Shine on, shine on harvest moon....

The moon was just rising over the bay as Shiloh and I took our evening walk, flooding the waters with its deep orange light.  I didn't have the camera with me, so walked back to the house as quickly as is possible with a sixteen year old sheltie out for a sniffy stroll. I knew as it rose, the colour would fade.

[Shiloh:  You dragged me back to the house, mom. You dragged me!]

I grabbed both cameras, hopped in the car, raced the short distance to the beach, and began shooting.  There was a steady stream of other people arriving with the same thought in mind - to watch the moon and/or to photograph it - and the headlights of their vehicles made the lighting inconsistent.  I've never had any luck with moon shots - they are either blurry or look like a pinpoint a zillion miles away.  So I just kept changing settings, hoping to get something worth posting.  I have no idea which settings did the trick, but I'm pretty happy with the results - especially as I forgot to grab the tripod.  Enjoy!

Here's Sam

Hai! I'm Sam! Sam, I am!

Sam is visiting me for a month - I am petsitting him while his folks are in England for the birth of their grandchild. Sam is probably the BEST, least annoying, and most cheerful houseguest I have ever had (sorry, Big Sis, but Sam has you beat by a country mile! Hahahaha!). Even Allie the cat gives him a ten out of ten.

Sam is an amazing seventeen year old border collie cross (I'm thinking crossed with Malamute or Sibe?). He was adopted from the SPCA sixteen years ago when he was about a year old. Sam is 29" at the shoulder - he makes my girls, especially Charley, look like small dogs by comparison. He has bright eyes and a big happy smiling mouth and a quiet demeanor. Quiet, that is, until I put on my shoes or pick up a leash - and then he barks and grumbles and talks incessantly: "Are we going for a walk, huh huh huh??? Hurry up, let's go, hurry up!!!"

Sam is my personal fitness trainer - he loves a brisk 45 minute walk morning and night, and is quite happy going up hill. So after months of only doing leisurely strolls along the beach with my two slowpokes, or very short walks with scaredy foster dogs, I am finally getting the workout I need and already feeling better for it. Best of all, he walks beautifully on leash so despite the faster pace he isn't dragging me around.

Essentially, I have three loop walks from my house, all of which take me at some point along the waterfront. The shortest loop - to the green space near the museum and marina, is Charley-length. With Charley, who is slower than a slug, it takes at least twenty minutes, but with Sam it would take less than ten.

Crofton museum and marina

The moderate loop - down the long flight of stairs and north along the seawalk (with a side trip along the berm that leads out to the RV resort wharf) is Sadie-length - it takes Sadie about twenty minutes, but when Charley is along it takes us closer to forty.

Sam and Sadie at top of stairs

Seawalk looking north

The berm

The long loop - down to the marina, south along the sea walk, across the beach front of the RV resort, up the hill back to one of the main residential streets, and back along the roads to home - is Sam length.

Crofton seawalk looking south from marina

Beach in front of RV park

Sam on beach

Up the hill and back through town

Most mornings and evenings, I do the Sam-walk first, then take Charley and Sadie on one of the two shorter walks.

However, Sam is also Sadie's personal fitness trainer, as Sadie has started coming on the longer walk sometimes and I have noticed a marked improvement in her stamina after only six days. Sometimes I have to take Sam on a short walk sans Sadie first, to get the willies out and bring Sam down to a pace Sadie can handle, but the dogs and I are all really enjoying the mix-and-match walks.

Sometimes Sam and I do a town route instead - last night, we did a mile loop heading up from my house (away from the beach) after a lovely evening of laughter with a couple of friends, a bit of wine, and a test run of the new fish and chip take out place in town (Finally! What seaside village is complete without take out fish and chips???).

Sam and I met through one of those "small world!" coincidences. Sam's dad and I worked at the same university, and while I knew his dad quite well I never met Sam back then. When Sam's folks retired, they moved to the island and I did the same when I retired in 2009. Last year, I was invited to join a book club, and Sam's mom was also a member. We have since become friends, and Sam had several visits here leading up to their departure for England. I hope Sam (and his folks!) will be a part of my little world for a long time.

Margaret and Peter, if you are reading this from across the ocean, Sam is doing just fine! He isn't even staring out the window wondering when you'll return like he did those first couple of visits - he has just moved right in and made himself at home. And he is the best houseguest ever!

The End

(Sam's marvellously flamboyant happy tail!)

Dog Days of Summer

Three days of heat, and I'm ready for summer to end. The dogs and I do not "do" heat well. Even on our walk this evening, with the temperature considerably more comfortable than last evening, the air felt like a smothering polar fleece blanket engulfing us. Both Charley and Sadie decided to take it out on a similar-breed dog who dared to walk the seawalk with his tourist owner in "OUR" town. I was quite embarrassed by my two hooligans. They did, however, act more courteously to the other dozen dogs and their humans who also shared the beach tonight.

The heat, tides, powerboats, and barges seem to have stirred up the water in the bay and the usually-clear surface is covered with slimy green stuff, logs and an interesting but ugly array of flotsam and jetsam. An old boat seat, a lone flip-flop, a few fish skeletons and a lot of muck litters the beach. The setting sun was hidden from view by clouds, and there is a noticeable absence of seabirds, scared off perhaps by the dozens of campers and their dogs and kids who crowd the RV park. I saw nothing to inspire me to take photos.

