where to take her: there was a place with a seemingly endless number of black cats. He’d been living in that neighborhood far longer than I had; I just took his word for it. I wasn’t convinced it was the best idea he’d ever had, but I gathered her up and we walked to the black cat street, as we ended up calling it.

I had never seen anything like it before. The picture to the right might give a general idea if we multiply it by 50, but even that might not reach the mark. There were black cats everywhere: on stairs, on abandoned cars, on fences, in doorways, on the roofs of the houses, sitting in trees, under trees, in the shade, in the sun and clinging to torn screens shielding broken windows. There were black cats everywhere imaginable. 

With some misgivings, I let the miniature panther go join all the other cats; immediately, some of the pushier cats came forward. From their attitude of studied nonchalance, I knew they were males. There were others who studiously ignored her, which I assumed were females. They might have been males who thought she was below their level of expectations, though.

We decided to let her stay over night and then go get her the following afternoon, figuring that 24 hours in that group would be more than sufficient. Arriving there, however, we ran into a snag that I thought might present itself. Which of all those cats was my Rina Bina? They all looked exactly alike, and when we called her name, she nonchalantly ignored us, just like all the others in the neighborhood. So now what?

Well, I came up with a viable solution that only a musician might think of. One of my favorite songs from the ‘60s was Eddy Albert’s version of “Guantanamera”. I love to sing and I would sing this song all the time to Panterina, inserting the words Pantera Nera, tu sei la Pantera Nera (Black Panther, you are the black panther) and the song became hers. So, when she decided to ignore us, I started singing “Pantera Nera…”

One of the cats lounging on the porch started twitching her ears. Nino went and picked her up. Since she was also the only who didn’t scramble out of his way, we knew we’d found the right one.

She presented us with six beautiful kittens, five of them with pure black fur, and one, an adorable, sweet-natured male, was black. No doubt about the color of his fur, but the tips were white, giving the impression of being dusted with a light layer of snow. We gave the other five away easily, each one a mini version of their mother, including the feisty attitude. We decided to keep Dusty, though.

 I like orange cats, but I guess black ones aren’t all that bad, either. I’ve had that endless stream of black cats, and they’re okay.

  Copyright © 07 April 2021 Mary E. Purpari. All Rights Reserved.

 

AtoZ of Animals I have met: D is for Dnitra #AtoZ Blogging Challenge#

 

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Siberian Husky looking for a new home. Actually, there were seven beautiful Siberian Husky puppies looking for a new home. Their mommy’s humans were looking, more precisely, although their release to their new humans was still several weeks away. This is the abbreviated story of a little silver, short-haired female whose future name would be Dnitra and who stole my heart the moment she tumbled over to me , climbed into my lap and fell asleep.

The day after Dnitra became part of my family, I moved to Utah. It had never occurred to me that it would be the most ideal place for a Siberian Husky to live, but when winter came, my four-month-old puppy came to life. I woke up one morning to her yipping (Siberian Huskies don’t actually bark, they yip or howl, especially at the full moon.

I bought a toboggan and a harness. She was so proud of that harness and her ability to pull the toboggan. In fact she was furious a couple of years later when I hitched one of her pups to the toboggan with her (Dnitra’s) harness. I never made that mistake again.

One time Ms. Dnitra got picked up by the dog catchers and we had to go pick her up at the pound (did I mention that she was a master escape artist who could out-escape Houdini?). While there, a mother cat and her tiny kittens was brought in. We offered to adopt the kittens, but they said we couldn’t take them home that day.

They called us a few days later and Ellen and I went to pick them up. They were so small and we nursed them, until Dnitra offered to do the job for us. We went into the living room one afternoon and Dnitra had pulled the kittens out of their box and was laying on the couch with the four kittens busily drinking the milk that Dnitra had somehow managed to produce (Don’t ask me; I have absolutely no idea.)

 Our big white cat, Snowman, was lying on the back of the couch. The photo I took needed no caption, but I put one anyway: Snowman: “They’re not mine.” Dnitra: “They’re mine, they’re MINE!”

I could write an entire book on Dnitra and her antics, but I’ll have to be satisfied with this last example of her escapes, warm heart (like adopting four motherless kittens) and her hilarity. When she escaped, which was pretty often and done with a BIG GRIN, there were only two ways to catch her, because she could run like the wind and did so happily and often.

The first way to catch her was pretty forthright: my new roommate Jill had to drive down the street with the back door open. As soon as Dnitra saw that, she would take a flying leap and land on the back seat of the car. That was the one I preferred. You’ll see why.

The other way was embarrassing and anyone who knew could tell you that I was shy. But I had to use (at times) my wits. I would walk to the end of the street, lie down on the grass and pretend to cry very loudly. Dnitra would run up to me and then cautiously crawl close to me.

When she was close to me, she’d lick my face and the wrestling match would ensue. I’m pretty sure she enjoyed too much until I put on the leash and we’d walk home. She was such a character.

I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did. I loved that girl and she was so funny. Thanks for letting me share her with you for this short time. The Siberian in the photo above looks a lot like her, except she had warm brown eyes instead of the cool blue.

 

Copyright © 5 April 6, 2021 Mary E. Purpari. All Rights Reserved.

AtoZ of Animals I have met: “C” is for Cididù #AtoZ Blogging Challenge#

Here in the States, when people listen to singing birds, they are usually canaries. That’s what they listen to in most of Italy, too, as far as I know. But, when you arrive in Mistretta, the norm followed by most people changes: the Mistrettesi listen to European Goldfinches. I can fully understand the reasoning behind why they would want to do so. When we were in Bologna, we had a lovely Canary named Contessina. She was a beautiful “canary” yellow. It seems that just about any animal that has come into my presence refuses to be normal, because Contessina could sing and did sing. And yes, she was a female, unless male canaries have started laying eggs.

Before moving to Sicily, we moved into a new apartment building for about a year that didn’t allow pets of any kind, including birds, although it seems that fish were allowed, but that is a story for another time. And we found a new home for her with someone she already knew. It seemed heartless to transfer her again, so we left her with Cristina when we moved to Sicily.

Once we arrived in Sicily with our two-month-old daughter, Nino immediately set to work trying to reorient himself in the town of his birth. And one of the first things he did was find someone who could provide him with a cardito (cardellino or European goldfinch). They were so cute, and they sang divinely. But I felt bad about keeping them in a cage, especially since they looked so sad and tried so hard to get out.

We had a number of them over the years and then suddenly, Nino came home with one that had been born in a cage. And it was love at first sight. It was, basically, impossible not to love him. I think Nino tried so hard because he wanted to find that same chemistry that he saw when the sparrow flew out of the tree at the hospital and land on my hand and then jump onto my head.

Well, we found it, Cididù and I. Nino knew it from the time he walked into the house and heard the two of us singing “The Eagle and the Hawk” along with John Denver. And while he did stay in a cage most of the time (especially when our cat was around), he did venture out of the cage when he felt at ease. He may have been in the cage, but the cage door was always open so he could come out and stretch his wings. And he never left, even when the front door was left open.

Cididù and I stayed friends until the day I came back to the States. But people still talk about how we would sing together with John Denver. Maybe he imagined himself an eagle. And I always thought of him as my tiny eagle in cardellino feathers.

Copyright © Mary Purpari 3 April 2021 All Rights Reserved

AtoZ of Animals I have met: “B” is for Bruiser, Blackie and Sofia #AtoZBlogChallenge#

   
 My husband, daughter and I had been living in Mistretta, in the province of Messina for about four or five years, when Nino’s friend Achille made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: Achille’s dog, a black Italian griffon, had just given birth to three beautiful pups. The father was an Italian hound, a beautiful breed. They would only be 20,000 Liras for the three of them (roughly $10 US at the time).

He brought the offer up with me. I had no problem with that, even though I knew perfectly well who would be taking care of them. He forgot, however, to tell me that they were only two days old. If we’d had one yet, he would have spent the night in a doghouse.

Fortunately for him, we didn’t have one yet and fortunately for those three sweet little puppies, I knew a thing or two about raising new-born puppies and kittens. The first most baby mammals do when they are around me is to go directly for my left thumb; it’s only slightly smaller than their mother’s teat and if I dipped it in milk, they got quite used to my scent and would equivalate it to “MOMMY!”

For several weeks I carried out all the functions of a real doggy mommy (yes, those too, although I used a wet cloth rather than my tongue) and a real bond was created between us. However, as the weather started getting warmer, their eyes opened, they graduated to a baby bottle and their big sister Sonia started taking on the chore of taking them out for walks after they finished drinking their meals and my nose took a sigh of relief.

By the time they turned six weeks old, Nino decided that they had become a handful (where he got that idea from I don’t know, since he never got his hands around them) and decided it was time for them to go into the campagna (our little vineyard). I didn’t disagree – basically because it wouldn’t have done me any good anyway – and it gave me an excuse to go to the vineyard and see to a few other interests there when I went to feed them.

They were all so beautiful. Blackie was pure black, with short, smooth hair. He was a typical, grouchy hound and I loved him dearly. Sofia was mostly black, with a few tan highlights on her ears and feet. She was femininely dainty, although not at all against a nice, rough tumble (with two brothers, one of them twice her size, how could she be?), but sweet as sugar. And I loved her dearly, too. And then, there was Bruiser.

Bruiser was the pup that was twice the size of Sofia. For that matter, he was also twice the size of Blackie… He was just as black as Blackie, but his hair was much longer and wirier. And he had Sofia’s sweet disposition. I tried not to show favoritism, but let’s face it, Bruiser was my favorite.

And then came the day of the distemper vaccinations; I remember that no two shots had the same exact strength and that they were required by law. I held them still as Nino gave them the shot, because I was still their mommy, and they trusted me.

