Between Denial and Despair

My Faithful Reader wrote:

"I don't know if you have been watching the political coverage of the conventions...but I was wondering if you might take to your blog and give us your faithful readers your perspective?"

Oh dear oh dear. How can I remain zen-like with such a challenge? (Hint: It ain't gonna happen.) I admit I watched parts of the Democratic Convention, but there's was not enough Gravol in BC to induce me to watch the Republican Convention.

John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as Vice-Presidential Candidate was so cynical it is absolutely mind-boggling. Gender aside, this is a person with NO national political experience and not a clue about foreign policy. Her only "qualifications" are:

1) She is a adamantly opposed to abortion under any circumstance unless the woman's life is in immediate danger. The 12-year-old rape or incest victim is shi* out of luck.
2) She is a long-time member of the National Rifle Association, who has enormous political power in the US, and
3) She's eager to move drilling rigs into one of the world's most pristine and fragile ecosystems, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

These three positions attract some powerful political allies. And probably the best part is, that like "W", she would have to rely entirely on "advisors". I see political marionette written in big red letters across this woman's forehead.

With nine percent of Americans currently in the process of losing their homes, jobless rates soaring, young Americans and Canadians dying on Middle Eastern battlefields in appalling numbers, 45% of Americans without health care insurance and energy prices at an all time high it seems to me that it's time for a new direction in Washington. In fact it's time for a new direction in almost every government in the world.

We need to return to local economies for food, building materials, and many kinds of manufactured goods. I see logging trucks go by, one hauls logs north, 30 seconds later one goes by headed south. Both trucks are probably hauling logs to the coast, where they will be shipped to China to be milled and then shipped back to BC at an astronomical cost, both to the consumer and to the environment.

We have the technology to have business meetings and medical conferences without ever leaving our offices, and if nothing else has convinced us to use it, the price of a ticket to Cleveland may.

Barack Obama is moving in the right direction when he says it's time to invest BILLIONS of dollars in renewable, green energy. He proposes to create five million new jobs by investing $150 billion over the next ten years to encourage private efforts to produce clean energy. His goals are commendable but too modest.

And since Stephen Harper is going to dissolve Parliament and call an election here at home within the next day or two, I was looking at the Conservative Party of Canada's "Green Plan" today, the goal of which is to "reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020 and cut air pollution in half by 2015." You know, with 34 million people in this country it's pathetic that Stephen Harper is the best leader we can come up with. I won't even mention the sad leaders of the other parties, fine people all of them but between them they couldn't get up enough spark to couldn't light dry tinder.

Sweden has only nine million people, but they must be of stellar quality, because they certainly appear to have better leadership than countries many times their size. Their goal is to be powered by 100% pollution and nuclear -free renewable energy by 2020. That's 12 years from now. The Western Harbor Development in the Swedish city of Malmo has already accomplished this goal.

Let's go back a bit. The economy has done a major nose-dive in the past year. If we back track carefully we come to an inescapable conclusion. We have hit the energy wall, and the real costs of our lifestyles are becoming painfully apparent not only in economic but in environmental terms. Meanwhile, we sit, as Al Gore said, "Between denial and despair." How the hell are we going to get out of this mess we've made? It's not going to be by casting a vote for a politician who has the lofty goal of reducing emissions 20% by 2020.

Our buildings gobble energy and produce 50% of carbon emissions. Yet we are still building houses as if we lived in the 19th century. Worse, building codes force us to build homes which waste energy and water and dump our pollutants into our water supplies.

From this day forward EVERY new building built should meet an environmental standard which includes building with locally available materials. Existing homes should be upgraded to a new environmental standard as much as is practical.

Homes should be heavily insulated and oriented to take the best advantage of sunlight. EVERY new building should utilize some form of composting toilet and include a grey-water recycling system. In Sweden it's been illegal to install a water-flush toilet for years. Not only do toilets waste water which has been treated at great expense, they carry chemicals and excreted medications into the eco-system. The fertility rate of young men has dropped by 50% since 1930, and it's believed that one major factor is estrogen and estrogen-like compounds in the water we drink.

EVERY new building should have a combination of solar and wind power to generate its own electricity. New vertical axis wind turbines which begin to produce power at wind speeds of five miles per hour will soon make wind power available to almost any homeowner, and certainly to developers.

EVERY new building should be heated and cooled with a geothermal system. Geothermal systems are the worlds most advanced and most cost-efficient heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems.

This applies to plants and factories as well. Clean up your industry or fire the CEO who can't make it happen and find someone who can.

Environmental stewardship extends into almost every decision we make, in every dollar we spend, in every bag of garbage we produce, and even at the ballot box. Politicians need to be told, repeatedly, that we expect real leadership of them, and if they are not prepared to offer it, we may advertise in a Stockholm newspaper for leaders who will.

It's a Green Party!

Because inquiring minds have asked for it, here is a photo of my incredibly simple laundry-basket composter. You will recall that this plastic ready-for-the-dumpster basket has greedily consumed all our kitchen and garden scraps and trimmings all summer.

I'd tried composting before, with a commercial composting bin, but it was too large for me to handle, and it didn't work well. This system is just the right size for a two-person family. The basket already had holes in the bottom, and of course had a mesh pattern on the sides, so air access was good and any excess moisture could drain out the bottom.

