Welcome to the Grotto! About Us:

Hello, and thank you for visiting the new blog. My name is Lenna S. Hanna-O'Neill, and I am a retired farmer from the heartland of Oklahoma. I own Enchanted Oaks farm, where with the help of my family and friends I raise our beautiful Beauceron and English Toy Spaniel dogs. We are also home to a shifting Noah's ark of other animals, including ornamental poultry, Lionhead, Holland Lop and Netherland Dwarf rabbits, and a variety of hoofstock such as goats, sheep, etc.  Since my son and I still do some limited rescue, there is never any telling what we might have at any given moment. Since I retired, my son Donson does most of the day to day management, but we work together to constantly improve our farm and our lines.

This blog will center around subjects concerning dog showing and breeding, farming, and raising healthy, quality animals for others to love and enjoy. More recently, I have begun addressing the encroaching mindset of 'animal rights' activists. The wrong headed and fanatic beliefs of these humaniacs are beginning to pose real problems for the people who are trying to put food on America's tables, or provide loving, healthy pets for carefully screened homes. I have been a regular on many dog breeding and showing forums as well as several agricultural boards as D'Sorceress (a nod to the kennel name Sword & Sorcery,) and some time ago, due to my often ascerbic style when dealing with these miscreants, I acquired the nickname 'Wicked Witch of the MidWest'. I have adopted it as my own; I am not tender to the enemies of our dogs or our animals, and I do not suffer fools gladly, I make them suffer instead. On the plus side, there are those with disturbed personalities who find my caustic humor entertaining. It is for them that this blog is shared.

So, be welcome, and know that if you are a normal person with reasonable beliefs about loving and living with animals, you will probably be at least mildly entertained, and possibly even occasionally educated. If, however, you are a Breeding Nazi, who is never satisfied unless you are one-upping someone on the amount and frequency of tests you insist are necessary for prospective breeding couples, and more concerned with critically berating everyone for Not Doing It Well Enough than with simply enjoying the animals whose lives we are entrusted with; or a PeTA sympathizer who believes that all animals should be enjoyed at arms length, through binoculars,. or on television, and never from personal interaction: or if you think H$U$ is just not doing enough to make life miserable for farmers and other 'animal exploiters;' or if you think that 'owning' animals is immoral, or that asking our pets to assist us in our daily lives is somehow demeaning to their dignity, then I'm afraid you will not have much fun here. Oh, hell let me be clear... YOU won't have fun, but I assure you I will.