Siren Call

I had to run a spate of errands Monday, and everywhere I went seemed to have plants for sale. Plants call to me just like the sirens called Odysseus, but no one has yet tied me to the mast to keep me from buying just one, or a dozen, more.

At the hardware store I bought half a dozen lemon thyme plants, some tri-colour sage (red stems, green and white pebbly-textured leaves), several summer squashes and four tomato plants.

A little bit later I found myself at the grocer's (well, I hadn't lost myself but you know what I mean), where they had a rack of - plants! Most were of no interest, but I did buy a half dozen "rainbow" coleus. Four are bright red and orange, two are green and yellow.

Tuesday we had to go to Penticton. I wanted to buy a storage cabinet at Canadian Tire, and noticed they had a large greenhouse and plant set up in the parking lot. My pocketbook and I were goners. Under the heading of, "I've always wanted to grow those" were heathers, purple Heuchera (coral bells), and best of all, hellebores. I bought several heathers, some burgundy mums, a large Heuchera, and a large Helleborus orientalis called "Pink Lenten Rose". It's in bloom now, with half a dozen green and pink bowl-shaped pink-edged flowers. The long-lasting flowers start off entirely green and gradually turn white with pink edges and pink-veined petals.

Other finds were a couple of fantastic "Dead Nettles" which have yellow-lime leaves, and look as if they are sunshine, even in shade. I planted the Heuchera toward the back, on the "Buddha Mound", with a dead nettle beside it. The contrast in colour, leaf shape and texture is gorgeous, though the contrast between the Heuchera and dead nettle confuses my poor digital camera.

I also got ivy geraniums, lots of pansies, mums and "sapphire" trailing lobelia. My hanging baskets should look wonderful in a few weeks! I still haven't found a single fern.

I put the squash and tomato plants into some large pots at the back, but the thyme, sage and coleus plants went into the bed to fill in some empty spots. I put the hellebore near the door (so much for avoiding flowering plants in the long bed). The heathers and mums went up at the front of the trailer in a bed and I planted some seeds for green leafy things - mesclun mix, rainbow chard and red and green lettuces in between and around the heathers and mums.

A little bamboo fence sets off the front edge of the garden bed and discourages foot traffic. I set a section of the same small fence at the back end of the bed, where it acts as a visual link between front and back. I leaned my plaque which says "Welcome" in Chinese against the fence at the front. I have a few more things to plant, but not many, unless I find some of those coveted ferns. I also have edging to place along the garden bed, again to discourage the feet which keep treading on my thyme seeds.

Tomorrow I will go into Summerland to pick up the round stepping stones I ordered earlier, and Linda ( One of the park managers) says they have brought in a load of gravel, and will bring some to cover the stretch of sand which now serves as the footpath.

Now it had all better grow. :))

Mud - A Beauty Pack For the Soul

I needed a chance to get in the dirt and work on my soul, so it was fortuitous that yesterday was sunny and warm. It also was the day that the Summerland Ornamental Gardens had their annual spring plant sale.

After walking the cat and feeding Tony breakfast I shot out the door as if my tail was on fire. Half way down the street my neighbour Del was working in her garden. I stopped, told her where I was going and invited her along. She dropped her spade, took off her gloves and ran for her purse, saying, "I don't have room for a single more plant, but I'll come along, just to look. And I'll bring my purse, in case something calls my name."

Something called her name, actually more than one something called her name.

As for me, I bought as much as I could carry. I've always wanted to grow lavender and rosemary, so bought some of each, and some lovely succulents. We always have called these "Hen and Chicks" because the little ones grow off the side of the larger ones. I got two varieties of those. Some "Elijah Blue" grass, which grows in clumps and is gorgeous.

I also got the last plant they had of wooly thyme, and I got a magnificent Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, 'Kinnikinnick' or 'Bear-berry'. It is covered with beautiful tiny pink balloon-shaped flowers. It should spread far and wide, as it is a magnificent ground cover for shady spots.

I also bought a toad lily, which is a little sad-looking after being frost-nipped a few nights ago at the greenhouse, but it should recover rapidly and grow about three feet high. These bloom in the fall and have spiky, delicate, orchid-like blossoms.

The site is not entirely flat. It lifts slightly as you go front to back, and the left hand side is slightly higher than the right. There are two large trees, one at the front and one about 4/5ths of the way toward the back. Both are to the left hand side. A few days ago I raked a lot of the gravel from the lower part of the site into a flat-topped mound surrounding the Buddha, under the tree to the back of the site.

This created a perfect profile for what I wanted to do. I planted the plants in a meandering bed almost up the middle of the site, beginning by planting the wooly thyme between the astilbes I planted almost a month ago. After I had the plants in I sowed perennial thyme over the entire area, to serve as ground cover under the taller plants. And behind the thyme some "bunny-tail" grass, which has a little puff of white at the top of each flowering stalk. I will put edging of some kind along the meandering line of the bed, to give it a finished look. I saw one which appears to be small stones. I think that would work perfectly, as long as it is flexible enough to bend to the curves.

An 18" square of moss got divided up into small strips and punched into the mounded gravel platform where our Buddha sits admiring the blue Hosta growing there. I'm hoping it takes off and spreads. It's a very shady spot, very well-drained (gravel) but moss only uses the soil beneath it as an anchor, as it draws its nutrients and moisture from the air. I would dearly love a carpet of moss on that mound.

To the left of the bed is hard-packed gravel. The neighbour needs access to the back of his trailer, so no point in planting things where they will be stomped into the ground, but surprisingly, the gravel ended up being a strong and very interesting part of the design. Its colour and texture ties the entire design together, giving almost a tiered effect.

I will buy some ferns, assuming I can find some, to plant along the boundary between planting bed and gravel and serve as a backdrop to the other plants. Except for the two astilbe plants at the beginning of the long row, this is predominantly a foliage garden, meant to showcase the forms, colours, fragrances and textures of leaves. Any blossoms are small and not the predominant feature.

To the right of the bed is the path we take to the back end of the trailer, where there is strong sun for six or eight hours a day. So at the back I will plant a tomato or two, and some squash plants. Also some kind of climbing something on a lattice, to hide the mess to the back. I'll put the containers and baskets of annual flowers in front, and we will be surrounded by a veritable Eden.

It's wonderful having a place to garden again. Pots are fine, if you don't have a "dirt" spot, but there's nothing to me like real honest-to-goodness digging in the mud.

End of Kayla's Journey

Kayla Marie St.Cyr

August 7, 1990 - May 2, 2008

We have lived not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth, but in proportion as we have enjoyed.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Marriage is About Sharing and Staple Guns

So I shared - my respiratory bug - with my poor husband. Last Saturday he woke up with a bone-rattling cough, which was not fair, since I wasn't quite finished with my turn yet!

He jumped the queue and has been sick ever since. This is one nasty bug. I only quit coughing yesterday, so he has a good week left. I wanted to take him to the doctor yesterday, but he said no. I wanted to take him to the doctor this morning but he said no. When I finally said, "Now will you go to the doctor?", at about 6:30 tonight he gasped yes and I helped him dress and get into the truck.

We waited a while but saw a pleasant young doctor who prescribed antibiotics, a steroid puffer for Tony's inflamed lungs, and something for his cough and muscle pain. He's now tucked back into bed, and we will hope that tomorrow he will begin to feel better.

I had a list of chores as long as a frog's tongue this morning, and after house cleaning, top of the list was to get the netting on the outside enclosure we have been trying to build for Salvador.

He spends about half his time hanging on the screen door howling to go outside. Most of the time he just wants to lie down in the yard and watch the birds, the trees and whatever is going by at the moment, but I can't sit out there all day with him. So we decided to build him a four by six enclosure which he can access with a cat flap in the "garage" door.

The floor and frame have been up for over three weeks, but first it was too cold and wet to work outside, then I got sick and then Tony got sick. So it has sat.

Today it was reasonably warm. The mock cherry trees are blooming like mad and smell wonderful so outside was the place to be. I got out the staple gun and did a temporary "fix" on the enclosure, so Sal can at least use it. We will put a proper roof on as soon as we are up to the task, but for now I put a piece of white tarp on for a roof, and stapled plastic deer netting all the way around, leaving a flap for the door.

