Snow, the dogs and memories

Well, it’s the first snow of the season, at least for me and the dogs. Kansas City had some snow over the holidays when were out of town (Pat is again out of town, missing this); we saw the remains of it on the north sides of buildings and walls. But this is fresh snow to wake up to; not too much, only an inch or two, but enough to carpet all the streets and sidewalks and bushes and grass, and to make it necessary to put on boots for our walk (for me, not the dogs). Also warm clothes, because it is also about 8 degrees, which we consider chilly in these parts. Temperatures have been up and down, a combination of climate change and the fact that KC sits smack in the middle of several weather systems; last weekend it was even colder (4 with a wind chill of -13 on Sunday) but it was dry; by Thursday we had a sunny 62! Last night we were outside on a clear 30 degree night, and I told Becky on the phone how that was quite pleasant – didn’t really even need gloves. Not this morning, though.

The snow was pretty virginal, and so Fry, Maggie and I were the first ones to walk in it out of our building and down the street, although a couple of folks had cleaned paths from their front yards to the curb. Almost no one shovels their sidewalks, but a couple of people with snowblowers like to get them out. The real problem walking dogs in snow is when there is a lot of it, and most people haven’t cleared their sidewalks so you walk in the street, but the plows have piled the snow up by the curbs making it difficult to get out of the way if cars come careening toward you, which happens too often. But not a problem today.

It was also Maggie’s first snow-walk with us, although at 5 years old I’m sure she has seen it; we just adopted her after Thanksgiving, to try to fill some of the hole left by Yonkel’s passing last spring. At first, and indeed second, glance she looks a lot like Fry, but in reality she is much stockier and stronger, a combination of golden Lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback, to Fry’s golden retriever and beagle. She has no ridge on her back, but is a fast powerful runner like that breed. She also pulls a lot walking, but the Halti collar helps. On the other hand, while she has been known to bolt from the car and run like a crazy dog for laps around the park, she is too bulky to get under the fences in the backyard, and is not driven by Fry’s beagle-like commitment to trying, so I can let her out to run in the yard, while keeping Fry on the retractable leash.

My friend Barry, the inveterate outdoorsman, says (probably quoting someone else) that there is no such thing as “too cold”, just “insufficient gear”. Maybe, but sufficient gear can be bulky and restrict movements a bit. Not quite like the little brother in “Christmas Story” or those depicted in cartoons who are so bundled up they cannot move, or wearing what the now-disgraced Bill Cosby called “idiot mittens”, connected by an elastic band that ran from one to another across your shoulders under your coat (so called because ostensibly if someone pulled one, the other smacked you in your face; I saw but never actually wore these!). But enough so you don’t move as easily, and frankly taking the gloves off to pick up after the dog can not only be cold, but occasionally messy.

This is, of course, why one of the woolen gloves I usually wear is sitting on a towel on the window sill drying slowly, after being washed out. I hope it dries before it freezes. Obviously, the best way to dry it is on the radiator, but
this requires having radiators, and only one house that I have lived in since being an adult had them, and it is not this one. Putting it on top of a forced-air vent would work if they were on the floor, but in this place they are all in the ceiling. From a physics point of view that makes sense for the AC (cold air descends) but less for heat. Having them on the floor can be inconvenient, as small things roll into them, I remember from the house where I had them, especially when there are small children, but there are also compensating advantages. I have very “warm” memories of finding my son Matt downstairs on cold Chicago morning, in his pajamas sitting on such a vent! (Somewhere there is a picture of this, but I can’t find it, so I’ll just use one of the two boys crawling around on the floor there.)

So there it is; we’re back in the house, it’s sunny outside, the dogs are basking in it on the couch, I have brushed the snow off the cars (nice part about very cold; easy to brush off),  I’ll eat breakfast, and maybe soon we’ll have a fire.

Ah. 

Santa Fe April...Fry and the coyotes

Well, I’ve been in Santa Fe pretty continuously for more than 6 weeks, and have a routine. Wake, take dogs out (Fry on leash) for shortish hike, have breakfast, work, then maybe go to Eldorado to work out. Nap, work, take a longer hike.

It is beautiful. This will be mostly a vehicle for pictures.

