Life with a Lab

 Today it warmed up to above freezing and was even raining off and on since yesterday afternoon. I'd been waiting for it to warm up so I could snowshoe the hill down to the boats and create something of a solid pack in preparation for running a snow machine down there. At this point there way not enough snow to even bother. 

I made the hike using my husband's new/old snowshoes that I'd finally bought binders for. He bought those snowshoes years ago, probably shortly after he got out of the army, or he found them in the Army/Navy store. Whatever it was, it was a long time ago. Last summer I found some military binders for that kind of snowshoe on Amazon and I broke down and bought them. Not long ago I put them together and tested out the lengths by putting one of his boots in one. 

Well, today, this is what I used. The only difference was, I used my shoes rather than wear my boots, because it was plenty warm out there and I didn't want my feet sweating. I didn't even wear socks, though maybe I should have. Those binding were a little loose, but they hung onto my shoes just fine. 

So I went down to the boats and back and didn't take the dog because she makes it her personal goal to stay within a foot of me and I didn't want to face-plant because she insisted on walking on my snowshoes. And when she's not doing that, she's running and even blitzing up and down the trail, trying her level best to brush past me as close as she dares, and if I happen to be off guard, she might bodyslam me - she's managed to knock me down twice since we got her. Telling her no or quit or stop all means to try harder in her brain. Believe me, I've tried my hardest to discourage her doing that, but for the most part, she either doesn't get to go or I carry a big stick.

So anyway, I made the trip, and when I got back, I kicked off the snowshoes and walked up to the awning outside my husband's window and knocked. He got the hint immediately, and he let the dog out. This is a game we play frequently "Find Mommie". Most of the time she will look in all known places I might go, and when that doesn't pan out, she'll use her nose. Honestly, I didn't think she'd even get out of the yard, especially since I knocked into my bear-alert wind chimes and made a racket. She didn't give it a single thought, she just blasted down the trail.

As soon as she was out of sight, I came around and on into the house. I have no idea how far she went, but I suspect she went all the way, or very nearly. Of course, I was now hidden in the house by the time she blasted back. Once here, she looked with her nose and still didn't find me. I was just short of being tackled when she finally found me. My playing hide and seek might be one reason she hangs so close to me all the time, even here in the house. 

A Good Substitute

About a month ago, an ermine moved in under the house. We'd seen him (or her) before, but then I think, when he discovered the abundant hunting ground under the house, he hung around. When we saw all the tracks, we started leaving a few crumbs of leftovers out by the steps where the plastic that skirts the house during the winter is open.

Yep, he scarfed them up, so we left more. Soon we had a bowl out there, not to fill, but to keep the scraps out of the snow. Soon, we discovered that he doesn't really like dry ramen noodles, but he'll make short work of bits of fish sticks, hot dogs, and bacon. The latest offering, a half biscuit with butter and a little tuna mixed with mayonnaise disappeared quickly.

He seems to go on short hunting trips, but of late he has always returned. I guess he's unwilling to pass up a free meal.

He's a cute little sucker. We've tentatively named him Trouble, but today I couldn't help but call him Sweety. You see, today was the first time he showed himself to me, and for about five minutes, we played peekaboo. He popped up a couple times to peek at me through the steps, and then half a dozen or more times from the gap near the bowl. Every time I moved, he darted back out of sight, but then popped back out to peek at me again.

We were on our way to get firewood, and I couldn't play any longer. I put a piece of meatloaf in his bowl and we took off. When we got back, the meatloaf was gone. I do hope to see him again soon. I think, if he's still hanging around this summer, I'll order some ferret food. Not to have that as a stable, but to give him a slightly better diet than people food, which, I'm sure he'll get plenty of as long as he's around.

I do hope he stays. If he does, the mouse population will take a header. Who knows, maybe he'll actually become friendly, or at least friendly enough to take food from my hand. And if I'm really lucky, we'll get a second generation here. I'm not sure if he's old enough, and I haven't more than the one, but it would be hard to tell with all the tracks he's left around.

But, I can't have a cat or a dog. Where my son lives now, they don't allow pets, and the day will come soon when I can't live out here anymore. There's really no point in trying to get one now. Someday, when I've relocated to wherever (Eagle River, AK, or more likely Kingman, AZ), I'll get a cat then. Who knows - Only the future will tell.

An Interesting Summer

Yep, an interesting summer indeed. Now I know for sure that I'm getting old. The start of work was a bit rocky in my opinion. Getting to know a new boss is not always a smooth journey. It seems he couldn't trust me to get the job done, concentrating more on how many hours I put in rather than the fact that I was forced to wait on the others to accomplish certain deeds before I could finish what I had going, and so needed to move on to a task I really wasn't ready to move on to. Ah but I'm just complaining; I can do that once in a while. I'm rather set in my ways, and I realized that I was rather spoiled over at my last place of employment.