I couldn't figure out how to close the flap so he couldn't escape but eventually used safety pins. (Okay, laugh if you must!) The safety pin goes under a staple, and clips through the deer netting. Of course I have to have a pin every two inches so "opening" the door is a bit time-consuming. I already can't wait until we can build a proper door with hinges.

I finished it and let him go in to explore. He cut his nose trying to push the netting aside, but once he realized he couldn't get out he was quite pleased with the space. I put his big litter box (which has a cover) out there, and brought the small one inside. I will put the big cat crate out there, so he has a place to snooze, and to sit on, but it's in the back of the truck and I couldn't reach it.

Sal kept running in and out. After going out and coming back in a couple of times Sal ran up to me in the kitchen, stood up and gave me a big kiss. Then he wrapped his tail around my legs and hugged me. (We call this gesture "love-tail".) He is a happy camper. Hopefully he will not be such a pain in the snout about getting outside now. He'll still get his two daily walks, but this will give him the chance to relax outside any time he wants, during the day. It may not be great architecture, but it gets the job done.

The Birdies That Sing in the Spring

Summerland is only about 50 miles north of Oliver, so I have been surprised at the different birds I've seen here. Perhaps it's because of the lake, which is only a stone's throw away. Perhaps it's because 300 ft in the opposite direction we are cupped into the shelter of some high, sandy cliffs. These are absolutely riddled with bird holes. Right next door is a vineyard and an area of uncultivated field, which includes a derelict log cabin and an impressive pile of old trunks and stumps, field debris and dirt pushed up into a 20 ft high mountain.

So the bird population spotted here so far, in no particular order, as much as I remember:

A pair of yellow-shafted flickers. These are lovely big birds with spectacular coloration, and they don't seem to mind being watched from a distance of 10-12 feet as they poke around in the grass looking for worms.

The inevitable pair of almost fearless robins. They love to tease the cat when we are out walking, by hopping just a few feet ahead of him. They let him get within about eight feet and then take off and land in a nearby tree. I saw one teasing the neighbour's cat in exactly the same way, leading the (very fat) cat to climb a tree trying to catch the robin. He was clinging onto the branch with all four feet, only a few feet short of the robin, when it flew into the adjacent tree. (And had a good laugh I presume!)

Canada geese - a mated pair - magnificent birds, but a victim of their own breeding success here in the Okanagan. This spring a team is going around addling goose eggs in an effort to reduce the enormous population. Can't help but feel sorry for the geese. They love their eggs like we love babies. When a clutch has a dozen eggs I don't know why the "addlers" can't leave at least one or two viable eggs for the geese to raise.

Rusty blackbirds with their bright yellow "bead" eye and irridescent feathers. There was a flock of about ten of them outside this morning.

Gambrel quail - three birds - not much of a covey after our hundred or so in Oliver. They live in the field next door and only occasionally come over this way.

Audubon's wood warblers - delightful little birds who for some reason look like giants bees when they fly! They land upside down on branches and trunks, pick at something there and flit to the next branch. They must be eating ants. Listed in my ancient "Birds of North America" as Audubon's warbler, there now appears to be a fair amount of confusion over the name of this bird. It is not the yellow-rumped (aka "Butterbutt") warbler which now seems to be featured in most sources.

Pygmy nuthatches They feed in the same way as the Audubon's warbler, upside down, hanging onto a tiny stem and bobbing in the wind - Alas I found one of these uncommon little birds dead after one of our unseasonably cold nights.

Red-tailed hawk pair They soar up and down on the thermals above and next to the cliffs on sunny days. They are harassed constantly by smaller, more agile birds, who dive bomb them, peck at them in mid-air and generally try to annoy them.

Barn swallows who appear to be some of the worst hawk-bedevilers.

Yellowthroats These lemon-yellow bits of sunshine have little black masks like bandits and a beautiful song!

I have heard but not seen a saw-whet owl in the middle of the night.

Pica pica (aka Magpie) Although they are almost universally despised I find the magpie's exotic appearance and incredible intelligence endearing. We raised one from infancy about 15 years ago, and I'll never look at them with anything but affection again. For the story of our maggie see Magpie Summer.

We also have coyotes, which come quite close at night, and our neighbour says the raccoons ate all the fish from her pond last summer. There are a couple of resident beavers near the beach, dedicated to removing all standing trees in the area. I haven't seen them yet, but hope to at some point when it's warm enough to sit on the beach.

How Criminals are Made

I never want to move again! It's not the sorting, packing, cleaning loading, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, etc that I have decided I never want to do again (though it's not a process I'd do for entertainment). It's the thought of going through all the flippin' paperwork.

So far it's taken us three full days to deal with the endless letters, forms and examinations. When did they start requiring a colonoscopy and a full body scan to get a post office box key and a new account at the credit union? (Thanks Dubya!)

At the post office our ID was unimportant. We could have been the advance scouts of Ghenghis Khan's army and they'd not have been concerned. But they suspected we were prevaricating when we told them where we live. With steely eyes and grim expressions they "checked the book" to make certain that the street we told them we lived on actually existed in their municipality.

Then they checked to see that there was a postal drop box at the location indicated and that it covered our "alleged" address. They checked our site rental receipt and declared it unconvincing and unsubstantiated evidence. Despite having the park name, address and phone number, our name, our site number and the signature of the park manager on it, it was inadequate to convince them to part with their precious postal box key.

They required an official letter from the park owner, reassuring them that we were permanently parked on their doorstep. This took a further ten days to acquire, and we had to go through the same interrogation process all over again. Every clerk in the place had to look over both us (hmmmm) and our letter. After 15 minutes of muttering and consultations they consented to allow us a box and key. Then they turned sunny as daffodils and chatted us up like we were all childhood next-door neighbours.

Then we went across the street to the credit union. The woman at the desk looked at us over her glasses and asked for 17 pieces of ID, blood samples and pedigree charts back to our grandsires. She looked over the stack of ID we'd brought and said of her demands (which we could not meet), "This background check is necessary. Everyone knows that the criminals choose small town banks and credit unions to launder their money." (Sheesh, you could launder every red cent we own in a salad bowl.)

By now I was feeling the need to check the mirror to see if somehow I'd morphed into a Hoochie Mama or a Harley Queen. Tony looked the same as ever, slightly myopic, bald as an egg, a little paunchy, and somewhat disheveled after wrestling with the guardians at the post office counter.

I guess we looked the part of the career criminals Ms. Credit Union has personally known and prosecuted. Maybe we resembled the masterminds of some diabolical plot! Two wrinklies, overweight and grey, schlepping into the credit union in our crocs and elastic-waist jeans seeking to defraud the nation. And she and her supervisor were absolutely certain we didn't live where claimed to. According to them, no such address exists, because they don't have their computer set up to accept site numbers. (This is the opposite of "I think, therefore I am". This was "We doubt, therefore you ain't!) She said, "Anyone who comes in and gives us an address like that doesn't know what they are talking about."

She wouldn't give us a joint account because Tony doesn't have a valid driver's license. Well, why would he? He can't see two feet in front of his nose and he hasn't driven in almost 20 years! He applied for a BC ID card three months ago but it's never arrived, and the application itself is not good enough for the citizen protectors of the financial system. All his other ID meant nothing. Passport? Has a photo but it's too old! Canadian citizenship papers? BC Medical card? Birth Certificate? No photos.

We endured the questioning. We cooperated with the authorities like the passive Canadians we are. After removing her latex gloves with a snap, and allowing us to resume our seats, Ms CU marched off to check our credit rating. Apparently you'd better have a good one or they send you and your potentially treacherous money packing. She finally allowed me to open an account, but my husband is not on it. He is persona non identifiable according to the credit union.

We reeled out of the credit union and down the street to face a new pharmacist. We couldn't believe it when they offered to fill our prescriptions, deliver them later in the day and put them on account, which we could settle whenever we were around again. I went weak in the knees and almost cried on the spot.