We do worry about Fry; he goes off and comes back in his own time, and there are coyotes out there. Why I don’t like him out at the dawn and dusk times when they are more active (like deer; the word is crepuscular). Last summer, he got attacked by coyotes and had some bites, so we have reason to worry; haven’t seen many in a while, but that means little. Also means little to him; he really doesn’t learn.

Monday, I took Pat to the airport in Albuquerque. It snowed last night, not a lot, but the morning walk was colder than it has been in weeks, about 23. Gray skies and some flurries. The snow is good; we need all the moisture we can get; several years of drought. By the time we got past Santa Fe, no snow on I-25, and down a little more bright sun. Albuquerque nearly 50 when I dropped Pat off about 10:30, 10:45, and the trees that had had white and pink flowers last time we were down there were now green.

But as we came back up the hill toward Santa Fe, the skies got grayer and the temperature dropped. By the time we hit home, it was 27 and flurrying. I opened the back of the car just a little, as I usually do, to tell them to sit before I opened it all the way and with maybe 8-10 inches open Fry was out and gone. Yonkel out too, but not gone. Didn’t see Fry back for about 2 hours. 

Typical.

So I worked for a while, and about 4:30 got ready to go for a walk. Sweatshirt, windbreaker, tie on boots (may be muddy out there), sunscreen, sunglasses, hat – getting ready to walk out. But they are barking like there was a rabbit out there. Because there is a rabbit out there. I decide to wait for a couple of minutes, presuming the rabbit will be wise enough to run off. He is not. I am getting antsy. I open the door, and the two of them are off, giving chase, even Yonkel looking young. They do not, I think, catch the rabbit but they are gone. I had assumed that 1) Yonkel would come with me after a few minutes, and 2) Fry would go off on his own as usual, so what’s the difference?

Neither one came to join me. I kept calling. Hike was very lovely, around and back through the valley. Took about an hour. Yonkel sitting on the deck when 

I got home. No Fry.

About a half-hour later, up Fry runs being chased by two big coyotes. I open the door to 1) let him in, and 2) chase the coyotes off, and, instead, Yonkel bolts out and the two of them chase the coyotes off. After a minute or so they come back, with me frantically yelling. Yonkel comes in, Fry stays out, avoiding me. Looking out for the coyotes to chase! Licking at his sides. Must have been bitten again, but he won’t let me get near him.

I leave the door open and about 20 minutes later, needing a drink, Fry comes in. I examine him. Pretty big gouge out of his left hip, smaller cut down by right groin. I sponge them out with peroxide. (You think it’s easy, one person, holding a dog and putting peroxide on his wounds?)

I hope they don’t get infected. Obviously, having been chased and bitten, he’s learned his lesson – not! DIdn’t they immediately – and with Fry wounded -- both immediately give chase after them? It was heroic of Yonkel to go out after the coyotes, to protect Fry. It was brave of Fry, chased home and bitten, to immediately respond and join Yonkel in chasing them off. (It is unknown whether my presence on the deck had more to do with the coyotes’ departure.) Stupid, yes. Foolhardy, also. But heroic and brave. Heroic and brave often go together with foolhardy and even stupid. In dogs, and in people.

Leash for the next few days for sure. Leash and peroxide.

Lake Fort Scott diary: Boating, bumps and dogs

Yonkel is good at rustling. He can also make noise, or jump up on the bed, or, already on the bed, sit up suddenly. He can jump off the bed, wander around, loudly lap water, and in particular scratch himself assiduously, seriously jingling his dog tags. At the lake house, there are also the beaded curtains to the bedroom that he can make noise going back and forth through, although Fry, not a rustler, does this as well. Sometimes he does not do any of these distinctive actions, but just paces around, breathing, not randomly but right there by your bed. It is purposeful. He wants you to get up.

Why is not certain, but my hope at 6 in the morning (first I thought it was 5) was that he just to be let out; at the lake this is a relatively easy matter. I recognized it was six because the sun was coming up, beautiful red sky on the eastern shore, and so looked at the clock. I considered washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting on a suit and going out in the kayak to enjoy the first light. I decided to try to go back to sleep.

