Ketchup

Lacey the spider has finally recovered from the double whammy of becoming entangled in her own web during a windstorm and shedding her skin a few days later. Two nights ago she wove an incredibly fine web in the window. Last night she destroyed it and built another, in the opposite corner. There she crouches, all eyes and empty stomach.

As of yet I haven't seen her eat anything except three gnats, which are not much a meal for a spider her size. Small or not she obviously likes them. She dances around them with the finesse of a Gregory Hines and then she inhales them. But her abdomen is still flat and small, roughly triangular in shape, not the pendulous round "pea" it was before her ordeal. I was hoping that today would be a "fly" day. She could use a good meal.

I don't see myself as Spider Woman, but it would have been cool to slip into this persona this afternoon. Because, when none of the dozens of flies buzzing in the yard had put itself on the dinner menu by mid-afternoon I went out with a rolled up paper, hunted one down and dropped it into Lacey's web. It was a bit mooshed (This is probably too much information) but she didn't seem to mind. She wrapped the offering up in silk and then she chowed down. I feel better, though a little guilty about the poor fly.

The neighbours sat in their lawn chairs, a little wide-eyed, and watched me stalk and swat until I finally nailed a fly. It took a while. I hate to imagine what they were saying to each other over their wineglasses.

"Peg, the woman across the way must be crazy!! What the devil is she doing slapping the ground with a rolled up paper, with a set of BBQ tongs tucked into her belt loop?"

Oh well, I don't know them from Adam Smith. They'll all be gone in a day or two, and the crazy cat lady in the ancient trailer will make a good story to tell the folks back home.

By the time they tell the story I'll probably look something like this. All because I hunt flies for a spider. See where a little eccentricity will take you? Everyone is supposed to have their 15 minutes of fame. I might have had mine this afternoon.

Next topic!

Last Tuesday I was cooking dinner when the flame went out on the stove and would not re-light. The water heater also went out and wouldn't re-light. Time for the semi-weekly call to Gary. There seems to be no way to break the TP's ardor for Gary the repairman.

He arrived Thursday, took one of our propane bottles to be filled, fiddled with the regulator and pronounced it flawed. So he replaced it. No joy. The regulator had oil in it, a bad sign. A layer of oil floats on top of propane in a tank, and apparently some of this oil had been siphoned off into the regulator, and presumably the lines, and was now blocking the flow of propane.

So Gary got the compressor and blew out the lines. No joy. By this time it's getting dark. Gary is taking a long weekend off, so says he will be back Monday. I have an electric burner ring, an electric kettle and a microwave. We will manage. Life will go on in the civilized world.

Gary appeared this morning as I was contemplating making coffee, and in about two hours he had the problem figured out and fixed. The new propane hoses we bought in May were faulty, or had gone south - fine workmanship - both the regulator ($175.00) and hoses worked for three months. Whatever. But, at last we have hot running water and a flame on the stove. I can cook again!

Speaking of food, we have decided, for about the 14th time, to go back to a vegetarian diet. We were vegetarians for most of the years the boys were growing up, and neither of us really like eating meat. It's just that meat is often the easiest thing to fix and I have had long stretches of time when standing long enough to cook was a challenge. That's not so much of an issue now, although on days when I shop I am going to need to plan ahead if we are going to avoid the A & W "solution".

That is the ketchup. And you thought it had something to do with buns didn't you?

Stardust to Stardust

Lacey the garden orb spider was hanging in the corner of the window last night when I went to sleep, and (surprisingly) she was still there this morning when I woke up. I assumed progress, as she was moving her legs a bit - (I hoped) in preparation for spinning a web, although she has always done this at night before.

I got up and went to make coffee. When I came back, five minutes later, she was - dead? At least she appeared dead, and even more puzzling, she appeared desiccated. Her legs, almost transparent, were stretched out full-length, gathered at the tips. Where her body had been there was nothing. A lifeless black dot the size of a mung bean hung beneath the legs. It looked like the husk of a fly she had cleaned out.

Oh, dear. But I puzzled. A bird would have gobbled her whole. Only another spider could have done this and how could another spider have eaten her so quickly? I've seen her eat a fly, and it's a slow process. Half an hour at least. I'd only been gone from the window five or six minutes.

Then the black dot stirred and unfolded LEGS. I realized with a start (and some sense of relief) that I was witnessing her shed her skin! It wasn't an easy transition. She would struggle for a few seconds, pulling herself with great difficulty out of her old skin. She'd then hang motionless for five minutes. But with each struggle more of her emerged. Eventually she was free and her old skin was only a small, transparent husk, with threads for legs, and a tiny, pin-head sized shell of a body.

She hung below the empty skin, exhausted. Her legs twitched occasionally, but otherwise she didn't move. Then she drew her legs up to her body, and swung back and forth on her single thread of silk for several minutes.

We wondered. Would she eat the skin, as orb spiders eat their webs? Or would she throw it away? Slowly she climbed up to the husk, and it was hard to say what she was doing, till suddenly she had it by a single leg. She lifted it and let go, and it sailed away on the breeze.

She flexed her legs and stretched herself. Her legs are longer now, but her abdomen is empty. She will need to eat soon. But for now the morning's work is done. Time for sleep and recovery from what must have been an ordeal. She crawled away to her spot between the window frames. Tonight I am betting she will spin a new web.

In my (Tuscarora) family no one killed a spider which had gotten into the house. It was said that the "Old Ones", our ancestors, might come to visit, dressed as a spider. It was okay to put a spider outside, where it could go its way unharmed, but to kill an Old One in spider disguise would make the Heet'-nunhk (the thunder gods) angry. Mother always said when it thundered on a clear day that someone had killed an Old One.

There are reports from Europeans of Tuscarora funerals in the 1600s, where a flame rose from the departed one's body, hovered 10-15 feet over the grave during the ceremony, then rose to a height of 60-100 feet and moved into the forest. This flame was said to then turn into a spider, which held the spirit of the deceased until reincarnation into a new clan member.