As the summer progressed and things settled into a rhythm, a new kind of spoiling was discovered. Since I was expected to be there through dinner, my day ended up averaging 13 hours long, but for the duration of the King fishing season, there were empty cabins, and it was expected that I take a nap. Of course, my boss told me more than once that I would have to clean up after myself before the cabin could be rented during Silver season - as if I wouldn't know such a thing - as if he thought I would 'move in' to a cabin to the extent that it would require such 'cleaning up' after. There was no such place during Silver season, so those 13 hours were really long, even though my afternoons could still be considered down-time and I could just sit down somewhere, sleep was not an option. I took my computer to work so I could do some writing or editing. That worked out just fine until I got too tired to think. You see, there isn't even a day off. It's 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. The only days off are a week or so between King season and Silver season. I didn't really need the break to rest, not then, but it was nice to be able to catch up on things here at home.

As soon as the chef got his start-up supplies in, I put in my first list. Since my freezer was nearly empty, I ordered things to fill it. My reasoning was that since there were some things down in the bottom of the freezer, it would be easier to keep things frozen if it was full - meat stays frozen better next to other frozen meat rather than next to a volume of air - it just seemed hard to get the freezer to cycle. Then again, maybe I was imagining things. Next year I'll be ordering meats last.

Since my boss couldn't be bothered to buy a flight in order to get supplies out here (I'm talking about lodge supplies) my stuff didn't come and didn't come and still didn't come. The lodge was running out of stuff too. I was getting worried, I mean I had two more big lists of stuff to get out here, and if it was so much trouble to get this much, I was wondering how I would be getting the rest of it. Of course, the chef was fit to be tied as his options for what to fix for his guests were getting skinnier and skinnier. You see, at this lodge, they get their supplies only 'space available', meaning if a plane has to come out here empty or only partially loaded for someone else, they'll throw something of ours on, and since it was start-up season for all the lodges in the area, very few planes came out here empty - hence the occasional need to buy a flight at the cost of what one guest pays. Ah but that would have cut into his profit margin; we were expected to suck it up.

Yeah, in case you haven't guessed, I don't have a very high opinion of my new boss. For him, all his decisions are based on his profit margin or his personal advancement or image. That is no way to run a lodge. That's also a whole other rant.

But enough about my boss. He pays, so I will work there until I get a better offer somewhere else.

I finally got my meats and filled the freezer, and since the summer wasn't very hot, we were able to run it every other day most of the summer. There was an unanticipated side-effect to having a full freezer though. Something compounded by the cool summer which produce very nearly no berries - hungry bears - bears that know what a freezer is. So for the duration of the summer, my husband had to stay home and guard the freezer. There were at least two black bears who came around from time to time. Don was able to run whichever one off each time, but one time he actually had to fire his pistol off to do the job, and even then, the bear seemed to think about it. This happened by the time I reached work. One of them came back since I've been home and even though I'm a light sleeper, I wasn't able to prevent the bear from mauling the freezer. At 2:30 in the o'dark morning, I heard a noise and jumped out of bed. By the time I reached the front of the house, I heard another noise near the front door. Looking out the window to the right of the door showed me nothing out of place so I went to the other side of the house to look out over the freezer - there he was, highlighted by the moonlight, half way across the yard and heading away at a leisurely pace. I stayed up for another hour just to make sure he didn't come back - he didn't. The next morning I went out to look around and discovered an empty trash can tipped over and all kinds of muddy footprints all over the freezer. Seriously, he couldn't have worked on the freezer for very long, but still my newish freezer now has at least three new scars. He was biting at the lid, trying to get in. I think pure luck kept him out, like maybe he was leaning too hard on the lid while he was biting it and he didn't get a good hold on the lid, only pinching the top at best. Close call. We've been talking all summer about moving the freezer to the shop, or maybe back inside. This pretty much decides the issue. We also need to get a dog. I'm a light sleeper but a dog is better. 

Another thing that happened this fall, and earlier this summer I wish I'd seen, was a young moose came calling. When I saw him, I heard a thumpty-thump and thought it might be a bear (this happened before the previous account) so I jumped out of bed and went to look. There, standing in the middle of the yard was a young bull - maybe a 4-year-old. His rack was still bloody so he only just lost his velvet and he was cranky with rut. As I watched him, he started to make a head-down approach at our snowmachines. He could pick on most anything else, but not the snowmachines so I opened the window to holler at him. He backed off from that to check out the new distraction, but he wasn't done. I had to holler at him and even step out of the door to wave at him before he gave up and moseyed on up past the guest cabin. That afternoon, I jumped on the 4-wheeler to check the boats and saw him still hanging around up the sizeline not far from the cabin up there. I haven't seen him since.

