Waiting...

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Waiting for a new post?

It's been a rough half-year for me. Well, for just about everyone, but on top of the economic and related societal stresses has been worsening health issues for me. Some are better, but what is still impaired is my ability to read and write, so I have been doing very little of either one.

Mike is fine, the chelonians are hibernating or brumating, according to their nature, and I'm just trying to get through the cold, gray, still gluten- and dairy-free days.

After having a wonderful week in June with Sidney while his folks were on vacation came the horrible news on July 5 that he died during the night. We are still grieving, for he filled a lot of space in our lives. At some point, I'll figure out how to put together a slide show with my favorite photos of him. For now, here's one of them, one that captures his joyful spirit:

This one, taken by Karen when she and Sid camped out under the plane at Orcas Island several years ago, seems to capture the essence of the emptiness he left behind:

Sidney, 1999-2009

Time sure flies...

...when you have a life. When you don't, it c r a w l s. In other words, I can't believe a month has passed since I last wrote. Still battling various bugs, one of which caused a horrendous bout of bronchitis which, I was dismayed to find last night, is starting to rear its ugly head again. Fie! Be gone! Yes, well, that was far more cathartic than effective. By doing pretty much nothing, I am hoping to stave off a full recurrence.

On a far brighter note, the end of May saw the beginning of an extended stay here of my favorite goddog (okay, only goddog, but, still), Sidney! We haven't had a good long visit in quite a while, something we've both missed, though I have to say that it hasn't bothered Mikey one bit.

Though, truth be told, after a couple of days of getting used to a moose in the house, Mike starts to enjoy it, since Sid is still very nervous around Mike and freezes when Mike approaches if he isn't able to run in the other direction from where Mike is. Mike takes that as Sid's recognition of Mike's Supreme Allbeingness, which goodness knows Mike doesn't get from me. When even the big tortoise contests Mike's right to rule the feeding station, Mike is happy to subjugate anyone who spends any time in this house besides the usual crew of freaks, er, me, the tortoises and the weeny turtle.

Speaking of whom, Tobago was itching to get out of her enclosure the other day, so I took her out while I cleaned up a bit, letting her hang out with Mike:



Needless to say, I kept an eye on them, in case Mike decided to vent his ire against Treppie, with whom he jousts at the feeding station, by dumping it on Tobago, who wouldn't hurt a fly. A snail or mini-crawler, yes; fly, no. Alas.



Sid spends some of his time here outside watching the tortoises carefully, making sure they don't try to escape from their shells. When he's not doing that, he is on watch for the rat that has taken up residence in my yard, which I discovered when the whole ears of corn I put out for the tortoises started disappearing.

For a year or so, there was a cat--feral or just someone's outdoor cat--who spent the nights sleeping on the lounge chair on my patio. I didn't mind her there, and during the cold, wet winter, I put out some food and water for her on days when she didn't leave her roost. She stopped coming after the first time the new neighbor's dogs broke through the fence into my backyard, something they've done repeatedly over the past year since they've lived there. Before then, my backyard was a rest area on the local cat highway, with many cats making their way through my yard, hanging out and sunning themselves, like this one, whom I called Scairdy Cat because s/he always fled when any of the other cats came around:



Anyway, Sidney is a renowned ratter, so I was counting on his ratting skills to nail this sucker. To date, it's Rat 1, Sidney 0. ::sigh::

Sidney watching the tortoises:



Sidney is showing many signs of age, including not demanding to play as often or as long as we used to. Now, our mornings go something like this:

6:30 AM - Sidney lets me know that Mikey is up. When Mike makes it into the hallway, I get up, run his bath, pick him up and go through our morning bath ritual before putting him in the tub. While he soaks, I let Sidney out, clean up Mike's poo, and make Sid's breakfast. Sid and I go back to our respective beds until

9-9:30 AM - As Mike nears the end of his bath time (he usually gets out of the tub about the time his heater's timer goes off), Sid lets me know that it's time for me to get up to take my meds and, more importantly, stuff one of his hollow cow bones with peanut butter.