Buddhist philosophy says that life and death are cyclical in nature, that life is an active phase, and death is a period of rest, a time of preparation for yet another life. Both phases, life and death, are seen as blessings. Implicit in that belief is that we not just cycle, we recycle.

Spiders are safe in my house. They do get relocated, but I didn't even kill the Black widows we found daily in our last place. It was fascinating to see Lacey go through an entirely unexpected transition. Climbing from an old skin must be something like dying and waking anew. We all cycle and recycle, stardust to spider to spaceman.

Unwebbed

I did some research on spiders and found that orb spiders have an internal "storage" organ where they load extra calories they can call on when prey is scarce. (In women these storage organs are called "hips".) As a result orb spiders can go for long periods without eating, so I can apparently stop worrying that Lacey hasn't eaten in several days. I have also determined that "it" is indeed a "she" of the species Araneus diadematus, the cross spider, aka the "European garden spider". This spider was introduced from Europe but has spread all the way across North America.

She is still retreating to the window frame during the day and emerging only after dark to hang in the corner of the window. No web spinning, but tonight a little movement, a little leg waving and symphony conducting. It's probably not the best night to build a web though. It's very windy out. But she looks perfectly normal, so I am hoping she will perhaps resume her web-building as soon as this wind dies down.

I wonder... a few days ago there was a very small spider fiddling around at the edge of her web. She didn't dart over and eat it, as she did every other insect that touched the web. The little spider wasn't caught, it moved cautiously around the outer edges. After reading more about orb spiders I am now wondering if the "little" spider wasn't a garden orb male, there to offer what passes for flowers and chocolate to our gorgeous girl?

Maybe Lacey is suffering from morning-sickness! I don't know what a pregnant spider looks like, but I guess time will tell.

Beastly

The ongoing saga of the (sick?) or perhaps just worn out and terrified spider continues. She crept from her hiding place last night after dark to hang in the upper left hand corner of the window, but did no spinning, and by daylight she was gone.

I checked after breakfast and she was once more holed up between the window frames, curled into a tight little ball. I gently nudged her with a blade of grass, just to see if she was alive, and she extended a front leg and pushed the stem away. So I let her be.

Tonight she is once again hanging in the upper corner of the window, no spinning, no movement, just hanging there. I really do wish she'd get busy and start work on her web. I have no idea how long spiders can go between meals. She ate very well two days ago, but she had a very difficult experience night before last, and I don't know about spiders, but being stressed out makes me want to eat! She needs to get better before I gain five pounds!

Today I was watching the birds at the feeder. There was a busy little throng of six or seven kinds of sparrows and finches, plus the rusty blackbirds, probably 40 birds total. I could hardly believe my eyes when suddenly a brilliant green, blue and yellow budgie landed on the feeder! A little out of its natural range (Australia), this sassy little jewel is obviously an escapee. This is not a good climate for budgies. They don't tolerate cold, or even cool, weather.

I thought I might try calling it to see if it would come to me. I've had a couple of well-loved budgies and they will fly to a human's finger if they are tamed and bonded to a human. But this one was wary. It flew away as soon as I opened the door. No hope of catching it. I hope it finds its way home, but it looked like it was enjoying its freedom. Reminded me of something Ecologist Ianto Evans wrote, "Even our domesticated animals are more prisoners than guests."

I refilled the seed tray and the budgie returned to feed, flying away several times but returning again within a few minutes. In between it wheeled and soared with the rusties, who appeared to take no notice of its bright plumage.

The sparrows and finches fight constantly over space at the feeder, even when there's plenty of room for all of them. We have a saying, "Two sparrows are a fight, three is a war!" But the budgie had the feeder all to itself. If a sparrow tried to land on the tray he put the wind up it pretty quickly. The smaller birds seemed intimidated by the budgies almost neon colors, or maybe it knew the right things to say to a sparrow to make it go to ground and stay there.

In the middle of all that a huge flicker landed on the trunk of the cherry tree by the feeder. It was enormous! Flickers are usually 10 - 11 inches long, I swear this one must have been 13 inches. I've never seen a flicker of this size before. We had a pair of yellow-shafted flickers excavate a nest in a tree and raise a brood of chicks not 12 feet from the kitchen window a few years ago, and they were no where as large as this one. I think this is a red-shafted, which tend to be a bit larger, but he hasn't read the breed standard or he wouldn't be as big as a pterodactyl!

And to round off the "beastly" report, a picture of the Red Chief, taken by Zak when he was here in July. Ian spotted this little massage unit and thought it might help my chronically stressed-out neck muscles, which it does. But the Chief was curious about the buzzing noise and came to investigate. As a joke I slid it over onto his neck and rolled it around. I expected it to freak him out, but he loved it! So much that he started asking for spa services, thank you very much. Just there, no a little to the left. Ahhhhhhh! Perfect!

I was holding the end of the leash while he had his daily stroll this morning when a couple approached to remark on his size and his beauty. The woman noted that he is clipped and asked if he is a "show" cat.

Yes, I said, He shows me what he wants, and I get it for him. Ianto Evans wasn't thinking of me when he referred to the domesticated prisoner, but he hasn't seen the RC sitting at my bedside at 3:00 am, patting me with extended claws because he wants a cookie, or a bit of conversation. But the RC isn't looking for freedom. He wants his Mama, on the end of the leash. Just in case he wants something he can't reach alone.

Webs and webs

As it grew dark yesterday evening the wind rose, shaking the TP, tossing the treetops around and kicking up little dust devils in the road. I noticed as I closed the blinds over my bunk that Lacey was having quite a ride in her web. The whole structure was catching gusts of wind and ballooning in and out, while she hung on for her life.

It's been windy before, and she's been tossed around, and in my waking periods I'll note that she is industriously repairing any breaches in the web. But last night when I turned out the light about 1:30 and opened the blind I could see she was in trouble.