I started with a layer of sticks in the bottom, added some composted manure/soil mix from a bag, spread my kitchen scraps on top and covered them with a layer of the bagged soil. After the layers built up a bit I would just pull the top layer of soil back, dump in the scraps, and scratch the soil back over them. Other than that I have watered it occasionally and put my grass clippings and garden bits on top to dehydrate a bit before covering them up. There's never been any odor. The basket sits right under my bedroom window so if it smelled I'd be the first to know about it.

The compost is now so bio-active it practically reaches up and grabs any offerings I bring. In three or four days most kitchen scraps completely disappear. It even eats corn cobs! It is black and crumbly and will be a fantastic addition to the garden next spring. Best of all it's kept all those scraps out of the garbage!

The Question That He Frames

In all but words,

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

The Oven Bird ~ Robert Frost

---------

The campground is empty. Two weeks ago the park was bursting with people, alive with children's shouts, the whir and buzz of bike tires and skateboard wheels. You had to thread your way carefully through the maze of cars, boats and trailers. Today it's quiet enough to park your car in the middle of the street, get out and go visit with your neighbour.

Mornings are cool enough to make the warmth from the fireplace not only pleasant but necessary. In the garden there are still lots of blossoms but almost everything is going to seed, shrinking back, drawing in. Leaves look ragged and bleached out, like old clothes hung in the sun too long.

I tour the garden in the chill morning sun, taking just a few more pictures. The change is probably not even perceptible to someone who doesn't know every plant as well as a life-long friend.

What do we make of a diminished thing? Quietly but steadily, family members who were the nucleus of my world when I was a child have disappeared. I have a brother left. His heart is failing. He is tethered to an oxygen line and is house bound. He is caregiver for his wife who is trapped in the living death that is advanced Alzheimer's. She is a fragile shell which requires the same level of care as a newborn. He feeds and changes her, bathes her, combs her hair and sings to her with exquisite tenderness. They have been married 54 years. He refuses to put her in a nursing home. "My bride," he says, "My bride doesn't want to go to that place."

He is not up to the task of caring for her, even with help. His doctors and his children want both of them to go to the nursing home, but he refuses, partly because they would be placed in separate wings of the building. He clings to the home they built together, putting up with incredible inconvenience and discomfort, while their daughter tries to care for the two of them, care for her own family, and hold down a job.

What do we make of life when our options are diminished? There are no easy answers. We live day-by-day, making of the time what we can. Moment by moment life unfolds. While many fade as flowers in autumn, some have learned along the way to embellish with joy the diminished thing. Joy is a lesson that must be learned before the challenges of autumn and winter begin.

Cycles and Cycles

There have been so few bees this year I've had to pollinate the squash blossoms myself. Until last week I'd seen one bee, and that one was skinny and miserable-looking. Only in the last week have fat, furry, active bees shown up in the garden. I captured a picture of this one only this morning. But Summer glides toward Fall. Though the days are "hot like Hell", to quote a man in the parking lot at the grocer's today, the days are growing shorter. Where the light lingered until 11:00 pm in late June and early July, now it's dark by 9:00.

In the garden the summer's second clutch of robins are now flying clumsily from branch to branch. At this moment a mother robin is stuffing her youngster with worms she's pulling out of the ground like spaghetti.

Beneath the tree in the front we've had wave after wave of mushrooms, of several different types. They are amazing to watch. Some grow so fast you can see them expand. Some were delicate, almost transparent, with sinuous curves like the fleshy edge of a clam. Others looked like your typical grocery store brown mushroom but within hours the caps flattened, flared out and split. Others were shaggy, almost hairy.

Salvador has a cat friend down the way. His friend is a big fluffy grey cat named Elvis. Sal walks down most days to visit with Elvis. A "visit" consists of the two of them touching noses and then lying down two or three feet apart and ignoring each other. While Sal is allowed outside only on a leash, Elvis is the park's mouser. He is allowed to run free.

Elvis comes up to visit Sal at night, sitting outside Sal's enclosure. Last night he brought Sal a mouse as a gift, which he left outside. I was watering the garden when Sal discovered this gift. He lay with his paw on it for a long time, but (thank goodness) had no interest in eating it. We eventually lured him away with the promise of a "cookie", and our neighbour used his grabber to pick the mouse up and dispose of it.

In our continuing efforts to green up I turned an old laundry basket into a composter. It's been very successful, and it has devoured almost all our kitchen scraps all summer, keeping them out of the garbage bin. I started by tossing some sticks in the basket. Then I put some purchased manure/potting soil mix on the sticks, and added my scraps and some grass clippings from the day's mowing.

I have an old ice bucket with a snugly fitting lid which sits near the sink. I put all my peels, trimmings and leftovers (except meat) in the bucket and when it's full I take it out to the composter. The first few times I simply scattered the trimmings over the top of the stuff that was there, and covered them with an inch layer of the bagged soil mix. When it got about half full I just started pulling back the top layer, stirring the bottom up a bit, adding the trimmings and pulling the top layer back over the top. I water it lightly every four or five days, and it's never smelled or attracted bugs.

The resulting soil is now very bioactive. I dump the scrap bucket into the basket and within three or four days there's nothing recognizable left. It eats up pepper steams and apple cores, corn cobs, onion peels, banana peels, even egg shells. The compost in that laundry basket is black and will be almost unbelievably rich next spring. We're now eating tomatoes, squash, herbs and even the occasional green bean from our little garden. Next year I will plant more vegetables in the very sunny hot space at the south end of the trailer, and this compost should be the perfect growing medium.

