Hello, 2012!

I can’t say I’m sorry to wave goodbye to 2011.  I will gladly boot it out the door.  While it was not the most difficult year of my life, it was certainly one of my saddest. In the last four months alone, I have lost my foster dog Pepper; my friend Char; my sister and closest human friend in the world, Carole; and my beloved old dog Charley.

Pepper

Charley

It was also the year in which we said those sad final goodbyes to my neighbour Buck, my dogsitter Patti, and friends’ dogs Sam and Mara and Gingersnap, and Deb’s cat Jasper, not to forget many other old critters belonging to internet friends and face-to-face friends.

Sam

Mara

Ginger Snap

Jasper
(Photo by Deb Strong)

They were good souls, these dogs, cats, and humans. My life was enriched by having known them.

It wasn’t all sad, last year. There were happy times too, like the month that Sam stayed with me before he passed away, and short term visits from Georgie and my granddog Becky and others. There were dogs who came with their humans, like Becky with my daughter;  Kinley and Logan with Ellen; Taleah and Riley with Deb and Sharon ;  and there were humans who came without dogs, like my longtime friends two-legged Charlie, and Ann and Ken.

Georgie

Becky

Kinley and Logan

Riley

Taleah
(Oh my goodness, she looks so much like Eddie!)

There was foster dog Jessie, and little Dover the Piglet, both of whom found their forever homes. And now there is foster dog Petey, and my newest canine family member, Eddie. And, of course, Sadie and Allie are still here to make me laugh.

Jessie

Dover

Petey

Eddie

Sadie

Allie
(Allie:  "Ah notice she saved the best fer last!!  Heheheheheh")

And there was oh so much more - great times with friends, volunteering at the SPCA and Chemainus theatre, my writers' group and my book club, co-writing the "Crofton Connection" column for the Chemainus Courier with Liz Forbes, and exploring my beautiful island.

I hope that 2012 will hold many more of the good times – more fosters, friends and fun – and less of the sad ones.   I have had a story accepted for publication in a Canadian anthology of animal stories (more about that when I have the contract in my grubby little paw), and I've developed my photography skills and have started making photocards for various rescues and private sales. I've signed up for some walks and hikes with Elder College for the coming year, and can't wait to see and photograph some places I haven't been before. And, of course, Eddie, Sadie and I will have many adventures.  The year ahead is full of possibilities.

So, Hello, 2012. What surprises do you have in store for me?

Happy New Year, everyone.

Misty mornings, must-have tools, and the cleanest gutters in town!

This sunny, crisp fall weather has me energized and active - I wish it could stay like this all year round! I decided to make the most of the great weather by doing some much-needed maintenance around the yard. I'd already washed all the windows and screens and turned the last of the veggie beds under for the winter, but there were other tasks I've procrastinated on for a couple of years.

Ever since buying the house, I've had gutters that drip right by the front door and right in front of the gate - not very inviting to visitors on a rainy day, and darned dangerous when the temperatures drop below freezing. As well, the downspout right by my bedroom window was missing the top section and the resulting river of water pouring straight down onto the ground drove me crazy every time it rained.

What's wrong with this picture?

And then the fence between my side and back yards was falling apart, the gate no longer closed, and the gate post wobbled badly (of course, this could have something to do with its location next to the missing downspout!).

Old fence and gate tied together with twine

But first a walk to the ocean with Sadie. The Sea Walk was very frosty, so I opted not to go there as frost on old wood is incredibly slippery.  But the rising sun still made the walk to the wharf worthwhile:

Morning sunrise at Crofton wharf

Then off to Duncan to buy the materials for the day's projects. But enroute I get sidetracked when I come across a surreal scene of misty meadows - thankfully I have my camera in my bag:

Photos taken, materials purchased, and it's back home to work.

Over the years, I have become convinced there is some sort of code of secrecy among men when it comes to doing 'guy stuff' and the tools one needs. Yesterday, when I made a first run for some supplies,  I asked one of the Home Depot salesmen for some assistance selecting what I needed.  When I got home, I discovered they'd steered me wrong -  two wrong gutter parts and the wrong kind of cement for the post. And when I asked how to avoid denting the metal gutters with the ladder, I was told it would be fine, just put the ladder near the little spacers on the gutter.  NOT - been there, done that! What they didn't tell me was what I found out online last night - I needed these amazing, fantabulous, not-even-expensive  (Less than $30 including tax) things called ladder stand-offs, aka "painters' wings". How could I have not learned about these in forty years of cleaning gutters and putting up Christmas lights???  

Painters' wings

They are now one of my favourite tools - right up there with my power mitre saw. They made the job of cleaning the gutters a breeze - very stable, easy to work around, and no crushed gutters! I'm thinking the previous owner hadn't known about them either, because the gutters on the carport (where there is no wall to rest a ladder) looked like they had never been done - two inches of muck and a good inch of thick moss! Now my gutters are squeeky clean, and it took me less than two hours to do the whole house.

