1 . My grandfather died in 1970, leaving my grandmother living in their old house alone. Shortly after that, we went to the animal shelter and picked out a little dog to accompany Grandma. The dog was named Penny.

Grandma and Penny quickly became very attached (喜爱的) to each other, and that attachment grew much _________as the years passed—they became very _________. When Grandma went to _________, Penny walked along and lay _________ her until she woke up. As Penny aged, she could no longer jump up on the _________ to lie next to Grandma, so she lay on the blanket beside the bed. Grandma never went anywhere without her partner by her side.

The time came when both my grandmother and Penny were becoming _________.Grandma had been sent to hospital several times, and Penny couldn’t _________ around very well. When Grandma was in hospital, Penny would sit at the window _________ out for the car bringing Grandma home and would _________ wait at the door when Grandma came through. Each homecoming was a great meeting again between the two.

On Christmas Day in 1985, Grandma was again taken to the hospital. Penny, __________, sat at the window watching out for the car bringing Grandma home. Two mornings later, I __________ she couldn’t stand and wouldn’t eat. Later, she had difficulty in breathing. I quickly __________ her to the hospital where Grandma stayed to let her see her __________ for the last time. There, as soon as Penny saw Grandma, Penny’s eyes brightened suddenly and then slowly __________. Grandma left this world several hours later.

After fifteen years of loving friendship, Grandma and Penny passed away on the same day. God had it all worked out — Penny was waiting at the door to __________ her when Grandma came home.

2 . It happened on a rainy Saturday morning last month. My wife Catherine and I were driving along what some people called moose (麋鹿) alley. It was so ______ that there were few cars on the road. ______, something happened. A moose jumped out across our path. I had been driving for years and was good at driving. In order to ______ knocking into the moose, I made a quick turn to the other lane. If I had not done that, the moose might have been killed, and my wife and I might have got ______, too. A few seconds later, when I ______ and looked back in my rear view mirror, the moose was getting up and then ran into the bush. Shaken but ______, we both looked at each other with a surprised expression.

From then on, I often thought about the relationship between humans and ______ . We know that animal species have appeared and disappeared ______ since life began on the Earth. This is a(n) ______ phenomenon. However, animal species have been ______ at a much faster rate for about a century now ______ human factors such as pollution.

Certain philosophers and scientists keep repeating that if we don’t save animals, how we will be able to save ourselves. A better ______ of animals gives us a better understanding of our own species. The ______ to protect animals and nature in general ______ the value of a society. And all animals play roles in nature and have a right to ______. Therefore, I think we should try our best to save endangered animals, because humans cannot live on the Earth alone.

4 . My husband, Russ, and I drove through our neighborhood, the place we’d called home for 28 years. The foothills (山麓) once thick with pines, were _________. The ground was covered with a heavy layer of ash. The trees that _________ were burnt stumps (树桩).

Two weeks earlier, we’d gotten an early-morning call telling us to _________ immediately. The wildfire burning through Northern California had spread and was headed our way. We’d jumped in the car with our cats and a few belongings. For days, we’d moved from hotel to hotel, _________ for news. What finally came wasn’t _________. Our house had been right in the fire’s path.

Now we’d been allowed to return. Russ and I brought _________, work boots, N95 masks and gloves. We would _________ anything we could. We drove slowly through the ruins, where chimneys marked where homes once stood. I wasn’t prepared for what _________ us. Our house was _________ but broken stones, I wiped away tears as we dug through the ash.

“How will we survive this?” I wondered. “How will we go on?” It felt as if our lives had been destroyed. Later that afternoon Russ __________ what we’d found in the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

I turned to get in the car. That’s when I __________ something stuck to my boot: a bit of paper, dirtied with ash. I picked it up. The words were surprisingly __________, “If life seems difficult, I stop and reflect on the blessing sometimes hidden within every situation. With renewed belief and __________, I begin again.”

Words that must have come from one of my books, a passage I couldn’t recall but now said everything I needed to __________, words that rose from the ashes. I framed (给……做框) that scrap of paper. It now sits in a place of honor in our new home, a reminder that we can __________ again.

5 . Just as we take care of our friends and families, our homes and Mother Earth take care of us. Our homes give us a place of shelter that ________ between us and the rest of the world. The earth is a(n) _________ giver of life and the keeper of our physical and spiritual needs. Her rich ________ bring us up, give us air, and offer us cooling shade. Her waters ________ our thirst. Yet it is easy to take both of these wonderful _________ for granted. ________ the thanks you feel toward your home and Mother Earth for the gifts each   ________   you. It can help you stay   ________ of where many of the gifts in your life come from. Each time you give thanks, you’ll be ________ of the importance of caring for your home and for Mother Earth. There is a simple and beautiful _________ you can find to show your thanks. Begin by finding a ________ place where you can be alone. Sit comfortably and breathe deeply ________ you feel relaxed and then read the following out loud:

“Thank you, home, for allowing me to live ________ your walls. Thank you for allowing me to stay strong and ________ me. Thank you, Mother Earth, for the land I ________ on and farm. Thank you, plants, minerals (矿物质), and animals on the land for allowing me to ________ your beauty and your amazement of life, and for the ________ of living with all of you on this earth. Thank you for the wisdom and       ________ you bring to us.”