Somehow she had become entangled in the web, and in her struggles to free herself she had become wrapped entirely in silk, as effectively as a fly. I got the flashlight and had a closer look. I couldn't tell if she was alive or not, but fearing I'd do her damage if I tried to untangle her, and knowing that orb spiders eat their own webs and reprocess the protein I let her be and drifted off to sleep, worrying about a spider.

I awakened several times in the wee hours, to find her still as death, and still wrapped tightly. But at about 5:00 am I awakened in time to see her give a mighty push and break free of her wrappings. She ran to the far corner of the window on one of the few remaining threads of web, and hung there. By 6:00 am she had moved to the upper left hand corner of the window, where she hung head down on another shred of web.

When I woke at 8:00 am she was nowhere to be seen. Had she dropped to the ground? Was she so exhausted she'd died and fallen? After breakfast I went out looking for her. (Okay, some of you may think I am getting a little weird about this, and I may be. But it's a harmless sort of weirdness.)

I didn't see my little spider friend anywhere, but I have several large pots of petunias beneath the window, so she could have gone in, or under, any of them.

I had to go to town to grocery shop, but before that I needed to water my tomato plants. While standing with the hose in hand I spotted her, crouched in the protected recess between the window frames. She was sound asleep, and still is, several hours later. I'm glad she ate well yesterday, because I don't think she would have survived this ordeal on an empty stomach.

Perhaps she is injured, but I think it more likely that she's just a bit sore and totally worn out from her struggle. She hasn't yet even begun to rebuild her web, which is totally destroyed. But she will. She will hitch up her little belt, and start over, because that's what we all do when we have survived a crisis.

We are all connected. The same life force which animates the little brown and yellow spider flows through me, my husband and children, my friends and neighbours, my big orange cat. We are all co-creators of this web of life. We all love our lives and fight to breathe, eat, move and BE just one more moment, hour or day.

My Closest Neighbour

Want to meet my closest neighbour? I don't actually know if my neighbour is a he or a her, but I've been calling it "her". I haven't named "her" either, but she has a nice lace-like pattern on her abdomen, so let's call her "Lacey".

Lacey lives about a foot from my nose when I'm on my bunk. I could easily touch her if there were not a pane of glass between us. But if there were not a pane of glass between us I guarantee she would have been relocated long before now!

She started out as a tiny speck, with a body the size of a gnat's. She worked industriously to lay down a fine web which she repairs nightly. Every day she snared a gnat or two, wrapping them in silk before she had her meal. At that point she had no noticeable markings. She was just a spider.

I watched her day by day, as she grew rapidly to the size of a pin-head, and eventually brown and yellow stripes began to appear on her legs.

She hangs upside down in her web, curled somewhat as she naps. But all it takes is the wiggling of an insect in her web and she's instantly alert. Over the weeks she's grown so that her abdomen is the size of a small pea. Her face and eyes are now apparent - yellow face, black sharp eyes. Sort of cute really, if you aren't a fly.

Gnats are now "popcorn" but not much food for a spider her size. When it's been two or three days between substantial meals I begin to worry about her and I confess to dropping swatted flies into her web on several occasions. Okay, I admit I never thought I'd be feeding a spider. Spiders creep me out big time. A small one dropped down onto me from the ceiling a few days ago and brought me bolt upright screaming like a banshee!

Yesterday I gave her a fly which was dead when I found it. She tried it and threw it from the web. Today a fresher specimen was eagerly accepted. She hadn't had a fly for three days and her abdomen was shrunken and flat. She must have been pretty hungry. She had just finished it when a fly was snagged in her web. She pounced on it and wrapped it and the meal continued. She must have thought it was Thanksgiving! Dessert was a gnat.

Tonight she is fat and presumably happy, hanging head down in her web. I wonder how large she will grow? Will she find spidery love and leave a new generation of spiders? Stay tuned. :)

Long Awaited Day

Today, nine weeks to the day from when he fell and broke his leg, Tony eased down the stairs and walked around in the yard. He also figured out how to get into the truck seat and back down again. Woo-hoo!

I tackled that ceiling job yesterday, or one of them anyway. Two of them anyway - oh, three of them. I pulled down the stained paper over the banquette, where we'd had the leak, after we'd repaired that whole section. Then I caulked the seam between the new ceiling panel Ian installed and the original one. That has to dry for at least 36 hours before I can do anything further.

Then I re-caulked around the roof vent/skylight where the old caulking had come out. Then I mixed up sky blue paint from the white and dark blue paints and painted the area over the "bedroom". Once that was dry I sponged some clouds onto the blue, because I couldn't wait to see what it was going to look like. This was tough on my not-so-strong shoulder and upper arm muscles, and my neck. I had a hard time sleeping last night, but I had the reward of hearing an owl hooting from somewhere nearby at about 2:00 am. I've been down most of today, but I have been pleased to look at my lovely blue sky ceiling with fluffy white clouds. I need to do more to the clouds, but once it's all done I will try to take a picture.

I was concerned that the pattern on the vinyl ceiling would look really weird once it was painted, but surprise the pattern looks like a layer of thin clouds higher up.

Once my arms are recovered I will try repairing the ceiling over the banquette. I've got some of that roll-on fiber moosh which hopefully will cover the difference in the two panels. I've always thought that stuff was grotesque looking, but this is white, with a tiny tan fleck, so it should be unobtrusive enough once it's on.

But now, even on the grey days in winter we have a blue sky to look at!

A Year in the Life...

A year ago today we pulled the Tin Palace out of our driveway in Calgary, headed west. It's been quite a year. We haven't missed the big city, though we have missed seeing Ian every couple of days. I miss our shopping trips and the sushi we used to share, but mostly our long conversations of a philosophical bent.

We've had a lovely year, barring a few pipe and plumbing mishaps with the TP, and that nasty bone-breaking thing Tony did back in June. He is now cautiously walking around in the TP without the walker, but he's certainly not ready for shopping jaunts or herding the cat. The silver lining to that cloud was an extended visit with each of our boys. We really enjoyed their company.