The rest of the morning is spent with Sid excavating peanut butter from the bone while Mike dawdles over his food and eventually makes his way back to his room. Sid helps me eat my breakfast, and helpfully cleans Mike's leftovers and any other leftovers if the tortoises have been inside that morning.

The rest of the day is spent with Mikey getting periodic visits and cuddles from me in his room, where he can also glare at Sid who comes in to see what's going on (and maybe there' will be food)(or petting). The day is also punctuated with Sid helping eradicate the household population of grapes, and the occasional almond from my trail mix, or a peanut I hold back from the squadron of scrub jays that come around a couple times a day.

Sometimes Sid goes into the backyard alone, sometimes with me. Sometimes he watches the tortoises, sometimes he annoys the dogs next door (which I wouldn't worry about other than for their ability to claw their way through the fence to get into my yard).

One foul day, while I was watering my fig sapling that had a couple of ripening figs on it, Sidney ATE MY FIGS!!!!! Bad dog! There were fewer treats that day, and I intend to exact revenge on his mom's fig tree when hers come into season late this year (that is, if Sidney and Ginger have left any within reach - damn dobies can jump and harvest anything within my reach!)

Here's Sid tuckered out after cleaning all the peanut butter ouf of his bone. And not just any peanut butter, mind you, but the organic fresh ground (when she bought it in March, at least) peanut butter from Oliver's.



Sid's age is also showing in his reluctance to lay long on firm surfaces. So, he came not only with three containers of peanut butter and two bones, but also a large dog mattress for the floor, and a "sheepskin" blanket, sheet, and two pillows. I, ahem, also have a "sheepskin" blanket, so that's under there, too.



I had plans to take him to the dog park, and to the pet store so he could pick out a treat, and even cleared all my emergency/disaster response stuff out of my back seat so he'd have something more comfortable to lay on instead of the cargo area. (Spoiled? My goddog?? Nevah!)

Okay, so Mike's letting me know that it's time I talked about him. Hear his chin banging on the window sill as he bobs his head? Oh, wait, he's doing that because he sees Sidney outside.

Anyway, I took these photos last month, but never got around to sharing them. They are something only an iguana lover will appreciate: seminal plugs!



Mike had been cranky for a couple of days. Karen was over and had been petting him, and noticed that his hemipenal bulges felt more bulgy than usual. The next day, he deposited these plugs. Here's a close up of one of them:



Fascinating architecture, eh? And no wonder male igs get a bit testy (ar ar) when these things have built up, solidified, but they haven't yet been able to expel them. For those new to them, check out the article on seminal plugs at my site.

Because I had to suspend the treatment for my Bartonella flare in order to deal with some other health issues, my hand and arm hurts too much when I knit socks for me to be able to work on them. I wanted something rather mindless but useful, but wanted a break from kitchen towels (of which I have made 11 of the planned 30), I decided to make another market tote bag, and try to figure out a better way to finish the top, since I wasn't happy with the way I faked the tops of my first two.

Despite knitting them with two strands of worsted weight cotton held together and using size 10.5 needles, the bags still take 15-20 hours to make (I really need to time it to see for sure), so they aren't something particularly salable, unless someone wants to pay through the nose for a reusable handknit tote bag.

Here is a photo of the two new ones I finished - the green/white one is folded over itself so you can see the blue/yellow/white one beneath:



The bottom of the bag is knit in garter stitch, then stitches are picked up all around the rectangle and knit in the round for 3 inches before changing to the pretty (and expandable) faggot lace stitch. Because it is knit in an endless round rather than back and forth, the 'ribs' of the pattern are diagonal, instead of vertical as they are when knit back-and-forth. Here's a close up of the outside of the bag ('right side' of the st):



And here's what it looks like inside:




I did manage to work a couple of days of role play at the public safety academy. Driving up there the first morning, I noticed some hot air balloons in the early morning sky. After the morning's briefing, we role players and evaluators headed out to our assigned places at the other end of the campus, awaiting the first of the day's recruits to be dispatched to our locations. Since the campus is surrounded on a couple sides by farms and ponds, there's always a lot of birds around, so I always pause to look...and look at what I saw:



One of the balloons was still aloft when the morning winds faded away, and so they had to come down rather abruptly:



They were able to avoid landing in the big body of water that is on the other side of that grassy berm, just visible under the horizontal line in the photo that is the shade cover over the PSA parking lot:



But since the berm is angled on the other side, too, they risked being toppled into the water. They were able to get enough lift to bump their way up the top of the berm and down on our side with the help of a some folks who either scrambled over the fence or jumped out of the basket:



It was hard for me to see who scrambled to help, as I was actually rather far away:



And that concludes our program for the day. Sidney, having supervised me making lunch, is now resting before he goes on leftover/plate cleaning duty after I eat said lunch.

So much knitting, so few words...

While I am still pretty much feeling crappy and the part of my brain that does things like write and create verbal and written constructs has taken a prolonged A(bsence)WOL, about the only things I am up to doing are knitting and listening to audiobooks.

And so, apart from a whirlwind (and snowy) trip to Tulelake (thank you, Jim, Karen, Ginger and Sidney!!) to roust some of the winter cobwebs and look at hawks, eagles, owls, arctic birds, and lots and lots of icy snowy fields, I've been spending most of my time knitting and listening.

Here are a few photos to catch you up...


Some February 2008 photos taken around Tulelake and the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, and the roads north of the refuge:

Iced canals



Nearing sunset...


This is the most snow we have seen in the three winters we have been going to Tulelake...


Tundra swans flying over the yard as we were getting packed up to come home...


Shot through the windshield heading southwest on Highway 97....


What the heck are these plants? I have several - very alien looking...*


A lone female bufflehead...



Rangers estimated that there were over 400,000 swans wintering in the Tulelake and Lower Klamath refuges this year. I think we saw almost all of them, the following being only a small slice of the massive flocks...


A couple of Canada geese who found one of the few snow-free areas to forage...


Here there be eagles. We saw ~60 of them roosting in a line of trees bordering one of the exit roads out of Lower Klamath...



Ah, the knitting stuff! A pair of black armwarmers (KnitPicks' Sierra, in 'Coal') I knit up in a cable-and-broken-rib pattern; I knit this both at the same time on 2 circular needles):


Because it's hard to see the detail, I photographed them using the Document setting on my camera - it washed out the color, and makes it easier to see what's going on.


Here's Mike in the red cabled Mondial Gold scarf I finished, like the armwarmers, just in time for the trip:



This was Ginger's first road trip. She handled it very well. Okay, so being cabled to the back helped restrict her range, but she she still managed to snuggle with her mom:



While Sidney didn't have the back seat all to himself this time, he really didn't suffer as much as the look on his face here:


I finished another pair of Socks for Soldiers, this time using on of the new Army-approved colors, KnitPicks Swish DK, in Moss:


One of the ways to make sure our sock legs will fit the generally muscular military calves is to slip the socks over a 2 litre bottle. I happened to have a bottle on hand, so:


I really do buy yarn from other places, but I sure to love KnitPicks! The following is the cuff to their Girl's Best Friend Anklet sock pattern which for some reason caught my eye and made my fingers itch to knit. The decorative cuff was fun to knit, so I've already ordered yarn in a different color to make another pair. I hope the eventual recipients enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoy making them!


And, that's it for now. See? Knitting, not so much the words...

* My friend Karen (the brain and heart behind the SonomaBlanket Project I've previously written about) identified these alien stalks as great mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and kindly pointed me towards a couple of sources, AltNature and Wikipedia. I have no recollection of plants like these lining some of the canals from when I was up in Tulelake during the summers of 1990 and 1991, but I was more focused on birds at that point, that and trying to stay out of the stinging nettle that continues to maintain a strong presence up there. Thanks, Karen!

Puppieeeee!

The problem that arises when you live with pets who are an integral part of the family is that it hurts so damn much when they die.

Sidney is slowing down, his muzzle whiter every time I see him. I'd been thinking about what Karen and Jim would go through when he eventually goes the way of all life, and decided they should get a puppy before then. I'd already found a dobie rescue in Northern California and tucked it away.