My tears (of joy anyway) were premature. When they delivered Tony's prescription the dosage was wrong. We had gone to the doctor in Oliver before we moved to get a new prescription for Tony. We asked (at the specialist's suggestion) that the dosage be increased.

No problem said the doctor, tapping his foot and looking at his watch. This is three-minute appointment Freddy. Every appointment is a "quickie" but not half so much fun. He never writes notes, and after a year and a half still does not recognize either of us, or remember anything about our medical histories, although he did say to me once, "Oh, you're the one with that weird stuff." We won't miss him. That day, after a minute of discussion he said, his usual, "Whatever..." like a bored 15-year-old and printed Tony a new prescription increasing the dosage.

We photocopied the prescription for our records and took it to the pharmacy to be filled at a later date. But when the medication came from the pharmacy a few days ago the dosage was wrong. I called and asked why. They said the pharmacy in Oliver had made a notation to halve the dose.

The pharmacy here called the pharmacy there and asked why the notation. They said they noticed the increased dosage and called the doctor to make sure that was what he intended. He said no, and hence the notation. (sigh)

I called the doctor's office and they said to come in. I said we've moved and I can't come in. I asked her to talk to the doctor and get it fixed, because I can't drive 100 miles to spend three minutes with him when he can fix it by simply calling the pharmacy. So far this is unresolved. He's probably trying to remember who we are, but not very hard.

I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning writing and printing letters to various governmental agencies telling them we have moved. The credit union called to say we can't live where we say we live, and we can't get mail at that address. I felt like asking her who delivers the mail, the post office who gave us the address or the credit union? I told her 100 of our neighbours get mail at the same drop box, call the post office and sort it out with them. They can examine each other's colons, mine is still a bit tender.

I am still hacking and blowing like a surfacing orca. I am grumpy, aggravated and feeling very un-Buddha-like. If I drank I'd be after a big bottle of something strong and stupifying. As it is a glass of water will have to do, but I am eyeing that bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup on the counter. Worse, I found a dime which got left in a pocket and went through the wash/dry cycle. Drugs and money-laundering. This is a clear-cut case of the credit union lady's worst expectations fulfilled.

You'd have to get a crowbar under me before I will move again.

It's Earth Day!

Ah, Earth Day, when we fondle our collective guilt and think for a few minutes about what we could do if we put our mind to it to conserve and recycle. Here the Buddha in our garden meditates on our energy usage, and what can be done about it.

I was reading that the average American home uses 30 kwh of electricity per day. So, in hopes of documenting virtue I sat down with our electricity bills for the past year and figured out our average daily usage in kwh.

I guess we are doing our part for the environment after all. Averaged out over the year we used five Kwh per day this past year. That's going to go up, because it doesn't include the power we used doing laundry at the laundromat. Now with a washer and dryer at home that power use will be more visible. However the new w/d I keep rhapsodizing about has a high Energy Star rating.

According to the sticker, washing eight loads a week at eight cents per Kwh, which just happens to be what we have been paying, costs $11.31 for an entire year! And the dern thing uses a tablespoon of detergent and liquid fabric softener per load, so it's economical on the soap too.

Summerland is starting a blue bag recycling program. Alas, the beach community is not included in the route. Summerland is divided up the middle by mountains and we are sort of in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps later they will come out here, but we are going to call and see if we can take blue bags to a recycling depot. We haven't ever had the extra energy to recycle this way, but we're hoping to make it the next step in our conservation efforts.

The lights in the Beach House are all 12 volt DC and use the same DC bulbs that you'd use in your old Ford's tail lights. DC bulbs use about 30% less power than equivalent-sized AC incandescent bulbs. We are looking at replacing a couple of our DC bulbs with LED lights. I'm not sure how that will work, but they do have advantages. Cost is not one of them. The little bulbs cost over $20.00 each! But they burn for over 10,000 hours and draw less than a watt of power, so the cost of the bulb would be offset by power savings over several years.

I'm buying locally grown produce in preference to stuff flown in from Chili or Zanzibar. The 100 mile limit is pretty tough to stick to in Canada during the winter, and I'm not ready to give up those first fresh strawberries and asparagus from California. But you can buy fresh BC grown apples here all winter long, so why buy watermelons from Mexico that taste like cucumbers?

Canadians use more energy per capita than any other nation in the world. It's time we smartened up and did what we can to put a stop to the waste around us.

A Week Down the Tubes

Last Friday, at about 3:00 am, I woke with a deep, bone-rattling cough. It kept me awake for a couple of hours, until I searched through our as-yet-unpacked boxes of grooming aids and health-care products to find a decongestant cough syrup.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I coughed. I was getting very sore by this point. Monday I... oh cut out the middle part. By the time I got in to see the doctor on Wednesday it was clear that I had pneumonia. I felt as cold as if I were sitting on an ice floe in a raging wind, I was struggling to breathe and felt as if I had been run down by a steamroller. I was too sick to drive so we took a cab to Summerland to the doctor's office.

He took my temperature, listened to my burbling chest, and said, "You have pneumonia." He gave me an antibiotic, plus some hot-damn prescription cough syrup that puts the OTC stuff to shame. He also gave me a requisition for a chest x-ray.

Three days on the antibiotic and I am beginning to feel perfectly human again, though I sound like a rusty gate when I breathe. I had that x-ray today. It was too late in the day to have it on Wednesday and I was still too sick to drive yesterday.

I haven't accomplished much this week other than slumping from the bed to the sofa. My lovely plans to achieve wonders went down the drain.

The only good that has come from it is that I've lost 10 pounds. Pneumonia must be a real energy burner, but then coughing is a good workout. Alas, I know the weight loss will not last. As soon as I am feeling well again the pounds will catch up to me. The last time I had pneumonia I lost 11 pounds in four days. I thought it was the hospital food, disgusting pap that it was, but this time I've eaten my own swill, so I guess it's the bug and not the fodder.

I'm going back to bed now. After I go have another swig of that great cough syrup.

Speaking in Code

Mr. Moo woke me at 5:30 demanding a cat cookie and I couldn't go back to the sleep, so I got up, made a pot of java, hauled out my box of gardening seeds and inventoried them. Hmmmmm.... I have six kinds of basil. Does that say *anything* to you?

I have a boot box full of seeds for plants that demand full sun. I have a very limited amount of space which gets full sun, and it's all gravel. This says "pots" to me. Thankfully, due to the generosity of my new next-door neighbour I have a good selection of *very* large pots. I think these will be just the thing for a few acorn and yellow squash plants, my basil selection, and a tomato plant or two.

I could use a flowering vine to screen the neighbour to the north, as he apparently doesn't know that soap and water applied to the *black* end of his trailer would make it all white and sparkly again. And he has a canoe pulled up there, a pile of hoses, old tools and various flotsam and jetsam. You get the picture. I need a screen. But it needs to be something which doesn't need much sun. That I have to think on.

In the place where I can use a flowering vine which does get sun I will plant scarlet runner beans, perhaps morning glories or sweet peas. The sweet peas might cook in the full sun of the Okanagan. I'll have to ask the neighbour how they do. She is an avid gardener too.

The planning of the garden is a most enjoyable pastime for the gardener. In your mind's eye everything jumps out of the ground and bursts into bloom within about a week. (This is fantasy.) In truth the plants will struggle half-heartedly out of the ground in poor competition with the weeds, attract every insect in a radius of a mile, and flower two days before the first killing frost, if they don't topple over in a windstorm first.

Nevertheless, here I am at 6:00 am on a Sunday morning, trying to decide if there's any place where four-foot tall red poppies would work. At least in my case the word gardener is code for hopeless optimist.

Welcome to the Beach House!

After sweeping up a tub of sand tracked in from the yard, and looking down our "street" to the beach, we decided to call our new home The Beach House.

We are moved, set up, almost unpacked, skirted and worn to a nub. But we are very happy with BH. We have much more room, plus that fantastic washer/dryer and bathtub.

Other things we particularly like are;

1) The bed is high, much easier to get in and out of, and much easier to make. Also comfortable.