Living in 157 sq ft of space hasn't been as challenging as you might think. I like things to be tidy, which means that I constantly weed out anything we are done with and straighten up the rest. Cleaning is easy but constant, two things out of place and the place looks like a tornado hit it.

The only reno project on the TP which did not end up performing well was the textured paper we put on the ceiling to cover the vinyl paneling that's there now. The paper has peeled and fallen off in most spots, including where the ceiling was patched over the dining table.

I got out the paint and bought a roller and tray today. Hopefully tomorrow I can begin painting the ceiling. I am going to paint the area over our bunks in a "sky with clouds" motif. Don't know how that will work with the slight texture of the paneling, but it couldn't look worse than it does now. I will try to post pictures once I'm finished.

The summer has been wonderful, with the kind of abundance from the garden and orchard I haven't experienced since I was a girl in New Mexico and Arizona, where market gardens and orchards surrounded us.

We've enjoyed watching the baby birds brought to the feeder by their parents day after day. The different birds have different parenting styles. The sparrows are the most fun to watch, since a parent will often be mobbed by three or four frantically begging babies - babies who are perfectly able to pick feed out of the feeder or off the ground themselves. But they must like home cookin' because they beg relentlessly until the parents get fed up and beat the tar out of them.

Maud and Emmett continue to bring their two chicks to the feeder most days. The chicks are now about 2/3rds the size of their parents. I think the larger one is a male, since it often moves away from the others and assumes a watchful stance, which is typical behaviour for a male quail.

Right now we have a volunteer sunflower growing near the bird feeder. Some seeds get missed, and this one went on to grow into a nifty little sun face. At the back of the TP are some volunteer snapdragons which have come up and bloomed without any encouragement whatsoever. This morning I was once more astounded by the velvety texture of newly-opened purple petunia blossoms in my container garden. What pleasure my flowers have brought me this summer.

As summer winds down we are beginning to look forward to the arrival of our snowbird friends from across the country. Summer has many pleasures, but we miss the companionship of the dozen or so retiree couples who stay here during the winter. The weather may get cold, but the coffee is hot and the company is amiable. If you are lonesome in the winter here you've only yourself to blame.

It's been a year of firsts, a year of adventure, observation and discovery. We've learned that life is best lived in the moment, without wasting energy regretting the past, or worrying about the future. Anticipate joy, experience contentment.

Salad Days

One of the delightful perks of living here is that we are surrounded by orchards and market gardens. We have been eating well, the fruit bowl is always heaped, the fridge is full of vegies.

One of our favorite summer dinners is a sort of a Greek salad. Greek salad has red onions, but we don't particularly like raw onion, so I leave them out. We are happy to eat this salad twice a week, so I thought I'd share the recipe. I bought the ingredients for tonight's salad from the stand about a mile south of us. The tomatoes came in from the field as I selected the peppers. The peppers and cukes are grown next door.

Ingredients:

1/2 each large green sweet pepper, large yellow sweet pepper

2 red "pimento" peppers. These are small (not even tennis ball size), deeply lobed, flat and very dark intense red with an intense flavour.

2 medium ripe tomatoes

1 medium cucumber

4 ounces feta cheese - I used an "Italian-style" one with basil and tomato.

half dozen Kalamata olives per serving.

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil

1 TBS apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp Mrs Dash garlic and herb seasoning

salt to taste

Method:

Wash vegetables. Cut peppers into cubes, core and cube tomatoes, peel cucmber, cut lengthwise in halves, then each half into four lengthwise sections. Cut across to dice.

Mix cut up vegetables in a bowl, add Mrs Dash and feta cheese. Stir. Mix olive oil and vinegar together and pour over salad, stir.

Spoon portions into bowls, serve with bread for soaking up juices.

Makes two large dinner portions or four salad portions

Magic Happens...

At night I lie and look out my window at the stars. The skies here are thick with stars one never sees in the city. During the Perseid meteor shower, earlier in August, I took my sleeping bag out to the chaise lounge and lay in the dark. At first the meteors were infrequent, but by midnight they were more or less constant, one or two every three or four minutes. Even after I went inside I saw several meteors streak across the sky.

Somehow this brings back a memory of a July evening almost 30 years ago, when we camped in a park in Oklahoma with the boys. We'd been living on an island in northern BC for years and were on our way south for a family reunion. We were camped among huge oak trees, it was humid and still and as it grew dark stars came out among the trees as well as in the skies.

Robert Frost wrote:

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Our northern boys had never seen fireflies before. It was as magical as if fairies had arrived in the garden. Magic happens unexpectedly and leaves a glow.

The Amazing Two-Legged Man

Tuesday Tony had an appointment with the surgeon who put all the hardware in his leg seven weeks ago. It's about a 45 minute drive to the hospital. We anticipated maybe a half-hour at the hospital, and 45 minutes back. It was not to be. The surgeon had been called to the OR for an emergency, and we had to wait several hours.

But the good news is that Tony's leg is healing well and he was given permission to begin walking with a walking frame. That's welcome news! He's now inching his way from his bunk to the bathroom on his own two feet, plus the granny walker.

He could move faster if Salvador didn't get in the way. Sal's very stubborn and once he's settled it takes a great deal of motivation to make him move. He'd get laid down and not want to move, so Tony started tossing a cat treat (a "cookie") out of the walker's path, and that would get Sal to jump up to get the cookie. Trouble is he quickly figured out that if he gets in the way of the walker he'll get a cookie. So now he throws himself beneath the walker as soon as Tony reaches for it! He certainly has us trained.

Red Letter Day

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, cool, breezy, a perfect day. But what made it perfect was that we figured out how to get Tony down the stairs, into the wheelchair and across the lawn to sit in the shade. It was the first time he'd been outside in six weeks, if you don't count being carried from ambulance to bed on a gurney.

I realized that while he'd been as brown as a nut when he had his accident, six weeks of lying inside has left him pale and wan-looking. Poor baby. Hopefully he'll be able to be outside a bit most days now.