Earlier during the summer, my husband told me about a young bull and cow that came calling. He said it was so funny. The poor bull was trying his hardest to impress his female friend by mock-charging various things in the yard, namely the big smoker still set up in the middle. Apparently his girlfriend wasn't too impressed, but that didn't stop him from trying. He didn't hurt anything so my husband just watched. When I got home, he told me about it, making sure I knew how badly the female of the species tortures their male suitors. haha It did sound so cute and so funny. I wish I could have seen it.

Yesterday, I went down to drain the rain out of the boats, they're pulled now, by the way, unless the water comes up again. My boat is tentatively pulled and left still low if that event happens - I couldn't even get the boat out of the slough until it is floating again anyway. I pulled the plug so my boat could go pee and then stood there looking out over the river. Around the corner came a pair of otters. I haven't seen otters for a while now - they are such a comical creature. The first one swimming around the corner immediately dove, but the other one did something like a double-take and the cocked his head to the side before following the example of his companion. I sat down in the hopes that my non-upright posture would be less threatening and they would come close again, but they didn't. They did hang around farther out though. They were hunting dieing fish, so I left so they could get on with it.

So there are critters around again, not like last year when my world was rather devoid of wildlife, to include those of the feathered variety. Not many of those around still though, but they are around. I'm thinking it'll be a while before the big flocks build up again. My spruce hen momma raised another family here. She had five chicks this year, and I'd occasionally meet them on the trail. It's rather funny when they decide to just walk along in front of the 4-wheeler. They are rather short-legged, you know. Their leisurely pace is really quite slow. hahaha I got a big kick out if it though.

I do love my life here. I would miss all of this if I moved to town.

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I Need a Cat or Two

My first experiment with a picture. Let me know how it works out for you. Yes, this is what the snow has left for us on the sunny side of my house. You can see in the upper right hand corner the ladder, right above that is my satellite dish.

These are mouse tunnels all carefully insulated from the snow by the grass they packed against the top of their tunnels. There are a few places where the tunnel goes down into the ground. I never see these little buggers, but there must be quite a few of them. What do you think? Do I need a cat or two?

I haven't had cats here for four years now, and though our dog catches a mouse or a shrew now and then, she obviously isn't keeping up with the population explosion. I love cats, but over the years I have increasingly grown more and more allergic to them. However, I have been thinking. There are other things I had been growing increasingly allergic to, apples being one of them, but since I started to lose weight last summer, eating apples was one of the pleasures I was able to re-indulge in. I know one allergy is not connected to another, but dare I hope?

Every day on Facebook I see the most adorable pictures of kittens and cats all doing what kittens and cats do. It makes me miss them all the more. I think, therefore, I am in the market for giving it a try. Allergy or not, I want another kitten around here. This place is just too quiet.

My only concern is, old dogs scarcely tolerated my other cats. They were mine, therefore they weren't to be chased, but that didn't mean she didn't REALLY want to. Same with the chickens I had back then.  Since I have decided I won't be spending great chunks of time away from here in the winter, having assorted animals around has been something I have been longing for. Maybe not so many as before, and maybe not chickens. I'll have to think about that one. It got to the point where an egg averaged about $2 when cost of feed was figured in to how many eggs I ended up with. Then there's the damage they were always doing to the yard.

I can do a cat or two. Maybe if my kids will read this, they will bring me one or two this summer. Do my kids read this? If I get a kitten this summer, the answer will be yes. haha We'll see.

Magic House

My dog, Gizmo, is convinced our house is magical. She's really pretty good at catching small bits of food such as popcorn tossed at her, but you have to get her attention so she can see the toss. However, if it manages to hit the floor, it didn't fall to the floor, it popped up out of the floor. When the floor pops, she simply has to watch that spot just in case it pops again. Sometimes it does you know, though never in the same spot. She has been known to stare at a certain part of the floor for hours or until she gets bored and falls asleep.

That's not all this house does. Every once in a while it eats me up and surely it spits me outside somewhere, though she has never been successful at finding me out there. I'll go back to the bedroom and disappear into the bed for a nap. She'll then pace the house looking for me in the bedroom and then asking to go outside and look there. Then she'll come back in and look in the bedroom again and then back out. Around and around, whining and worrying until I get up from my nap. Only then will she settle down.

There is of course no way to know what she's actually thinking. Sometimes I wish I could, especially at times like these.