This morning I was in the bathroom minding my own business when I heard the dreaded tap-tap-tap at the window.  Anyone with real wood soffits and window frames knows that sound.  Somebody - probably a woodpecker who is tired of eating the food I gave him - is mining our house for breakfast.  Dang.

I sprang into action and pulled out the best weapon in my arsenal:  the feline hiss.   I climbed onto the antique cast-iron tub (honestly - it’s almost a century old), put my face as close to the sound as possible, and let fly.  If I do say so, my cat hiss is spectacular. The tapping stopped dead.  When it started up again about a minute later, I threat-nailed it again, and silence finally reigned.  Victory!

So it’s got me thinking about second languages.

Like Jane Goodall I was a huge Dr. Doolittle fan and while I can read French, my preferred second languages are non-human. I do a passable grouse, for example, but I’m most fluent in macaw.  Having lived with one for twenty years, I can summon up a happy drowsy going-to-sleep macaw when necessary.  Handy in a pet shop when you are in the mood to scratch an unfamiliar turquoise head and kiss a delicate powdery-white cheek.  I can also mimic a macaw's version of English.  If you are interested, it’s much further back in the throat and is a low half-growl, although it sweetened up noticeably whenever Bijou  saw a yellow vehicle - school bus or Kapoda - and tried to get its attention for the purpose of matrimony.  It was at its worst on a cartrip to the West Coast.  Her hanging perch was above my newspapered lap and she said “Hi!” to every car we passed, no matter the colour.  Thank heavens it was off-season.

And, of course, I call the chickadees down when the feeders have been refilled, and it’s kind of fun in the spring to tease the male cardinals proclaiming their ownership of a breeding site.  I can fool them for a few moments until they realize that their whistles are far lustier and that the interloper is a weenie and no threat.  Ditto for my great-horned owl hoots. I can get along in morning dove but would hate to try to order lunch with it.

I’ve been working in the back garden (AKA New Forest) trying to pull the last enchanters nightshades before Theodore gets to them and comes back is studded with burs and looking like a punk rocker.  I’ve lots of company.  The robins are busy stripping the pagoda trees of their juicy black berries so they can go and perch over the Adirondack chairs with predictable results.  The cicadas are getting noisy again so the temperature must be rising.  In fact, the insect string sections perform round the clock, the cicadas relieved by crickets and katydids once the sun sets.  I don’t speak insect but the best guess is that they play nothing but love songs like an AM station at the beach.  Good luck, fellas.  Thanks for the soundtrack.

Among the books I am reading at the moment is one about giraffes. I hadn’t known was that the little knobby bits on their heads were called ossicones but was overcome by the desire to have one, I guess, because…..the half-blind painter striking again, I bent over to retrieve something from the wastebasket and didn’t register the dark corner of our Mission-style chesterfield. Surprise and a bit of screaming erupted when my forehead’s unstoppable force smashed into the corner of the immovable object. (By the way, Superman was wrong. No truce occurred. The immovable object won. ) On the other hand, I did discover that lying on the floor and howling draws dogs; when Rover comes over to check you out, just grab his muzzle and apply his cold wet nose to the boo-boo. Theodore actually suppressed his own scream and just let me do it, proving once again that dogs are the best. Several bags of frozen vegetables and a good sleep later, the big red boulder has shrunk into an aggie; if you didn’t play marbles as a kid, let’s just say it’s smaller if still mighty tender. And my ever-helpful husband just offered the observation that I look like a baby unicorn with a good start on an off-centred horn. Maybe there will be rainbows.

It’s the kind of weather that is more likely to produce thunder and lightning storms in the afternoons. Mammals saner than the chippie who lives under the feeder are probably choosing siestas over food. The only other ones we have seen were a pair today of large opossums in a tangle (siblings? more than that?). Scruffy as always, they sauntered off trying to look casual. We don’t often see possums so it’s good to know they are succeeding. One theory of their territorial spread to Southern Ontario posits that they crossed the Rainbow Bridge travelling on truck manifolds. Warm and convenient. I find marsupials fascinating because the embryos actually find their own way to the exterior pouch and their mother’s milk. Whether you like their appearance or not, you have to admit that’s pretty darn impressive. I don’t know about you but my embryonic self didn’t do much in the way of solo travel.

There are birds around, of course. They all drop by the feeder but there’s better stuff available this time of the year. In fact they are probably experiencing un embarras du choix: (What should we have for dinner? I simply can’t decide!) There are the usual huge mulberry trees covered with sweet fruit but the big news this year in our garden is that the amelanchier (serviceberry) finally produced quantities of fruit. We called them saskatoons when I was a marble-playing kid and they are toothsome. This amelanchier was expensive but it’s proved its worth this year, treating us to fat, if somewhat diarrhetic, robins hanging from it. We are counting on those robins to plant a bunch more.

