In the chill of the morning air, you can hear the animals awaken. As the fog breaks the crisp air comes alive. Set admidst a surrounding neighborhood in lies Catty Shack Ranch. Catty Shack has been the creation and ongoing management of Curt LoGiudice who began his journey with the big cats over 30 years ago. Curt was the first person I met that morning surrounded by chickens, horses and volunteers that were arriving. Catty Shack is run 100% by volunteers, people who have genuine passion for helping big cats have a forever home. I met with Catty Shack’s volunteer coordinator Jordan Joseph, on this crisp morning. Jordan took us on a behind the scenes tour of the Catty Shack Ranch. She spent time introducing me to each of the many big cats and providing their story and history as to how they came to the ranch. You see Catty Shack does not buy or sell any of their big cats. Whenever they acquire one, usually from people that should never have had a big cat in the first place. Catty Shack takes them in and provides them a forever home and habitat. The first to greet us as Jordan opened the gates was one of their many resident roosters T.R., this one is more like a puppy than a chicken. First of the cats we met was Sarah who greeted us with the spray like cats will do. Next was Czarina who had a large Boomer Ball to play with, which is a ball […]

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Blessed SecondIron Readers, I am humbly coming to you to ask for your honest feedback on SecondIron’s Blog, so that I may serve you better. In order for me to serve you better, we need to get to know one another a bit. By learning your interests and style will allow me to provide relevant content over the upcoming year. In order for us to have this conversation I have created this 2015 Annual Blog Survey. I wish we could meet over a nice cup of java and chat awhile (option open to anyone that would like to stop by my hometown). In the meantime a few questions and a couple of minutes of your time will help out immensely. SecondIron’s Blog has been around for just over a year and a hundred or so posts. In that time I have shared some of my faith walk, books reviews, movies and more. In order to ensure that I continue providing the information and content you want our little chat will be valuable. The results are anonymous so please be honest as the community can only improve if we are all in the discussion. Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts, filling out the quick survey and that cup of coffee if you so choose (my treat). Best regards and blessings, Charles Johnston

Personally I have been a fan of Jon Gordon for years. He has created a library of life changing books that are a part of my collection. Being that he is also a local author, most are personally signed as well. One such book was Jon’s collaboration project called ‘One Word‘. As a fan and avid reader, I have bought Jon’s books as soon as they hit the shelf, for myself and as gifts.  I bought a copy, gave it to my wife and thought no more about it. Several weeks later, my wife asked what my ‘one word’ was? I was clueless as I had not read the book. She gave me the book back and encouraged me to read it. Many months later, towards the end of 2014, One Word came around again. This time is a Facebook group that I belong to. One of the members offered to create artwork for those that had their word chosen. This was easy for me as I already had my One Word  prepared for the New Year. 2014 as a whole has been a bit of a blur for me. I started my blog, writing for it a couple of times a week. I also began a side project and blog that can be found at Jerzy2Sainthood.com. Meanwhile working and going to school full-time, and focusing on my marriage. During these busy times there was one word that kept appearing. One Word that I feel has been written on my heart to share during this next year. […]

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