One afternoon this week I looked down and saw an enormous Antheraea polyphemus moth. Its wingspan was the length of my hand. These moths emerge from their cocoons in the afternoon, breed in the evening and die within hours. They do not feed, in fact they have no mouths or digestive systems. They are lovely creatures, and I enjoyed seeing this one.

There was a very serious accident on the road late this afternoon. A car struck one of the park residents who was crossing the road on her bike. Our next door neighbour saw the accident and called 911. There was a paramedic in the car behind the vehicle which struck the woman. He immediately began to administer CPR, but our neighbour said she was so severely injured that she appeared to be beyond help. She was a quiet woman. She kept to herself and didn't socialize but she was a neighbour, and her death will come as a shock and a tragedy to those who loved her, her children, her grandchildren.

Death comes, for the moth, the mouse, and for us. But life comes again too, not necessarily in the same form, but transformed by a very active universe. The cycle continues as it has for untold ages, and though the fabric of the world is rent, it is also continually rewoven and repaired.

Beware the Blind Spot!

Admittedly these pictures don't go with the post. I've taken many photos of the flowers in my garden, and my neighbour's garden, over the last week and I wanted to share them. But you can witter on about how beautiful the flowers are just so long and almost the first thing I heard this morning was the unmistakable honking scream of two heavy metal bodies colliding at high speed. I looked out the back window to the highway and saw a mid-size red car doing what might be called ballet of a sort; spinning like an out-of-control dancer across the four lanes of pavement. It came to a stop with its nose pointed toward the cliff, about 20 feet off the shoulder.

There appeared to be a crumpled red parachute lying on the hood. No one moved inside for what seemed to be a long time, but at least there were no bodies on the highway that I could see, nor anyone hanging through the windshield. I recoiled as I thought of the dozens of cyclists who pedal past here every day, only a foot or two from passing traffic. It was unclear if the red thing on the hood was a cyclist, but no one seemed to pay it any attention, so I assumed it wasn't.

I could not see another vehicle, but there is a line of cedars along the road, so the view is occluded. My next thought was that a dog from the campground, or maybe a deer, had run in front of the car. God forbid that one of the dozens of little kids who are here now had gotten up on the road. By now several men from the campground were jigging impatiently at the edge of the highway, waiting for a break in the traffic, so they could get to the wrecked car. I couldn't believe that no one had stopped, no one even slowed down. Cars and trucks continued to hurtle past at 100 klicks or more.

By now the car's occupants were crawling out the passenger side. No one appeared to be badly hurt, though a girl of 11 or 12 appeared to have a broken arm or shoulder. Otherwise everyone was alternately moving and clinging to each other.

There was still no sign that another vehicle had been involved, nothing that I could see which might have caused the accident. An ambulance arrived and took the injured child away. The driver sat against the trunk with his face in his hands. One of the women started taking pictures of the car.

Some 15 minutes later man arrived carrying a zipper case, and a cell phone. Papers were spread out on the hood. He took pictures. Then the RCMP arrived, and just like that traffic slowed dramatically.

My neighbour had been at the office, which is just below the highway and the site of the accident, when it happened. I called out and asked what had happened, if they'd hit something?

He answered, "No, he went to pass a loaded logging truck, he got into the truck's blind spot and the truck driver changed lanes and hit him. Lucky they weren't all killed. It took the driver all the way to Peach Orchard Road to stop his rig. Took him all that time to walk back here."

Peach Orchard Road is a very long way away. But the weight behind a logging truck loaded with 50 ft. poles is enormous. That much weight doesn't stop on a dime. I can only imagine what that poor guy was thinking as he made his way back to the car he'd hit. He must have wondered what he would find as the ambulance and RCMP screamed past him.

They turned the car around. The crumpled parachute was the hood on the driver's side. The driver's side doors were in a similar state. Six inches from death. Thankfully there had been no oncoming traffic as he spiraled like a top across the road. Traffic is heavy this time of year. We waited almost five minutes for a break in traffic yesterday, so we could turn onto the highway. Next time I'll drive down the much longer back route and catch the light. Less taxing on the heart.

Passing a huge truck is a crap shoot at the best of times, but unless the driver of the red car was asleep at the wheel the accident was clearly the truck driver's fault. You never change lanes without monitoring the traffic behind you for some time before you make the swing. And no motorist in their right mind stays in a truck's blind spot for any longer than it takes to get out of it. It's a two second zone-of-death that may very well be your last if you aren't careful.

There were five - no six - lucky people on the road this morning. They all lived to talk about it and that is not always the case when logging trucks and passenger vehicles compete for the same space on the road.

And to finish with a flourish, a photo of our big red boy, enjoying himself in the garden on a sunny afternoon. You can tell by his expression how happy and relaxed he is. He doesn't drive.

Fruit Fruit Wonderful Fruit!

Ringing in a full month behind schedule because of our extended cold wet spring, the cherries are finally ripe!!! Does anyone want to join me in a rousing version of the Hallelujah Chorus?