And on my trip to the mainland this week I didn't even take the camera out of the bag. My brain is sizzled - by heat, by hospitals, by travel. I hate being away from home (makes me rethink the post about how I'd like to go camping again!) - I miss my own bed, my own shower, my own food, my own chair, and of course my critters. The trip home yesterday took FOREVER due to ferry lineups, traffic, accidents, construction, fires..............I think I should just hibernate until fall.

Mom continues to hold her own though the situation is still precarious and the full implications may not be known for a while. My sibs and I are meeting with her doctor next week for a consult. Meanwhile, we take each day as it comes.

An' I'z just gonna stay heah rite in front a dis fan!!!

Where we live

It is a peaceful night, the sky washed with multiple shades of pink, the distant mountains of the mainland and the hills of Salt Spring Island bathed in soft purples. I walk Oliver, then Sadie and Charley, and lastly Belle, and with each walk the sky becomes more beautiful and the town becomes quieter and quieter. The hush is broken only by the occasional motorbike or car without a muffler (there are some things about Air Care inspections that I now appreciate very much - the need for intact exhaust/muffler systems being one of them!) or the boom boom boom of a car stereo played too loud. But in between, silence.

As the dogs and I walk the beach, I see a mom and her daughters swimming slowly in the cool ocean waters, dad watching from shore. I hear a young child share with her brother the seashell she has found, and a group of young adults softly singing familiar songs around a campfire in the RV park – Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Kumbayah, songs from my own youth.

It has been warm this week – too warm for my liking – and dusk is my friend. The dogs and I meet other dogs and their humans on our walks – each stops to chat for a moment, to introduce ourselves, or simply to comment on the relief the cool night air brings.

Small town friendliness, small town peace. It is what I remember from my childhood in another small town, and it is what I moved here for.

The restful evening stroll is the perfect end to a day that began with another form of small town friendliness – Chemainus Days, an annual event in the nearest town to ours. Chemainus is also a small town, though not as small as Crofton, but unlike Crofton is famous as a tourist attraction with its many murals, its boutique stores, its incredible tale of survival from a town that was dying to a town that is full of spirit and life.

The main street was closed to traffic today, and all along its length and width were tents and stalls and street entertainers, as merchants and organizations and individuals sold their wares, their home crafts, their garage sale items.

Street market

Mural, with bike afixed to wall

People and dogs were everywhere, and yet it didn’t feel oppressive as crowds usually do. There was always an empty bench to sit on in a shady spot, a quiet path to follow through the nearby park, the soothing sound of the waterwheel and the bright splashes of flowers to enjoy. Else and I filled up on mini donuts and smokies and gelato cones, picked up a few treasures, and drank in the colours and sounds and scents of a welcoming, friendly town.

Waterwheel and flowers

Street entertainer with hammered dulcimer - with tones so clear and true!

A dog and his store

The Greeter

Love Cast in Stone

Next weekend is Crofton Days – definitely not on the same scale as Chemainus Days but still something to bring people out, a celebration of summer, a pancake breakfast and fun for the kiddies, a small market to sell or buy fresh produce and homemade goods.

Art tours, studio tours, beach and park events crowd the summer calendar in this beautiful area and yet always, always, there are deserted trails for dogs to run off leash, wonderful unspoiled parkland where solitude and nature go hand in hand.

It is a land in balance. It is a blend of the best. It is where we live.

It is home.

Oliver Tours the Town

Oliver has made great strides since our first pre-move trip to this community, when he wouldn't even go to the end of the driveway on leash. I know he was leash trained before coming to live with me, but since then he was always off leash in the pasture. His reaction to being leashed again was humourous if not downright frustrating at times. And so we were taking things one step - or four paws - at a time. First the end of the driveway and back. Then past the neighbour's house and back. Next, the end of the block and back. On a good day, he would go a block and a half.

All of a sudden, three nights ago, a lightbulb went off in that tired little brain of his and he "got it". In fact, he didn't just "get it", he reverted to the behaviours he exhibited when I first adopted him, expecting to go for a walk each evening. On Thursday night, around 8:00 pm, he began pacing back and forth between me and the door; we had gone for a little walk to the end of the block and back earlier in the day, and so I assumed he just needed to go out in the yard. But no, he didn't need to pee. He didn't need to poop. He just kept looking at me expectantly, whether he was outside or in.

And so I grabbed his leash and took him for a walk, hoping to settle him down. WELL!!! Off he went, down the block, happy as a clam in sand. I confess, he wasn't "leading" me, or even heeling at my side, but he trotted along behind (okay, "trot" is an exageration - he is almost as good at dawdling as Princess Belle is), and any time I went to turn around he sat down and refused to head back. He went to the park and back again, a total of about seven blocks round trip.

Friday, same thing. And last night.....well, there was no stopping him. He not only went to the park, he happily introduced himself to some boys skateboarding, some seniors out for a stroll, other dog walkers, and anyone who chanced to look his way and say hello. He proceeded past the park, down to the sea walk, and did the whole route the big dogs usually do, except we reversed direction for the return trip rather than doing a loop that involves climbing 52 stairs.

We stood for a while watching the boats in the bay:

Boats in Osbourne Bay at sunset

He stopped at the park to watch a family with five boys under the age of ten (!!!) blowing bubbles, and a five year old was tickled to find out he shared the same name as the dog.

Bubbles in the park

Because Oliver is a slow walker (ssslllllooooooooowwwwwwwwww walker), we were gone an hour, and the big dogs ended up having their evening walk in the "almost dark".

Charley on the sea walk at dusk

The harbour at dusk

The big dogs didn't mind the late night walk, but tonight I will have to start a wee bit earlier if Oliver is going to take me on another snail's pace tour of the town.