For those of you who don't know, I live 100 feet behind the main barn at Catskill Animal Sanctuary. From my house on a ridge, cows and sheep graze in pastures below me and to the left, and a gathering of geese swim in their pond. Straight ahead are five more pastures that house horses and our largest cow herd. To my right, a pig field, a goat paddock, and the large, flat pasture for Big Ted, d 2,000-pound draft horse, blind horse Bobo, and other senior equines. I see the hen house and the rabbit run, and watch the pekin ducks and their pals bobbing and splashing in the new pond we dug for them. And though I can't actually see them, I'm close enough to hear the roosters crowing in their custom-designed bachelor pad.

Such a wonderful vantage point, plus the twenty or so free-ranging characters--sheep, pigs, a rooster, two ducks--who call this place home make for a life rich in surprises.
Yesterday, for instance, a sharp, sudden clatter interrupted a conference call with two volunteers. I jumped up from my desk, raced out to the deck, and looked downto see both Valentino and Jojo, two potbelly pigs, eyeball deep in my glass and aluminum recycling.

"What are you doing, bad boys?" I asked, moving down the stairs to shoo them back to the barnyard.

"Hmmmph," they both said. "This is fun."

Today begins a new chapter. A little bunny--a black and white Dutch--has moved in with me, my dog Murphy, and my two cats, Mouse and Fat Boy. He'll be with us for six months as his Mom, the photographer and filmmaker Zana Briski, goes to Madagascar and Panama for two separate projects. Now i told Zana that I know as much about rabbits as I know about armadillos, but that didn't faze her. She wants her nine-year-old boy on a farm, she wants him to have company, she wants him to be with someone who will love him.

So Zana begins her adventure in Madagascar, and we begin ours. Stay tuned.