Wondering Where the Wild Things Are?

They are here at Pike Lake.


Moles are scurrying about under the snow and Kenya is very interested. She goes out on her lead and just spends her time following her nose.  Such a delicacate quivering goes on ... no rowdy excitement ... just intense curiosity ... and I haven't seen her salivate yet.

The bird feder is active ... on around and below ... the red squirrel was there yesterday.  Someone was out shooting squirrels the other day ... I guess he figured it was easier than closing in the holes in his house. Honestly!

A deer was killed a few days ago ... either hit by a car or fell off a cliff ... all their trails have been disrupted over there ... anyway, her body was a Kenya magnet and I was forced to hold onto Kenya by the tail ... and exert my dominance ... in order to keep her away from it.  She managed one little sniff and a lick of innards ... and then vomited all night ... and that is why she is tied outside these days.

The other three lake does are everywhere ... and can almost not be designated wild any more.

I haven't seen them but apparently there are twenty-some wild turkeys up in the fields of the nearest farmer.


In other news my poor little car may need a major suspension job ... will have to contemplate whether to spend large amounts of money on a car that will be fourteen in the fall ... how much is that in people years?  I canceled my snow tire change because we still have lots of snow up here ... and there would be no point in getting the tires changed if I am going to trade in my car soon.  I will get the oil changed.  I don't want her to suffer in her old age.


Today is teaching day ... so must run ... I have figured out that I clear $5 per hour for teaching ... $6 per hour for catering ... and $8 per hour for dog sitting!  Shows clearly what is valued in our society, doesn't it?

a few words in between chores

When I say good bye to animals and their people after a stay there is always the bitter sweetness of the empty house. Kenya makes no bones about how she feels ... she mopes around in a semi-depressed state. She sleeps a lot. Maybe she is partly relieved that she is no longer on duty 24/7, but I think she also misses the other dogs ... and this time the cats as well, especially the cats.

I am too busy cleaning to feel deprived. That will come tomorrow, maybe. Or maybe not, because this time, the dogs slept downstairs. Usually boarding dogs share my bedroom with Kenya and me, but I thought that Kenya might resent two dogs in my bed. She never minds Remi sleeping with me, but these two usually sleep with their people ... in two beds ... and there is only one of me to go around ... and Kenya made it clear that while she can share toys and brushes and treats and petting, she was keeping the upstairs part of the house free of the interlopers. I never witnessed a confrontation over this but neither Chelsea nor Olive seemed inclined to come upstairs when Kenya was around.

So far today I have mopped, swept and washed the bathroom and laundry room floors and found the missing kitty toys in various hidey-holes, done a huge laundry (3 rainy days with 3 dogs that love to swim creates a lot of dirty linen), swept and mopped the rest of the upstairs, cooked up a batch of beets from the market, started a stew in the slow cooker, put a final coat of base colour on the ugly little rocker, a lazy susan and the second stool. The rest of the work will be picky and fun.

I doubt if I can make this poor little rocker beautiful, but I can make it much happier than it was wearing its flecked and peeling fluorescent orange paint. I am trying to decide on a theme. All the lines on the chair are plain and straight. The colours are turquoise with small amounts of the dark blue purple, gold, warm brick red, celery green and deep pink. I will use other colours on the joint areas and to create the images.

Some possibilities: frog sitting on the seat and other creatures like fish and butterflies elsewhere

a circus theme ... balloons, cotton candy, striped tent top ... not sure what to do with the seat ... maybe the rings?

The other problem I am facing is how to tone down an unfortunate colour choice. On the card it looked like a lighter mossy green. In reality it is an acidic Koolade lime green that I hate. I have tried a wash of darker green but it just puddles. I think I will have to mix my own colour and paint it on top. Please let me know if you can think of a simple solution.

Kitty playing with the weird toy Sprout left behind

Canada Day

I am listening to CBC doing just what one of the musicians (Hawksley Workman) said last night at the taping of the Vinyl Cafe show: that Stuart McLean and CBC are all about making us aware of our country, our place, its people and its values.

The dogs and cats are in various places around the house figuring out where they are. It has been a bit of traumatic time for all of us, including their family who have never left them before.

The cats are upstairs in the bathroom with their food, water and kitty litter. Kenya absolutely LOVES the kitten (Kitty) and wants to give her far too many kisses for comfort. The kitten, surprisingly, is not too upset by all this attention. Tom Cat disappeared (who knew where?) but showed up when I came back without Kenya. He wants out ... is not used to being inside all day ... but his family is afraid he will try to come home, so we have no choice. I will visit them often today and introduce Kenya to Tom when he is less skittish.