2) The wonderful vinyl hickory plank floor which Ian bought and spent four days laying. Not only is it beautiful, it is so easy to care for.

3) Bigger fridge, large freezer!

4) Double sinks, prep room on the counter

5) four burner stove and apt. size (24") oven

6) closets to hang our clothes

7) Comfortable sofa and rocking chair in the living room

8) Comfy banquette in the kitchen. We can actually sit at the table and have our meals!

9) The view out the front window

Getting to this point hasn't been without its ups and downs but in addition to Ian's help we had help from the most wonderful friends Flo, Jim, Pat and Claude, as well as almost 40 hours of paid help from Gary the RV man.

Flo took down the dirty drapery from the BH, mended, washed and ironed it. I was thinking I'd have to replace the drapery right away, now I can do it at my leisure, thanks to Flo. She also carried most of our goods and chattels from the Tinpalace to the BH, and when I went to clean the Tinpalace in preparation for its new owner Flo pitched in with pail and soap and did the work of three people.

Her husband Jim did so much work in the Beach House we were talking about adopting him! He pulled out a cabinet which was very difficult to move, helped put up the wall back up between bath and bedroom and hung the new door.

Pat and Claude also helped a huge amount. Pat broke her wrist and arm very badly shortly after Tony broke his leg, and her recovery has been slow and very painful. She is limited in what she can do with that hand, but it didn't keep her from making and feeding us wonderful treats like cream puffs, brownies, peanut butter squares and other fantastic edibles.

Claude took out a cabinet in the bedroom and assembled and installed a file cabinet. He repaired the sofa, and he and Jim leveled the Beach House, set up the water and sewer systems and spent two days skirting it after friend Mike moved it here.

While the guys were working on the skirting, Flo, Pat and I set up the garden shed, unloaded the truck, sorted all the stuff, put what we needed access to on a frequent basis in the shed and loaded the rest back into the truck. Ian says we can't buy a small car because we use the truck for storage and he's right.

Here Flo holds up their 16-year-old Pom, Dexter. Come to think of it Flo fed us some incredible food while we were working. Her "Sex in a Pan" is memorable. Remind me to get that recipe.

We went into Summerland for lunch both days they were here. We ate at a Chinese and Western buffet place called "Johnnie's". The food is yummy and the prices are excellent.

So, we are off to a fine start. The weatherman says it will soon warm up, and we will be out of this cold cold spell we've been in for the past six weeks. Then it will be time to garden, but more about that later. All this talk about food has made me hungry.

Sometimes the Moment Sucks

After several exhausting days we finally have TP II moved from Oliver to Summerland. Spring seems farther ahead in Summerland, probably because of the influence of Okanagan Lake, which is just at the end of our short street. There are tiny leaves on the trees. However we had snow today for several hours. It didn't stick to the ground but it is quite cool, hovering at the freezing mark.

It's going to take a week or two for me to get things organized properly. In the end things were simply stuffed into cupboards willy-nilly, a shoe and a pie plate side by side, right next to the box of remotes and charging devices. Ask me where anything is and the answer is likely to be, "I know nothing."

We've both done quite well, we had wonderful help from friends and neighbours, but now we are tired and need a few days to rest and regroup.

Unhappily, our attempt to rescue one little cat and add her to our family has ended in dismal failure. She escalated her constant belligerence, from hissing at Sal to attacking him (and he was so patient with her), then she began to be belligerent and aggressive with us, growling when approached or touched at times.

This morning, while she was sitting in my lap, presumably content to be there, she whirled around and attacked me without the slightest warning. She slashed through both my upper and lower lips, and gave me two puncture wounds, one in the cheek, the other just in the middle of my lower lip.

It took a while to staunch the bleeding and I have a very sore mouth and face. We talked and decided we couldn't handle this kind of aggression, especially when it was totally unprovoked. With knew we couldn't put her out on the street, and we certainly couldn't pass her on to another family. With heavy hearts we took her to a nearby vet's and had her euthanized and cremated. It's very sad. Was it her time on her own, having to fight for her life, that turned her into a time bomb, or was she thrown out of a household for this kind of behaviour? We'll never know.

But we did what we could for her. She was warm, well-fed and safe for the last weeks. I wish we could have done more for her, but sometimes problems are beyond your ability to solve and all you can do is what you think is best and try to get through it.

Yuchi News

Yuchi spent last night at the vets. This morning she was sedated, checked over, brushed out, dematted and vaccinated. She did not have the "kitty-make-no-babies" surgery because (praise be to the benfit of my slim purse!) she has already had that operation! (insert John Phillip Souza march *here*!)

Knowing that we won't be into the new trailer for another couple of days I went over to the pet store before I picked her up and bought a larger sized crate, one large enough for her to stand and walk around and also hold a small litter box.

She slept the first few hours she was home. She ate a couple of small meals and used her litter box. She wanted out of the crate so we let her out. She sniffed around, explored a bit and then called Sal a couple of rude names. She became belligerant so we decided to return her to the crate. Well! She got right snarly! It took some fancy footwork to get her back into the crate.

Over the next hour she grumped and snarled and growled enough for three cats her size. Apparently she is not impressed with the idea of being a house cat. She seems to feel that being fed and left to run wild in the neighborhood is just fine!
Sorry kitty. I know this will take some getting used to, but you are an indoor girl now.

Sal is being a perfect gentleman, but he is anxious. He snuggled up to me after we'd gotten her back in the crate and he was trembling. Poor big cream puff. He wants to be her friend so badly and she is acting just like a poop. Hopefully she will settle down within the next few days. It's a big adjustment for her, and she's probably feeling a little cranky from the vaccines, the sedation and the thorough going over she had. At least I hope her temperament isn't this bad normally!

On the moving front; Gary spent about four hours on TP II today, and says he'll be here first thing tomorrow morning to finish the job. We ought to be able to spend tomorrow night in TP II. This could be our last night in the Tinpalace! sniff (But not a sob, you note.)

I love this little trailer. It's cute as a bug's ear and has been lots of fun to live in, but the new one will be like a mansion, with its bathtub and washing machine. I promise pictures once we are settled and everything is in place. Right now it's wall-to-wall tools and boxes.

We lose our internet connection tomorrow and won't reconnect until after we are moved, so bye for now, and may peace of mind be your constant companion.

The Strength of Ten!

In the last 20 years I could probably count the days when I've felt as if I had perfectly "normal" strength on the fingers of one hand. Not that I feel ill, but I consistently deal with enough muscle weakness to complicate even simple tasks. It varies. Some days I do well, others I must do "quiet" things and plan to do more active tasks another day.

Today was one of those rare and wonderful days when I felt strong! I was up at 7:00 am and barely stopped all day. I went to town and ran a half-dozen errands, shopped for groceries, did a murderously painful massage on a neighbour who was in misery from head to foot, and in general had a great time.

About lunchtime I cleaned Sal's carrier, and put in a little box with litter and a soft towel inside it. When Miss Yuchi cat showed up for her lunch I put the food dish inside the carrier. She zipped right in. I closed the door behind her and I became the Mama of a second kitty.

She has obviously been in a carrier before, as she ate her lunch, gave a few pokes at the door and then laid down and went to sleep. At 4:00 I loaded her into the truck and took her to the vet's. She was very calm, didn't mind the ride at all, was sweet and cooperative at the vet's and weighs a hefty seven pounds! She should. She's eaten 20 pounds of canned cat food in the past two weeks.

She will get a full exam, vaccinations, the ping-pong ball size matts cut out of her coat and the "Kitty-make-no-babies" operation. I thought she was pregnant at first, but now I am not so sure. She hasn't gotten any bigger in the tummy. She may have already been spayed. That would be a plus. She obviously has been someone's well-loved baby at some point. I do wish she could say something more than middow-middow-middow. (Must be a Buddhist cat, advocating the Middle Way.)

