Larry Gibbons
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Mice and Snow

7/2/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Christmas Tree Farm on our Road
I think Houdini, the escape-artist mouse whom I caught and set free somewhat less than two miles from our trailer, has made it back to our abode. (See Blog 63: “Houdini”  ).

Why do I think this? Because the damn mice are now entering the foyer of our ‘live mouse trap’, finishing off the peanut butter and then vacating our sure-fire trap in an orderly fashion. We haven’t caught a single mouse.

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Live Mouse Trap
Hell, I’ve even seen them, late at night, inside the live trap. However, in the morning, when I went outside to warm up the truck and then returned to collect the mouse and escort him to the warm vehicle in order to taxi him or her to a new home, he or she had slipped away into some dark and mysterious trailer place.
You know what else I think? I think Houdini is a gifted instructor. I think he’s teaching late night and early morning courses. Giving mice instructions on how to escape from our variety of traps. Escapology One, Two and Three.

I’ll also tell you why I’m thinking this and it’s not just because the mice are pigging out on our peanut butter and not worrying a whit about getting caught.

You see, last night, around two am, while I was stumbling around the kitchen, trying to find the outdoor light switch, so I could turn it on and look outside to see amazing weather phenomena and any of the night creatures who might be sneaking around our trailer while we’re in la-la land, I heard a squeaky mouse voice.

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Mouse-hunting Fox in our Yard
I heard the voice just after I’d stubbed my toe on the kitchen chair. His utterances drifted up from the bowels of the trailer’s internal workings. And the lecture seemed to be about our traps and how to escape from them.

I specifically heard this bit of scholarly conversation:  “Squeaky, let’s say you’re eating a meal in what you assumed was a mouse greasy-spoon diner. And let’s say you’ve just finished your peanut butter meal and you’re ready to leave a tip and be gone. You get to the exit and my gosh, there’s a metal barrier in front of you and you can’t find a way out. What do you do?”

“Don’t panic, Sir Houdini.”

“That’s the very first thing you do. You don’t panic. You sit down and assess the situation. Then what do you do? Anybody else? Nobody? Okay, what we’re going to do is go visit a live trap which has been conveniently set up for our instruction and edification. And when we’re finished, you’re going to know it from head to stern. You’ll all be able to take one apart and put it back together with your eyes closed and you’ll all be able to weasel your way out of the traps as if there were no tomorrow. Just think how much this will improve your quality of life!

“Follow me, please and don’t forget to pray for our comrades who have been forced to emigrate from our home-sweet-home.”

And my, oh my! I could hear such a scurrying and a sliding in our walls and under our floor. I thought, “My god, how many of them are there?”

I wished I hadn’t watched the movie, ‘Willard’ earlier in the evening.

Later on, when I was back in bed, I could hear the sound of those unescapable hinges and doors opening and closing. Which, I assumed, were caused by the mice practising their escape skills.
***
Picture
ICE GLISTENING ON MOUNTAIN
A few days ago, I went searching for a Houdini-escape-proof live trap. I visited the local hardware store, but they didn’t have any other live traps.

They did have a rather intriguing death trap. I didn’t buy it. It was a deadly trap that looked like a live trap, but wasn’t. 

It was a contraption that had a foyer, as does my now-useless-after-Houdini-returned-live-easy-to-escape-trap. However, inside the peanut butter room, it had some kind of killing machine. When the mouse entered, it zapped the mouse into infinity before the poor mouse had a chance to chow down on one morsel. Theoretically, one only had to remove the trap’s roof and remove the dead mouse. Hopefully, completely dead and not suffering.

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Icy Mountain Dwarfs My Truck
***
Are there any other reasons, besides the reasons I gave in Blog 63, for my not buying traps which kill mice? Yes, there are.

You see, last summer, I purposely let a wasp nest be. This experiment is also described in an earlier blog post. The nest thrived under my step-ladder for the whole summer until it was blown away by a hurricane.

The experiment, in my mind, was a success, except of course for the hurricane disaster. Because, in spite of all the chitter-chatter about how mean wasps are, those wasps and I thrived. And in spite of the fact that the nest was only around the corner beside the wood-shed,  where I often ate and drank, we got along splendidly.

Only a few, maybe ten wasps, came close to me. Cross my heart! And I believe it was only out of curiosity and maybe to make sure the terms of our treaty were being followed.  Why, they gave me less trouble than a neighbour dropping around to borrow some sugar or to drop off religious pamphlets.

I do, however, worry about the cold weather and other hazards the mice must face, but these are genuine field mice and they know how to survive.

Plus, I did some research and learned that the fairly radical animal rights organization called PETA has declared that releasing them into the wild is the most humane way of treating your wild field mice intruders.

“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—-not fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.”
                                                                                                Henry Thoreau, "Walden"

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Ice Art
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Winter Wonderland

I don’t want to state that my mouse and wasp handling techniques could be applied to the situation the world is finding itself in, but I will. Because there is an elephant charging around in our only earth’s very large foyer and this elephantoid creature’s name isn’t Jumbo.

So, I think that my experiment might be applied to some governments and might be an alternative approach to how they perceive and treat foreigners and strangers. Because I think there are all kinds of ways of being a good Samaritan.

Plus, when I see our ‘AS-WE-MOVE-FORWARD’ society relentlessly and thoughtlessly injuring, destroying, or being unaware of the infinite number of living organisms that are part of our world, well, I think my experiment was worthwhile.


“It is only when the gods finally begin to die completely out of the land and when many human beings begin to live totally divorced from nature -at the beginning, that is, of the modern age-that landscape painting, picturesque architecture and landscape description——become the obsessive themes of art.”
                                                                                                                          Vincent Scully

***
Picture
Too Much Snow For Buster
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My Old Truck
I think the mystery of why all our Evening Grosbeaks have disappeared has been solved. We usually have about forty-to-sixty of them in the winter. A hardware store employee told me that an agile hawk will scare them away.

We’d had an agile hawk hunting around our bird feeders just before the grosbeaks disappeared. The grosbeaks, apparently, got out of town and are now supping at our friend’s bird feeder, which is situated in downtown Baddeck.

We hope they come back next year.

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Sue and Buster on their daily walk down our road
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Does Wily Have a Microwave? 

28/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Our Local Coyote
This coyote is wanted by some angry neighbours. He is wily and I think he’d catch the Road Runner in quick fashion. Anyway, I snapped the photo while he watched Sue, Buster and me strolling down Gold Brook Road.

We are pretty sure that he’s the coyote who killed a neighbour’s cat. He also ate all the cat food and dog food that our neighbour had put out for her many pets. But get this, there was also a bowl of frozen milk on the woman’s porch. Old Wily picked up the bowl of milk and carried it into the forest, I assume to defrost it before he drank it. Milk builds up the calcium in your bones and is good with kibble. The coyote is more than crafty and a vegan he is not.
Of note is that Buster is now nervous at certain spots on the road. He is a smart dog and does not want to become a coyote sandwich.
***
I think I need to give a wee explanation about my Buster Wear photo. And while I’m at it, also let you know that Buster is excited about how well his Buster Wear clothing project has been doing. It’s selling like hot kibble.

Anyway, a fella read my blog and wondered afterwards what the yellow area was on the front of the black Buster Wear shorts. I explained to him what it was and now I am going to explain it to the whole blogosphere.