One of the joys of summer birdwatching is sorting out parents and kids. Baby birds look like adults but still behave like kids (think teenagers). There’s a male cardinal right now who hasn’t mastered the art of landing on the squirrel-proof peanut feeder. He is trying to hover like a hawk or a humming bird. Like every young adult, he wants to do it by himself, while reserving the right to ask Mom and Dad for handouts. He’s flown off now, probably to do just that.

And so the perennial story plays out in our garden, as it does in yours. I have to keep reminding myself that four months ago ice and snow and mud ruled. This season sees me taking multiple shots of summer’s bounty, which I store until the winter when my soul craves colour. In particular, I need to remember that my digitals won’t do full justice to reds because I can see that every time I take a picture. I will write myself a note to read in January, even though I already know I won’t believe it.

If I have anything longer than a short sentence to word-process, I avoid the iPad with its stubborn insistense on replacing words I actually meant to type or its inventive volunteerism about what I should type next.  (My mom would have dubbed it a “bossy little toot.”)   That and its absence of a decentkeyboard.  Yes, Dad, you were right that learning QWERTY was a skill everyone should have (he didn’t) and I am almost ready to forgive you for signing me up for typing summer school in Grade 10 even though I was totally exempt and should have had the whole damned summer off.   Oh well.  So here I am, touch-typing happily at the iMac, which is getting long in the tooth like its owner.  That means I am in the “studio.”

The previous owners (we are only the second owners in 90-odd years) would have called it something else, although we are not sure what.  It had all the characteristics of a screened porch when we bought it but was missing one crucial component:  an exterior door and steps.  We are pretty sure that the room wasn’t a second thought because its walls blend seamlessly with the rest of the stone on the house.  Maybe a sleeping porch?  It had a latch on the porch side, so maybe a sleeping porch for grown-ups?

What ever it was, it is now the place I paint and write.  When possible.   This last few months have been so busy that my beloved studio has morphed into a storage unit — my brushes a jumble, piles of papers, and paints in no particular order.  I hate disorganization, so today is being devoted to sorting and cleaning and re-ordering all and sundry.  My palette is clean, brushes standing in straight lines like the little soldiers they can be, and the pigments all wearing their caps on straight.  The army is standing by.

​Yes, I get it.   It is somewhat grandiose to call a 7 by 10 space a “studio,’   let alone compare it to a battlefield.    I have tell my canvases to take a deep breath before I carry them in, and before anything new can be added, something equivalent in cubic area has had to vacate.  It’s full.

So here we are again, talking about “stuff.”   I do try not to bring home anything which is neither beautiful nor useful, but many old objects, having achieved both, have won a permanent home with us because they possess both form and function.   The studio, for example, houses dozens of art supplies, but my eye is calmed when paintbrushes sit in old scotch containers or paints reside in wooden art boxes, many of which were my mother’s.  Once in a while an old tube of her oil paint surfaces;  miraculously it  still spreads properly  if you can wrestle the screw top off.  There are not many of them because Mom moved immediately to acrylic when it hit the market, and shortly after abandoned that too for a new love —university courses in English and art --  never looking back, even when Dad grumbled that she was always writing essays.    A bust of her sits on the stone ledge beside me here  (when Theodore doesn't claim the space for bird-watching);   there she functions as the principal guardian angel, flanked by photos of her cherubs—my beloved scalliwag, the collie/cocker mix who ruled my life from grades 1 to 6, and the sainted Jewell.*

As the surfaces cleared today, so did my head. Like last year’s mourning dove on our window-ledge, who evicted her first brood before they had any desire to leave and immediately laid an egg, I too might be gestating a new painting or two now that the nest has been thoroughly refluffed!!


* (Jewell’s calm and friendly demeanour failed us only once.  I've written about the time dear Maureen had brought her gentle Aussie — Molson —over  for tea.  He seemed inexplicably stressed until we realized that Jewell was surreptitiously mau-mauing him with flashes of a white snarl.  After that, he wouldn’t even get out of the car in our driveway.  Well, Maureen’s current Aussie, Blu, who is much smaller than Molson, evened the score this week.   Mouths agape, Maureen and I watched Blu and Theodore go at one another in the kitchen.  It was the classic cartoonist’s dust-up until Theodore cried uncle.  For the rest of the visit, he cowered on my lap and refused to take his eyes off the little champ, whose lovely eyes gleamed with victory.    Sorry, but I have to say it:  Girls Rule!   