I've realized that the park is like an ant hill in the summer. People are in and out constantly. Some stay a single night, others are here for a few days or a week. A site which was filled when we went to bed is empty when we get up, or vice versa.

The peaches in the commons are now ripening. The farm next door is producing beautiful peppers, red, green, yellow and the long very hot banana peppers. They also have okra and squash. I've been busy drying those peaches and nectarines. I'm on my third drier load now, each load holding about five pounds of fruit.

The days are ending with spectacular sunsets. Ahhhhhh..... the days are too short.

Drippy Elbows

It's just too bad. You can't eat a peach in this place without getting a bath in peach juice! It runs in a little river from your peach-in-hand, down your arm to drip off your elbow. Sticky stuff. You have to sponge it off or attract flies and hornets all day long. Don't you wish you had this terrible problem?

I went to the orchard today and (in a moment of wild optimism) bought a box of peaches and a box of nectarines. It's time to get serious about drying fruit! The farmer was a chatty soul and when he learned I was buying the fruit to dry said he dries fruit himself. He showed me his drier which he was filling with slices of peaches.

He offered me boxes of "seconds", fruit with a flaw on the skin, for $5.00 a box. A box contains 22 lbs (10 kilos) of fruit. So I came home with 22 pounds of peaches, 22 pounds of nectarines and five pounds of perfect "sunrise" apples for the amazing sum of $11.00. Good grief. I have NO PLACE to put all of this fruit! I have NO IDEA what possessed me!

We'll eat a good deal of it. I'll make room in the fridge for several pounds, and this afternoon I will go through and separate the ripe from the not-yet-ripe, and begin drying the ripe. (Oh boy, oh boy oh boy!)

On other fronts, things like this magnificent shrub with its gorgeous purple flowers continue to bloom like mad and the Rusty blackbirds now have a dozen or so youngsters in the flock. We had 25 Rusties in the yard this morning, diligently eating seeds and digging out grubs and other insects. They have begun to be aggressive towards the smaller birds, which I don't like. They rush at and peck any small bird that comes within a couple of feet, and I saw one Rusty grab a baby sparrow by the wing and shake the bejabbers out of it before turning it loose. But sparrows are aggressive too, and one little female, pecked by a Rusty five times her size turned on it and gave as good as she got! She had the Rusty on the run in a hurry.

The most exciting news, as far as I am concerned, is that my favorite pair of quail, Maud and Emmett, are NOT childless after all! They are both very small. Maud walks with a limp and a wobble, and they are obviously at the bottom of the pecking order as all the other quail chase them away during the covey's prime feeding times in the early morning and late afternoon. So they have come to the feeder mid-day all summer. They are always together, and they have grown pretty tolerant of my presence in a chair nearby.

A couple of weeks ago they started coming at different times, Emmett would come around by himself and feed, an hour or so later Maud would show up, alone. This continued for several days until about noon several days ago they came together, with two tiny chicks! They were hardly larger than sparrows, and in fact to start with I thought there were three chicks, until the third one turned out to be a sparrow.

The chicks are a bit bigger now, the size of baby chickens, but with longer legs and skinnier. I am so tickled that Em and Maud have their own little family. The babies are so cute, scratching in the grass under the feeder for seed. I have tried to get a picture but so far haven't been in the right place at the right time. I'll keep trying, because I want to share them with you.

Now I have to go sort peaches and nectarines and get to work!

In a Word - August

When we last left our heroine, she was held captive by the evil banker, who was threatening to repossess the fruit bowl, foreclose the mortgage on her tiny tin can and throw her into the street unless she .... wait a minute, wait a minute! That's not right! (For one thing there's no mortgage.)  

The villain, as I recall more clearly now, was "Exhaustion", something movie stars suffer and get checked into posh Hollywood hospitals for. Us common folk just go to bed and get a few nights sleep - and hire help. 

Ian and Zak insisted that we get some help, and Cathy recommended a local agency called "Interior Senior Care", a non-profit organization which provides services which help older people, or the disabled, remain independent and in their own homes. Can we say; Day versus Night? 

My "Assistant" is Brenda, a lovely and very pleasant young woman. She came for a visit last week and yesterday she picked me (and a pile of laundry) up and off to town we went. In two hours this whirlwind had seven loads of laundry washed and folded into bags, we had gone grocery shopping, gotten water, gone to the pharmacy and gone to the ATM. I lifted nothing, carried nothing. 

It was wonderful! When I got home I was not so tired I was sick. I did not collapse for the rest of the day. I cooked a meal, put away the laundry and food and even defrosted the fridge! 

Tony is now up on his wheeled walking frame. It has a seat so he can sit and roll himself to the bathroom and get to his computer etc. He is a very happy camper. He still can't put any weight on that broken leg, but he can use it to balance. He'll see the surgeon on the 14th and we'll see how much further he can push it then. 

This has been a beautiful day. It's been hot, not oppressively so, though yesterday came close as it was 38 C (100.4 F) . We've had a very brisk wind today, which kept us very comfortable. It's 2:00 pm and we have just now turned on the AC. 

As you can see Salvador is holding down summer. He says, "Itz hard werkz, but sumbuddy haz gotta do it." He's recovering from his nosy nature as well. He investigated a green stinkbug and got "stunk". The stinkbug produces a noxious (but harmless) spray which it emits at the boiling point, and Sal had his mouth and nose burned. I rushed him inside and washed his mouth and nose in cold water, and he was none the worse for wear, but he's more cautious about investigating bugs now. The striped winged ones sting and green ones burn!  

He's also been diligently watching the birds, making sure they are supervised. They've learned that he won't chase them, and the quail will walk right past him, and me, or approach us, just to get a closer look. 

We have a small flock of Rusty Blackbirds who visit daily. These birds are listed on the Audubon Watchlist as a declining species at risk. 