It is a picture of a yellow chick who is looking at a fried egg on a plate. The chick is saying, “Holy crap! Larry, is that you?!?!
Picture
***
Here’s part of a poem I could have used in my last blog, in which I expressed one of the reasons why I regard money the way I do.

             “Honest John Tomkins, a hedger and ditcher,
               Although he was poor, didn’t want to be richer;
               All such wishes in him were prevented,
               By a fortunate habit of being contented.”

                                                                                         “Anonymous” John Tomkins

***
It seems to me that I spend an inordinate amount of time writing blogs with the word ‘Buster” in them. Have you noticed that? Lots of photos of him too, and here’s one more.
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Be cool. Wear Buster Wear!
A friend of mine told me that she often thinks her husband’s dog is the other woman. I sometimes wonder if Buster isn’t the other woman in my blogs.

You see, I could write a blog that answered one of the greatest philosophical questions of all time. The question being: “Why are we here, in this world?” This blog answer could potentially set the world on a new course and still, I’m sure, I would receive emails that wouldn’t mention my solving the big universal question. Nope, they’d ask me, “Where’s the Buster stuff?
***
 And yes, Buster does give me material for my blogs. Like last week...

I have read that some Indigenous tribes believe animals can understand what we are saying. I have never really believed this. My line of thinking has been that animals, especially Buster dogs, have an ability to glean an amazing amount of info from the tone of our voice and from our body language. As one fella told us, dogs have had centuries and centuries of time to learn how to understand us humans and how to fit into our human lives.


Well, after yesterday’s walk, I may have to change my theory.

You see, every afternoon without fail, Buster waits around in the trailer while Sue finishes up her lunch. Once she’s finished, Buster goes into his song and dance. Which is to bark, bother, growl, and get in the way. Because it’s his Sue/Buster walk time.

Sue will, right smartly, snap a leash onto Buster’s red collar and then off they go. Usually for a one-and-a-half to three-km walk. The weather plays no role in this operation. Buster has decreed.

However, Buster’s decree has played a key role in one aspect of Sue’s life. He has improved Sue’s health immeasurably - both physical and mental - and I recommend that people get a dog to improve their health.

Anyway, after the walk, Buster and Sue will come inside where Buster gets his treat and then afterwards he has a little nap. Where he dreams about expanding his Buster Wear business into Buster Punk Rock Neck Collars. Using Trump’s foreign workers to save money.

Well, yesterday, while I was walking with Sue and Buster, I mentioned to Sue that I was going to go to Margaree and get some post-hockey beer and then maybe drop into the excellent Dancing Goat Coffee Shop and have a tea. Sue asked me if I wanted her to tag along. We got into a confab about this. The conversation theme was whether or not Sue will or won’t ride shotgun with me. We discussed this at some length while little furry Buster sniffed, peed and walked his walk.

At some point in our discussion, after we’d parsed to death my words, ‘Yes, I want you to come with me’, and we were able to come to the conclusion that I really did want Sue to be part of my coffee shop adventure, we also decided, somewhere in the smoke of words and meaning, that we’d leave Buster at home.

When we got to the deck, Buster wouldn’t climb the stairs up to the front door. No sir. He just wanted to laze around outside. Enjoy the scents and sights. Life is too short to rush, that kind of attitude.

So we hooked the outdoor dog chain onto his collar and then we went inside while Buster nosed around. However, when I took a peek out the door window, there was Buster, sitting on the porch looking in while I looked out. Making no attempt to get us to let him inside. Where he would get his usual post-walk treat. Rather unusual, wouldn’t you think?

Had Buster understood that we were planning on leaving him at home? In which case, his coming into the trailer would make it a damn sight easier for us to carry out the leaving-him-alone procedure.

Anyway, the result of Buster’s approach to this situation was that he enjoyed a bird’s eye view from my truck’s arm-rest, as he watched Sue and me sitting inside The Dancing Goat Coffee Shop enjoying our mugs of hot java. Did I mention that they make excellent home-made bread and other baked goods? We didn't tell Buster that, needless to say.
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***
NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH! BUSTER WINS ANOTHER DECISIVE BATTLE! WHAT CAN I SAY, OTHER THAN “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH ME”?
Buster has been turning his nose up at his meals. Even when we mix some of our food into his dry kibble.

The reason we feel that some dry kibble is important, other than because it’s the accepted and politically correct way to feed our presently scientifically raised canine buddies, is that it stops him from having an anal blockage. And I’ll tell you something, if you heard your beloved Buster dog trying to blow crap out of his or her intestinal pipes and not being successful, well, the cries and whines and howls are memorable.

 However, last Sunday morning I said, “Screw it. Forget the correct dog feeding methodology.”

Instead I said, “Get the frying pan, kettle and toaster rolling. Move ’em on out. Yah, hah,” and all that sort of Sunday morning nonsense.

You see, most Sunday mornings I make breakfast for Sue and me. I usually cook up fried or scrambled eggs with bacon or sausages, toast some bread and add a few slices of tomatoes or cucumbers. Often I sprinkle curry and pepper on the fried eggs. Two eggs for Sue and two eggs for me. Three sausages or bacon strips for Sue and three sausages or bacon strips for me.
 
Last Sunday we had sausages. And here is what I did. I fried six sausages, because that was all I had, fried five eggs, sliced up some cucumbers and made some toast.

Notice I said five eggs? Well, to quickly summarize this part of my blog, I made three breakfasts this morning. And Buster loved his and then he even ate his kibble. He looked awfully happy. And he ate the cucumber slices. Can’t even get plenty of kids to eat their cucumbers.

But when Buster jumped on my lap, turned his head to the side, so he could catch my eyes and then telepathically ordered a cup of tea with a teaspoon of sugar and a little milk, well, I had to draw the line. You have to draw a line somewhere. Don’t you?

But when he sat next to me while I was watching another pathetic bit on CNN about this Trump blow-hard, Buster telepathically said he would like to remind me that he was expecting a few buddy burgers when we go to Kingston, and I knew that buddy burgers it would be.

Since that breakfast, Buster has feasted on bits of steak, carrots, baked potatoes, spaghetti, bread and jam, but, and I must emphasize the BUT, he always has kibble with it. And he eats the kibble last of all. BUT he eats it. And he’s crapping just fine, thank-you.

And there you are. An almost one hundred-proof Buster blog. Please be warned. Blog 53 may not have Buster in it.  Sorry.   
***
             “Now I’m walkin down that long lonesome hallway
              Headin’ for the kitchen again
              All I want to do is eat everything
              Then I want to eat it all again.
              I need way more food, Babe.”
              Four-course meals at 8, 12, 6 and ten.
                                                      Merrill MARKOE, Ballad of Winky


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Snowshoers on the Skyline Trail in a blizzard a couple of weeks ago
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Escapees

31/1/2016

1 Comment

 
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Wreck Cove, Cape Breton
Wow! Blog number fifty! Woo-hoo! Hard to believe I’ve managed to stay with this blog writing endeavour. And, maybe even more surprisingly, that Sue has managed to hang in there and continue editing and submitting my fifty blogs to the blogosphere. Is there a medal for that?

Now I know some bloggers write a blog almost every day, but for me, fifty is a satisfying number and maybe that’s why I like the colour of the fifty-dollar bill. I might like the colour of the one hundred-dollar bill, but I’ve never spotted one. Maybe they're extinct.

***
About three weeks ago, four of us snowshoed on the Skyline trail. It was a blustery wintry Sunday. The snow was blowing itself dizzy and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better. Furthermore, the Skyline trail is located on top of a mountain, a sure recipe for down home snow trouble. However, we all travelled in some mighty fine four-by-four machines so I wasn’t too worried.