We stopped at a nearby produce stand on our way into town yesterday and came out loaded with local bounty. Cherries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, peaches, nectarines, bananas, tomatoes, corn on the cob, new potatoes... it seems that everything has arrived at once. And last night, a neighbouring farmer brought boxes of yellow cherries around in the back of a truck. I rushed out and bought two boxes to put in the dryer.

I'd bought a box of dead ripe tomatoes cheap yesterday and made tomato sauce with them last night. Today I pitted and cut up cherries until I'd filled the dehydrator. They are drying as I type.

But first, because they were so beautiful, I piled a couple of big handfuls on a platter and took a picture. A pile of jewels couldn't be prettier.

Speaking of "jewels", Sal is always fascinated by reflections so when I saw a little cut crystal "rainbow-maker" pendant at the bulk food store yesterday I grabbed it. I hung it in the window where the morning sun hits it. The room is full of inch-long rainbows which shimmer any time the pendant moves. Sal didn't know which way to turn, or which rainbow to grab.

I mentioned to my brother that I was drying cherries, and that last year I'd dried a lot of nectarines and peaches and he told me that our mother dried a lot of fruit when he was a boy. She'd soak them overnight and use them to make fried pies. By the time I came along the food shortages that went with WWII were over. The fried pies she made for me were filled with apple butter or jam. My mouth is watering.

Have you ever had a fried pie? You roll a four inch circle of pie crust, put a fruit mixture in the middle then fold the dough to form a half circle. Moisten the edges with milk and pinch them together, slash the top surface of the dough in three or four spots to allow the steam to escape and fry in an inch of hot fat until it's browned on both sides, turning it very carefully to avoid splashing yourself with hot fat. Once the pie is brown you use a pancake turner to ease it onto a plate and dust it liberally with berry sugar. Don't weigh yourself after a treat like this. It's not worth the heartbreak. This is food that sighs, "Mother..."

I didn't make these for my kids that I remember. I was a health food nut from when the eldest one was a toddler, and almost anything they ate was disgustingly healthy and vegetarian to boot. I wonder if they will have have fond memories of mother's soy-nut patties or lentil loaf? Probably not, though Zak admits to the occasional yearning for tofu hot dogs and what we used to call sweet and sour monkey meat.

Which reminds me, best go check on the progress of the cherries and make sure I'm not getting them too dry - making cherry chips and flakes.

Into the Here, the Heretofore and the Hereafter

I haven't fallen in a well, I've just mostly been indulging in my occasionally obsessive pursuit of dead ancestors. Sometimes they reach out from the Great Beyond and rattle my cage, reminding me that though I am entirely their production, I know little or nothing about too many of them.

If anyone recognizes the brevity of life and its significance it must be the genealogist. I have in the past 30 years accumulated an enormous amount of information, documents and stories. Some of the stories are generations old, handed on to me for safekeeping, for recording and remembering. For example, this photo was taken 105 years ago, and my father, who was three years old at the time, and indeed, everyone in it, is gone.

My family happens to be an oddity because in almost every line the generational span is far longer than the average. These are one of my sets of great-grandparents, Wm Cavel and Susan Shave Cavel. Both were born in Southern England in the 1840s. Their parents were born in 1810-1820. I look at my brother, who is 79 years old and has four living generations of descendants. If I could speak to my great-great-grandparents I'd be speaking to people born 180 years ago!

The world has changed beyond recognition in those 180 years. They travelled by horse and buggy, read six-month-old newspapers, lived in log cabins with no plumbing and no electricity, had no automobiles, radios, TVs, telephone or internet, and no ice cream. Much of what surrounds me would be totally foreign to them, as unfathomable as magic.

They were not all saints, though I understand that in some family trees all the ancestors are candidates for sainthood. But mine are a very mixed lot. One great-great grandmother of Mohawk and German parentage was killed and scalped by her own brother during the American Revolution. That guy has to be the worst of the lot. War does that. One day he's your brother, the next he's your enemy.

So now that you know not to get into any serious political arguments with me, lest I revert to type - I also have ancestors who were explorers, farmers, shipbuilders, governors of states, a great-grandfather who was a shepherd, and a couple of guys who got run out of North Carolina for acts of piracy in the time of Blackbeard.

One of my English great-great grandfathers was jailed for smuggling a keg of brandy into Hampshire back in 1826. Unlike the afore-mentioned pirates he went on to become a law-abiding citizen. The pirates moved to Maryland where they continued to get hauled into court for petty theft, hog-baiting and trespass. They may not have been very pleasant fellows to deal with but they certainly make for a colorful family tree.

Except that my Grandfather died before I was born these folks I remember well, and loved dearly. My grandparents Fred and Josie (Smith) Cavel, and my Dad's eldest two sisters Susie and Annie. Josie was the only grandparent I knew.

You can hardly say you love your distant ancestors, though you do develop a certain affinity for them, especially when you recognize your own personality in them. You cringe when you read what they went through. You see them at their best, in the words of love, advice and comfort found in their wills. You see them at their worst, standing before a judge, hat in hand, owning up to stealing pigs or diddling the neighbour's daughter, and you see them trying desperately to defend home and family from forces beyond their control.

One thing seems never to change. There is always "The War". There is never a generation without its war. If anyone recognizes that war brings out the worst in human beings, it is the genealogist. Mutilated, dying, dead, our predecessors drip blood across the field of history.

I haven't fallen in a well, I have fallen into introspection. I have moved back and forth between the now and the forever. I wonder what they would have to say to me, if we could speak. Would they ask, "Will we never learn?"

