January 6, 2012
Elf & Opus in the Winter of 2011-2012
Meditation on the Eve of Groundhog Day:
There I was drying off after a bath when loud cat yowls sounded on the other side of the door. No cats live here. Did one of the ferals around the neighborhood beat down the dog door's night barrier? Got dressed and rushed forth with the intention of seeing kitties (possibly plural) back outside. A room by room search turned up no felines, however, and the dog door was closed up tight. My heartbeat banged away as I pondered the (remote) possibility of a ghost cat... Like "I heard the owl call my name," was a dear kitty from childhood come to gather me up to my forefathers? Shrodinger's Cat? My enfeebled ready-for-bed mind was reeling since common sense answers weren't presenting themselves. …. At length I thought of looking at the iPad, iPhone, iPod and sure enough, one at a time, all three had raised their electronic voices as an alert of a lost black cat in the area!
As for Elf and Opus -- they slept soundly through the whole thing. Indeed, I would have solved the feline mystery faster had I paid more attention to the canines.
Falling asleep took a good while -- I was busy laughing at myself. No sooner did I doze off than Opus -- for the first time ever at night -- began making funny little sounds. Decided he must need to go out, got up, opened dog door, out he raced -- and I had, after a good long while, to call him back in. Maybe he was looking for phantom cats? Elf contented herself with sitting up and staring at me in a puzzled manner as I waited for Opus. Both dogs were wild in the morning, tearing in and out, racing through the yard, sniffing, pawing small objects on the ground.
Update: Late January
By the 23rd the ice in shady areas finally disappeared into dark spots, leaving Elf and Opus without a source of fun -- chewing chunks off, hauling them over into the sunshine to gnaw on. As the more powerful pooch Elf started each day's ice removal operation. Not until she was sprawled out with with her prize would Opus put his smaller teeth to work. Back and forth they went like that until the human finished with outdoor things and decided to go back indoors. The long lingering ice damaged every concrete surface on the place, on all the sides of the house. The area is not really built for such wintry events as we've had this season and last February.
The pair was on the spot supervising during the previous week while the human tackled plum tree pruning, a job originally intended for a hired person. But scanty funds serve as a prompt to invention and while watching the dogs pull on different ends of sticks one day the scheme came to mind of weighting one end of a strand of baling twine, tossing it over a high limb and then pulling the limb down within sawing range from the wheelchair. Worked well enough that the three trees in one hole are left with just one unreachable, disreputably long spot. Thankfully the dogs remained out from under the trees and dropping branches. As soon as the human backed away, however, in raced Elf and Opus, eager for prospects of entertainment among the fallen things. A dried plum, yum! Bug eggs, slurp! For some days of this activity the songs of doves and finches filled the air, the finches beginning to sound as though they were thinking of nests. The gardening neighbor, not keen on cold weather, was out digging up his winter-killed privets and a rose bush.
Then there fell a bit of snow and rain overnight… The human sat around staring at the new USDA Plant Hardiness Map (click HERE to see it) musing over how different it is to be in Zone 7a now instead of plain old 7. Maybe it's time to order some plants online and see if the recommendations are different. Meanwhile, out in the yard certain arthropods were enjoying the rainfall.
A few days later, beneath warm rays of the midday sun, Opus lounged on the human's lap while Elf chewed thoughtfully on large branches pruned off the plum trees when a bunch of fluttery little butterflies began showing off around the yard. Ummm, something odd about those small things, could they be early white "cabbage worms"? Uh -- not unless those have suddenly developed helicopter wings that are clear, not white, like dragonflies. And why do they keep landing on the ground where there are no butterfly wings to be seen? Oh, horror, they are alates with folded wings running around down there! You know, termites with temporary wings that fold into a long straight line over their backs, out for a bit of fun before going back to a cozy enclosure (OUR HOUSE???) to recommence wood chewing activities. To think that just two years ago the place was inspected and pronounced free and clear of such pests.