We parked our vehicles next to a brand new emergency station. This little building has a land-line phone, a wood stove, a bench or two and a goodly amount of firewood. I have, at other times in my life, attempted to get trapped in one of these emergency mountain accommodations, just so my partner and I would be forced to share the hut overnight with only a little food, a large bottle of champagne and some big ideas.

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Emergency Hut
Anyway, we had plenty of snow on which to snowshoe to one of the most beautiful lookouts in the world.

But first, we had to pass a little washroom. Which always causes us to stop for a few seconds of silence. For it was here some hikers came upon a woman lying on the ground, bleeding and very close to death. Standing on her was a coyote. The hikers had shouted and thrown all kinds of things at the coyote while the coyote remained reluctant to flee his or her takeout. He did scram off eventually, but, sadly, left the woman critically injured. Apparently she was able to whisper her name before she died. A sad tragedy and a clear warning to never take wildlife for granted.

One of the characteristics of the Skyline trail is that a hiker has about an eighty percent chance of seeing a moose or two. One hiker with us had never been on this trail and he was looking forward to seeing a moose. He was hoping to get a photo of one.

Well, not too far in, we all saw a moose run across the trail in front of us. None of us was camera ready, but we all did see the moose and we all laughed and joked about how nobody had their camera or cell phone ready for the ‘BIG MOOSE PICTURE’.

About halfway down the trail is a huge, fenced-in area with two gigantic gates. This barrier protects acres and acres of land where they plan on planting about 50,000 trees. The moose have devastated the forest in this part of the highlands.

We entered through a tall gate and walked to the other end, where we exited by another tall gate. It felt like being in Jurassic Park, so I stopped snowshoeing for a brief time, and imagined feeling the vibrations of gigantic moose dinosaur feet stomping outside our fenced-in refuge. I have a vivid imagination.

At the look-out we couldn’t look out. There was nothing to see but gray snow-filled emptiness. So, as the wind attempted to gain entry to our bare skin and we bundled up tighter than ever, we ate a quick snack. Eventually, it got so blizzardy we could hardly see twenty feet in front of us. So we headed back. The snow settled down once we got into the forest.

                                  Out where the winding foot-path goes,
                          Out by the singing rill,
                          Out to the edge of mystery
                          And the land beyond the hill.
                                                Henry Holcomb Bennett, Adventure

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Visibility Nil
The funniest incident of this venture involved a hiker taking a selfie. He had those huge, one plate of glass, ski goggles which look a little like a skin diver’s mask. Actually, they’re quite a bit like "beer goggles", (Google it!), except when you look through them, everything is clear, and no female or male hikers can be mistaken for the prettiest or handsomest persons in the whole wide world, bar none, until you sober up, anyway.

The goggle wearer likes to do the selfie photo thing. This is now a very big fad. He took out his cell phone and pointed it at his face while we all stood behind him. As he took a picture of his own face, which he probably sees a lot of in the mirror, a moose chose to cross the road.

Why did the moose cross the road anyway? So he could get to the other side and give the chicken a pointer or two.

What a laugh! What a hoot! Wally getting a picture of the wrong face! But, this is what happens on these hikes and makes them so much fun.

More interesting still, if you look carefully at the picture, which I have included, you might see a strange reflection in the fella’s goggles. Doesn’t it look like a moose?

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Check out the goggles...
***
A week later I went snowshoeing up by Wreck Cove, God’s country, as one fella put it. I, however, replied that when I am skiing on our road and I stop to take a long gander at the mountains and the snow blowing around their crowns, I think that where I live is also quite godly.

Now, I should note that I didn't group hike often when I was in Ontario, but because I’m not as familiar with Cape Breton trails and because there are a plenty of big critters around here and the terrain is much rougher than where I used to hike, I now often go on group hikes.

And, as if to remind me that it wasn’t a bad idea to be with other hikers, a coyote crossed the road in front of us as we drove to the trail head. Let me tell you, this was one healthy looking coyote. I’ve seen coyotes in Ontario and they’re not as big as this one. He was more the size of a wolf and I’ve been told these coyotes run in packs, the same as wolves. I believe they call these Cape Breton canines, coy-wolves.

Last summer I met a fella on his favourite bridge over a section of the Middle River. He told me he’d had to fight a coyote off. The coyote had been quite determined and had tried different tactics to get himself a finger-licking good meal. Luckily, this fella won the battle or he’d not have been around to tell his tale.
 
Anyway, there were about fifteen hikers assembling at the trailhead while four dogs excitedly scampered amongst our pack of humans as we prepared to head up the mountain. They obviously couldn’t wait for the hike to begin.

But alas, on the porch, was a poor, sad, large German shepherd type of dog. He, apparently, wasn’t allowed to go on the hike. He was howling and crying and barking and tearing back and forth across his verandah jail cell. Poor dog. Poor, poor dog and that’s what everyone was thinking. And partway up the mountain, we could still hear his sad cries of abandonment.

Speaking of up the mountain, it was up the mountain that the THING happened. The event happened. The whatever you want to call it happened. Things happen to me. It’s my tagline.

I was climbing up a fairly steep grade. I was at the tail end of the lead group, but behind me, quite far behind me, were the slowpokes.

Up, up and away I went, until, at some point, I looked down at my right foot, and lo and behold, I saw there was no snowshoe to behold.

I dropped to the ground and started digging in the snow with my ski pole. I dug and dug, as if I was looking for an avalanche victim, while the hiking party ahead of me disappeared into the forest. I dug some more and there was still no snowshoe to be found. I was a little embarrassed, because the THING had happened to me and nobody else.

I surmised that it might have come off further down the mountain. Hadn’t I realized that my snowshoe had fallen off? Apparently not. This is what other hikers and folks to whom I’ve told this tale have asked me. “Didn’t you realize your snowshoe was missing?”

“No sir. No ma'am. It was the THING that came with me and I never know where the hell it’ll show up. This incident happened and I didn’t know it happened until when it became a THING.”

I think this part of the blog might confuse you and my editor, bless her heart. 

(Note from Ed: "No surprise to me!")

Anyway, I stopped and looked down the mountain. Oh god, how far down had it fallen off my footsie without my noticing it? Then suddenly I hearkened to the sound of a voice. A voice further down the mountain. The voice said, “Surely they’ll miss it eventually?”

The eventually had arrived. I shouted that it was I who had lost his snowshoe. Ha, ha, ha. And as they were all filled with mirth and laughter, guess who blew by me, sans snowshoes, and as happy as a flea on a grizzly bear? The German shepherd escapee. He was making up for lost time.

Near the end of the hike, as I walked along the Cabot Trail, snowshoes in hand, I saw a small barn. In front of the barn was a horse. I wasn’t going to take a photo of the horse until who should pop his head out of the barn entrance, but a small goat.

Now this goat had personality and even from the fair distance I was standing from the barn I could tell he was the boss. Why, it looked like the goat was saying, “Horse, what are you gawking at?  Do you know that fella with the bushy beard? Do you have some business with him? Stand back, I’ll deal with it.”

I just had to take their picture. So I did.

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Goat, Horse and Dog Escapee
Later on, the owner of the horse, the goat and the escapee German shepherd, told us that her horse gets super lonely if the goat wanders off. The goat seems to keep him calm and happy. She also explained another thing. Most horses feel better if there is a goat around. For example, if a horse is going to race and his goat friend isn’t around, the horse gets all upset and will probably lose the race. She said, “that’s where the phrase, ‘He got my goat’ comes from.”