Taking Stock

Summer officially began about ten days ago, but it started in earnest day before yesterday, when the thermometer hit a tropical 36 degrees (that 96.8 to you Farenheit folks). Yesterday was a shade warmer, and today we are promised 37 with a humidex reading of 39, which will make it feel as if it is 102 point something or other. We had a five minute thunderstorm about midnight last night, with a spatter of rain, which turned up the humidity level.

And naturally, while we've been busy tying our hair on before opening the door until day before yesterday, now the weeping willow hang as lank as greasy hair. It's like being in a vacuum. But there is nothing to be done about the weather, other than complain. Thank goodness we have that modern wonder, air conditioning. Long summer afternoons are perfect for reading, naps and taking stock.

At this point one looks at the garden to assess what has, and has not, proven successful. Things are beginning to fill in. The thymes and mints have done wonderfully. They are fragrant and spill out of the bed in their enthusiasm to please. The various types of thyme have different habits (some are upright, some prostrate, some are wooly, some are smooth-leaved.) The colours of the blooms vary as well, so I have white, pink, lavender and rose coloured thyme blossoms, all the size of a pinhead. Tiny stars against the deep green. I can't resist drawing the branches through my fingers. The fragrance is heavenly in the evening, and oddly enough, strongest across the street!

The dead nettles and coral bells are doing very well. The dead nettles have lavender flowers and the coral bell has about a dozen tall spikes with teeny bell-shaped flowers on them. Those flowers were lime-colured to begin with, but turned white with time. Some have faded but more spikes are forming.

The coleuses aren't huge but are colorful and luxurious. The lavender is blooming modestly and is another one I can't resist touching. The fragrance reminds me of the soap my Dad used when I was small. The rosemary has tripled in size and while the ornamental kales are not large they are colorful and have very interesting foliage. The kinnekinick has sent out runners and is loaded with berries. The tri-colour sage plants have maybe tripled in size, but the pebbled texture of the leaves and the red, white and green colours make up for any lack in height.

The hellebore is past its prime, but is now hidden behind the toad lily which *finally* woke up and started growing after six weeks of pouting. It has a faint checkerboard pattern on its leaves. I'm hard-pressed to know whether this is "normal", a mutation, or the result of a virus. It's supposed to reach five feet but it certainly will be no more than two feet tall unless it gets a sudden growth spurt. It doesn't have even the shadow of a bud yet, but it's not supposed to bloom until fall.

The Elijah blue grass is spiky and has grown significantly. I see that I put the two plants too close together. I may move one in the spring, and give them more space, so the lovely ball-shaped form is more apparent. If I can find some more I'll plant a few more of these as well.

The "rupture-wort" or "Creeping Charlie" club moss I scrounged from neighbours (who see it as a weed) has proven to be a real winner. Looking closely it's apparent that there are three different types of club moss. One type is covered in bright yellow flowers right now, each flower a tiny perfect star. These are planted between the stepping stones and in the garden bed itself, up on the Buddha mound.

My next door neighbour had lovely peonies last week. They didn't last long but I got a good picture while they were at their height.

All the "hen and chicks" plants are busy making "chicks". I was surprised to see that each type has a different method of "chicking". Some expand by growing chicks at their outside edges, others send up stalks topped by a chick. When the spike falls over the chick roots. Some must send runners underground as the chicks come up a few inches away from the hen. Two are blooming, something I've not seen before. The hen sent up a thick stalk, topped with what looked like tiny chicks. I expected this construction to fall over, but each of the "chicks" turned out to be a bud which formed a compound flower head. The flowers are quite lovely. Can't wait to see what happens next. Will they make seeds?

In the back the tomatoes are nearly four feet high and are covered with tiny green tomatoes and blossoms. The squash has the most beautiful blossoms in the garden, and the shortest-lived. By afternoon the morning's blossoms have shriveled. The tiny squashes are like huge golden beads. Alas, so far they have all gotten an inch across and then fallen off. It has been too wet and cold and the plants suffered. But now they have perked right up. I may have squash yet.

I planted scarlet runner beans in a planter box to the side of Sal's outdoor room, and they have crawled up the side and are now exploring the roof. I noted the first blossom today, so won't be long before we can pick beans from those. Even without the beans the plants are so pretty, with their big sturdy leaves and twining vines.

On the other side of the equation, it's hard to say if the heathers I planted have grown or not. The spring blooming one's branches flopped over and have spread out like a ground cover. The other two are sitting all scrunched up, and not doing much. The mums are a mixed bag, one has grown, the other two are struggling. The black ipeoma are spectacular in colour but have grown only modestly. They have an interesting bell-shaped flower which lasts for a single day, but it's a rather lurid pinky-purple which doesn't appeal to me at all. I might put some of these in hanging baskets nest year, as a foil for lighter coloured foliage, but don't think I'll plant them in the garden.

Speaking of baskets, mine have been something of a disaster. I shouldn't have put pansies in them, as pansies curl up and wither at the first sign of heat. Next year I'll go back to my tried and true petunias, which are hardy as weeds and last all summer. The basket of white lobelias I bought either caught a virus or decided life was too much. The plants just packed up and died all at once.