I was dismayed to look out the window a few mornings ago to see what appeared to be a dead Rusty lying in the grass. It was lying on its side, one wing stretched to the side, head flopped over, beak agape, eye open to the sun and unmoving. I wondered if it had hit the window of the big motorhome parked next to us and broken its neck. But then it gave its head a shake, shook the wing and hopped up onto its feet. I've seen this behaviour several times since. Sometimes they stretch out one wing and lie on their side, sometimes they lie on their belly and stretch out both wings, flinging their head backward till it touches their back. 

After seeing several of them do this, for 30-60 seconds at a time, I've decided they must be napping, and assume a "dead" posture, so that predator birds don't attack. Cats and other ground hunters hunt by sight, but if a bird doesn't move they are not likely to see it. Stationary objects are often overlooked. 

Adult Rusties have the most unusual brilliant yellow eyes with black pupils. Young birds have dark eyes. About a dozen Rusties visit, eating seed and digging insects from the grass where we have recently watered but there is only one juvenile bird among them. There should be lots more youngsters accompanying a flock of this size. There's an aggressive trapping campaign here, aimed at the huge flocks of starlings which decimate orchard fruit. I wonder if the young Rusties get mistaken for starlings during the nettings?

On a bright note, the American goldfinches have raised a brood of what appears to be four chicks, three males and a female. It was quite a sight to have all of them at the feeder at once. The purple finches, hoary redpolls and multitude of variety of sparrows continue to bring baby birds to the feeder, and we enjoy watching the begging and flapping and the parents' diligence at teaching their young what's for dinner. 

I didn't mention the watermelons - another post... 

Snips and Clips

I am in the dog house. And I've been put there by the cat. I am apparently good enough to open cans and dish out food and good enough to hang on the end of the leash when he wants to go out and read the news.  Otherwise I am persona non toucha. I have the claw and bite marks to prove it. 

Can't say I blame him. Yesterday morning at 7:30 I loaded him into the cat carrier and took him to the Torturer and his apprentices. (Known to hew-mans as "the vet") 

There they gave poor Salvador his annual physical, his vaccinations, then knocked him out with some dreadful chemical substance and cleaned his teeth. (They pulled two of them) and then while he was still comatose  they shaved off about 80% of his fur.  

He looks silly. They left his head, legs and tail unshaved. They really should have shaved his legs and left a puff on the end of a shaved tail. He would have looked just like a mini-lion. Now he just looks like a moth-eaten stuffed toy in a velvet jumper.   

He felt so sore when he came home, and I felt so sorry for him. Poor puss, he couldn't even take a drink of water. But he's eating again now, and seems comfortable, if a little more dozy than usual. 

But there's no kitty on my bed, no kitty in my lap. He now loves only his Papa and is making a point of it by snuggling up to his Papa and offering belly-rubs. Oh sure. Papa can rub the velvet belly. I'm drooling to get my hands on that apricot-coloured velvet coat and he sticks out the claws if I even come close. 

I have to sneak in a quick feel while he sleeps. See for yourself. Could you keep your hands off those soft folds? Funny. He has no stripes at skin level. The little striations you see in the picture are clipper marks. Oh, now I'm just obsessing. Time to find something else to do. 

One More Lesson

All right,

Obviously the universe has some profound lesson to teach me that I can only learn when I am absolutely bone-dead-tired. I'm afraid to ask what it is. 

Dave says he likes watching documentaries where people swim or crawl through tight spaces. I can hardly force myself to watch those. I had paralytic polio as a toddler. I lost the ability to breathe for myself and had to go into an iron lung. I don't remember it consciously but I'm claustrophobic from it. Don't like tight-necked clothes either. If I were a guy you'd never catch me in a tie. 

But forget claustrophobia. Right now a nice dark, quiet cave would be welcome. If I could sleep a week I'm sure I'd feel better. As it is I have to pull up the boots, stop my whining and get on with the dozen tasks I need to do before day's end.  

Reading today about coming up against obstacles to enlightenment, one obstacle mentioned is a feeling of resentment about who you are, what you are - or your situation. I have no problems with who I am, and I certainly feel no resentment at my poor broken husband. This has been a very difficult experience for him. But is my impatience with my limited strength and energy a form of resentment? Those limitations are part of me, a part, that according to Buddhist philosophy I chose, in order to learn lessons I had not yet learned.

 

Looked at that way, over the years I have learned what my body is capable of, and I've learned to stay within those limits. Now it seems I need to learn how to deal with what happens when I have to go beyond my comfort zone. It's no fun but if I resent it the lesson only comes harder. 

Empty Nest

I took Zak to the bus station at 6:50 am yesterday. Main Street was quiet, the air was blue with smoke from a forest fire down south, it all looked sort of nostalgic and dreamy. 

It was hard to say goodbye to him and our little nest seems empty without our two big boys to fill it up with laughter and their own special brand of masculine sweetness. 

We haven't seen enough of Zak and Mandy since they moved to Vancouver, and we miss our frequent visits with Ian, so our time together was a real pleasure. 

I had a nice post all written but pleh! It won't work. I always compose posts in Text Edit and move them over once I'm finished, since I work back and forth keeping up with other things. This time when I went to move my post it won't load in the Blogger text box, it jumps down and loads on the page below, and when saved it ends up one letter wide and 40 pages long. Who in their right mind would read a 40-page blog post, even mine? 

I was in a much better frame of mind when I wrote the post in Text Edit. This one is sort of a grumpy post; partially because Blogger is acting all weird and I don't have the patience to fiddle with it;  partially because I hurt stem to stern and partially because I am not a monkey. (Some may disagree but more on that later.)

I will add two pictures I wanted to share, one of my flower boxes and the other of the still-green but promising apricots on the old tree in the common. 

I was a little piqued the other day when I came home from town to find that some park "guests" had pulled some of the flowers in our site.

They'd also been over to the old apricot tree and helped themselves. The 'cots could certainly use a good thinning, but instead of picking individual fruits the "pickers" broke branches off the tree, then stripped the fruit off of them. It's an old tree, and already fragile. Breaking branches off of it to pick green apricots is kind of like hacking grandma's fingers off so it's easier to trim her nails. 