A bit of research suggests that these unpleasant insects may have emerged not from the house, but from the rotting wood of a large old cottonwood trunk in the back yard.
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Our section of the middle Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico was beneath two unusually heavy snowstorms (for us) during December. This left Elf, Opus and the human all feeling rather cold in the feet from our days of snow and ice removal, and hemmed in by piles of snow blocking easy access to the back yard. Which does not get enough sun for such things to melt with enthusiasm. Especially astonishing was the discovery that our section of New Mexico was actually the part of the USA that was the farthest below normal temperatures for the month of December. While we stared at inch thick ice in sunless areas, the northeast enjoyed pleasant, warmish days and the north central plains were relatively toasty!
Study and inquiry revealed that climate change can and does contribute to such uncharacteristic weather.
This frigid period may have blocked the human in the power wheelchair from going anywhere in the yard, but the intrepid canines joyously carried their chew antlers outside, dropped them into impossible drifts, came in and asked for new ones. Several weeks later an impressive collection of lost antlers emerged from the melting snow. Evidently softened by the freeze treatment, as the dogs gnawed them down to nubs in short order.
Enforced house-boundedness is the natural result of such weather. Reflecting on Henry David Thoreau, the human got to thinking of how much there is in favor of a life simply lived. Especially in today's crazy, over-scheduled and unsustainable world.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
~Henry David Thoreau
That redheaded naturalist practiced a number of things we need more of today, like living in balance between culture and wilderness, following a somewhat vegetarian diet, keeping one's needs simple, studying deeply what one has passion for, standing up for what is just and right. Why not curl up with The Maine Woods sometime soon to refresh your spirit? Read it aloud to your dogs? Elf and Opus have been entertained with excerpts from Thoreau.
Have a listen to one of the wildest sounds of all:
Howling wolves
Recorded at Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary
in Ramah, New Mexico
They deserve our support.
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Snow melts and then ground dries out back in a line created by a southern fence. A HIGH southern fence. As it dried, the wheelchair was able to advance without spinning its wheels in muck, permitting removal of geometrically arranged rows of … dog poop. Amazing how the pair of them laid out a neat grid. Photos of all events related to the snow and ice sheets were inhibited by the human's not wishing to take the camera along when venturing out, for the simple intention of not having extra stuff on board in case of getting stuck. Carting along two heavy metal shovels to break up ice sheets and a regular snow shovel regrettably takes up carrying capacity.
Well -- long about this week things finally became pleasant enough for us to resume a measure of afternoon romping around out back. The jolly ball was pried loose from under a table where corgi ingenuity had pinned it from vigorous wind a few weeks ago, and Opus discovered the joy of lying on sun-warmed gravel against pleasantly heated cinder block wall. Not to mention doing his personal version of Occupy Wall Street -- taking kamikaze leaps onto the human's lap when least expected. Representing the 50% of the canine companions who Do Not Chase Jolly Balls in Preference to Occupying Laps. Sometimes he touches down with a foot or two, rolls over and lands on the other side, but this does not deter future attempts when the human is actually ready for him. Then, of course, it's the right time to meditate together on Serious Matters of Life. Human: How to Accept our Environmental Limits as One Great Human Family? Opus: The Happiness of a Great Big Bone to Chew.
Here are a few typical photos which were taken on the human's birthday -- a lovely time to be outside observing how different are the patterns of tree limbs from plum to cottonwood to siberian elm to mulberry and apple tree! Catching delicate tracery of winter killed and dried agastache that was so brilliantly pink and purple last summer and fall. But especially observing Elf the Corgi slamming her grubby purple jolly ball from one end of the yard to the other, a dozen times over. Here are a few photos.
Elf with jolly ball. In every one of these she was running full speed, and since the sweet little Canon doesn't stop action fast enough, there's blurriness. But the spirit shines through, so here we go.
Finally, she puts the jolly away with the outdoor tools. What a good dog!