There's no way to put a price on the gift of a garden. If I don't feel up to working in it I can just look at it, which I do a lot of. And plan... what will I move? What will I add next year? How will I solve this problem? The moments I spend weeding, watering, mulching, feeding, are times of peace and pure pleasure.

Ahhhh, Warm At Last!

And loving it! We had two warm days in May and the rest of May and June have been cool, even cold. Who'd have guessed the furnace would be kicking in during the second week of June?

But enough with the complaints. Even the garden has quit sulking and is making up for lost time. Flowers are bursting from every basket, tin can and window box, as well as the flower beds. You can go out hungry and come back full, just from looking at the flowers in our neighbour's gardens. This is a wonderful place to spend time outside. You can walk the circuit of the park, walk along the lake, sit on the beach and watch the waves, boats and birds, or sit in your own garden and watch the sun play hide and seek with the leaves.

We had a potluck on Father's Day, on the lawn under the trees. The day was sunny and warm, perfectly beautiful, the food was delicious and the company was in high spirits. What more could one ask for?

As always the birds are a preoccupation. The pair of robins who nested in the tree in front have now abandoned their screaming, demanding, teenaged children to their own devices. The kids are doing fine, except that they are very trusting, to the point that you can walk right up to them, intentionally or not. This may be because Mama robin was almost tame enough to perch on your hand. She will sit 18 inches away in the tree at eye level and hold a conversation. The youngsters must think this is normal, and I am trying to convince them that it isn't. Not that any of us would hurt them, but they are not afraid of cats either.

Yesterday Sal and I walked right up on one of them accidentally, much to Sal's delight. Good thing I had a firm grip on his leash and he was right at my side. The dumb birdlet continued to grub worms from the grass, totally unconcerned that a 22-lb cat was two feet away and shaking with excitement. It said a few words of greeting then turned its back to us and went back to worming. A single pounce away. I clapped my hands and yelled, "Shoo!! which irritated Sal and puzzled the bird.

I note that the robin youngsters are hanging out with the rusty blackbirds, who have a family of four or five noisy half-grown chicks. They make quite a crowd, sweeping the lawn for worms and bugs. I noted that the robins like ants, which half made me want to bring one in the kitchen, as we still have formic tourists. They certainly inspire me to keep a clean kitchen. A single drop of juice, a scrap of fruit, a grain of sugar, and our desirability as a destination for ants increases exponentially.

Sal was quite the clever boy yesterday, managing to escape not once but twice. He pushed the screen door open as I took out the recycling. My hands were full and I didn't put the Sal-proof latch on - a two foot long bungee cord which holds the door firmly closed. He ran right past me and scooted under the neighbour's trailer. It took a half hour to lure him out again.

Later, as Tony was closing the door in the evening, Sal must have slipped out unnoticed. It was only about 11:00 pm that we missed him. Luckily he was sitting right outside on the storage box. Lucky too that "Bird Jr." was tucked away in a tree for the night.

We weren't sure if he'd gotten out the door, or if he'd managed to get out of his outside "room". So we closed the door to the room, and he had to stay inside all night, which didn't please him much. He whined and pawed at me until at 5:00 am I got up, put him in the living room and closed the bedroom door. After a through check this morning we were certain he'd gotten out the screen door in the 10 seconds it was open, so he was allowed access to his room again.

Today we have been very vigilant any time the door is opened, and he is most disappointed. I took him out for a walk this morning, but we didn't get very far. Bird Jr. was in the garden and had every intention of staying. Sal sat and birdwatched. We share this little hobby - but when he birdwatches he needs a bib.

By (Sort of) Popular Demand

Well, I've waited by the phone and, so far, no calls from House Beautiful , Better Homes and Gardens or even Style At Home, which is Canadian! So, I guess the only way to show my three or four faithful readers the glories of the Beach House is to drag out the camera, clear away the debris and take my own pictures. A proper "Home Stager" would probably have mopped first but I was too lazy.

I've been a bit preoccupied the last couple of days because we've had a constant string of tourists in and out. I know the place is a highlight of any Fine Homes of the Okanagan Tour, but after several thousand visitors my hospitality is wearing thin.

My visitors are as alike as peas in a pod, about 1/4 of an inch long and not easily dissuaded. They come in the door, form a long line across the floor, go under the table and exit through a window frame. A few stray of them off the path and end up on the counters, which I do not encourage. It may ruin my reputation as a gracious hostess but I have been using the hand vac to suck them up, then I dump them (unharmed but confused) outside. (Maybe the ride in the vacuum is the object of the trip?) I sprinkled borax at their entrance and exit points this morning and they have slowed down to the occasional curious rubber-necker. I hope I am getting somewhere. Vacuuming before morning coffee is not my idea of the way to start the day.

Anyway, here's the tour for those with two legs, starting in the heart of every home, the kitchen. I am greatly enjoying having counter space, a table which we can actually use, a four burner stove, a good-sized fridge and a freezer and two sinks!

Strangely enough there isn't much more storage space in this place as in the Tinpalace. But it's much more accessible. Those who remember the Tinpalace know it had a two foot square pantry with three shelves. What went onto those shelves promptly disappeared into the back, and never saw light of day again. Here the shelves are narrow and you don't lose as much stuff, though I still fish around a bit for items I've misplaced.

Next we step back and take a look toward the kitchen from the living room. You can see the nice little red fireplace, and what wallpaper Salvador hasn't shredded. You also see the rocking chair and a bit of the sofa.