Over at Tinpalace II the new sink is at least in the bathroom. It's not hooked up but it is there. We want to move Thursday morning, so Gary has one more day to:

1) plumb the sink
2) plumb and reset the toilet
3) install the wall in the closet
4) hang the clothes pole
5) find (and fix) the propane leak
6) fix the leaking water heater

Until these things are done we're stuck. No can cook, run water, wash face, stay warm, put away clothing, go tinkle, or anything else. I can sit in my rocking chair and rock, but after a while you get hungry and in need of the bathroom.

Plus tomorrow afternoon I'm bringing home a new cat which will have to stay inside, in this tiny trailer, and there is no way to keep the two of them from killing each other until they adjust to each other's presence because there are no doors here to close between them.

But I had a heck of a day.

Grateful is Not a Strong Enough Word!

We have made some wonderful friends while we've been here. And in the last month they have jumped in and spent an amazing amount of time and energy helping us get TP II ready to live in, and things moved.

I am past being tired. Tired was a week ago. And there is so much to do still. But things are progressing well.

We realized today that we need to move two days earlier than we had planned, which gives us two days less working time. Gary has installed the washer/drier and in working on plumbing the new sink in the bathroom. He worked on it a couple of hours yesterday.

This morning when I went over I could smell propane as I approached the trailer, and inside the smell was very strong. I opened the vents and the doors, and let it air out. It was so strong it made me feel sick, so I came home while it cleared out. Don't know what's going on there. We tested the furnace a couple of days before and it worked perfectly. No propane smell at all. So that has to be looked at.

My lovely neighbour Florence carried basket after basket of stuff over to TP II today. I used two large laundry baskets. I would pack one, she'd carry it over, I'd pack the second, she'd carry it over. Then I'd go over and put away what she'd carried. Once I was done I'd take the empty baskets home and fill them again, and she'd carry them over. I was able to accomplish three times as much as I could have done alone.

And, late in the afternoon, when I had packed as much as I felt I could for the moment, Flo's husband Jim came over and helped Tony and I cut and put up some paneling, replaced the door jambs which had been removed and then installed the new folding door between the bathroom and bedroom. That was a big job and I am very happy to have it done!

Jim and Flo have already spent hours helping, as have friends Pat and Claude. I don't know what we would have done without them!

On the whole I am very pleased. I have put away about 80% of what we need to get into the trailer and as of yet the closet and bathroom drawers have nothing in them, since Gary is working in there. The cupboards in the bedroom are also empty as of yet. The one banquette is still almost empty, and I have lots of cupboard space left in the kitchen. If I'm not careful we're going to have a place for everything!

A Timeless Break

I need to dispose of a pile of construction debris, or to be more specific, deconstruction debris piled in front of TP II, but while the morning is sunny it is still a chilly 33 degrees F outside, so I am dithering.

I could get up and clean the debris in here, but for the moment I really feel a need to just lie back on my bunk and give my muscles a well-earned rest. I worked very hard yesterday, and will have to do so again today, and for several more days, if we are to get out of here on time.

While Ian was here last week we drove to Penticton to buy supplies. On the way we took a five-minute detour. He'd found petroglyphs a short distance off the road last summer, along with a spectacular view looking south down the valley. He wanted to share these with me, so we had a quick break in the otherwise tightly focused busy-ness of the week.

He took these pictures in October when he was here, and to our dismay some hooligan has defaced the petroglyphs since. I fail to understand what drives people to do such stupid things. What are they trying to prove? These pictures are ancient. The rock has cracked and flaked since they were painted, and large patches of lichen grow over some sections.

We puzzled what they meant. A stick figure with nine lines extending from the head, a half circle with 15 rays. The figure has no legs, it appears to be wearing a skirt. Was the picture painted by a woman? Do the lines on the head mean nine people, the half-circle a journey of 15 days? There are also four spots, almost certainly made by pressing the ends of the paint-covered fingers on the rock. Perhaps she stumbled as she reached upward, and touched the rock to steady herself. There is another figure but it is so obliterated by age that it's impossible to decipher.

All looking southwest out over a vast rocky valley, but a highly fertile one. I touched one with a sense of what can only be described as reverence. A recent report says that 95% of all Native Americans carry the mitochondrial DNA of six women who lived between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago in Beringia, the now submerged land underlying the Bering Strait.

A cousin drew these, an Old One, perhaps a woman. In my imagination she could have been one of those original mothers of Native America. I have walked in her footsteps, seen that glorious view down the valley - was it wetter then, drier, lesser or more heavily treed? Even today it is rich in wildlife. Along that corridor I have seen deer, mountain sheep, beaver, coyotes, birds of many kinds including Canada geese, ducks, swans, cranes, bald eagles and dozens of smaller species.

The "paint" used for petroglyphs was often a combination of blood, fat and iron oxides. The group hunted here, perhaps sheltered in the small cave beneath the massive boulder the petroglyphs are painted on. They left their mark. She left her mark, not only on a boulder face but in the flesh of millions. Thanks Mom.

First Meeting

Today, when Yuchi (new spelling) came for breakfast I fed and petted her, then came inside to get Salvador, who was watching anxiously out the kitchen window.

I put his harness and leash on him and he scooted out the door to sit on the porch and watch her from 15 feet away. She rolled around on the ground in the sun and kept an eye on the big guy sitting on the porch.

After a few minutes he walked down the stairs toward her. She held her ground but came to her feet and faced him. They looked at each other, but there was no aggression from either. They chattered to each other, then strained forward and touched noises.

She raised one paw and hissed softly. He hissed back, but very softly. She turned, walked a few feet away and lay down. He lay down and watched her for a few minutes. Then he got up and moved closer to her. She moved away and he followed. They played cat and cat for 15 minutes. If he moved she followed, if she moved he followed.

I had to drag him back by force. I don't think it will be too long before they're friends.

Week Gone

Ian left to return to Calgary this morning but it was such a nice week. We worked hard but got a lot done. He put in the new floor, which looks wonderful; he took out part of the wall between bedroom and bathroom. This was originally done so Gary could get my new washer and dryer into the bathroom.

The original door was too narrow. But once we got the doorway opened we realized that a 27" door is far more practical than a 19" one. For example, if either of us ever requires a walker or wheelchair again it wouldn't have fit through the old door. Now the bathroom is accessible from the bedroom. We bought a folding door to install there. Not my favorite door, but practical in this application.

It's now two weeks to moving day. I'm hoping to have all the "jobs" done in the next week and be able to start moving our stuff in the last week.

The cherry trees are beginning to have tiny buds on the branches. I looked out this afternoon to see about a dozen quail in the two trees in front of the Tinpalace. I couldn't understand why they were there, as they rarely fly into the trees. But it was soon apparent. They were eating the emerging buds, shades of their eating apricot blossoms last spring.

I took a picture looking up through the branches of the one tree, just to have to remember how beauty can be found even in plain things.

And, as I remarked in an earlier post, I've been feeding the stray cats all winter. There were three to start with, but two have disappeared - we have an active coyote population, and they prey on house cats. We're left with one extremely beautiful long-haired calico girl who has been too terrified to allow anyone to approach her all winter. But finally starvation over fear and I found her trying to dig a few morsels of food from the dish about a week ago.

I came in, got a can of food and filled the bowl. She dove in and wolfed the food down, shaking and trembling all over. I talked to her in a quiet voice and after a couple of days she allowed me to stroke her very gently with one finger. Over the next couple of days she relaxed a bit and allowed me to pick her up and carry her to the food dish, and now I can pick her up and carry her and pet her.

She is absolutely knife-thin and to make it worse she's pregnant. I'd estimate that she weighs three or four pounds. I can't imagine the hunger of that little body, as her kittens pulled the few calories she managed to scare up.

If I can tame her sufficiently in the next two weeks Salvador will have a sister. After her kittens are born we will have her spayed. She will also need to be shaved, for under her floor-length sweep of soft multi-coloured fur she has matts the size of ping-pong balls. I've decided to call her Yoo-gyar'-uhs which means "Smoky Girl" in Skarure. "Yugi" for short.

Sal is very dominant so I hope he will accept her. She's very submissive and extremely gentle, so hopefully he will share us with her without inflicting damage on her to begin with.

So that's been the week, work until we drop into bed at night, then get up early to do it all again.

Wurk wurk wurk....

Ian arrived late Saturday. Yesterday afternoon we tore out the old carpet and underlay (mostly him) and hung more wallpaper (me).

We started the day with breakfast in town. As usual the service was excruciatingly slow but the food - when it finally arrived - was good. While we waited we had a chance to catch up on the last few weeks, which have been very busy for him.

Once we were fed and back home we started in on the trailer. The carpet was dirty, but not as nasty as it could have been, considering that it's been in place for 12 years.

Today we got a late start, but hey, the poor guy is on "holidays" so sleeping in is to be expected. After a good home-made breakfast we went to town for supplies. When we returned he finished up cutting out the bits of carpet along the edges of the walls and I got busy with the staple gun and put the Relectix in place behind the cupboards and closets.

We keep getting visitors, as everyone wants to see the new TP. It's fun to show them through, and wonderful to actually have a place to sit and visit!

Ian did some prep work on the floor in order to get ready to lay the new floor tomorrow. It's super-duper stuff, very realistic wood grain finish. I'd say the molds were cast on hardwood planks, because the grain is textural, not slick like laminate, which is basically a photo of a hardwood floor stuck onto a backing. Can't wait to see the floor down!

The wallpaper looks really good too, despite a couple of cutting errors which I had to patch. You can't really tell unless you look closely. I have some to do still, but hope to get it finished in the next day or two.

What is so nice about working with Ian is that we discuss the larger issues of life as we work. He's practical and insightful, and we have wonderful conversations. I loved it when my boys were small, but I love it now that they are adults too. They are both wonderful men and I am so proud of them.

It's the Silly Season

And I'm not talking politics. This is important stuff! In spring the English sparrow's fancy turns to love! The males are busy gathering nest material. It's pretty funny to see them play tug-of-war with a dry blade of grass, and roll head over heels when it finally breaks loose. One flew into the cedar hedge (sparrow condos) trailing a spray of tumbleweed. The tumbleweed caught on the cedar branches, the sparrow kept on going, or at least his body did. He wouldn't let go of this prize, so his flight came to a rather sudden stop. I hope birds don't get whiplash.

As I may have remarked a dozen times already, sparrows must be the evolutionary remnants of T-rex, or at least some particularly vicious raptor. They are aggressive, violent and downright nasty, especially in the spring.

Scenerio on the lawn this morning. Female sparrow pecking seeds, perfectly happy, sweet little thing. Male sparrow lands next to her, squats slightly, extends his wings out to give him that buff and ever-so-chic Arnold Sparrownator look, and hops around her in a demented sort of dance.

She doesn't even look up, but with persistence he gains her attention. She is NOT IN THE MOOD! and has no reluctance to tell him so. She lights into him, grabbing his wing in her beak and thrashing him about.

His ardor is undimmed. In fact he seems to like her feistiness. Maybes he's into domineering chicks. At any rate he throws even more energy into the dance, and thus attracts another male sparrow.

The pair becomes a trio, which enrages Ms. Sparrow even more. She goes after each one in turn, pecking, biting, pulling feathers, slamming them with her wings and doing karate kicks with her little feet.

The dancers get even more excited by her rejection. But now the first one decides number two suitor is one competitor too many. One attacks Two and knocks him to the ground. They roll around screaming curses at each other.

The lady sparrow flies away but the fight continues. I go out to break it up but they just fly far enough away for comfort and start hitting, pecking, kicking and screaming again. Oh well, what do you do? I get the feeling that sparrows are not good candidates for Buddhahood.

News Flash

Woman takes advice and avoids a great deal of work.

Yesterday when neighbours Flo and Yvonne toured TP II they had individual and collective fits over my plans to paint all the (many many) cabinets and cupboards in TPII white.

Friends Pat and Claude, who'd seen the trailer shortly after we bought it had said, "Paint it white! Oak cupboards and you are going to paint them white??!!

This morning I went over to continue fitting Refectix into the cupboards, and neighbours Jim and Bill asked for a tour.

"White!," they said incredulously, shaking their heads like two bobble-head dolls on the back shelf of a 4 x 4. "You can't paint those beautiful oak cabinets white! That's a crime! A little polish and those oak cabinets will be show stoppers."

Okay, okay, I get it. Everyone but me thinks I am crazy (which is a subject for another discussion altogether).

After Jim and Bill left I sat in my little rocker, stared at the flames in the red stove, and looked at the approximately 65 running feet of cabinet. One brush stroke and I can't go back. I think about the time I have to finish this job. I think about my energy level and how it cannot be depended on. I decide to leave the oak cabinets oak. I can always paint them - next year - if I find I can't live with the wood.

Suddenly there's a lot less to do and my stress level has dropped by a factor of 10. I still plan to replace the carpet with hard floors and paper the paneled walls in the living room and bedroom. But papering is quick and very easy, compared to removing the cabinet doors and hardware, stripping, sanding, priming and painting, then replacing the hardware and doors. (What was I thinking? I must have been CRAZY!)

Gilding the Lily

Our neighbour Mike moved Tinpalace II from storage into a space almost directly across from us this morning.

First a systems check, and so far everything we've checked looks and functions fine. (Knock on wood) We haven't turned on the water yet, so that is yet to come.

As soon as it was set up I took a screwdriver and removed an oddly placed magazine rack which was preventing me from putting the little electric firplace/stove where I wanted it. I tried to take out the cabinets we are going to remove, but my arms are not long enough to reach the screws.

I was itching to do something, so Tony suggested that I could begin cutting and fitting in the Reflectix insulation. Oh happy day! A project!

We are insulating inside every cupboard, as we did in TPI. So I went to work and within a couple of hours I had the insulation cut for the living room cupboards, the upper kitchen cupboards and part of the lower cupboards.

My neighbours Flo and Yvonne had a tour and both said they'd leave the kitchen cupboards in the original wood, but I want them white, and white they shall be. I am not fond of dark wood cabinetry.

So that was my day, the start of gilding the lily. Hopefully I won't be too sore to continue with the reflectix tomorrow.

How Zen

The hours are ticking down until we move Tinpalace II from storage to a lot her in the park, and start working on her. I can hardly wait!

I've made several buying trips... eeek... but we have most of the basics in hand now, primer and paint, some wallpaper, new bedding since the bed is a queen-size and we got rid of all our queen-size bedding ages ago.

Today we worked very hard organizing the several boxes of loose hardware we have accumulated. You know, when you have a box of 100 3/4" wood screws, but can't remember where, so you buy another box of 100? Well, I got one of those 60 drawer plastic hardware organizers and we spent several hours separating the various types of hardware, putting them in drawers and labeling them. Now, unless we lose the entire cabinet, we are organized.

I packed about half our books into a couple of boxes and got rid of a stack of old magazines. What possessed me to buy a copy of "Hobby Farmer" do you suppose? I have no idea. I have neither a hobby or a farm.

All around us neighbours are preparing to move. One couple has bought a home in a nearby town. Another lost her husband a month ago, and is doing the clean-out and pitch routine in preparation to move to a condo near her children back east, others are just thinking ahead a few weeks, when they will be pulling out and heading for the "summer" home.

This means a lot of stuff is changing hands. "Could you use this?" is a phrase heard frequently. I am the owner of a brand-new and very expensive French "Plein-Air" easel, as a neighbour had two and prefers the other one. I've drooled over these easels for years but never had the $200-$300 to spend on so frivolous a purchase. But it is a beauty and I will enjoy using it! It may motivate me to take up my pastels again.

The other thing I'm dreaming about is the potential gardening in the new site. It's a tiny site. My space for gardening is probably no more than eight feet wide and 35 feet deep. It's sure to have deep shade much of the day, as we have two large trees in the site and a third right behind us. Not many flowers thrive in such deep shade, but for years I've longed to build a Japanese garden, primarily moss, stone, raked gravel and a few specimen plants. This ought to be just the ticket.

I had to have been a Japanese monk in a former life. There is nothing else that evokes in me the profound sense of recognition I find in old Japanese houses and gardens. I guess Buddhism was an eventuality, although it took me almost 60 years to come to that point, though I began to study it while still in high school about 1000 years ago.

Anyway my garden plans will almost certainly be a challenge. There's nothing any less architecturally "appropriate" to a Zen garden than a travel trailer parked on a tiny lot in an RV park. But I can't wait to get there and sit down to design the whole thing. Oh, this promises to be a fun summer!

A Moving Post

I hate to jinx anything, but I think we may have turned the corner on winter and are heading into spring! Hooray!

It was warm yesterday, not just not so cold if you are bundled up and walking briskly, but warm enough to sit on the bench outside in the sun and enjoy it. Along the wall of the cabin next door the daffodils are poking little green blades up through the ground.

A week from today we move the new trailer over from storage and begin working on it. We will paint, paper, install new flooring, put in shelving and have a washer and dryer installed. We have three weeks to complete the redo, then we start moving our stuff from here to there. Once it is empty we will touch up and clean Tinpalace I and get it ready for its new owner. March will be a very busy month!


I feel like Sal's expression in this photo of him. While the idea of being in the new trailer is enticing, the idea of moving is less so. I have to admit it. We're losers. We put things away and lose them, sometimes for years at a time, especially when we move. Our favorite trick is to so efficiently put something away that we have to buy a replacement for it. This is usually a sure-fire way of finding a lost item.

So this time we did something we've often threatened to do, but have never had time for. We bought a photo album with plastic sleeves, the kind you slide the photos into. We assigned each drawer, cabinet, cupboard, closet and cubby in Tinpalace II with a number, and made up an index card for each one.

The theory is that we will make a note of what is stored in each spot, and mark it on the corresponding card, so that instead of unloading every closet and cupboard every time we misplace something, all we will need do is look at the index cards. I hope this works.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Thinking about it gives me a headache. I know there are things that need to be done, but doing them is a bit of a challenge. I'm thinking boxes - pack things we don't need right now (like extra towels, linens, books, etc.) into boxes, in categories, noting where each item should go into in the new trailer. Where to start? (You would ask!) I don't know. Maybe I'll go into retreat until this is all over, but if I did that it would never be over.

I bought a very brightly coloured photo album, so I'm less likely to lose it. (Or so the theory goes.) Check back in six months to see if the system works.

Eagle Eyes

The last few days have been good ones for birding. Even though it's still way too early for nesting the snarky little purple finches have begun to scrap over girlfriends. We were treated a spectacular aerial dogfight yesterday morning as three bright red male finches vied for the attention of a lone female.

Right now there's a male English sparrow doing his darndest to have a dust bath in the frozen ground. For a few hours, as the snow melted, there was a small puddle in the garden. The water must have been a near-freezing, but you'd have thought it was a world-class spa. There was pushing and shoving as sparrows and finches fought for splashing space.

We have an orange house finch. He is a beautiful clear orange, almost orange sherbert colour. House finches are usually red and look much like the purple finch. The orange colour is a variant, apparently rare, caused by a lack of carotenoids in the diet. Researchers studying House Finches in captivity found the red feathers were replaced by yellow ones unless a carotenoid pigment was mixed in with their food during molt. The pigment was mixed in to determine the cause of the color variation. House finch females are supposed to prefer red males over orange ones, but I can't see why. This guy is a stunner!

The day begins with the dark-eyed Oregon juncos showing up as the sky lightens. They are early risers and begin feeding as soon as you can see. Flickers are back and forth daily. We see their vibrant golden-red wings as they fly over. Chickadees come and go as well. They dart in, grab a sunflower seed from the feeder and dart away.

The Canada geese have been doing fly-overs several times a day, in groups of three or four to 50 or more. Wednesday I watched two trumpeter swans sail past side-by-side, huge white wings doing a slow downbeat. They winter on nearby Vaseaux Lake.

Newcomers to the garden this week have been a red-winged blackbird and two Townsend's solitaires birds I'd never seen before. They sat for a very long time on the brush pile, giving me plenty of time to get the bird glass and take a very close look.

On our way to Penticton on Tuesday we saw a bald eagle flying low over the lake, probably doing a spot of fishing. And just as you enter Penticton, on the beach, sat either an immature bald eagle or golden eagle. Huge, but brown-headed. It was sitting on a thin ice-sheet just beyond the water's edge, with a few gulls. No doubt all looking for a fish dinner.

I am already thinking about what I can do to make my new garden in Summerland attractive to birds. Water - maybe a small birdbath with a circulating fountain, cover - I think a lattice shelter, sort of a cube set on the ground beneath the feeder, would serve both as a landing spot and refuge from predators. Flowers and grasses which hang onto their seed for winter. Something fragrant for hummers and butterflies... I'm having fun in my mind. Lots easier than the hard work of actually building a new garden.

Speaking of work...

Susan and Things That Go Bump in the Night

My friend Susan at A Thousand Wordsworth mused in her latest post about the friendly spirit that seemed to live in their previous home, and her encounter with him.

It's a nice story, and brought to mind my own propensity for seeing things which aren't (technically speaking) actually there.

This little quirk of mine began in childhood, and it's happened quite a few times, but this story happened one bitterly cold February night in Calgary. I was sitting in the living room in my rocker, reading. The living room and dining room were one long space, there was an arched doorway about midway down the wall leading to a short passageway, with stairs going up to the left to the upstairs bedrooms. The other side of the passageway opened into the kitchen, where Tony and the boys were at the table working on some kind of project. The kitchen door opened onto a set of stairs which went down to the garage level, where the outside door was.

I looked up from my book to see a boy of six or seven standing in the archway, one hand on the door frame. He was dressed in woolen pants which buckled just below the knee, dark socks and high-topped brown shoes, a short woolen suit jacket, a white shirt and a sort of "pork-pie" billed hat.

He was not dressed for the -30 temperatures outside and my first thought was he was a neighborhood child who'd found himself locked out and had come to our house for shelter. But he was dressed so strangely. And he hadn't come through the front door to my left, so he must have come through the kitchen, yet Tony and the boys hadn't said anything.

He just stood there looking back at me with steady dark eyes. I laid my book down and stood up, I don't remember exactly what I said to him, something like, "Are you okay?" or "Are you cold?" because I thought he must have come in from outside.

I began to walk toward him, a distance of some 10 feet. But with each step he seemed to grow more transparent until by the time I reached the spot where he'd been standing he was entirely gone! I flipped on the light to the stairs and went up to the bedrooms, but he wasn't there. I went into the kitchen, where Tony and the boys said they hadn't seen him, and he certainly hadn't come through the kitchen door.

It was years later when a cousin dropped off an old suitcase she'd found in her mother's attic. In it were photos from the 1860s onward. In one, taken about 1912 my father and his brothers were dressed exactly as that little boy had been. I can't say that the child in the doorway was my father, who had passed away the previous November, but it certainly looked like him.

That house was a duplex. We were in one side and Tony's mother was in the other. It certainly had its share of spooks. One morning my mother-in-law got up and reported that Tony's father, dead 20 years, had come into her room in the night, sat on the bed and talked to her, telling her they'd be together again soon.

And another winter evening I was in my rocker, this time working on a quilt, when I saw Tony's mother's cat Hobo run the length of the dining room, run past me in the living room, jump onto the fireplace mantle and disappear through the wall. I looked up at the clock and it was 7:30.

The only thing that made this remarkable, aside from the fact that Hobo jumped into the wall and went right through, was the fact that he'd died the previous summer. He was a sweet little guy, a blue-eyed white cat and deaf as a post. Tony's mom felt so badly about his death. He caught his collar on the top of the fence and hung himself.

The morning after I saw Hobo's ghost, with his little blue collar, I went over to see Tony's mom, as I often did. We had a cup of tea and chatted, then she said, "You won't believe me, but I was lying here on the sofa last night with a book, and suddenly Hobo jumped right out of the wall over the mantelpiece, jumped down, ran across the room, jumped onto the dining room table, to the buffet and right out through the wall!"