The next morning, when I went to feed them, I knew before I opened the gate that disaster had struck. When I opened the door to the tack room, I saw Blackie lying stiffly on the floor. He was already gone; Sofia bravely lifted her sweet face, tears sliding down onto her long, silky ears. I picked her up to comfort her as she took in her last labored breaths. We said our goodbyes, and she died in my arms.

And Bruiser? Was it because the dose wasn’t as strong? Or was it his greater bulk? I’m not sure which of the two it was, it might even have been a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, Bruiser survived and became Nino’s beloved hunting companion. He still remembered his Mommy, though. Always.

Copyright © Mary Purpari 2 April 2021 All Rights Reserved

AtoZ of Animals I’ve Met: “A” is for Animals and Asher #AtoZBlogging Challenge#

For those who know me well, my decision to write about animals this year should come as no surprise. I have always loved animals and have met many, not always in a pleasurable scenario, but all remembered to some extent. And so, after a much too long hiatus from blogging of any kind, I am beginning with this year’s AtoZ Blogging Challenge.

The first entry this year starts off with a little kitten named Asher. I had been living alone in my apartment for several months and was feeling a little lonesome, so my boyfriend took me to this home and garden center nearby. He had seen these cute little kittens and wanted me to choose one. (He knew that the best way to this girl’s heart was with a kitten.

I looked into the cage and my heart melted at the sight of this little orange kitten, just as he started trying to reach me through the prison bars. He was so cute, with those sweet baby blue eyes and those delicate paws. It was love at first sight for both of us.

A couple of months later, while I was working for the L.A.Times, I met another girl who was looking for an apartment. I had just recently joined the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS and she had heard about both my baptism and my need for a new roommate; because she was also a member of the same Church and we both worked together, it seemed a “match made in Heaven.”

Marion also had a pet: a small green parrot named Pippin, after Peregrin Took, in "The Lord of the Rings". Pippin liked to climb all over the curtains, and because he had sharp claws and a sharper beak, he more or less destroyed said curtains. When our landlady came to get our rent she saw the tears up and down the curtains and declared that Asher had to go.

Never mind that Asher had been declawed before he ever moved in with me; he was a kitten, kittens climbed up curtains and tore them, so kittens must go. And Pippin just happened to be hanging on to the curtain as she made this pronouncement.

Fortunately, I had become friends with a girl who worked in the supermarket behind my apartment building and she was already in love with Asher. She gladly took him into her heart and home, and I was once again desolate. I moved into another apartment soon after, but I have never forgot my dear sweet little Asher.

 

 

Copyright © Mary Purpari 1 April 2021 All Rights Reserved 

AtoZ of Melody McDonald: “N” is for Nightmares

If there was one thing Melody was famous for – other than her built-in left fist, that is – it was her nightmares. She usually had them after watching her favorite kind of movies: horror movies. Don’t get me wrong, here; Melody also loved movies about sports or animals, but it seemed that she were magnetically drawn to scary movies. She KNEW she would have nightmares and that those images would remain imprinted in her mind forever, but as soon as Chiller came on, she would be lying on the floor right next to Ross with her eyes glued to the TV, ready for the very next show. And nightmares there would be!

She also enjoyed watching “One Step Beyond” and the “Outer Limits” which would, from time to time, also cause nightmares. And, it didn’t even matter, sometimes, if the movie was scary; all that was necessary was someone hurting an animal: that would have her screaming and crying at some point during the night. Yes, Melody was a softie in certain areas.

One memorable time, she, her siblings and several of their friends – if they provided their own ticket and candy money, they were welcome to ride along – had gone to the Costa Mesa Cinema to watch a movie called Dinosaurus! It was NOT a scary movie, in any way, shape or form, but there was one scene, towards the end, when a gigantic brontosaurus, which Melody had decided she would have liked as a pet, had gone onto the beach and suddenly a big, nasty, toothy-grinned T-Rex, which had been the bad-guy during the entire movie, killed the gentle and kind Brontosaurus. (To see a trailer of the movie, click here ).

That night, the McDonalds’s sleep was interrupted by hysterical crying, as Melody relived that sad moment when the evil T-Rex killed the poor Brontosaurus; Melody was riding the brontosaurus when it happened and she tried to protect him, but the T-Rex was too fast. And, just as he was grabbing for her, Melody woke up. And cried for the poor, dead brontosaurus.

One of the movies that gave her the worst nightmares was “Frankenstein’s Daughter”. She had watched it at Steve’s house one Saturday afternoon, and had thought it was the funniest “scary movie” she’d ever seen. But her screams that night had never been equaled.

Now, she has no desire to watch horror movies because, more than scary, they’re just gory and bloody, complete eyesores.

 

How about you? Did you ever suffer from nightmares?

Copyright © April 16, 2016. Mary E. Purpari. All Rights Reserved.