Sal has always loved to be rocked. In Calgary I had a rocker and he'd jump up in my lap, roll over and snuggle in for a good cuddle and a rock. And a nap. Since I didn't have a rocker in the Tinpalace he went a long time without a rocking. He hadn't seemed to remember his old "sooky baby" ways until a few days ago. I was sitting in the rocker when two of his brain cells sparked and he remembered rocking. He jumped up, rolled over and sighed a big sigh. And pestered me endlessly for two days - he wanted to be rocked non-stop.

Next picture catches the corner of the banquette in the dining room LOL, but looks into the right hand corner of the living room, where you see the Chippendale desk which belonged to Tony's Mom. It's at an angle to the wall because the wheel well is in that corner and you can't put something flat against that wall. I like it at an angle anyway. As you can see there are storage cupboards above the sofa and chair. These are very handy. The little doll on the sofa was made by Mandy, and was a gift eight or nine Christmases ago. It has such a beautiful face, it looks much like our lovely d-i-l!

Finally, we end up in the bedroom, where the cover on the bed reminds me of one of my favorite plants, the blue hosta. You can see that we removed the nightstand on that side of the bed and replaced it with a filing cabinet. The small drawer units on top are great for the multitude of small loose objects that seem to collect. Sitting on top are Bimbo, the sock monkey my sister-in-law June made for me when I was five, a cloth doll made by my late friend Judy, and Chinese doll, carrying her baby sister and a little teddy I bought years ago.

So, that's the tour. I am going to quit sitting by the phone waiting for decor magazines to call, and take the cell phone and sit in the garden, waiting for gardening magazines to call.

Realizations and Rhubarb

It was the Victoria Day weekend, the first "long" weekend of summer, or what passes for that season in much of Canada. And, to our delight, our children managed to shake off the shackles of commerce and spend the weekend with us.

The realization part of this post is that it hit me after the kids left that though I love them as much as I did when they were tiny, I have reached the point where I see them as adults who no longer need "mothering". I can enjoy their company without feeling responsible for them. It's a good emotional place to be.

Though we have had a very cool spring, a heat wave moved in just in time for the weekend. We had sunny skies and warm temperatures. Highlights of the weekend were; (in no particular order)

A lengthy late evening talk with Ian, just the two of us, sitting in the garden. A bat noticed the porch light and came by to check for insects. We didn't actually see the bat but we saw its shadow. Ian said there were several gliding around the light poles the previous night. He could hear their squeaking as they echo-located their prey. Not many people can hear the high frequency calls emitted by bats. Ian must have inherited that from me. I can hear very high noises which most people don't notice at all.

A second highlight was a long walk by the lake with Zak. There is a nicely developed path which runs through a range of micro-ecosystems, from sand and sagebrush all the way to marsh and creek. Along the way many of the wild plants were blooming or pushing madly towards bloom. At one time there was a house along this path.

They must have had a lovely garden, for many "domesticated" species have escaped and naturalized into the woods. For example the lilies are coming up in profusion, their robust stalks and folded leaves a faint promise of the glories to come.

The rhubarb is miles ahead of the lilies. There are many huge plants with dozens of smaller volunteers surrounding them. The leaves uncurl from the center with the complexity of waves breaking on shore. Currant bushes and roses have simply run riot. None are blooming yet but the scene will be spectacular when they do.

Wisteria vines wind through the trees, wrapped like shaggy package twine around and around trunks and branches. It's in bloom right now, heavy with purple and white pendants. Wild catnip grows in pungent profusion. I plucked a pocketful of leaves for Salvador. He usually eats a couple of leaves and I dry the rest for later. This time I emptied my pocketful on the floor and he ate every last one! He then staggered to the bed in happy bliss and snored away the rest of the afternoon.

The Mahonia, or Oregon Grape Holly is also in bloom. These are beautiful native plants which make spectacular garden plants, if you can find one in a nursery. Oregon grape is also extremely useful in herbal medicine. It stimulates the flow of bile and is often used to treat jaundice, hepatitis, poor intestinal tone and function, and general gastrointestinal dysfunction. The berberine alkaloid, a constituent of Oregon grape, has been shown to be of benefit for some patients with cirrhosis of the liver.

Oregon grape is also used to treat colds, flu, and numerous infections. In laboratory studies, it has been shown to kill or suppress the growth of some of the nastiest disease-causing microbes: Candida and other fungi, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, E. coli and numerous others. Berberine inhibits the ability of bacteria to attach to human cells, which helps prevent and treat infections.

The mullein is one of the first plants up. It has pretty furry rosettes of leaves which beg to be touched. Mullein was originally an English garden flower which escaped cultivation in Colonial times and has spread right across the continent. It is another enormously useful plant in the herbalist's arsenal. The leaves, brewed into a tea, are an excellent treatment for asthma or stomach and bowel complaints. If you simmer the flowers gently in olive oil in a double boiler and then strain the oil it is wonderful for treating ear infections. Doctors are now recommending that children's ear infections not be treated with antibiotics, and mullein flower oil is a natural alternative which eases both the pain and clears infection. The flower oil can also be used to treat cold sores and hemorrhoids.

Other native plants which were growing along the path or in the marsh included; tansy, wild carrot, cattail rushes, rabbit brush, Saskatoon bushes, scouring rushes, horsetail grass, false Solomon's seal, lamb's quarters (an excellent green vegetable at this time of the year), yellow salsify, goldenrod, mountain sorrel, rose root, stork's bill and others I can't recall off-hand.

Zak and I made our way slowly down the half mile circuit and back, touching, smelling, examining, and enjoying the plants we saw along the way. We saw Canada Geese, plovers, rusty blackbirds and red-winged blackbirds, barn swallows, and a yellowthroat (I saw it, he didn't). The crowning bird sighting was a trio of American Avocets, birds I'd never seen before, standing at the edge of the water. I had my bird glass with me so we were able to observe them closely. Gorgeous!

I didn't get one-on-one time with Mandy, but we did have a nice visit in the last hours before they left. She's a creative and spirited young woman who is always embroiled in a project.

The only regrets for the weekend are that Tony wasn't feeling very well, and I had a terrific migraine on Saturday. The kids all had things to do but it made me miss a bbq Mandy's grandparents hosted in Penticton. This means I didn't get the chance to visit with Mandy's mom, Carol, who I haven't seen since we left Calgary. :(

I guess there's no perfection in this world, but aside from those disappointments this weekend came close.

Can You Stand It?

More gardening talk? Best run now if you can't. :)


The coleus plants I bought last week have done nothing but sit and pout. I think they may have been frost-nipped in our cold spell and they may never recover. Most disappointing. And I am still pining for that fern, so today I trotted off to the local nursery, called "Windmill Gardens".

My garden has taken a distinct trend. I am very fond of plants with dark foliage, but all purple foliage begins to look a bit funereal, so I fell into a lime green, purple, purple red, and (of course) various shades of green from grey green to blue-green.

I started out by picking up a dozen coleus plants, in various shades of purple, purple red and lime green, sometimes all on one plant. Looks like exploding fireworks! Try this colour combo inside and your neighbours would drop dead when they walked into the room. But outside? It's spectacular!

Then they had the Ipomoea "Blackie" Sweet Potato Vine which has vigorous trailing foliage with dark burgundy–black maple-shaped leaves. The young leaves come in a lime-green colour and mature into a rich, dark purple. I bought three of these to cluster in a triangle around my bear-berry, which is still blooming as vigorously as ever.

Adding to my collection of "Hen and Chicks" I bought a fantastic ruby-red one (!), and two different green types, one furry and greyish, almost like a soft cactus, the other lime coloured, shiny and plump as jellybeans. So I now have a half-dozen different kinds of "Hen and Chicks". Maybe I could call this a small flock? They seem to do well around here in pots, hopefully they will do as well in the ground.

I added clumps of a low and mossy-looking plant called "Creeping Charlie" to the Buddha mound. It's supposed to spread quickly and creates a lovely ground cover on gravelly soil. It naturalizes very readily here and does well without much water, which is an advantage.

Then, at various places, thinking ahead to fall, I planted a half dozen flowering kale, half purple and white, half lime and white. These should flower just as everything else is beginning hibernation.

To round it all off and bring a much needed touch of light and sparkle to a dark colour scheme, I planted a dozen clumps of sweet alyssum in a pink, purple, blue-purple and white "rainbow mix".

I am going to have to quit. I am running out of room. By mid-season there will be hand-to-hand combat in the garden as the different plants duke it out for space. But it will be beautiful, assuming they grow!

Red Letter Learning Day!

When the boys were small I baked most of the bread we ate, but over the years the kneading process has become too much for my wobbly arm muscles. Several of the neighbours at Bel Air had bread machines, and we were often the delighted recipients of a loaf of fresh, hot bread. Oh yum.

We decided a few weeks ago that we should try Tony on a gluten-free diet. Someone in this family has the gene for celiac disease and we believe it to be him. This means he can't eat store bread, and he was really missing his bread. So a couple of weeks ago I broke down and bought a bread machine. I used it a few times, trying to get the hang of it. The first time I didn't have xanthum gum, and essential ingredient of gluten-free bread, so while the bread tasted fine it crumbled at a touch.

This reminds me of a story which happened many years ago... I don't remember why I was baking a big double-layer chocolate cake, but I was. I was also in a hurry so decided I would frost it before it was completely cool. In fact it was still a bit hot to the touch. It looked beautiful, but a few minutes after I finished frosting it Ian called "Mama! Something is wrong with your cake!"

We watched in dismay as it slowly split down the middle. The two halves split into quarters and the quarters shivered themselves into smaller and smaller bits until there was a pile of steaming, sticky crumbs on the plate. Oh well, it was still great with ice cream.

Anyway, back to the bread. Yesterday, having eaten the last slice of the most recent loaf, Tony surprised (astonished) me by saying, "Could I bake bread with the machine?"

Well! Could he? I copied the recipe out and talked him through the process, as he's never baked anything before. Here you see him as he measured and mixed and stirred and got rice flour all over the kitchen.

He spooned the ingredients into the bread machine and turned out an excellent loaf of bread he has been enjoying very much. He now says he wants to bake his own bread. I think he likes playing with the bread machine! But I'm not arguing. I love it when he learns something new.

I'll get some regular flour and let him bake me some bread too. :))

Here he is with his loaf, after we'd eaten a slice each just to make sure it was edible. He was so proud. And I'm so proud of him. How many men bake their first loaf of bread at the age of 67?

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.