Most people who come through here are lovely. Courteous to a fault and so very pleasant. Many people use the back edge of our site as a path to the back of the park, which we don't mind, as long as they don't knock over or appropriate our lawn furniture. 

But you get the occasional person/group who tramps right across our site, brings their dog to poop in our yard and (honest to goodness) walks right up to our windows and peers in at us as if we were monkeys on display at the zoo! We now keep the back window blinds closed, but people walk around the end of the trailer, shade their eyes, lean into the window and squint in like they lost a nickel last week and suspect it rolled under my bed! You'd think people would have enough manners not to walk up and press their noses to your bedroom window! 

I'm trying to think of an appropriate response, and if you have a suggestion which doesn't involve firearms or fire hoses, neither of which I possess, I'd like to hear it.  I've already tried making faces, but that didn't work. They bring the family back for the free entertainment. I also told one couple that they'd have to drive around, the take-out window was closed. It didn't register. So please, nothing subtle. This is not an audience which comprehends subtleties!   

Where There Is a Will

One trait I value in myself is a certain resourcefulness. Part of this comes from a lifetime habit of frugality and training in "making-do". I was raised by parents who survived the Great Depression quite successfully and never again spent a dime without thinking several times.

In 1930 a Kilgore Texas farmer accidentally tapped into the world's largest oil reservoir in his cow pasture. His discovery marked the beginning of the East Texas Oil Boom. The tiny town of Kilgore, population 200, grew to 10,000 almost overnight. In 1931 Dad was able to get work as a roughneck in the newly discovered oil field.

For men like my Dad, who was 26 years old, it meant a steady job at $2.25 a day when jobs of any kind were scarce, children were begging door to door and former bank presidents were selling fruit on the streets of NYC.

On that $2.25 a day Dad supported 12 people, as best he could. There was himself, my mother, my sister Ruby and my brothers, identical twins who were toddlers at the time. Then there was my Mom's father, who was 70 years old and had a heart condition, Mother's younger brother Lonnie, and one of Dad's brothers who was ill and couldn't work and his wife and two children. And, last but not least, a family friend who was old and had no place to go. The kids called him "Uncle Joe".

There was no housing in Kilgore. A tent city sprang up along the river banks. Dad bought $2.00 worth of lumber. He and the men in the family built a 12 x 12 wooden floor, and plank walls four feet high. They framed in a pitched roof with 2 x 4s and tacked wagon canvas over the entire structure. He made mother a stove from a discarded oil barrel.

They had tin washtubs for washing clothes and bathing. Mother ironed with a "sad" iron, heated on the stove, using a plank set between the backs of two chairs as an ironing board. Twelve people lived in that 12 x 12 canvas-roofed shack.

They had very little, but there were millions who would have been glad to have had what they had. They ate, even if it was beans, taters, bisquits made with water and what wild foods mother and the kids could gather in the woods. Fishing in the Sabine River must have been more than a way to pass an idle afternoon. You could catch some big fish in that muddy, languorous stream, as long as you remembered not to step on a gator sunning himself on the bank. Possum and squirrel found their way into the family stew pot, along with the occasional raccoon, wild turkey and even a big turtle or two. When you are really hungry most anything starts to look a lot like dinner.

My sister recalled that she and the boys had been out making "mud pies" when a local church group came around with apples for "deserving" children. Seeing my sib's muddy hands and faces they were deemed "undeserving" and got no apple. It was a memory which haunted Ruby all of her life. She probably would have forgotten a slap but that small act of smug, self-righteousness judgement wounded her so deeply as a five-year-old that she could still feel its sting almost 80 years later.

But, I find as usual, that I have wandered off into the tangled thickets of memory, where often hang sweet fruits, but just as often conceals a thorn or two beneath the gloss of the leaves. I was saying that I am resourceful.

I have a number of medical difficulties which I will not belabor, but I have a very difficult time sleeping in any comfort. For one thing I have to sleep with the head of my bed elevated. This is not so easily done when your bed is on a platform. I'd searched high and low for a foam wedge, without any success, but for the past months I've been using a stack of pillows, shoved under the mattress. They shift up, or down. They slide sideways and squeeze out onto the floor, they pile up and solidify into baseball-sized lumps. I wake, feeling like I've slept on a pile of broken concrete.

Zak said he'd build a support and attach it to the platform. Elaborate plans were discussed and pondered. The "how" became a matter of some days' discussion. Meanwhile, I thought of the "no-gravity" lawn chaises we bought earlier in the spring. I could happily sleep in one of those. But who ever heard of such a thing? Would the Sleep Police descend on us with tin whistles splitting the night air and dump me onto the floor if I dared replace bed with chaise? Besides the chaise wouldn't fit. My bed platform is elevated about 14", and there's a shelf above. Not a lot of clearance for a chaise lounge!

Pursuing my wicked and rebellious furniture thought I went outside, flipped the legs and arms of one of the chaises flat and found that, voila! It still retained its "no-gravity" shape. I picked it up, brought it in, tossed the mattress, bedding, pillows and various bric-a-brac off my bed and put the chaise on the platform. Then I plopped my (foam) mattress on top of it and - ta-da! perfect instant hospital bed. I can elevate my head, or my feet, or both.

I slept on my highly resourceful chaise/bed last night and never woke once. I was a lot more cheerful this morning, not as many dragon scales. I guess when you are sleeping on what feels like a pile of rocks night after night, almost anything can start to look like a bed.

Snap, Crackle and Pop!

When we first pulled into Bel Air, in late August last year, there was a gigantic motor home in the spot next to us. The "campers" were a couple our own age, and the nicest people you could imagine, Claude and Pat. After a couple of weeks they went on their way. We were sad to see them go. Some people you just feel at home with from the minute you meet.

Early spring and they were back, slipping into the snowbird community with ease and good humor. But, like the tide, soon they were gone again.

