I share my country home in Sterling MA with lots of dogs and cats, and four Spanish Timbrado  canaries (Fernando, Isabella, Pete and Perry) who delight me with sweet heart-tingling songs each morning.

There are two lively springer spaniels: Sweet, adorable Tish (aka "Woodlander's Heaven Scent"), who is three, and Trudy, a sad 10-year-old liver & white female whom I took into foster care a few days before Christmas, 2000, as part of my work as a volunteer  for the New England English Springer Spaniel Rescue Coalition.  Trudy decided she liked it here, and we all voted to let her call this her permanent home. She's much happier now.

Trudy

Tish

Nine-year-old Miss Ashley, a purebred golden retriever, is the granddame of the group and is perfect in every way! Well, sometimes she likes to sleep on the couch, but we pretend we don't notice. .. Ashley doesn't usually join in with the antics of the youngsters in the group, but the cats just love her! They make a cozy nest of her big fluffy tail, and sleep there for hours (or as long as she'll let them). Our other golden girl is Lady, an alumna of The Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton, MA. She's got her quirks, but is mostly an affable gal who craves affection and cookies!

Glenda

On the feline front, I seem to be a cat magnet! The first to join our household was the colorful Tabby/Torti cross, Casey, who was just days away from being euthanized, simply because she had the bad luck to be cooped up in a shelter cat room which was roaring with an upper respiratory virus. I couldn't let that happen, and she's been happily ensconced on my bed for about six years now. The newest member of the group is the inimitable Mr. Neil, a talkative, affectionate orange tiger who has truly captured my heart!  I was lucky to find him at Baypath in February of 2000, and he has been an absolute joy ever since I brought him home.  He talks, and thinks he's a dog, so he fits right in.

Casey

Tigger

The farm "twins," Tigger and Shadow, started life as barn cats but secretly yearned to be part-time couch potatoes, so we happily welcomed them into the fold. Check out Tigger's double paws - - they are as big as boxing gloves! Very sadly, Tigger was killed by a predator around the time of the full moon in September, 2002.  We will miss him very much, and will always love him, and honor his indomitable spirit by keeping his photograph here. Maddie was a six-month-old starving waif in an elderly housing development when we caught him with a tuna-packed Hav-a-Heart trap. The original idea was to adopt him out through the humane society. But we soon learned that he was actually a semi-feral cat, who would require a tremendous amount of patient handling before he would learn to trust and accept human touch. I volunteered for the job, and he has rewarded me by becoming one of the most affectionate cats in the group.

Three years ago, when we lost our first cat, beloved Minou, to a pack of coyotes, I felt downhearted and disconsolate. We could never replace Minou, but I somehow I yearned to fill the void that she had left in my heart. I soon found Glenda, a sleek torti with amber eyes, and what a trip it has been! She, too, was a feral kitten, having been born in the wild without the benefit of human intervention during the very short period in a kitten's life when it is able to become socialized to people. Three-month-old teeny tiny Glenda promptly escaped on the very first day that I brought her home from Baypath. She hid in the woods all night, but succumbed to the tempting aroma of tuna by the next evening, and we thought all was well. Within a few weeks, however, the scaredy-cat, still semi-feral Glenda disappeared! I looked everywhere, inside and out, and her whereabouts were a complete mystery until the next day, when I detected a faint "mew" sound in response to my calls. Within minutes, I realized, to my horror, that Glenda had somehow crawled into a drainpipe under our empty hot tub, where she was destined to die without drastic intervention.

Shadow

In a panic, I called the Sterling Fire Department, never really expecting them to help a doomed kitten. They responded in force, and spent many hours here, trying to figure out how we could spring Glenda from her subterranean trap without ruining the ceramic tile floor in our sunroom! Finally, we all realized that the floor was expendable, but Glenda was not, so they carefully broke through the floor, and then the pipe, and miraculously freed the terrified kitten. Glenda was dirty and hungry, but otherwise fine. I am still the only person who can touch Glenda, but she is becoming a wonderful cuddler, on her own terms, and that's okay with me.

Maddie

On the barnyard front, I raise bantam chickens, just for fun. The flock numbers about 30, including five noisy roosters. There are "Araucanas" (who lay blue/green eggs!), "Buff Silkies" (beautiful golden fluffy girls with black skin—they love to set, too), "Partridge Cochins" (friendly birds with a reddish satiny sheen and feathered feet), and "Buff Brahmas" and "Light Brahmas" (both are beautiful birds with black "collars" who lay lovely brown eggs which are on the large side for bantams.

Most of my chickens do not have names, but there are a few exceptions, notably Tallullah, a petite yellowish girl with a funny feathery tuft on her head, whom I got from a local bantam breeder in Charlton, Mass. Tallullah was the sole survivor of a chicken massacre that wiped out my first flock a few years ago and she's had a special place in my heart ever since. She, and her daughter, Dorothy, are pretty bossy for their diminutive size, and they are wonderful layers of setters of smallish cream-colored oval-shaped eggs.

Maureen Harmonay, CRS, GRI, ABR
Licensed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Your Country Property Specialist

RE/MAX Traditions

1084 Main Street
Bolton, MA 01740
MHarmonay@YourCountry-Home.com
Direct: 978-502-5800
Toll-free: 866-666-8880
Fax: 978-389-0073

Visit my companion sites:

Harvard Country Homes and Massachusetts Country Homes

This site designed for Netscape 4 & up..
screen resolution 800 x 600
All rights reserved.