I’m grateful for days full of animals, morning noon and night. I wake with them in my bed. I’m grateful for my bed, with soft cotton sheets and blankets, fluffy pillows, and a sturdy mattress. I’m grateful for the clean sheets I switched out today for the rumpled bedding Wren and Topaz enjoyed last night.

I’m grateful for wild animals in the yard and the woods around the house, like this bachelor herd of young bucks west of the house the past few days.

I’m grateful for domestic animals like my neighbor’s little Shorty, and all the other horses in surrounding fields who add a dimension of life to the neighborhood, sometimes tranquil, sometimes exciting. I’m grateful that Wren and Shorty respected each other in their first meeting as Shorty strolled down and Wren strolled up the driveway. Once they satisfied their curiosity about one another, they each grazed peacefully on their own side of the gravel.

I’m grateful for these amazing cookies from NYT cookie editor Vaughn Vreeland, and for Cookie Week before Christmas featuring tempting cookie recipes every day. These gingerbread latte cookies give a real kick, with lots of espresso powder in them and rolled in an espresso-sugar-ginger dusting. Just one yesterday afternoon kept me up well past midnight, so now they’re for breakfast only.

And I’m grateful for silly little Wren again at the end of a busy day, relaxed and happy in her – I mean my -recliner. I’m grateful for dogs, cats, horses, deer, polar bears, manatees, chickadees, ravens, mountain lions, snow leopards, frogs, snakes, rays, sharks, octopi, osprey, bison, wolves, and Perdido key beach mice, as well as the millions of other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, not to mention invertebrates. I’m grateful for animals, morning noon and night; though it makes me sad to think too hard about them, or to see pictures of some species, as human animals continue to devour and pollute the habitat of the other creatures we share the planet with, and of course wreak havoc with the climate. I’m grateful for people like the Bioneers and other researchers and activists who take seriously our relationship with other animals and the living organism that is Earth, striving to reconnect children of the Anthropocene with their roots in the animal kingdom.