I have to keep Chelsea, the old lumpy lab, tied when she is outside because of instructions and worries that came with her. Olive, the young lab, was the one I thought would be a breeze, but she did something I've never seen a dog do before; she growled at me and kept her distance ... wouldn't even come for cookies ... terrified.

I brought Kenya out and she played with her, but was still suspicious of me.

After a while I brought Chelsea outside. Well! The difference was instantaneous. Olive ran straight over to us and licked Chelsea all over her face and was calm and good with me. She must have thought I'd done something to Chelsea when she couldn't see her.

Reminded me a bit of a time I babysat Debbie's kids and put on a wicked witch voice while we played. Billy was terrified and ran away from me and hid in a corner. Kati, who was about four, flung herself at me screaming, "Don't you hurt my baby brother!"

Kenya is being very possessive of her bedding, which is also a first. As always she prevents Chelsea from stealing cookies, but this is the first time she has given a damn about her dog pillows. Maybe too many strangers in the house at once? She was not impressed when Olive tried to climb into my lap, either. Maybe she is afraid she will be dispossessed.

I am trying giving everyone as much love as possible, but I was forced to crate Kenya for a few minutes until she could be nicer.

As the day goes on it becomes clear that she would love a kitten or cat of her own to love.

Last night's performance by Stuart McLean and the two groups of musicians that were there with him was wonderful. I hadn't thought about what a radio personality would look like when he was not a disembodied voice and so was surprised by his gestures and body movements which all seemed exaggerated. At first I found myself closing my eyes so that I wouldn't be distracted, but by the time the second half of the evening began, I was used to him, and he had established such a connection with his audience that it no longer mattered. He and the young musicians were all such genuine people with no hint of arrogance that it felt in many ways like being with friends who were entertaining.

Happiness is Unbloggable

November 25, 2008
Some things are just not bloggable ...

I am pretty open about what I consider bloggable ... perhaps too open for some tastes. Menopausal symptoms and other details about aging, minutiae about felting projects and doggy clients, and my weather updates, for instance, may be too unpleasant or too boring to warrant posts. I do, however, lead a pretty tame life, and if I am to blog, it will be about what is in my own restricted world, a world that shrinks each year.

It occurred to me yesterday that my interests have changed considerably since I moved to the lake ... blogging ... dogs ... cooking and baking ... felting and knitting ... and raising healthy house plants. I have never raised healthy house plants before and this is my first blogging experience, but animals have always made me happy, and the other housewifely pursuits are all reminiscent of the things that gave me pleasure during the most contented time in my life ... when I was living in an old school house in the country and raising children. But I am discovering that happiness is not very bloggable.

I won't be blogging about my new love interest because I have no idea where that is going, and that is about the only interesting thing happening in my life. I feel a bit like the woman in "You've Got Mail" every time I turn on the computer, and it is fun to feel as if my sap has begun to flow again. But I won't blog about that ... at least not until he becomes a fixture in my life ... and then he will probably be one of the boring things I blog about.

Old Tango went home yesterday and I feel as I always do when a dog I like leaves ... partly relieved of the extra work ... partly sad because he became part of the family for a short time. I have received a few inquiries about sitting during December and January, and my pocketbook will certainly be happy about that. Kenya will be too. They are all young dogs who will play with her: a 7 month old Bernese, another 3 year old Bernese, and Remi, the Golden Doodle pup and her best buddy. We get to meet Maggie the three year old Bernese on Sunday afternoon.

I have finished four pairs of felted slippers: two for adults and two for children. I like three of the prototypes and have learned quite a bit as I have progressed. One thing I have learned is not to use the bootie pattern again. It makes a wearable slipper but is knit on too small needles and I don't like the way it felted up. Sort of bloblike in appearance. I will post a photo as soon as my dial-up connection allows me to. I think the dog geegaw saves it from being tossed aside as just too ugly. I am going to cut inner soles for it so that it has more body, but I will wait till I have Max's feet here to do that.

Today I will shovel the new snow, go for a real walk with Kenya and finish up the leg warmers. And maybe I will discipline myself sufficiently to finish Max's striped sweater. I should because tomorrow I am going to buy more wool and then it will be even harder to finish up the tedious work of sewing in threads. It is always much more exciting to start a new project. I can't make any more slippers till people send me their footprints ... but I do want to get started on tea cozies.

Geriatric Meanderings

Every time I walk Tango I am reminded of how closely my own aging life parallels his elderly meandering strolls.

Kenya bounds all over the place playing with sticks, chasing wild life and generally exercising every muscle. When I walk alone with her my own progress is more energetic and I have a sense of purpose, a destination.

Tango strolls and seldom in a straight line. We avoid changes in elevation as much as is possible in this terrain. He simply follows his nose from one interesting patch of snow or grass to the next, stopping to pee every so often, and I follow. His peeing seems random but it is likely some almost forgotten memory of sex or power that starts the flow. And when it starts it is seldom any kind of purposeful stream that emerges. Rather he dribbles absent mindedly in a sort of zig zag pattern walking and peeing simultaneously.