It’s been a busy week, not least of which has been Dog Duty. Jon decided to go fishing, cycling and canoeing this week. He also packed the bike trainer just in case none of the above three were convenient. He is less like a desert nomad than Jonathan Swift’s satiric characters who carried everything they owned on their backs so as to avoid the necessity of language.

That left me with Theodore. As you are aware, the challenge for me in a three-pack has been to establish my Number Two credentials. Some weeks go better than others. And he and Jon have been particularly tight, to the point that when Jon gets up at midnight to make a snack, Theodore leaps off the bed to follow. When Jon failed to return last Sunday, Theodore reprised his flying Wallenda, looked around the house in vain, and became disconsolent when it became clear that I was It. Nothing like a concert of mournful howls, sharp barks and little girl whining to defeat the sleep sheep. Finally about four in the morning, I simply grabbed him and held on, pulling the blankets up over the two of us with my teeth. That desperate gambit bought us both four hours of blessed sleep. We repeated the little routine with inventive variations until two nights ago, when he finally settled for The Back-up Beloved and simply went to sleep.

This would never have happened with Jewell. She not only loved us equally but she was cooperative to a fault. Typical female, come to think of it. The only time I ever heard her growl was when Maureen brought Molson, a sweet Aussie, over to play. Jewell wasn’t about to make any other dog feel at home and flashed white teeth at the poor boy, who after that wouldn’t even get out of the car if he suspected her presence. Other than that ten minutes of mau-mauing, she was placid by nature and incredibly easy to live with.

Jewell even played like a girl. After running after a ball and retrieving it once, she politely declined such a pointless game. The one she adored, though, was hiding. I taught her to crouch behind a bush and wait for me to call for her in a worried tone. After a suitable suspense, she would leap out; I would shout “There you are!!!!” and we would both run celebratory circles around the hydrangea bed. Neither Jon nor I have ever claimed that Skyes are bright, so no surprise when she continued to play with the same vigor after the the leaves she was hiding behind had dropped. Probably, she had concluded that I was the one, too dim to notice.

Theodore, on the other hand, prefers games which take place at high speed and which he controls. He’s the local James Dean. He runs like the wind but I have yet to capture a good shot of returning the ball because the distance between A and B is rarely a straight line. As he pelts down the driveway some scintilla of scent available only to a dog calls for an abrupt right turn and off he goes. Only after pleasuring his snout with something new* does Theodore remember that he was mid-retrieve and he saunters back to the ball and chews on it pensively. Eventually he notices me standing and waiting; if I’m lucky, he eventually returns the sopping prize.

By the way, Jewell came with the name and it suited her perfectly. "Theodore" is a bit grand for our scalliwag. We should have called him MacDuff — Mac because he’s Scottish, and Duff because he comes iin ten times a day festooned with spruce twigs and leaf fragments. By himself Theodore could play all of Birnham Wood advancing on Macbeth in Act V.

Okay, I admit it. He’s an entertainment. Just be warned if you are coming to visit. Pre-Theodore, the house used to be cleaner. And quieter. Moreover, because he takes guard duty seriously, he might swear at you full-bark when you enter. But the full-body-wagging-tail tells the real story. He’s all in, whatever the game. Theodore may be a tramp but he is thoroughly our tramp!



*I read recently that a glorious sunset to a human being was equivalent to the effect of a strong unfamiliar smell on a dog.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been feverishly painting since we last met.  Alas, nada.  I can’t stay away from the garden.  Because I crashed at six yesterday and went to bed with a dose of muscle relaxant, Jon has banned me from the garden until I demonstrate that I can walk upright..  But, even right now, where I sit working on the iMac in my studio, my nose is practically pushed against the glass because I’m afraid of missing something.

Let’s start with the aerial acrobats.   Today alone a brown thrasher bounced past me on the shrub near the back door, three turkey vultures circled (a bit worrisome, when you think about it), and a pair of red-tails surveyed the neighbourhood from the top of an old spruce until they were routed by a furious grackle.  A blackburnian warbler treated us to flashes of orange while scouting the buffet.  As usual, loud mouth blue jays and cardinals compete for the “Best Effort at a Primary Colour”, although blue jays cheat by sporting body parts with different shades of blue.  Jon just ran past with the two halves of an orange, intent on attracting the orioles who haven’t come by much since our pear trees died of storm damage but who are calling to one another.   (As I word-process this, a black squirrel has already spotted and claimed at least one of the halves.  I am told that oriole feeders have been invented and wow do we need to purchase one fast.  Oh,  the oriole has just arrived.  To eat suet??  Go figure.  I want my orange back.)

