After fifty years in academics, most of it in the Idaho Palouse country, Jeanne and her husband Doyle have returned to their Ohio roots. Retirement has brought many adventures and challenges. Trekking the hills to find old friends, relearning the art of gardening in rain-blessed summers, and continuing the deep love/hate relationship with the magic of computers is interspersed with her favorite pastime, writing about her special friends, the characters in her books. Their adventures, habitats and personalities are fictitious but seemed to come alive in the telling. They came as strangers and remained as friends.