Occasionally he seems to be on a trajectory whose destination has been pre-determined and he forges ahead, sometimes fast enough that I have to let go of his leash or risk being dragged off my feet on these slippery hills.

Every since I really retired (a couple of years ago, not 11 years ago when I quit my paying job), my life, like his walks, has become somewhat aimless. Oh I sniff the flowers and pay attention to things that catch my fancy, but the energy and purpose that marked every aspect of my life have dissipated, like perfume in a breeze. Today I choose whether to exert myself or to take on a project, and I have no interest any more in the bigger projects that demand months or years of my life.

I quite like this stage of being. I like small felting, knitting or pottery projects that can be picked up or put down at will. I like being able to rest or play in between.

Tango goes for a walk and then sleeps on the warm floor for double the time he exerted himself outdoors in the nippy air. I was once a Type A personality whose work was her play. Now I am more like Tango ... a little exertion ... a lot of relaxation.

I like my life but I do not feel nearly as productive as I did when I was teaching or writing seriously. A big difference now is that I am content to say "I am" rather than "I am a teacher or a writer".

Like Tango who is content to be a dog whose greatest pleasures are to be found in a food bowl or a caring human friend, I am content to be a woman who enjoys friends, food and wine ... with a few spices like felting slippers thrown into the mix.

And like Tango, I can be fooled into thinking my life is more exciting than it is if someone offers me a handful of kibble and tells me the bits and pieces are treats.

Yip, yip, yippee ay oh!

At 2 a.m. Kenya and I were awakened by a party. It was one of those moving parties. You know the block parties at Christmas where people have one course in each of several houses on the street. In this case the participants were moving very quickly using our woods as a conduit to get to the main course.

The yipping went on for only a few short minutes and then there was silence. That was when Kenya came over to me and asked to go outside. "No," I said firmly. "You are not wild enough."

She climbed into bed with me and went back to sleep leaving me to think about the party.

It was likely coyotes chasing deer. Rutting season sees a lot of deer on the run and on the roads (and partying themselves).

Last year one ran straight into my almost stopped car so OW gave me a pair of deer deflectors. They sit on my front bumper and apparently warn deer away. Since I have put them on I have seen several deer who watch me intently from the bush near the road. They stop, watch and then move in the opposite direction. I think maybe the deflectors hurt their ears.

I wonder what they think of the coyotes' yip,yip,yippee, ay, oh. Do they imagine the Lone Ranger coming to join the party? Do they even hear them when they are in a state of high sexual excitement?

I love it when I am awakened by a party in the woods, isn't everyone?

A Jumble of News

Well ... lots of news:

I keep forgetting to blog about the beautiful healthy coyote I saw dead in the ditch on Mountain Road on Friday. S/he had been hit by a car and I felt as saddened as I would have if it had been someone's pet. It was the first time I have seen a coyote close up. Its incisors were half the size of Kenya's and s/he likely weighed about 15 pounds less than Kenya ... not skinny at all, just a well proportioned smaller animal. And certainly not at all feral looking ... or wily.

I have finished Merle's Door and written a letter to the author thanking him for restoring my faith in my own dog rearing philosophy.


I just started reading another book on the Book Club list: Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals. I was captivated from the first page.

I've been baking and cooking up a storm and enjoying the Suzie Homemaker feeling that comes over me when I tip loaves of homemade bread onto the counter and look out over my healthy house plants at the lake beyond.



I spent a few hours yesterday painting stars with glaze to help Carrie prepare for her show next weekend. We munched on the chocolate zucchini bread I had brought with me. Carrie asked me if I would consider sitting a potbellied pig. She is thinking about getting one this spring but needs to know that she has a reliable care back-up plan.

I've also received a couple of queries about dog sitting. Yay! Some money-making potential finally!

I have been working on a sweater for Arrow for Christmas, and I also want to make a basket of felted slippers to keep at the front door, so if you visit often, please get me an outline of your feet or your favourite slippers.

As part of this project I contacted a Mongolian friend to ask for Mongolian patterns for slippers and boots. Seema didn't have information on felting at her finger tips but said she would hunt for it. Then she posed a question: "Would I consider coming to Mongolia for six weeks this spring to conduct lessons for ESL teachers?" Well ... that was certainly a surprise ... but I felt that old excited whoosh of anticipation surge up and asked a few questions myself to determine whether I could do it.

I just received a copy of my friend Philippe's novel in the mail yesterday, and Claire's chemo is producing good results ... her tumour is shrinking.

So ... life is good and I feel younger now that there is promise in the air.