The cleanest gutters in town!

Once the gutters were cleaned, I scraped away layer after layer of four different types of sealant and re-did all the joints. Hopefully I did them well enough - my skills with the caulking gun and gutter sealant leave much to be desired. The new downspout is now properly attached (which is more than can be said for the existing downspouts, each one mounted to the cross piece with the screws facing the wrong way and therefore obstructing the flow of gunk! I guess next year I'll think about taking them all apart and doing them correctly.)

All fixed! 

I decided to salvage the gate post - it is sunk deep in the soil and the wood is still good enough for the little weight it has to support. I just dug a wide hole around its base and filled it with cement, attached my handy-dandy post level to get it 'just so', added some temporary support braces, and covered it with plastic to let the concrete cure. Charley inspected the work, and pronounced it a fine job.

Inspector Charley


If the weather holds, I shall build the fence and new gate tomorrow, or at least get a start on it. The cedar is piled in the yard, the power mitre saw just needs to be carried out of the shed, and my 18V Hitachi drill/driver and favourite Kiwi screws are at the ready.

Someone once told me that there are only two things a woman living alone must have to do any 'guy job' - duct tape and WD 40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape; if it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. That advice has served me well.  I think, though, that I would add a few more things to that 'must have' list - a power drill/driver, a power mitre saw and circular saw,  safety glasses, a bunch of screws, a ladder, and some painters' wings. Yup, that'll about do it. Unless you are setting fence posts, in which case a post level is mighty nice to have, too.

And with those few tools and some internet research, there ain't nuthin' we gals can't do!  I am woman; hear me roar!

Simple things that baffle me

Puzzle Number One Today I bought a safety jacket for the dogs, so they will be visible when I walk them on a winter's evening. It is very simple - some orange mesh, two narrow pieces of reflective tape, and one piece of elastic with a snap closure.

Dog safety vest

So why did it cost $27.99 plus tax, when the safety jacket I bought for myself  last year - with tons of reflective tape, velcro adjustments, pockets, the works - cost less than ten dollars???



People safety vest, front



People safety vest, back

Both are made in Canada, so the price difference doesn't reflect child labour or cheap environmentally-unfriendly production practices of countries that regularly import cheap goods to Canada. I'm baffled.

Well, it's pretty obvious to me - I look so much cuter in mine that you do in yours. 
Ya gotta pay more for 'cute', ya know!

Puzzle Number Two: Today I bought two boxes of low sodium chicken broth, by the same company, in exactly the same packaging, bought at the same time from the same shelf of the grocery store.

So why does one have 15 calories per cup, and 80 mg of sodium, while the other has only 10 calories and 45 mg sodium, as well as differences in fat and carb counts?

I did find one minor difference in the ingredient list: one contains tumeric and the other rosemary. But really - that much difference in the caloric and sodium content just because of an herb?

Puzzle Number Three: Today I bought a new Waterpik showerhead to replace a not-so-cheap plastic one that is cracked and leaking after only two years. Like a good consumer, I carefully opened the package and pulled out the instructions, even though I was pretty sure (having done this many times before) that I could change the showerhead without reading them. Well! It was a good thing I read them, because the very first symbol was one I've never encountered before:

No Dope????? What the heck does that mean? I shouldn't smoke the funny stuff while installling the showerhead? Dopes shouldn't install showerheads?

In hindsight, they should have put the symbol on the outside of the packaging. Then perhaps this dope wouldn't have bought the wrong darn showerhead.

Postscript:   As I was returning the showerhead to the store tonight, along a dark country lane, I caught a glimpse of movement on the left shoulder of the road. I slowed to a crawl, expecting to see one of the many island deer grazing there. Instead, a huge owl with a medium sized bunny in its talons swooped gracefully through my headlights, just inches from the front of the car. It was so close I could see every bit of feather and fur. While I felt sorry for the bunny, the moment was nothing less than surreal. The image of owl and rabbit spotlighted in the night sky, two bodies flying in tandom under the owl's broad wings, is forever burned into my mind's eye. Thank goodness for shopping mistakes that take me out on country roads at night. It was absolutely magical.

A Day at the Fair - Part Two

Photography, of course, was not all that was on display at the Cowichan Exhibition. Inside Mellor Hall were many hundreds of exhibits, from flowers to fine art, collectibles and crafts, baking and quilting and even old treasures and stamps and homemade wine. It was a feast for the eyes and fun to see what people’s creativity enabled them to produce.

Inside Mellor Hall

But the indoor exhibitions are just a small part of the fair. Outside are rows of farm machinery, portable sawmill demonstrations, barns full of animals, riding competitions, the mini-donut trailer and other fair foods, and countless other things to see and do.