A couple of weeks ago, actually the day after Tony broke his leg, they pulled back in, and parked beside us. I was ever so glad to see them, and Pat's warm hug made me feel so comforted. She and I sat one morning a week or so ago and pitted cherries together. I dried mine and she made jam and we shared. I got jam, she got dried cherries.

Three or four days ago she brought over a pail of wonderful cherry muffins. The next day their little white car was gone all day, which was unusual, but I remembered she mentioned they were going to a wedding, so thought maybe they'd decided to simply drive the car, rather than take the big motor home. But then I saw Claude come out early in the morning the next day and drive away alone. Don't know when he got home the night before. I didn't see them around during the day but it was 105 degrees and no one was running up and down the road with gay abandon.

Yesterday evening while I was out in the yard with the cat Pat came around the end of the motor home with her arm heavily bandaged, with all kinds of hardware sticking out of it! She had fallen off the top step of the motor home and landed on her arm, breaking it very badly. She is terribly bruised and swollen. Poor thing!

She reported that the staff of the local Oliver hospital was wonderful. She was transferred to Penticton the morning after her fall, for orthopedic surgery, with the same surgeon who had done Tony's surgery two weeks earlier. I wonder if he realized that he'd repaired bones on next door neighbours within two weeks of each other?

Our other neighbour Dave had surgery on Thursday, and is already home and making the rounds. He was here this morning, checking on Tony. He's a good man, of the sort you can't keep down apparently.

If you are at all superstitious you might consider staying out of the conga line we've formed. Three households in a row, three injuries, three surgeries, in three weeks. Who said 13 was the unlucky number?

Time Flies

We have a new "pet" but he's up for adoption, as we feel we don't have the dedication to care for him. He doesn't eat much, takes little room, doesn't bark and gives you plenty of upper-body exercise. Yes, I have lost the fly-swat.

When I went after said fly with a rolled up paper Zak asked what happened to my Buddhist principles. They are intact. I figure this fly has learned all we can teach him, and vice-versa, and it's time he went on to his next incarnation. Hopefully if he can't manage butterfly or ladybug he'll at least find himself in a dairy barn in Winnipeg or Thunder Bay.

Tony has been home from the local hospital for several days. He was there four (five?) days. The Physiotherapist came by the day before he was scheduled to come home and looked over our truck (high off the ground and accessed with a running-board step) , looked at the beautiful new cedar stairs and landing Ian built while he was here, and looked at our weensy bathroom with it's 14" high threshold. She said we'd never get him in here alone and said they'd bring him home by ambulance. They did, which was much more comfortable for him than the ride home from Penticton in Ian's car.

He's been pretty much immobile since. He has a potty chair in the back, and has busied himself sorting and catching up on paperwork. Zak has been feeding us great meals, mostly grilled, and he's been keeping the laundry done. How cool is that?

I busy myself running for water, water, snacks, this, that and that other thing. This is fine most of the time but I am not a morning person. Like Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady in the morning I want an atmosphere as restful as an undiscovered tomb, and I AIN'T gettin' it!

Until I've had my coffee and my first dose of meds my dragon scales tend to poke out a bit, especially when I've spent the first 45 minutes of my day on potty duty, am contending with a 20 pound cat who is jealous and confused, and am short three hours of sleep. You may read this as "Buddhist gets the grumps". Lesson: Even a good person, taking care of someone they adore, can get grumpy. Don't be so judgmental next time someone is grumpy with me.

But today there was triumph! You think you were happy when little Billy was potty-trained? I am giddy. Tony made two trips to the bathroom in the wheelchair, assisted of course, but still... it's a big step forward. No more potty chair! But enough of that.

On Sunday Zak and I went to Pancho's Country Market, an artfully organized and presented organic farm market up in the hills above town. We bought blueberries and raspberries, some beautiful baby crookneck squash and some divine raspberry vinegar. My neighbour Pat and I sat down one day last week and pitted a bunch of cherries. I dried about five pounds worth. She made jam, and then we shared. I got some jam, and she got half the dried cherries.

Yesterday Zak and I went out to another fruit/vegie stand which was advertising apricots, and bought some, plus fresh corn on the cob, peaches, nectarines and other locally-grown goodies. The peaches were so fantastic that we went back today and bought 10 pounds and I filled the dehydrator this afternoon. They smell divine. Oh, they set me back 40 cents a pound. That's 80 c a kilo for the metrics crowd.

And to fill you in on the neighbours. Emmett and Maud still appear to be childless, but the two couples they pal around with, Burt and Connie, Bob and Jackie, have each brought their youngsters to the feeder this week! They are the cutest little balls of fluff you ever saw! They look just like brown speckled versions of the Easter chicks I used to get every year when I was small. Burt and Connie's three kids appear to be several days older than Bob and Jackie's four teeny babies. They are an inch taller, and quite a bit larger.

It tickles me that the parents are relaxed enough, even with me sitting outside, to let the babies nestle down in the grass and snooze once they have picked up all the seed they can hold. They blend in so well that you could walk right past them and never see them, if they were brave enough to sit still.

That's my week. It's been very warm. Almost 100 degrees the last few days and so far this afternoon our high has been 104.7 F. It hasn't hit the peak heat of the day yet, so we could be in for a good scorching. Salvador got overheated on Thursday night and I took him to the vet on Friday, just to get him checked over. The vet said he's very hairy (Is that supposed to be news to me?) and that he has quite a bit of adipose tissue, which serves as insulation. In other words he's a humongous hairy FAT cat!

Anyone who wants to talk about dieting with his orange Fatness is welcome to try. He takes his claws to me when I say "diet" to him, and cries pitifully if he doesn't get his cookies. It's cute - his fat rolls wobble when he sobs that hard. On the good side he has lost some weight since Christmas, when he weighed in at 23 pounds.

I'm having to water my poor flowers twice a day, and even then they pant like dogs in the hot afternoon sun. I pant just watering them. But they smell divine at sundown. Mmmm.... still living in paradise.