All in all, it never surprises me when a wild critter has the last laugh.  — the red-bellies continue to confound us;  we know they are living in our garden but they practise ventriloquism, then cleverly vacate their  perch before we can track their trajectory.  But the best event was last week in the park when I watched a gaggle of bird-watchers train their cameras and binoculars on a warbler while right behind them a gigantic wild turkey sauntered past.  

It’s like Cirque de Soleil around here.  There could be a bit more soleil but cirque it is!  I finally got the chippie out of the garage and closed the door. 

​Oh, dear.  Cue the red squirrels....

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water,
and I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Our world in spring is full of bustle, mine included, and my most peaceful hours are spent gardening, where I catch myself blurting out greetings to the shy friends who have returned.  “Welcome back!” goes to the busy girls who hive in the old cedar tree.  “Hello, Gorgeous,” I tell the chippie who has parked himself under the feeder.  And “Hope you ate all our grubs” is my mumbled message to the gentle skunks who visit at night, leaving a toppled path of divots across the lawn.  I say nothing to the mourning doves who have established a new nest high in the climbing euonymus;  they prefer not to draw attention to themselves but we do nod civilly and they know I wish them well.

The wonderful collection of essays titled Hope beneath our Feet:  Restoring our Place in the Natural World reminds me that it is not only the natural world which gives me hope but also the “ordinary people willing to confront despair, power and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”  Paul Hawken goes on to quote Adrienne Rich, who wrote “So much has been destroyed/ I have cast my lot with those / who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, /  reconstitute the world.”  Good to be reminded where we too should cast our lot -- with like-minded citizens.  But tending our gardens and welcoming our wild neighbours is a great way to get into the mood.

If there is a bird season, it occurs in April.  The air resonates with ringing calls which are less territorial than boastful, the field already having been won.  My nomination for loudest and most distinctive would have to be given to the male cardinals who proclaim their fertility from the highest branches on the tallest trees throughout the neighbourhood.

This is the time of year when the birds remember having watched Hitchcock.  YouTube is replete with hilarious episodes of large human beings terrified by birds one hundredth their weight.  They flail, they stumble;  when possible, they sprint.  Someone in close vicinity inevitably chooses to record rather than rescue.   And I have to say that I can understand the birds’ point of view.  Here you are, trying to hatch a family and suddenly everyone and their dog invade the nursery.  Only when a bird actually approaches the same weight class  does the viewer start to feel uncomfortable:  that poor man in Brampton who was being harassed by a turkey comes to mind, though I must say that the teenage golfer routed by a Canada Goose was pretty funny.

So I was actually feeling quite benign towards birds when I walked Theodore this week.  But, I discovered, avian memory also includes Mel Brooks.  I got bombed.  And, darn it, I was wearing a newish coat which was mulberry rather than black and white, so many awkward conversations ensued on the long walk home.

Not that Jon and I are strangers to the stuff.  Hand-raising both an orange-wing Amazon and a blue-and-gold macaw guarantees guano.   But, for whatever reason, knowing the producer helps.  And unlike the stealth bomber from above, Gussie and Bijou had the good manners to squat and lift their tails first so you had a chance to put them back on their perches in time.  Good manners are also observable in the parent bird who disposes of each packet of home-grown fertilizer by flying it out of the nest.  (Life Hack 586:  Don't stand ten feet away from an active nest unless you have an umbrella.)

The epiphany of the week is not elevated but it is impassioned:  “Dispensing private secretions from somewhere high in the sky on someone you’ve never even met is rude in the extreme.   Neither a pooper nor a poopee be.”  

​I suppose it could have been worse.  It might have been a 747.

I rather like spring raking, if only because it feels like scratching the back of an enormous slumbering bear.  I always assumed that emerging from hibernation must be a challenge and a post on this week’s weather channel proved it.  A live-cam feed shows such a bear, whose head alone protrudes from a large tree, struggling mightily to open his eyes but with little success.  The prospect of an affectionate back scratch would surely be just the thing to ease the transition.

But this weekend found the bear having succumbed to those heavy eyes!  Rain had turned to snow and while the land slumbered there was nothing to do but play on top of it.  Theodore was beside himself with glee, snowplowing, rolling,  shaking and galloping.  We broke trail through the maple forest and while Jon’s and my paths were reasonably straight,  Theodore’s wove left and right like that of a cheerful drunk.  Remember that our little guy’s legs are barely 6 inches (I’m being generous) — about the same depth as the snow on Saturday.    Sometimes he had to fall behind to chew off the snowballs building on his low undercarriage, only to reappear over a hill in a frenzy of catch-up haste.