I asked her what time, and she said, "7:30." I told I had no trouble believing her, because he'd run through our place first.
---

Years later we lived in an apartment in a high-rise. We had two cats, the smaller Freddy and larger (dominant) Patches. Tony was going through a difficult time and tended to have violent seizure-like attacks during sleep. So we slept in separate beds. Freddy liked to sleep with Tony but Patches took exception to that, and would chase Freddy out of the bedroom.

But in the night I'd often feel a soft little bounce as Freddy jumped on my bed and nestled in the crook of my knees, purring and kneading the covers. I thought nothing of this until one early morning when I awoke to find Patches curled up at my side, and saw Freddy nestled next to Tony in his bed.

With a bit of a start I realized that "Freddy", or a cat I'd taken to be Freddy, was stilled curled into the crook of my knees. I reached down and though I could feel the weight against the covers, and the purring, there was no cat there.

This happened so regularly I lost count. The little invisible cat would come to sleep in the curl of my knees several nights a week, and we soon called it "spirit cat". I felt kind of bad when we moved, and hoped the next tenants wouldn't mind being snuggled by a spirit.

----

When Freddy was a kitten and young cat he loved anything red. Red flowers were his favorite thing. He would pull a flower from a bouquet and carry it around for hours, crooning to it, licking it, batting it back and forth. To save my flower arrangements I finally bought a spray of red silk rosebuds. I plucked them off the stem and when he'd love one to pieces I'd give him a new one. He never seemed to tire of red flowers.

But time passed and he grew older and a great deal more serious. His red flower days were left behind. When he was 14 he got lymphoma and with great sadness we had to say goodbye to this sweet boy. I was devastated by his loss. I get really very attached to my animal companions and losing them is very hard.

The morning after his death I came out of the bathroom and there sat Freddy in the doorway to our bedroom, sleek and healthy, young and beautiful as he'd ever been. He was there for only a second, then he vanished.

But in the spot where he'd been sitting was a single red silk rosebud.

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Courage in the Face of Teeth

Yesterday was sunny, warm and quite lovely. Predictably the marmalade-colored cat asked to go for a walk, so I put his harness and leash on and out we went. He was interested primarily in his own space, so he went from place to place in the front garden - sniff sniff sniff.

Then my neighbour Florence came along, walking another neighbour's very large mutt, a dubious combo of German Shepard and visitor-in-the-night named "Tex". This is a huge, young and very hard-to-control animal, and the neighbour is 74 and small.

Salvadore had been investigating a tree, in front of our truck, at the front end of the trailer, and was out of sight of the dog and Florence. So Flo came over for a chat.

"I've got the cat here," I said to her several times. "Don't bring the dog over! Don't let the dog get closer, don't bring the dog....."

At this point Tex saw Salvador and bolted for him. Now there are some things in this world that are just plain stupid, one of them tiny dog leashes the diameter of a pencil lead. These may be fine for a four-pound poodle, but they are not appropriate restraints for 100 pounds of excited dog.

Flo had these wee leash wrapped around her right hand, and a loop of it caught around the little finger and sliced as effectively as a knife. It wasn't so much a matter of her holding onto him, as not being able to let go.

Tex ran to within a foot of Salvadore, who had inflated like a blowfish and was wild-eyed and growling, fangs showing. Tex bared his teeth but stopped to consider his options. This cat-thing wasn't running, it was standing its ground and threatening him!

In that instant I grabbed the dog's collar, and while I struggled to restrain him Flo untangled herself, holding up a blood-filled palm, dripping. While I held the dog Salvador backed away, still puffed and spiky. When he'd reached the far side of the trailer her turned and ran. A few seconds later he reappeared at the other end of the trailer, obviously trying to make it to the door and safety.

Tony had come out by this time and, at my urging, calmed Sal a bit then picked him up and took him inside. With the cat gone Tex relaxed. Flo ran for a towel and we surveyed the damage. Her pinky finger was open to the glistening white tendons for three-quarters of its circumference. I offered to drive her to the hospital but another neighbour had just come home from town and the car was out and ready.

In the ER she was given a tetanus shot, but the wound wasn't stitched closed. It would have been hard to do, as it was right in the crease of the joint. She has gone back to have the wound checked, to make sure there's no infection. We'll see how it goes. It was pretty sore last night.

Salvadore was visibly upset by this encounter, and required a lot of mama-time afterwards. He didn't ask to go out today. He was content to watch out the window while I filled the bird feeders this morning.

Later in the day Tony and I took the wallpaper books I'd brought home from the decorating center over to Tinpalace II and held each one up to the walls and furniture. We didn't like the one we thought we wanted, a charcoal grey and white stripe, or the two alternatives, a pale beige pattern, or a blue pattern, but chose this one. The background is varying mocha and caramel, the branches sort of a weak coffee colour, the blossoms white with pink-to-cranberry specks in the center and teal leaves. Since the furniture is teal with a pinkish pattern it pulls in those colours well.

We'll put this paper on the bottom of the walls, which are now reddish fake paneling. We'll paint the chair rail (and all the woodwork and cabinetry) white, and replace the nasty teal carpet with dark plank flooring. The oatmeal-coloured linen above the chair rail will stay.

We have a fair amount of work ahead of us, but it will be really nice once it's done. Completely unlike the dark interior the trailer has now.

Mama Said There'd be Days....

Thankfully I don't have this kind of day often or I'd just go out and find a sidewalk to leap from. I feel like I've eaten a peck of cockleburrs.

It's laughable really. We live quite successfully in a very tiny space but some days it seems all we do is knock each other around like a couple of billiard balls. Both of us are slightly weak today, which in practical terms means we tend to lose our balance easily, trip over shadows, fall into anything we look at, and drop anything we pick up.

Usually it's one or the other of us that is like this, which creates a sort of manageable chaos. Today it's both of us, and it's more like a carnival of the addled. My poor husband has been veering from pillar to post all morning, like the proverbial bull in the china shop, and since I have been too we have collided more than once. Things have been spilled, crashes have occurred and there's been some blood shed while wrestling with overzealous packaging.

I went to town first thing this morning. I wanted to take advantage of a very good sale to buy two nightstands for the new trailer. Pretty little things which will fit in the tight spot available on either side of the bed. Each has four square drawers which will be handy for the flotsam and jetsam you can't seem to live without.

Then I went to the grocery store and filled a cart. Although we run out of many things we never seem to run out of appetite! We could do with less of that actually. Time to think about calories and portion control - sigh.

But even with my padding I am still an attractive woman, or so it would seem. As I loaded my groceries the man in the truck adjacent climbed out, came over and struck up a conversation. He was a voluminously bearded Russian and said he really liked my haircut. He wanted to know how old I was, and said I didn't look a day over 50! (That was a letdown I'll tell you. No woman under 95 wants to be told she doesn't look a day over 50!)

Well, turns out the gentleman (a very spry 84) was very much interested in acquiring a girlfriend. (Apparently old ain't dead.) He showed me his all-original though not in mint condition teeth. He assured me he was easy to take care of as he cut his own hair and would eat almost anything. He talked about how nice he was, although it was a little hard to understand him, as I was growing dizzy from the vodka fumes.

I felt like a deer caught in a crossbeam. I told him he looked young for 84, but I was a married lady, and I bolted for my truck. I have never mastered the graceful exit.

When I told this little tale to Tony he reminded me that when I was in my late 30s and spending a lot of time in the library researching a book I was followed around the library by a man day after day. I finally grew anxious about it and asked the librarians to keep an eye on me. He kept ducking behind shelves and peering at me through the stacks. After four or five days of this we eventually met face-to-face in an aisle and I realized he was just a boy, no more than 14 or 15.

He stammered, "Wanna go onna date?"

I was dumbfounded. I blurted out, "I have kids older than you!"

He sort of yelped, "Oh Jezuz, I thought you was 14!" and turned and ran. The poor thing. (But at least he said I didn't look a day over 14 - not 50!) I have a devastating effect on men, and not in the "Hollywood" sense. Loose cannon comes to mind.

Oh well, I think the cockleburrs are subsiding, and if I can get up and get to the sink without knocking Tony down, or being knocked down by him, I'll do the dishes and get on with the day.