Now isn’t that interesting?

I will sign off now and wait for the THING. It’s the THING that has helped me write fifty blogs. He or she is a rather speculative fella so I’m not evicting the THING any time soon.  Not even if I could, because I have a thing for the THING.


          My modus operandi this--
                      To take no heed of what’s amiss
                                              And not a bad one:
                      Because as Shakespeare used to say
                      A merry heart goes twice the way
                                              That tires a sad one.

                          Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, The Wisdom Of Folly


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View of Cabot Trail from Skyline Look-off
1 Comment

Organic Writing

16/12/2015

1 Comment

 
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View from our neighbour's deck this morning
When I’m working on something I consider serious, I usually go into my tiny office and shut the door. This isolates me from Sue and Buster. Which makes me feel a little guilty and a tad lonely. Stephen King suggested doing this in his book, 'On Writing'.

I have music playing when I’m writing in my office. It adds a little pleasure to the sometimes hard grind that writing can be. It also dampens some of the sounds coming from the rest of the house. But not totally. I can still hear the vacuum cleaner or Buster sniffing under the door, sighing, or making other doggie noises. Which lets me know he’s oh, so lonely and misses me oh, so much.

I usually work on my book or on revisions of other work in my office. However, if I’m beginning a blog or a short story, I often do it in the living room where I can be with the rest of the family.

You see, one of the tricks for keeping my writing fresh and spontaneous is to make the writing feel like play. This is hard for me to do if I get caught up in worrying about such things as being published, the rules of the craft, why I can’t write as well or as much as some other writer, whether I will be able to finish or start a story - those sorts of things. The office seems to be a place for doing serious writing.

However, writing in the living room, where other activities are going on, makes the writing seem less serious to me. For example, I’m forced, from time to time, to pull an old hockey glove or the bottom of one of Sue’s rubber crocs out of Buster’s well-armed yapper, which I then toss a few times until he gets tired of fetching it. Or Sue asks a question or needs help with something - those sorts of things. The hubbub makes my writing activity feel like an organic part of the whole domestic scene and not as if I’m doing micro surgery on words.

Picture
Sue and Buster being domestic
However, as I said, once I get into the serious revision stuff, it’s best I go into my vault.

But even while I'm in there I try to keep it somewhat light. I say I try, not that I always succeed. In my case, the harder I try, the less I get done.

There’s a story about James Joyce. He was struggling with getting his daily quota of words down on the page. Later on he met with his friend, who asked him how his writing was going. I’m not sure of the exact number of words he mentioned, so forgive me if I’m not accurate, but he said something like, “I was only able to write ten words this morning.”

“Well there you go,” says his friend. “That’s ten more than you had before you started.”

James Joyce replied, “Yes, but I don’t know what order to put them in.”

Now that’s getting right down totally serious.
***
If you have read my collection of short stories, which are lurking between the covers of a book called ‘WHITE EYES’, you’ve probably noticed there are a fair number of profanities in the stories.  The thing about writing is there are so many ways to do it and there are so many folks who have ideas about what should or shouldn’t be in a novel, a story, a paragraph - you name it.

One fella I met in a gas station and who is from a fairly conservative church, told me my book would be more popular if I took the profanities out of it. Like maybe they could use the book as a Sunday School text.

However, I mentioned to another reader, who enjoyed my book, that some folks I knew were saying I had too many profanities in it.

"Oh $%^&*", she said, "that’s the way people talk.”

Anyway, I have tried to milksop my profanity down. Now, when I sit in my cloister writing my stories and one of my characters starts to swear too much, I stop writing and slam down the computer screen so as to give the offending character a time out. While he or she is cooling off, I go into the washroom, dig out some soap, go back to my tiny office, sign in again and then wash the heck out of the character’s tongue.

But seriously, there are just so many ways of approaching writing that it can be scarily daunting if you think about all the techniques and time and plot problems and what-nots that you’re going to have to deal with before you are finally finished.

However, if you stick to it, keep the playful feeling and have some talent then you are likely to find some degree of success.

***
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Oh yeah, and while I’m on this writing thing, there is the part about selling your book or stories. Many writers are loners so that can be difficult.

A little over a week ago I was taking part in the launch of a new anthology of short stories, of which one was mine. The launch was being broadcast by CBC, so I was a little extra nervous when I read my story.

There was a microphone and a lectern and the host of the show told us to avoid dead space in our readings because it was being broadcast live.

I was the fifth reader. I thought I did a good job. I often don’t. I thought the folks there, about fifty of them, were enjoying the story and I thought that the general Cape Breton populace were out in their workshops, on their fishing boats, in their living rooms, their cars and trucks, all over the place listening to my story.

I don’t think they were. I think I was talking into a dead Mike. Mike did not exist. Mike was tits up, dead as a door knob, full of rigour mortis, gone, mort; Mike was shit out of luck.

However, if you'd like to know more about the book, check it out here:
http://capebretonbooks.com/products/local-hero

Will life ever cease to be amazingly confusing and unpredictable?


***
Something I just thought of. If Jesus were a carpenter, as I think he was, and if he built a house, would it be absolutely perfectly measured, straight and true? Just wondering.

               “You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned
               By one who came in the night, it is now dedicated to God.
               It is now a visible church, one more light set on a hill
               In a world confused and dark and disturbed by portents of fear.
                                                                      T.S.Eliot, The Rock


***
Stress can throw my brain into the dumpster. It can confuse me and make me come up with solutions that are dog-eared with fallacies.

An example, maestro. A few weeks ago, just before we went back to Ontario to deal with the hard business that followed the passing of my mother, I was asked to participate in a story-telling event at the Sydney Library.

I entered the library with a fresh, right-out-of-the-oven story. Written in two days and was I proud of that!

Before we left for Sydney I had pulled out an old canvas book bag that a friend had rescued from the dump and given to me. I put my still hot story into the bag and off we drove to Sydney.

At the event, I found out I had to sit on a chair at the front, with two other story-tellers. That meant that the forty or so members of the audience would have a good look at us all. Could check out if my beard was evenly trimmed, my laces were tied asymmetrically, my hair was top notch... and on and on did my wee mind race.

However, I eventually got to read my story and it went over well. I can even say that I was pleased.

In the next days we rushed down to Ontario and then we rushed back. Once back home, I received an email from a friend. He wanted to read the story that I had written. Which got me thinking about the hard copy version.

So, still in my rushed state of mind, I went to my office and pulled out the book bag. It was then I remembered that this bag had a trick compartment. I’d found this out earlier. You see, the side pocket had no derriere. It was bottomless altogether.

I searched through the bag from bow to stern and finally had to assume that the story had escaped through the bottom and was now blowing around Sydney for all to see. So, I wrote the fella and told him my sad lost story story.

Well, after having a few days to settle my mind down, I was walking the dog. I got thinking about the story and the pieces of my stressed facts all began to re-organize themselves into the correct places.

I had taken my story in my canvas book bag. I had looked for my story in my computer bag. I went back to the house, looked in my canvas dump bag and there the story sat. Almost as fresh as the day it was born.

Stress can kill and it can also turn you into an idiot, in less time than it took for me to write this blog.
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Ferns still green in the snowy woods
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November- A Time for Remembering

9/11/2015

1 Comment

 
For my family, this November has been a time for remembering our mother, who died in late September. For others, it may be  a time for remembering family members or friends who died in wars.

