I love to garden. When I was younger, I thought nothing of gardening out in the back 40, rototilling, hauling produce long distances to the kitchen, and bending over weeding for hours. Now that I’m older, my gardening motto has become “Work smarter, not harder”: Why bend over if …

I love fresh salsa. I used to experiment with different ingredients and different recipes,but the most delicious recipe I have found is in Ingrid E. Newkirk’s Compassionate Cook vegan cookbook.  It’s called Salsa Mexicana, and it’s really simple to make, with just four ingredients: tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro. Although I’ve settled …

I firmly believe that in order to solve the animal overpopulation crisis, we need to support PETA’s efforts to actively educate people about the need for spaying and neutering and back its work to stop breeders and puppy mills from bringing more dogs and cats into a world where there are …

Mornings are my favorite part of the day. My big old dog Zoey wakes me up like clockwork at 5 a.m. each morning with kisses to tell me it’s time for her to go out. The three young kitties sit patiently by the bed, waiting to follow me in line—like I am the Pied Piper—upstairs to the cat …

Since I was a little girl, I have adopted (and been adopted by) old cats, young kitties, tabbies, calicos, fat cats, skinny cats, black cats, white cats, girl cats, and boy cats. The only thing they all have had in common is that they’ve all been spayed and neutered! I don’t understand why, …