Not terribly successful. It couldn’t have been 15 minutes, no real sleep, when the door was scratched and Yonkel needed to come back in. OK, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on a suit ready to go out. But not in the kayak; how could I leave the dogs? Fry was still outside, and Yonkel would want to come. OK, I could take the rowboat, and attach the electric trolling motor that is in the shed, using the marine batteries that faithfully stay charging in the bedroom closet for just such an event. I knew getting ready would take a while, but I could bring my dogs.

Well, of course, the rowboat had been moved over to the other side of the put-in, as it had been lying on the concrete and rocks right below the tree that had burned down last week and was now a stump. (That’s another story.) The boat was lying on top of the sailboat hull, and first I had to turn it over. Not a light boat, all steel, but heck, that’s probably why it didn’t burn. And haul it down the concrete put-in to the water. Let’s just say was not easy; it is easier to pull from the front, but this was not an option.

I had carried the battery down to the water already, so just had to go back to the house for the crawling-insect spray, get the motor and oars and life vest from the shed, attach the motor and the battery, get the dogs in the boat, and go off into the fast-lightening but still definitely misty morning. I got the spray and sprayed the boat. In the shed, the oars were near the door (Jimmy and the kids must have used them). I note, with some satisfaction that my work had been worth it, that the kayak is kind of buried and would involve some work to pull out. I put on my life vest (too tight; found it had been adjusted for a kid and fixed it), found the motor in the corner, lifted it, put it down on my sandaled foot (not too hard). Grabbed the oars in one hand, and the motor in the other and stepped down from the shed onto the little two-step to the ground.

Only got to the first before I found myself on my back, in some pain having banged it on the lower step and my head on the doorway as I had gone down fast, slipping on the wet, slanted wood step. Darn! I did this last year! I should remember to be careful  when stepping out of the shed. Onto a wet step. And especially when the bottoms of my Tevas are covered with mud from walking around moving the boat on the wet dirt. (This latter I noticed later.)

Luckily, I am not too hurt. Could have been but am not. Maybe the life vest cushioned my fall (right). Get up, get the oars and motor and take them down to the rowboat. Its stern has moved a little further out, and it is rocking more (someone had gone by, even this early, with a power boat. You may be planning to fish using your electric trolling motor, but you need that 95hp gas motor to get you the half mile from the dock to the fishing spot fast!). I put the oars in the locks, grab the motor, and carefully (I am capable of learning) make my way to the stern and fasten the electric motor. I carefully make my way back, and retrieve the battery, and bring it back to the stern so I can attach it to the motor.

I could have attached it, but chose not to. This is because it would have been useless, as I now note 1 inch segment of the power cord which is not there (only the red half). Good old pack rats! Add this to the list of sail sheets, foam rubber pads, power motor pull cords, and pieces of the orange extension cord that are no longer usable.

Well, too much done to abandon ship. I have the oars. I call the dogs. No response. I call again. Finally Yonkel shows up; Fry is nowhere to be seen. I invite Yonkel into the boat. He evinces no interest. I coax him. No. I push off, to show him I am serious, then float back to pick him up. He sits there, smiling. I call him again. He gets up and comes to within two feet of the boat. No closer. The heck with it. I go off rowing by myself.

Not too far; rowing backwards means you can’t see where you are going, rowing forwards is slow. And the tholes are attached to the oars too far down, so the ends of the oars hit me in the (lifevest-protected!) chest as I come to the middle. But still pretty; I go into the mist-covered cove nearby, and see what must be a weasel of some kinds scampering around on one of the docks. First I thought it was a squirrel, but it is a little too long and lean and what would a squirrel be doing down on the dock and the rocks next to it anyway? I had forgotten the binoculars (probably would have been around my neck and damaged in the fall, anyway) and by the time I am close enough to further identify him using a book (weasel? Stoat? Ferret? Too small for an otter…) he is hidden in the rocks.

I startle the Great Blue Heron who lives in the cove and he flies off majestically. When I head back, probably out for less than a half-hour, Yonkel is happily waiting. I put away motor and battery and pull the boat up and go in to make coffee. Yonkel comes in, Fry (who has reappeared) stays outside. Next time, back to the kayak.

Note: I have it on good authority that it was a mink!
.