Sue and I are back in Kingston, as my brother and I were named the executors of my mother's will and we needed to work together on all the paperwork involved.  So this blog is one of pictures instead of words. Needless to say, the pictures were all taken  in Cape Breton, and most of them are from around our home. So enjoy the Autumn beauty of Middle River!

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Hiking Buddies
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Middle River
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Misty Highlands
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October Colours on the Ground
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Our Snowy Pond
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View from our Living Room Windows
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A Two-Point Dunk

22/7/2015

3 Comments

 
Sorry my blog is late. I just returned from Ontario, where I visited and visited and visited. Had loads of fun and interaction and the time spent was certainly important for keeping the bonds with my family and friends strong and true. But Whew!

I think I just wrote a poem
...
***
Oh, and a special news flash. My friend George is back in Cape Breton, primed and ready to absorb some more Cape Breton beauty, hospitality and down-home common sense. Why, he even apologized for not talking much when we were having supper at “The Lakes” Restaurant last night. He explained that the red wine and the gorgeous scenery he was observing through the window had left him spell-bound. We understood, totally.
George
George preparing for the long trip to Cape Breton
***
In a recent blog, I wrote about my experiences with panhandlers in an Ontario city. I mentioned one man to whom I gave some money on a dreary Thanksgiving Sunday. The important point I was trying to emphasize was that when I offered the man more money on a later occasion, he turned it down. He also thanked me for the money I had given him, and then told me he had bought groceries with the lucre.

Well, I met him again on this last trip. I think he was doing his garbage picking rounds. I also was more aware this time, that he was missing most of his teeth.  Anyway, we exchanged pleasantries and then I asked him if he was okay for money. He told me that he would get his pension cheque at the end of the month.

We parted with both of us having our dignity intact.
***
Like most little kids, my two grandchildren have their battles, their jealousies and their competitions.  One evening, I was in their ‘WRECK’ room, where there are a zillion toys which I would have salivated over and died for when I was a child.  Standing fairly prominently in the room full of indestructible chairs, dinky toys, stuffed this and thats, zappers and clappers and whatnots, is one mother of a toy crane. Which I think was put together by my grandson, Carter. Carter could take a box of broken up corn flakes and put them together. And even if he couldn’t reassemble them into their original corn flake shape, he could invent a new cereal shape out of them.

This large, possibly Lego toy concoction even has a remote with it. The grandchildren like to get the crane swinging this way and that way and it can pick up objects and might even be able to break-dance to the music of Billy the Singing Lobster.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that it would have been a blow-my-mind toy if it had been in my boyish life. For that matter, it is now.

On one of my visits, my elder grandson, Carter, was playing with this crane. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Callum, was trying to find something to do. One choice he had in mind, I’m sure, was to disrupt whatever Carter was doing.

Anyway, during this Mayberry moment, I’d grabbed my son’s guitar. I began to tune it and then did a little amateurish finger picking. Which attracted Callum. Offered him a possible activity. So he took an interest in what I was doing. Even reached out and did some strumming of his own.

Obviously, the older grandson took note of this. Saw that I was taking an interest in his brother. Wasn’t possibly paying as much attention to him as I should be. So, it must have put him beyond the pale of self-control when Callum was allowed to strum the guitar all by himself, while receiving my total attention.

The attack came without warning. A Carter blitzkrieg. One minute Callum and I were talking and sharing a moment with the acoustic guitar and then, in the blink of an eye, I was in darkness.

Was I having a stroke? Was I going blind? No. What I was experiencing was having my head tucked nicely inside the confines of a wastepaper basket. Which Carter had expertly jammed over my head.

Thus sayeth the Lord, “Stop taking an interest in my younger brother and pay attention to me or there will be more to come.”  Brotherly love comes with its own dangers.

I’ll end this story with the observation that my son and daughter-in-law are two great parents. Why, the waste-paper basket was even empty when it was thunked down over my noggin. That was some sort of blessing.

            “There was a child went forth every day,
             And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
             And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
             Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”
                                Walter Whitman, There Was A Child Went Forth
 
Grandchildren
The Elder Setting up the Younger, Perhaps?
***
Do you know why I got a bargain price on my hotel room? Because of Buster, our small pooch.

When I arrived at the check-in desk the receptionist asked me if I’d brought Buster with me. I told her he was at home, but promised to make some prints of pictures of Buster and give them to her. Which I did, a few days later.

The receptionist said, “It was so funny when you asked me to put you through to Buster’s room.”  

I’d asked that when I had phoned our room the last time we were all here.

“You knew who he was, too,” I said. We both had a good guffaw. Maybe two guffaws.

Anyway, as she was booking me in she told me she was going to give me a special rate. She then gave me a lower daily rate than normal and not only that, but gave me the same low rate for the peak weekend days when the prices go up.

So, do you see what I mean when I say that Buster got me a discount on the price of my hotel room?

                 “If you can uncomplaining spend the day
                  In solitude and when it ends
                  Greet those who finally return to play
                  As long lost friends
                  And if digging, without damage to a single rose
                  You find your long lost bone on which to sup
                  You’ll have acquired a hound’s discerning nose
                  And - what is more - you’ll be a dog, my pup!”
                                                                Lily Tuck, Sniff
Canine Leafs Fan
Buster is a Leafs Fan, of Course!
Cape Breton misty morning
Early Misty Morning in Cape Breton
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Creativity, Crocks and Rejection

30/6/2015

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There are two new realities and achievements in the world that weren’t in the world last year.

In alphabetical order, we have a book authored by Jennifer Bain. The book is called, “HILDEGARD OF BINGEN and Musical Reception, The Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer”.

The book is an achievement for sure. Jennifer said she tried to write the book in such a way that both academics and non-academics would find it enjoyable and instructive and Sue thinks she's accomplished that goal very nicely. (Pic of book)

Then there’s Suzi Hübler’s achievement: a brand new business she has opened up in Toronto and it’s aerobically friendly. The business is called, “HIGH JUNCTION GYMNASTICS”. This is a place where young people can skin cats, do the splits, go to parallel bars, somersault themselves silly and become proficient at gymnastics, because Suzi is an expert at teaching gymnastics. You can check out her colourful website here: http://highjunction.ca/  

(Jennifer is Sue’s daughter, and Suzi is Sue’s daughter-in-law, so you can see why we are excited about both of these accomplishments!)

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High Junction
***
Supposedly, if you’re a writer you’re creative. Which in some ways probably involves a high level of daydreaming and the imagining of scenarios which haven’t happened, have happened or might happen.

Writers write a lot about feelings. Usually, if the story is going to have some punch and power, then the author feels and empathizes with the characters he’s creating or writing about.
So it’s no surprise that writers are filled with strong emotions. In many cases they’re not buried far below the surface. From time to time they even seep out like oil out of the ground.
At the same time, writers deal with the fickle world of fashion, pop culture, political correctness, social perceptions, changing rules, high and low grammar and lots and lots and lots of rejection.

If you write, you get to know about rejection. And most writers aren’t cold stone stoics, so it affects them. Sometimes a rejection makes no sense. And for many writers, the rejection slips/emails reinforce their deep feelings that they aren’t any damn good. The proof is there to see.

But, writers write anyway. Now, what I do is write and duck. Like the old duck and cover procedure they used to teach students to follow if an incoming atomic bomb was heading their way. Incoming rejection coming soon to your mail box. What an attitude, eh?