You can do so as often as you like and anytime you feel particularly thankful for the many gifts that you have ________. Each time you do this, you’ll strengthen your connection with all that _________ and supports you.

6 . My previous home had a stand of woods behind it and many animals in the backyard. That first year, I ______ feeding peanuts to the blue jays, then the squirrels. The squirrels had no _______coming up right to me for them. As the months went by, the rabbits saw that I was no ______ and didn’t escape. When I threw carrot slices (薄片), they even came for a nibble (啃). Slowly they came to ______ me, and by the end of the year they were eating out of my hand.

That second year, the rabbits ______ me, and one would even sit up for slices! While I was feeding them. I ______ that a groundhog who used to run away was now taking an ______ interest in this food situation. I carefully extended a long ______, with a keen eye on those teeth, and ______, there were times I would have the groundhog sitting next to a rabbit, both munching (津津有味地咀嚼) on carrots. A few months later, while ______, she would even turn her back to me._______ when she was facing away, I reached out and ______ scratched (搔) her back with my finger. She didn’t move.

By year three, the rabbits and the groundhog were back. The groundhog ______ didn’t have a problem with me scratching her back, and I got an idea. I’d always ______, while slicing up carrots, that the end looked like a cap. ______ one day, just to see what she would do, I gently ______ one on top of the groundhog’s head. Again, not a ______. The next time, I had my camera ready to record what you see here, one of several dozen such pictures. ______ she had a slice to eat, she never ______ the one on her head. It was a fair______— I got a pleasure, and she had yet another tasty treat.

8 . Have you seen bees at work and stopped to wonder how smart they are? Results of a recent experiment prove that bees are clever enough to _______ time and energy when they fly around to different flowers.

Behavior

Nigel Raine, PhD, from Royal Holloway, University of London, has always been interested in finding out why animals behave as they do. He is also interested in bees. Therefore, it turned out to be not a _______ when he and some other scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that bees can quickly solve a problem that _______ computers many days.

A(n) _______ path

Flowers make pollen (花粉), and when bees visit them, they _______ the pollen to other flowers. The plants need the pollen to make seeds that will grow. Raine notes that we get a lot of our food from plants, so it is important to know how the bees move around and take pollen between flowers. The scientists wanted to _______ the journey that the bees take and how they save energy when they do this.

They completed the experiment on the roof of Queen Mary, using _______ flowers and a large amount of nectar (花蜜). They taught one bee to visit all these unreal flowers in one place at the same time. When the bee got to know the location of the flowers well, they saw how it flew around and returned home with the _______ . After this, they changed the locations of the flowers. The scientists thought the bee would follow the route it knew already, which would mean that it followed a longer route than it needed to, and so it would use more energy. They watched the bee carefully as it travelled between the flowers in their _______ location, and they made notes. To their ________ , the bee changed its route and flew a shorter distance.

Travelling salesman

The problem that the bee solved is similar to a math puzzle called the “travelling salesman problem”. A salesman who goes to ________ places to sell things wants to travel the shortest distance to do this. If he is going to visit many different places, it is not easy to ________ which is the shortest route. You have to calculate the length of many possible routes to find out which one is the shortest. A computer can calculate this but the experiment shows bees can do the same ________ quickly with a tiny brain.

Scientists are very interested in how they do this. It would help us to understand how pollen is moved around. ________ , if they find this out, it could help us to improve communication networks. This might help humans to ________ traffic jams when there is an accident, for example.

10 . I woke up by my dog barking in the early morning. I went outside to find a koala (考拉) at the yard gate wanting to enter. It was the first time that I had _______ a koala in my neighbourhood. What a welcome _______! 

I was wondering why he was here, as koalas _______ came down from the trees and didn’t like walking, either._______, there was no eucalyptus (桉树) around. Was he hungry or lost? Or maybe the bushfire across Kangaroo Island _______ him here? 

He just sat there, apparently _______, and sort of looked at me with a look, like helping me out of my suffering. At a(n) _______ look, I discovered a long cut at his back with bloods,_______ of attacks or cuts of something sharp in some other way. 

I rushed into my room and came out with some iodophor (碘伏药水). It was not a _______ problems as I was a nurse. This poor soul seemed to quite ________ my kindness when I ________ the cut with the liquid. It ________ me that he came to seek my ________! 

After the treatment, I watched the koala finally ________ in the wild, hoping he was able to ________ the hard time and live his life as he should.