Our Staff
Cecile Moore
Do you remember when you were a kid and you showed your mom a picture you drew, and she not only praised you (of course) but for the first time she knew what it was and you didn't have to tell her it was the dog, or your house, or her? I remember that so well I never got over it. I make pictures of pets and now I get to put them on everybody's fridge, not just Mom's.
If you've looked at our catalog or this site, you've seen a lot of my cats and my only dog (Moffat.) I paint my designs from photographs of friends and family, and the occasional stranger on the street. Since I always need more dog pictures, I haunt off-leash parks and dog festivals, and I try to be discreet but I always get busted: "Are you from the paper?"
This picture includes Sweetie (in the pink, I'm in the gray.) She had a sore on her back that she kept open for years, so we had to keep little sweaters on her until it healed completely. She had a pretty nice wardrobe for a while there.
Favorite Links:
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- A nice site about chickens
- New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest
- A Word a Day
- Check out the Visual Thesaurus
Terri Jarrett
I joined Barx Bros., Inc. in November 2005, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Picking and packing orders seems to fit well with my task originated, “get it done” personality. When talking with my mother and grandmother recently, I learned that my compulsive counting is something that runs in the family. At least now I can put it to good use.
The real reason I enjoy my job so much is that it allows me time and space for my real love, quilting. I have quilted for more than 12 years now, and when I’m not quilting, I’m thinking about it. I belong to two local, two state and two national quilt guilds. I love participating in quilt shows; I’ve won a few ribbons. During lunch hours, I learned how to shop for fabric on-line, but I would still much rather touch the fabric before I buy it.
My husband and I live in the country and enjoy gardening when we are not playing servant to our four furbabies.
Layla – one of a litter of four, she was the one kitty too timid to fight her sibs for Mama’s milk, yet she’s the last one still around.
Corinna – whom we adopted from the local animal shelter. We were told that she had been there for six months. She went nuts when my husband walked by her cage, reaching out for him, and she has been a wonderful addition to our family.
Big ‘Rnge- (like orange without the “O”)- was a stray, who is the sweetest, most loving cat I’ve ever had. I can’t believe that someone put him out, he’s too cute and nice to live on the street.
Roscoe- who was my mother-in-law’s cat, he came with the house we recently bought from her. He’s a sweet guy, getting used to his new “sibs”.
Michon
The first thing Michon said to us was "hhhhhh--KTT!" He was a tiny kitten in a litter from a dumpster colony that PAWS was working on (more about PAWS below). He and Bonnie just fell in love and we couldn't bear to rehome him. He is a sixteen pound, chocolate brown bruiser with a heart full of mischief.
Alma
Alma was trapped in a feral cat colony and handled with leather gloves until someone realized that there was nothing feral about her. She was a couch kitty that had been dumped (possibly because her litter box habits are less than perfect.) We have had her for years and no one has seen her blink.
Favorite Links:
Peppina
Peppina is named after the pizza parlor where she lived out of the dumpster for years. One of the workers there had a little girl who wanted a white kitten, so she let Miss P have litter after litter hoping there would be a white one. After I made off with her and had her spayed, I just couldn't take her back there, and she had a mean streak so I couldn't rehome her either. Years later, the "street" has worn off some, and she is sweet and docile. Still pretty opinionated, though.
Gammie
Gammie is short for Grandma, her original name. She was the ur-ancestress of a large cat colony that we helped to spay/neuter. She was already an older girl even then, and wasn't holding up well living outdoors, so the owner agreed to let us keep her. She had a reputation for keeping a neighborhood Rottweiler at bay, and we can believe it. Gammie is not mean, but she is Mrs Run the Show.
Note: Gammie left us in 2006 after a valiant fight against mammary cancer. There has been a bit of a power vacuum ever since. She was a sweet old girl who lived in luxury for the last five years of her life, and we were privileged and happy to share it with her.
Suzi
Suzi was born in the shed behind our previous shop location. She was about six months old when we moved, and not yet reliably tame. We kept her inside here and in a day or two she came around: you could see her realizing, "This is Great! Living inside is the way to go!" She is the only one of our cats who never, ever door darts. She is fourteen now, she's been treated for hyperthyroid disease and has three teeth left, and has us all in her absolute command.
Note: Suzi left us in the summer of 2008 after suffering a sinus cancer. She was a sweet loving soul every day of her life.
Sweetie
Sweetie believes that if your sleeping box is big enough for you, you should find a much smaller box. She came from the same horrid kitten mill as Jefferson and is surely somehow related to him, and is just as loving and just as deaf as he was. She was first named Madeline, but within a week everyone was saying, "Hey, Sweetie!" and it stuck. We have rafts of Sweetie pictures. She loves to hang out with the shipper; we think she understands that it has been several different people over the years, but maybe not. We have also seen our computer guy fixing the server with one hand and scratching Sweetie with the other. She's hard to resist.
Blind Lemon Jefferson
J-Man had a sad story with a happy ending. In 1996 a kitten mill near here was shut down by the police, and Jefferson was one of the survivors. We adopted (hired) him for the office; I picked him in particular because he had a ruined eye and I was afraid no one else would want him. He was half blind, completely deaf and we had no idea how old he was, but he was a sweet old soul who loved everybody. He loved to ride around the shop on our inventory carts, and was always forgetting where he'd left his tongue. For years we all had the cardboard keyboard corrals like you see here, to keep him from typing. One day in 2004, he ate like a champ, played with everybody, got three rides on the cart, and died in his sleep in his favorite bed that night. We remember Jefferson with great joy and gratitude that he was a part of our lives.