I heard a story about a fella who submitted some short stories to a national short story competition. They were stories written by the likes of Ernest Hemingway. These stories didn’t even make the long list.

I once had a story on the long list, but not on the short list. Ironically, I didn’t come up short and did. Now that’s a riddle for you.  Anyway, I sent the story out to three other publishers. They all rejected it and yet I’m pretty sure that stories which would most likely not have made the long list, were published in their magazines.

J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was rejected twelve times and then bought by the thirteenth publisher, not an unlucky number in this case.  You want to know the reason why the thirteenth publisher bought it? I’ll tell you. Because the publisher’s CEO’s daughter loved it. How was poor Ms. Rowling supposed to know that she should have addressed her manuscript to the big honcho’s daughter?

The classic, "Lord of the Flies", was rejected twenty-one times. And you can damn well tell it was a classic because they made me read it in high school. One publisher wrote that it was “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”

Do you know what one publisher told F. Scott Fitzgerald when he read "The Great Gatsby"? He said, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.” So funny!

Stephen King filled a spike with impaled rejection slips by the age of fourteen. Wow! He was prolific for sure.

My feeling is that if you are going to be rejected, at least have your writing as polished as it can be. That’s why I have an editor. Her name is Sue and she can spy a rogue, “I’ve went...” a mile away. Which, apparently, is one of my favourite illiterate-oral weaknesses. At least in a Jane Austen type of world.

Stephen King wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”
***
cloudy mountainView from our Place on Middle River, Cape Breton


I’ve started reading some poetry and short stories by Alden Nowlan. He was a mostly self-taught man, who was born in Nova Scotia. One of my favourite poems is called, “The Bull Moose”.

Here’s another one of his poems.

                                 “This is the amazing thing
                                   that it is so easy
                                   to fool them—-
                                   the sane bastards.

                                   I can talk about weather,
                                   eat, preside at meetings
                                   of the PTA.
                                   They don’t know.

                                   Me foreign as a Martian
                                   With the third eye in my forehead!
                                   But I comb my hair
                                   cleverly so it doesn’t show

                                   except a little
                                   sometimes when the wind blows.
                                                       
                                                                    Alden Nowlan, “Disguise”



***
                                             “If you can sniff out danger and keep barking
                                     When those around you seem to doubt the cause
                                     And all they find to do is keep remarking
                                     Don’t track up the carpet with your paws!
                                     If you can lick the hand who needs you
                                     and realize it’s really no mistake
                                     When that hand that somehow failed to feed you
                                     Feeds itself the whole darn sirloin steak.”

                                                                                     Lily Tuck,  “Sniff”

Sue says I think like a dog. I’ve been telling her that for years. You see, I can be walking down a busy street and on the opposite side of the street can be, and has been, a man walking his dog.

The dog will stare at me like I’m wearing a tracking device. The dog’s eyeballs will hone in on me and not get his peepers off my moving form until we’re way beyond the human encounter distance of seventeen feet. (Apparently this has been measured by people who like to measure things.)

In some ways I think this places me at the dog's level of the food chain. Which could be way above the human's. This theory comes from watching too much news.

Which might be why I’m more comfortable on a log, inside or outside, rather than on a beautiful couch. A not so expensive, not so beautiful couch, doesn’t bother me quite as much. I guess my mind won’t stop reminding me that there’s a whole lot of social voo-doo comes with sitting on a beautiful couch in a living room.
 
Oh, and before you let your creative minds run wild, I have not yet had the desire to lift my leg and piddle on said log, nor on said less beautiful couch.

So, this Sunday, while I was in the washroom brushing my teeth, Buster was in the hallway barking. Sue, (who now barks back, but that’s another story), could not decipher from Buster’s barks, what the heck he wanted.

I stepped out of the washroom. Sue said, “What does he want?”

I said, thinking I was just guessing, that he was looking for his slipper so he could play “Fetch the Slipper”. So I found the slipper and sure enough, that’s what he wanted to do. Fetch the slipper.

Which goes like this. I throw the slipper or toss it, if you prefer that word. Buster runs and fetches the slipper. He returns with the slipper, which, for accuracy’s sake, is actually an old croc. He lets me pull the croc, thinking that I don’t know that he’s not really jawing down on it as hard as he would like me to think. Because he really wants me to wrench the croc out of his mouth, so the croc can glide through the air like an eagle and land on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge. So Buster can burst out of the starting gate, slide and slam into the fridge door, return the slipper and his drool to me and start the process all over again.

The whole game is a Buster diplomatic exercise in pretending he doesn’t want me to have the croc while wanting me to have the croc. Which I know is all a crock.

tired dog
Buster Tuckered Out From Playing "Fetch the Croc"
                                             “A living room, the catholic area you
                                    (Thou rather) and I may enter
                                    without knocking, leave without a bow, confronts
                                    each visitor with a style,

                                    a secular faith: he compares its dogmas
                                    with his, and decides whether
                                    he would like to see more of us. Spotless rooms
                                    where nothing’s left lying about

                                    chill me, so do cups used for ashtrays or smeared
                                    with lipstick: the homes I warm to,
                                    though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling
                                    of bills being promptly settled”

                                                                                            W.H. Auden, “The Common Life”
Spring Pond
Our Pond in Spring
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Awe is a Reflex of Spirit  

13/5/2015

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“Awe is a reflex of spirit.”
                                  Elpenor


Last fall, and again a few weeks ago, a friend and I hiked and snowshoed on the Skyline Trail. This trail is located in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The path is mostly flat, being on a plateau, and it winds its way through stunted, moose-chewed trees and bushes, ending at a long boardwalk which snakes down to near the edge of the mountain.

What a view! Gorgeous. Fantastic in the fall with the sun setting in the west, turning the sky and ocean into a curtain of brilliant colours.

And what about in the early spring, when we last snowshoed the trail? I’d give it a totally wonderful grade. The ground and trees draped in snow, the ocean covered in scattered white puzzle pieces with sugar-coated mountains floating along the edges.
Skyline Trail
View from Skyline Trail in April
My friend and I felt this was a very special place. A sacred pathway. We felt at home and safe, even though we knew there were plenty of moose roaming around in these here parts.

Matter of fact, we passed a moose as we headed back to the vehicle. It was dark by this time, because we had stayed to bid the sun farewell and bon nuit. So we were forced to use flashlights to illuminate our way. The moose was huge.

I stopped and tried to get a picture of the moose. However, my camera was new and still unfamiliar and I couldn’t get the shutter to snap to. Meanwhile, the moose stood thirty or forty feet away, watching us excited ninnies getting all hot and bothered.

My hiking buddy kept saying, “It’s big, Larry. It’s really big, Larry. Really big.” I finally gave up, partly because I kept hearing this ‘really big’ alert and partly because my damn camera was being as stubborn as the proverbial ass. And as we walked away from the night-time forest monster, my friend said, “It really was really big, Larry.”

How could we not feel awe? How could we not experience the chill of wonder? Reverence? Fear, but in a good way. 
My friend and I felt this was a very special place. A sacred pathway. We felt at home and safe, even though we knew there were plenty of moose roaming around in these here parts.

But, do you know what I’ve heard? I’ve heard that wonder and awe are not among the main emotions of the majority of us western world, scientific homo sapiens.  Maybe being able to feel the natural fear that comes with the majesty so obviously permeating everything around us, can help us be less fearful about what we tend to get all neurotic about.