Coincidental to my musings on this matter, Karen and Jim had been talking about it, too, and had pretty much decided to get a puppy, too.

It isn't that getting another dog will make it okay when Sidney goes, but maybe it will hurt just a weensy bit less. Maybe. God, I hate to think about it and Sid isn't even my dog!

Knowing how busy Karen always is, I decided to help her out, so I went to Petfinder.com and started searching for dobies with natural ears in the region. I emailed several to her, those who get along well with children, other dogs, and cats. (Funny how "duly respectful of large lizards" wasn't one of the traits the various rescues and shelters listed...)

There was a pair of pups, littermates, a black and a red dobie, five months old. They had been through several homes in their short lives. Karen and the rescue folks emailed back and forth at some length over the period of a week or two.

Last week, the red female was brought to the Vacaville branch of the rescue last Monday, spayed and microchipped on Tuesday, and coming home with us (well, of course Sidney and I had to go, too, to check out the pup and let her check us out) by week's end.

Originally named Gretel, which suited her not at all, she is friendly, great with kids, great with adults, great with car rides, learning to feel comfortable and explore the back yard (she apparently wasn't let out very much), a little nervous at the airport yet, and totally knows what the toy box is all about!

Here is the newly renamed Ginger and Sidney at a nearby park. Karen linked their leashes together so that she wouldn't be able to run off without dragging Sidney with her. Since Sidney outweighs her by 60 pounds, that so ain't gonna happen. Sidney can always be brought back to us by our uttering the magic word (c-o-o-k-i-e), so we weren't worried at all.



In fact, the only time of concern was when she leapt up onto the picnic table and grabbed a bone-in chicken thigh off my plate. Karen held her jaws agape (er, that would be Karen holding Ginger's jaws agape) while I reached own her throat and removed the thigh.

(Not wanting to reward her, but hating to throw it away, I, uhm, pulled the meat off the bone and gave it to Sidney.)

Here is a shot of Ginger in her favorite place: in someone's lap! Yes, yes, we know, bad idea to encourage behaviors that are cute at 50 pounds, but downright uncomfortable at 110 pounds.



Karen & Jim are using a crate to work on potty training. The report I got last night was that Sunday was an accident free day. I'm awaiting a report about today.

A closing shot of Sidney and Ginger with a couple of kids were enjoying the dogs far more than they were the adults milling around talking about graffiti abatement.



Oh! Yes, Ginger has met Mikey, though I can't say the opposite is true.

Karen and Ginger drove me home the night Ginger came home with us. We let Ginger out into my backyard to explore and hopefully pee. Karen and I were in my side yard when he heard a huffing and whining. Neighbordog Georgia was on the other side of the fence, scenting Ginger and trying to get a look at her in the slivers of space between the fence slats. Eventually, we migrated down towards the front yard where Georgia and Ginger were finally able to see one another by climbing things on either side of the fence. Ginger bopped her paw on Georgia's head, something that didn't seem to bother Georgia at all (though Georgia did hold me up for leftover chicken and a tennis ball the next day, so what they say about payback being a bitch is apparently true).

Anyway, Mike was asleep when Karen and Ginger brought me home. After meeting Georgia and chatting with her owners, Karen and I went into Mike's room and sat down, talking while he slept. Ginger was nervous at first about poking her way through the plastic drop cloth that I have hanging from the ceiling between the ig/breakfast room and kitchen to keep the heat in the ig room, but her curiosity overcame her trepidation, and in she came. When she finally saw Mikey, she gave his snout a lick, bounced back to Karen, and bounced out of the room back into the kitchen, there just being too much far more interesting stuff to see and smell and taste and maybe there's a ball! or a cookie!

Okay, enough of the puppy stuff for now, other than to say, if you are looking to get a dog or cat that needs a home, go check out the rescues and shelters. If you are looking for a doberman or greyhound, contact DogWorks Canine Rescue in the Central and Northern California area, and the far too many other dobies, greyhounds and every other purebred and mutt imaginable listed on Petfinder.com.

Here's a great photo of both dogs, taken by Karen a couple of weeks ago: