my big fat update

last weekend brought heavenly treats of scones with devonshire cream for tea time along with grandmother denbrooke heath's english bone china.
thank you, sharon young!


napoleon liked it too:



Piper (aka Pipermint after she eats my burt's bees peppermint chapstick) gets bored when left out alone at home. Who wouldn't with NOTHING to do besides bark muffledly at passersby through windows while the humans are away?
SO... why not metamorphosize into the tazmanian devil and tornado-ify the entire house?! Yes. Plan made. And, abra-cadabra... Garbage EVERYWheRE! --->


knawed off plunger handle ^


bathroom trash ^


can't quite get to main garbage can! ^


trash be free!!! ^


pyrex measuring cup amongst boxes ^


that lemonade cookbook's gotta be around here somewhere! ^


trying to call for help with recipe ^




all we have is powder mix?!! ^


living room tornado! ^


broken glass in bathtub, broken hearts. ^


luckily, no injuries were sustained.

Piper loves her kennel while humans are away.

and we all need an extra relaxing tea time with scones and cream!

a great blue heron summer

Susan's been published!
& her great blue heron painting is the Cover Art for this season's
Minneapolis Observer Quarterly!



To read whole interview, visit http://www.mplsobserver.com/

Painting With Words: Artist Susan Heath Talks About Art, Nature, and Place

May 24, 2009

The Great Blue Heron on the cover of the summer issue of MOQ was painted by Minneapolis artist Susan Heath. We asked Susan to tell us more about what inspires her and to share her thoughts about art, artmaking, and being a nature-loving artist in the city.

april shower, may flowers

Hi. I'm Leonardo. Leo for short. Lucky Leo sometimes as well. I was out on the front step the other day when i discovered what good my claws are for as i abruptly ran up the front tree.


Piper underwent horticultural training and failed when she achieved mere hole-digging and seed-unearthing, but won the Canine award for "Places to hide a Bone" contest.


After an honest day's work of instigating trouble with Margie, drinking all the water, and stepping all over human's sensitive parts, Piper likes to curl up with Susan (her chosen favorite) and hoard the blankets and bed space.


We all like to go outside and enjoy the miracles of nature, including these lilacs...


Even Napoleon takes time out of his pain-causing-jerk-stuff activities to enjoy the wonders of lawn-munching...


these Bleeding Hearts spouted poetry and prose about the romance of Spring sun...


Phineas watched for birds and whined at the neighbors in his old man voice...


While the rainbows of tulips stood around, wondering which colors would be added to the mix next year.

one morning, when all the animals of the house had finally quieted down from their endless play throughout the night, enough for jon to fall asleep... a man came to our neighbourhood and decided to flush out the fire hydrant in front of our bedroom window:



Margie invited her new friend Piper (Tim's pup) over and showed her her favorite toy ball to play with in the backyard:


Piper begged Margie to show her how to play:


So, Margie brought the ball to Susan, to which Susan said, "Drop it!" and Margie did so. The Susan threw the ball all the way across the yard and Margie began to chase after it... Piper saw the chasing and decided to race Margie:


The exhilerating thrill of running... Piper ran...


and ran...


and ran...


To which Margie said, "That's not how we play the ball game."


So, Piper asked Susan if she could help her with gardening, to which Susan said, "no, get out of the dirt!"


So, Piper ran through the sprinkler, biting at the water sprays, and Susan again said, "No!" And Piper cried, "I was only trying to help."


So, Piper went back to Margie's ball, and Margie growled... so she got put in the kennel. But Piper, loyal to their new friendship, went into the cell as well to show her support:


The next day, Margie showed Piper how to play the play fighting game and said, "If you want to be a true Boxer, you need to learn to fight right!"


To which Piper replied, "Look - Predator attacking Godzilla!" and with her distraction techniques and quick lightness of her feet, won the fight.


Then they all went inside for some treats and lied down for a long nap. The only trouble was, by then, it was night, and Jon's sleeping time was long gone.

balloon animals

jon recently turned brenden and raisa into his marionette zombies, pretending he had friends for the afternoon:



then... signs of life appeared outside after an unbelievably long winter:


tulips that susan planted six inches underground last fall serendipitously one day before the first november snow.


iris plants reaching for the first april sun and sending their prayers to heaven for the end of the six-month glacial weather.

if only susan could have hibernated along with nature all winter. if only. (only 2 more months of feeling like a balloon animal, twisted, stretched, pulled, poked at, thrown up and down, withering over time, used up, and tossed in the trash. hooray!).

A Golden Opportunity

a new warm spring-feeling day lead us to a nearby asian grocery store... we stopped in...and our jaws dropped in amazement. fresh produce and herbs, an aquarium of fish, aisles of mouth-watering sauces, treats, and grains, and a multitude of frozen vegetables, animals and animal parts including fish (millions of kinds), whole hens and geese, many cow organs, and crab legs.



Jon's favorite item was REAL rice wine vinegar for about a dollar. Susan's favorite: big bag of sea salt for 5 bucks. And the duo's together-favorite: Hello Panda chocolate-filled mini cookies. (We also noticed the nice thing about the sweets is they're made with raw ingredients including cane sugar)!

The bundle of groceries at a regular corporate grocery store would have cost, we're guessing, $130. This trip, it cost us a whopping FIFTY dollars, plus we got advice on the mangos for free from the nice check-out lady.

We are SOOOOOO shopping there from now on!!!

random things happen...

bratty napoleon has survived another month without being sequestered or killed. the 3 cats can now eat together peacefully. the rest of the day... fights. napoleon is seeking help through psychopharmaceuticals for his aggressive attitude.


the mississippi river from our neighbourhood looking toward downtown minneapolis was viewed on one of susan and margie's walks.


margie enjoys walking the tracks and watching for birds on these walks; however she has learned not to chase flying objects while on the leash because her mother will put her in the kennel straightaway.


she also enjoys hopping through the snowy weeds along the bank of Shingle Creek during late winter walks.


After a looooooooong and difficult day at work, Susan came home to a clean house (ALL the piles of dishes done, ALL laundry washed, dried, folded, and put away, etc.) and the bedroom rearranged in the way she had been talking about. This was the best anniversary gift ever. 4 years!

the new cat

on my way home from a long day at school,
i stopped to pick up some dog food. in the store
there was a tiny little black cat in a cage. i grabbed
an oversized bag of dog food, walked over to
the cat cage and stuck my hand through the bars
to say hello. he stared at me with severe depression.
i read that he was rescued from the roadside at only
4 weeks old after his mother and siblings had been
killed by a car. he then had an owner for 6
years but couldn't go with her when she moved.
he then spent a couple weeks in foster care and
made his way toward adoption, wanting a forever
home. well, i couldn't take it ... and adopted him
(with cat-allergy jon's permission).



Leonardo Xavier Rutherford.




Leo settled in very quickly, begged for milk
and didn't get any more when it gave him diarrhea,
and made jon his new buddy, following him around
and turning jon into a cat lover.



Leo is the nicest cat ever born. Jon now hates our
other cats (more than before) compared to Leo who
has had a crap life, gets attacked by our other animals,
and refuses to protect or retaliate with violence, using
his claws only for playing with toys. what a good cat.

...now, how do we get rid of the other ones!?