“After several thousand years, we have advanced to the point where we bolt our doors and windows and turn on our burglar alarms - while the jungle natives sleep in open-door huts.”
                                                                                                                              Morris Mandel


Maybe, when we see everything as a resource, that also helps to remove the sense of awe and fear we feel when we look at the world around us. Heck, we even see ourselves as a resource to exploit. I  think a tendency to see through things, so we can better manipulate them for our needs, is a mystery/majesty blinder.

“You can’t go on seeing through things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To see through all things is the same as not to see.”
                                                                                                                            C.S. Lewis


***
I may gripe about there being too much snow, but I have to admit, I love snow. However, when spring comes, I’m ready for it to melt away and not come back until another winter’s day.

Folks from other, more populated parts, sometimes say to us or hint to us, that they wonder why the hell we would choose to live in such a tough environment. I say, see above. Reading the first part of this blog should give those folks some understanding of the why.

Some tourists from a big city passed through our island two summers ago. They drove through the forests and mountains. Through the out-ports and towns. Stopped in the mom and pop stores and observed the lack of big box monstrosities, mile-long subdivisions, clogged streets and roads, and noticed miles of empty places to park and think, and then they declared that Cape Breton was mainly uninhabitable. How can we battle against such unarguable wisdom?

But actually, I’m thinking, “Yes. Keep thinking that way.”

When I told a local that this fella had declared Cape Breton to be uninhabitable, he said, “Good, that will keep those )(*& away.”

What an attitude, eh? If he had only a little bit of that asphalt sophistication, then he might not so easily discount this fella’s declaration of wisdom that came from afar.

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***
DogBuster
Once, a long time ago when the sun was blue, I was told by a rather logical and rationalistic person, that animals have no or next to no memory. It’s all instinct. I assume he would place our dog Buster in this memory-less category. 
What a crock of shipwrecks. What a wad of Buster doo-doo. Buster has a memory like a snapping turtle clamped onto a big toe. Why, his memory is so good that Sue and I are worried that he may actually not be our pet but our care-giver. Our fire alarm. Our defender against big bad men and wild animals. Our reminder of where we left our plate of toast and other goodies. Our trainer. Our organizer. Well, I guess you get the point.

Example:  We let him out one night. He encountered a raccoon. Whom he barked at and treed. Thank god. I mean, thank god that the raccoon climbed a tree and didn’t, instead, decide to whip Buster’s ass.

Anyway, the next evening, at around the same time as the night before, we let wee Buster out and he was off like an Arctic winter streaker toward the tree.  No memory? Instinct?  Bull chips.

Example:  Recently we took our little man to the beauty parlour, where they bathed and clipped him. And by the way, we’re still trying to figure out if we picked up the right dog. He looked so different. They clipped him near bald, but I guess that will be good for Buster in the hot weather. Anyway, we think he’s Buster. One of the reasons we think this is that the groomer told us she didn’t do his nails because, well, he made a fuss. I can imagine the fuss.

So, back to the memory thing. As we were paying the bill, Buster was given a dog treat. He was so excited about getting the hell out of there, that he didn’t pay the purple coloured artificial dog bone biscuit much mind.  So Sue put the treat in her coat pocket.

After we got home, Buster kept going to the closet. He’d scratch the door. Whine at the door and at us until we finally figured out what he wanted.  He was after the treat in Sue’s coat pocket.  No memory?

Buster’s bear-trap memory, his brain fartless memory, has led to my beginning to worry about something. You see, I’m beginning to think that all the time Buster and I are going for walks, he is mentally making a bucket list. A bucket list of places to dash to if he ever gets off his leash. Because at each place, Buster will stop and sniff around. Then he gives a little tug on the leash. I’m assuming this is to see if by some miracle, I’ve had a brain fart and have forgotten I’m walking him. That maybe I’ve dropped the leash and am sitting down on a snow bank so I can have a little drool and a wee confab with my lonesome.

Then Buster would be off, running through forest, fields and over the mountains, checking off his Buster bucket list the things he’d sniffed, whizzed on and pooped over.


wise dog
Buster Sees All
Note  from Sue: My apologies for the late arrival of this blog post. I'm the technician who posts Larry's work, and an injury to my hand put me out of commission for  a while.
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Shackwacky - Chapter and Verse

31/3/2015

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I’ve just finished reading a science fiction detective novel by Sherry D. Ramsey. That’s a lot to say in one breath. The book is called ‘The Murder Prophet’. Now, it was a novel that made me look forward to going to bed. Because that’s when I read novels. The book, in a few sentences, is about Kit, the main character, who’s trying to solve a mystery before a millionaire named Aleshu Coro is murdered. The threat was made by the mysterious Murder Prophet.
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Many of the characters in this book, including the animals, have super powers. Power to tell whether somebody is lying. Power to tell if somebody is using their powers. Power to change a person from one thing to another, including themselves. Anyway, lots of different powers. I particularly enjoyed a delightful side character, a goose by the name of Trip, who had a very special power. The goose liked to practice killer ninja moves, could talk and was active throughout the novel.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book. It was a good read and can be ordered through Amazon.ca as a Kindle or paperback edition at 
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Murder-Prophet-Sherry-Ramsey/dp/0993897304/ref=tmm_pap_title_0   


***
My god, but haven’t we had enough snow? For what we are once again about to receive we are truly thankful, amen. NOW GO AWAY! Enough is enough, and as I’m writing this blog, in the living room, with Buster lying on my foot, and at the end of March, I’ve just heard that we are to receive another ten to fifteen cm today. Hallelujah!

                “One must have the mind of winter
                              To regard the frost and the boughs
                              Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

                              And have been cold a long time
                              To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
                              The spruces rough in the distant glitter”
                                                        Wallace Stevens, The Snowman
snowy woods
Our Trail to Road
***
WARNING!! THIS PART OF THE BLESSED BLOG WAS INSPIRED BY A SEVERE CASE OF ACUTE SHACK-WACKINESS!
And I did go to bed one night. And I had a dream. I dreamed that I bought a )(*&^ snow blower. And thus I woke up and declared, “Lo and behold, I’ve just had another friggen nightmare.”

But I did go out and purchase a snow blower, anyway. Although my mind was shouting at the top of its voice, “Larry, Larry, my son, verily, verily, you will be verily, verily sorry and will surely repent of your stupid deed in buying a cursed snow blower when you were warned against such a stupid action. Thou faithless servant.”

And verily, and thus and therefore, I discovereth, over a short time, that my dream was true. Because verily one friggen wintry morning, I couldn’t get the friggen snow blower to move. I did pull and push all the sacred buttons and levers, but it would not budge. The wheels desisted and resisted and so I had to pull the son of a blower through the deep snow, to the fair entrance to our driveway, where I left it for the snow blower purveyor to pick up and take to his holy little motor workshop.

And lo and behold and verily, thus and therefore, he phoned me and told me that my snow blower, Grinder, had frozen his bolts off and that’s why Grinder wouldn’t move. So, they got him all nicely warmed up around their pellet stove and gave him a cup of hot W30 oil and cinnamon. Then they delivered him back to our abode.

And lo and behold and verily, thus and therefore, the snow blower did blow snow for a few very brief occasions, until the snow got too heavy or icy or wet or white or some damn snowy issue, when lo and behold, hark the herald snow blower angel asked me, “Did you know that your snow blower has stopped blowing?” And how would I not? And I said to god, “Why, god?” And I asked the same question of the snow blower man, “Why, snow blower man?” and he said, “Hark, I think you probably broke a belt.”

