March 4, 2008 – Check-up today, and I feel good. Want some quiet days.
  If you love animals, there is no greater gift you can give them than to hire Annie DiLeo. Every morning, she shows up in her pick-up, a burst of sunshine in a gray and cold winter. She and I have become good friends, and she always has a bizarre store about skunks, marauding rabbits, rescue birds and sexually imappropriate goats. I love starting my day in the farmhouse kitchen trading yarns with Annie about our days and experiences. Annie used to work in construction, building bridges, and then followed her bliss and headed to the country for a life around animals with her husband Joe, who has one of the great Brooklyn accents to be heard anywhere.
  She moves among the animals like a rural Pied Piper, talking to them, loving them, watching out for them, and they know it and are crazu about her. She thinks I don’t know it, but she’s given names to all the sheep. And she saved Winston’s life. Every animal on the farm, from the dogs to the cows, puts their hands together for Annie when she appears. You always know when Annie is here, as there is a veritable symphony of baahs, moos, barks, clucking and meeows.
  She also manages the farm with efficiency, from moving firewood and hay around to repairing fences. Life would not be imaginable without her, and she is, to boot, a loving, cheerful, funny and extraordinary human being. Very lucky to know her and she makes a wicked Bedlam Farm Goddess.
  If everyone was like Annie, the animals of the world would live in a Heavenly City.

Annie is always surrounded by farm animals, who flock to her.

Tossing hay to the goats. I used to call her “The Goat Lady of Cossayuna.” Then she was promoted to Bedlam Farm Goddess. I love her and appreciate her. She is awesome.
  So