As a child, a bucolic world beyond the kitchen door beckoned me. My childhood goal was simply to get outside. Woods, fields and streams teemed with all kinds of life. Foxes lurked in the forest, birds nested and laid eggs in Spring. Moles burrowed visibly through fields, compatriots of the snakes and toads, and in Summer fireflies and bats enhanced twilight. I splashed around in ponds and streams, and often returned home with tadpoles, salamanders and crayfish. I kept them as pets in my aquarium.

There were many classic "Charlotte's Web" type barns in western Pennsylvania then. I adored horses, hooves stomping, tails swishing, in their stalls. I delighted in the barn "family" comprised of hens, roosters, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, and black swooping swallows. Not to mention a spider or two.

I spent each July and August by the sea on Cape Cod. The screen door slapped shut behind me each morning... I would stay out til dusk catching minnows in nets and hermit crabs by hand, and fished off the pier. I dug for clams. I lived in my bathing suit, grew hard soles on my bare feet and rode my bike everywhere.

One summer, I discovered a white lab and her brand new litter of pups in a barn. I visited them daily, intoxicated by the squiggling, nursing mass of new life. My life-long love of cats was sparked then also, as I often chased litters of semi-wild kittens in and around our neighbor's garage.