Lower field

I meandered down to the lower field where the farm equipment and other outdoor displays were on show. School kids favoured this display of old hand pumps and spent ages pumping and watching the clear water spill out, letting it splash on their hands and shirts:

Kids having fun

Farm machinery in bright reds and blues and greens and yellows made for a colourful sight, though my friend and I couldn’t help wonder about the company that came up with this name for their machine:

I think I prefer "John Deere"!

Returning back up to the barns, I watched an interesting demonstration of sheep shearing using hand shears, then a manually powered set of clippers, and finally today’s modern electric clippers. Having helped with alpaca shearing myself, I found the differences between how sheep and alpaca are sheared interesting. The shearer at the fair, an Australian who ‘retired’ from full time shearing but still does it on the side, was highly skilled and had a kind and gentle touch with the animals. This girl didn’t seem to mind the process in the least and never showed any signs of panic or stress:

Shearer explains the process



Just a little off the top, please!



Mmmmmm.....Old Spice, or is that Shearer's Special?

Aw shucks, did I say I wanted a buzz cut?

Here, the children in the audience helped power the hand-cranked machine for the early prototypes of electric shears.

The necessity of annual shearing was brought home when the shearer’s daughter told us of a sheep left unsheared for four years, whose coat, when soaked with rain, weighed hundreds of pounds. What a relief that sheep must have felt once all that fleece was removed!

And then there were the horses. Ohhhh the horses – thoroughbreds and standardbreds, Norwegians and Icelandics, and one that I had never seen before but heard of just recently on someone’s blog  (though now I can't remember where and can't locate it on the ones I read regularly) – a saddlebred.

Saddlebred

I was puzzled by the saddlebred, for it looked positively deformed and terribly thin. The huge dip behind its shoulders accentuated the clearly visible ribs and gave it an awkward stance that made my own back hurt to look at. I asked a horseperson nearby if this was how a saddlebred was supposed to look – if it was a good example of the type and close to the ‘standard’ of the breed – but she didn’t know much about them though she did point me to an information poster.

I’m still at a loss, and I know I have horsey readers here so I’m hoping for some enlightenment. What I want to know is this – does a typical saddlebred have such a pronounced dip/swayback? Do their ribs usually show? Are they a fairly rare breed or is it just coincidence that I’ve never seen them before? Do they require a different type of saddle than other riding horses to accommodate that sway back? Are they prone to orthopedic problems more than other breeds? (I can’t help thinking of the German Shepherd show standards that favour a sloped back to such an extent that the breed is now plagued with hip, leg and spine problems!). Here's a closer shot of the saddlebred at the fair, though I must say it doesn’t look quite as shocking as it did in person, partly because I couldn’t get a good angle to take a photograph without the fence rail being in the way.:

This post is quite long enough, so I will leave one more set of photos (including more horsey ones!) and another topic with some food for thought for tomorrow.

Still here, just neglecting the blog

I can't believe it's been six days since I last blogged. And my brain is on 'pause' tonight so no great epic novels or photographic essays are forthcoming.
On a whim, I decided to enter some of my photos in the Cowichan Exhibition. Selecting my five photos to submit, with no more than two in any one category, and getting them enlarged and prepared for submission took far more time, money and patience than I anticipated. I shall keep you in suspense about which ones I entered. There's a lot of great photographers on the island, so I'll be surprised and delighted if even one of mine wins any sort of ribbon. The fun is in the entering - being part of a community event and seeing one's work displayed for others to view.

This is the first time I've entered my photos in anything, and the first time I've entered anything in a fall fair. The Cowichan Exhibition is in its 143 year - its history is one of the longest in the province. I attended last year with a friend, and had a great time. It runs this coming weekend, and you can bet I'll be there again.

Meanwhile, the dogs are doing okay --Charley is much improved, Sadie is unexplainably losing big patches of fur (not like blowing her coat, more like an allergy complete with endless scratching for which she is now on benedryl and doing better), and Pepper is finally gaining weight. The days have been hot, hot, hot (which I very much dislike) but the saving grace has been the cooler mornings and evenings which is when I walk the dogs, water the flowers, do any unavoidable housework, and ignore the long column of emails waiting for responses. Mostly, I just sit in front of a fan and read. I am decidedly lazy these days. Maybe tomorrow I'll think of something to write. Or not.

What kind of person.....

chooses to put this sticker on their car?

The vehicle was sitting near our ferry terminal for a couple of days this week.  Perhaps it belongs to the parents of this boy I saw at the beach a few weeks ago......

The target he was stalking and then pretended to shoot? This:

The parents' reaction? "Good job, son!"

How sad.  How very sad.  What a lost opportunity  for a parent to teach a child to appreciate the beauty in nature instead of its slaughter.  What a lost opportunity for a parent to help change the world.