It took me about twenty minutes to carefully tease off the ten pounds of iceballs on Theodore’s nether regions.   To tell you the truth we were both pretty nervous, given the delicate location.  But it did prove that Theodore may not be as dim as we had feared, because on Day 2 he contentedly trotted behind us like a  prince, deigning to let our feet do the road work and keeping his own powder dry, so to speak.   

Skye terriers may not be built for snowy cross-country hikes but their excess of personality more than compensates for a body designed by a fractious committee.  When we finish laughing, Jon and I remind ourselves at times like this that our pack will always be enriched by a wee lassie like Jewell or a wee laddie like Theodore.  Skye terriers are literally a vanishing breed, like bears in suburban forests.

Both are irreplacable.

I knew right away when we adopted Jewell, our first Skye terrier, that I wanted to be reincarnated as our dog. Yesterday confirmed it.

I have been burning the proverbial candle all the way up and down.  The final clue was finding myself too tired to sleep.  Jon the Blessed suggested a spa day.  After thinking about it, I opted instead for Theodore's version of a dog day.   You decide.

Goal 1:  Rest and Oblivion
First, no alarms.  And definitely no bright light.  Years ago, Lyla, the ever thoughtful gifter, presented me with “blinks.”  They may resemble bras (which should have discouraged Jon from pilfering mine, yet didn’t), but function like perfect blackout drapes. Buy some and don them.  If your brain still churns, feel around on the bed for the dog, snare him in a furry embrace and embrace puppy mode;  before you know it, snores all around.  Having  chosen the spa would have necessitated at least knowing what time it was.  Dog wins paws down.

Goal 2:  Sartorial Simplicity
I know women who get dressed up to go to the spa.  How can that compete with an entire day spent in cozy pyjamas?  For one thing, cake crumbs wash nicely out of flannelette.  And dogs get dressed only for bad weather.  Enough said.  Dogs 2:  Spa 0.

Goal 3:  Comfort Food
The cake crumb reference gave me away.  A perfect day includes some tasty bits, Theodore advises.   As a veteran meal-maker, I celebrate the virtues of Fast, Simple, and Healthy.  Sometimes they even coincide.  So for lunch there was yesterday’s healthy homemade soup but with a chaser of roasted almonds and dark chocolate.  On a roll, for supper I reheated leftover channa-from-scratch, tossed a salad and threw together a garlicky eggplant side.   The equally leftover Key Lime cake provided the Fast and the Simple.  Dog-gone delicious. 

I humbly offer you the perfect day, as designed by Theodore and Jewell.  Note the self-satisfied smile.

P.S.  Came across this stanza and realized it spoke to my Keele/Hobbit self.

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
       To stay at home is best.

Obviously Longfellow had a dog!




  

 Jon and I went tromping today without Theodore, who had adamantly refused to snow-plow through snow that was deeper than his chest.  He agreed to chase his tennis ball up and down the long pea gravel driveway which had been snow-blown Christmas morning.  Yesterday was the perfect day for a prairie girl like me — blue skies and a good thick coat of powder snow.  As always, Jon and I deliver neighbourhood gifts then — his in the form of cleared driveways for those who needed them this year and mine in the form of raisin loaves warm from the local patisserie.  Theodore allowed me to dress him in a red coat and gamely struggled through drifts to front doors with me while Jon did the truly useful work.

By today our wee boy had reached his psychological snow limit so Jon and I left Theodore behind near the fireplace when we went down the slope behind us to the park and the river.  Warned by friends that, unlike yesterday, it was wickedly cold today, we overcompensated of course and got so hot that we had to rip off our balaclavas.    There was much to see and hear:  never tiring of snow’s cobalt shadows in the sun, I collected yet more photos of elegant weeds and laden spruce branches for future Group of Seven homages while the toboggan hill in the park reverberated with delighted screams.  We caught sight of a glossy fat beaver slipping into the river and swimming powerfully against the current.  Jon commented that for once the gift of skis for Christmas would have been perfectly timed and indeed there were tracks everywhere.   And not just of skis — even had we not seen their footprints, the deer had left evidence of their visit last night in the form of barenaked euonymus bushes around the house.  Our bird feeders were equally busy during the day.  I know the feeling, having eaten my own weight over the last few days.

It’s winter.   Stay warm and enjoy this beautiful country.  Glad tidings to all.