Anyone who’s had them knows that children are greedy, ungrateful, little creeps. Especially so when they are all grown up and bickering over a recently deceased parent’s estate.

This is what happened in the case of Vermont children’s illustrator Tasha Tudor, who died in June of 2008 at the age of 92, leaving a $2-million (U.S.) estate . Her will stipulated that the bulk of the money go to her eldest son, with only small amounts going to the rest of the children, who are contesting the will in court.

Tudor, who lived a very proto-hippie existence with a number of beloved animals, had a few other stipulations in her will: she asked to be buried alongside the remains of her favourite dog and rooster. Even this fairly simple request got muddied, however. From the Canadian Press:

When author Tasha Tudor’s ashes were finally buried, it wasn’t in one place. Her bickering survivors couldn’t agree on when, where and how, so a judge ordered her cremated remains divided in half.

On Oct. 17, sons Seth Tudor and Thomas Tudor and daughters Bethany Tudor and Efner Tudor Holmes buried some under a rosebush she loved in her garden and the rest on Seth’s neighbouring property, where her precious Pembroke Welsh corgi dogs were already buried.

“(Seth) got the ashes, we went outside and he gave us half the ashes and he went down to his property and scattered or buried the ashes there and we scattered ours,” said Thomas Tudor, 64. “It was really an unpleasant situation.”

That’s right: they even fought over the ashes.

Despite all this trouble, things still appear bucolic on the Tasha Tudor and Family website, though it’s worth nothing that the rooster’s bio appears before any of the kids.