I can be clicker-trained!

Well, after the wonderful response to my previous post, it occurs to me that Eddie and I are not just similar in our scruffy gray hair or somewhat portly bodies - we are also both very easy to clicker-train.  I blog, you click (on the comment button) and reward me (with your words) and guess what?  I repeat the behaviour!
Of course, Eddie was quick to point out that cookies are even faster at shaping behaviour than words.

Yeah, you're supposed to 'click' and send cookies raining from the sky!
That's how clicker training works!

He didn't quite get what I meant when I told him computer 'cookies' are not the same as the kind I keep in his treat pouch.

Today was a good day - sunny, warm, productive.  My three-season tires are back on my car and my winter tires back in storage.  I filed my income tax return and will be getting a refund (though the $1000 refund will only cover one eighth of what I will be paying out next week to have some old and dangerous wiring replaced and the insulation in the attic brought up to code. Ugh.)  Mitzi and I took a walk around town, and I smiled at the sight of a young long-haired man lying on his back on the grass with a very large black cat fast asleep on his chest.  Eddie and I wandered down to the beach and watched seven eagles catch a ride on a thermal, circling higher and higher in the blue sky.  And I picked the first harvest from the garden, and made my first kale chips.

The kale and swiss chard made it through the mild winter, so a few weeks ago I split and trimmed some of the clumps, replanted in fresh, nutritious soil, and watched them take off.  This is a picture of the kale and rainbow swiss chard after I harvested a bunch today - I forgot to take a 'before' picture!

Kale and Swiss Chard

I steamed the chard for my dinner veggie.  I cooked baby potatoes from the market with a sprig of fresh mint from my garden, then tossed them with fresh parsley and chives, also from my garden.  And I baked fresh sole from the fish market with a little fresh tarragon from the pot on my patio.  Yum!

First harvest 2013

Then I tried out the new-to-me dehydrator I bought from a neighbour recently.  I took the freshly harvested kale,  removed the stalks, tossed the leaves with a little olive oil and sea salt, and lay them in the dehydrator which worked its magic for a few hours.

Filling the racks

OH. MY. GOODNESS.  I was sneaking crisp, salty kale chips out of the top rack before it was even finished.  And I can't show you a picture of the finished product - I ate them all!  Best Snack Ever.  This may well be a nightly event!

Well, ah hopes you uses that de-hyd-rator thingy
to make some treats fer Eddie and me!
An' I don't mean kale chips!

Some of the summer bulbs I planted are beginning to show their shoots, the sweet peas (spelled it correctly this time, Evensong!) are a couple of inches high, the young tomato plants are doing okay, the honeysuckle and hydrangea both have heads of tightly clustered buds which will one day burst open with colour.  And the evergreen clematis and columbine I planted the other week are beginning to flower.

Columbine greets the springtime sun

Evergreen clematis climbs a trellis
outside my bedroom window

In a week when the Boston Marathon turned to terror, and on a day when the senate of  that same country declined to take even small steps to reduce gun violence.....
and in a week when one of my very favourite Canadian singers, Rita MacNeil, unexpectedly passes away, leaving her amazing legacy of Cape Breton humor, courage, and song.....
in a month when the numbers of lost dogs and unclaimed strays became overwhelming to this animal lover....
and at a time in history when sadness and horror bombards us from every side thanks to social media....
it is good to feel the sun on my face, watch my dogs playing in the yard, eat produce I have grown, watch new life emerge from the soil.

Despite all the challenges that face our world, for this moment of this day in this one woman's life, I have to say: "Life is Good".