Picture
So, verily and thus and therefore, he came to our snow-stuffed lane and picked up Grinder and did take him away, while I stood in six feet of snow and waved my frozen glove and fingers bye-bye at my disappearing snow blower. Then did I thus whisper under my breath, “And don’t come back, you unreliable son of a beech.”

But verily and thus and therefore, they couldn’t find a replacement belt. Not until the snow was ice and too much for poor Grinder to remove. So, verily, thus and thou and hark, when they finally did find a belt, verily many weeks later, and they put the belt in and delivered it to me, the snow was unmanageable and so verily, I did dig out our little, blessed, metal toolshed and put the snow blower in said toolshed so it could hibernate in the summer. And I told the snow blower not to move a bolt, nut or screw or it would be turned into a pillar of salt. 

The next winter, I verily, thus and therefore, took the snow blower out to prepare him for some certain upcoming manly snow blowing. But verily, I smelled the odour of gasoline and the snow blower would not verily start.

So, verily, thus and thou, I picked up my feet and took up my phone. Phoned the snow blower purveyor. And lo and behold he came and he picked Grinder up and then verily in not a verily long time he told me that some cursed mice had built a forty-room condo in Grinder. They had built a restraining wall against the gas line and thus it had broken asunder. And lo and behold, thus and thou, I ordered him to hand them their notices and then fix the gas line.


Oh snow blower, you break my heart. How many ways do you verily have thus? And the tiny little snow flakes fell, each one a different shape from its brethren, and I got out my snow blower and did blow and blow for about an hour when suddenly the snow blower wouldn’t move forward on command. So I verily, thus and therefore investigated and behold! I found out I had broken a breach pin. Which meant that only half the sacred augers were going round and round. So that was why I was rolling up a gigantic snowball on one side of the snow blower while the other side was not valiantly blowing away. So, I went again to the snow blower man and I bought another breach pin and installeth it myself.

The snows continued to fall and the world grew all white and my eyes began to see strange colours from the all white, everywhere, top and bottom and side by side and the ice came and the ice left and Grinder and I did manage to make it through the rest of the winter. Hallelujah!

And verily, thou and thus came the winter of 2014-2015 did arrive. And the snow felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and it did raineth too and raineth more and more and the ice got thicker and the snow higher and verily I got to use the snow blower twice before it stopped.


I verily, thou and thus, decided to check it out myself. I very carefully read the manual. I worked on the snow blower only long enough to feel I had accomplished something or learned something and then I would verily quit before I went into a crying tantrum. Because verily, verily, I have little patience with disobedient servants.

And, after cautiously working on the said Grinder, I managed to find the problem. The belt was rent asunder. And I verily spotted little mice feet and mice faces and mice other parts sticking out of the holy inner sanctum where the belts do their business. And I, by myself, did replace the belt.
Deep snow
Path from Woodshed to Trailer
Then more snow did fall. Then some of it melted and froze and melted and froze and I got, maybe, three snow blows out of my snow blower and my new belt that I put in all by myself. Although, Sue did hold the snow blower and did use a tiny pair of pliers to pick out the tiny pieces of mice I missed and some of their bits and pieces of nesting material.

Then, one fine morning, I went to the woodshed and tried to start Grinder. But he wouldn’t start and lo, I pulled and pulled and pulled until my puller was exhausted.

Lo, I took a rest and then returneth and pulleth some more. And suddenly the engine did start in a violent rush of engine power. And then all was silent.

It was then that I witnessed, in a vision, a burning snow blower. And I took off my tuque and came forth and lost the race. (Probably heard that one somewhere, right?)

And verily, thou, thus and disgustingly, the engine man phoned me and told me that my engine was as dead as a frozen parrot. He said, “You must have got some ice or snow in the engine that melted and then froze.”

“But it’s a snow blower! Isn’t it supposed to get snow and ice on it and in it, fgs? My truck and Sue’s car get ice and snow on them and they don’t blow up their engines. My lawn mower     doesn’t desist because it gets grass in it. So, what the hell are you saying?”

“Well, let me put it this way. There were a lot of parts that wanted out.”

He then explained that when or if I get a new motor, I should probably keep it covered or inside. And maybe brush the snow off, because it can melt and run down into the engine and then freeze. Then you get the results I got.

I’d like to put it this way, if I verily may, “What the hell is the use of a snow blower if you have to keep snow off it after you finish with it, set mousetraps inside, lay moth balls around all its internal and external organs, place a hot water bottle on it before you go to bed, make sure it’s tucked in on a bed that can pass military inspection, don’t push it too fast if the snow is thick, and make sure you don’t snow blow slush because it can freeze the wheels and the inner sanctums? That’s what I have Buster for.”

AMEN

We now use shovels and snowshoes and to hell with the snow blower.
Shovelling snow
Lots of Shovelling
***
“The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.”
             Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars
dog on snowy porch
Buster on Watch Duty
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Neighbourhood Watch

10/3/2015

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For some reason, I feel blog thirty-five has some kind of significance. A finality of sorts. I’m just not sure what it might be.

A wandering friend of mine once gave me a blog warning. He said, “Be careful you don’t write yourself out.” I know writers who have stopped writing their blogs altogether, or cut back to the point where their blogs are almost non-existent. I wonder if one reason is because they wrote themselves out.

One thing for sure, we’re bombarded with words. Words, words, words. Often treating them as if they have almost no value.  So, with this little blog disclaimer, I plod on in the Land of Blog and present you with blog thirty-six. In which I try to write something interesting without depleting my creative urge.

In his book, ‘The World is Sound’, Joachim-Ernst Berendt included a quote from Sukie Colgrave discussing Confucious as follows: “...while words contain genuine meaning which reflect certain absolute truths in the universe, most people have lost contact with these truths and so use language to suit their own convenience. This led, he felt, to lax thinking, erroneous judgements, confused actions and finally to the wrong people acquiring access to political power.”  
***
Bible
And first up to bat is this. Last week, I finished reading the whole Bible from the front page to the back page and everything in between. I will admit, however, that I did occasionally skip a begat or two, but for the most part I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. And I read plenty that wasn’t preached about in my church. I also found verses that would back up almost any Christian denomination and I discovered ones that would make proselytizers turn red in the face.

It should be noted that I was brought up in a strict, Bible believing family. The Bible was the word of God, and it was the final word. And, even now, I receive greeting cards from family members with Bible verses included, no extra charge. I believe, yes, I believe, they are submitted to help me find the road that the sender is presently following.

“Wait up, you guys.”

“Well then, hurry up, Larry. We told you to pick up the Cole's Notes on the Bible. How many times have we told you this?”

Now they tell me they told me. But hey, I kept wanting to stop and inspect all the interesting sights and sounds along the side of the road.

“Hey, what about all those roads we keep passing? Where do they go?”

“Read chapter and verse, Larry. It’s all in the notes you don’t have. Ignore them, Larry. Stay on the main highway where it’s safe.”

Ah, let the folks toss away. They probably do it because they really care, but it can be a tad irritating from time to time. I have a feeling that most of the verse tossers have read lots of the Bible, but I bet you that very few have read it from the front page to the back. Maybe one reason is because they’re afraid they might see more than they want to see.


Picture
***
A few days ago, we went to Sydney. Our first stop was a used bookstore we frequent on the main street. It’s called, ED’S BOOKS AND MORE and it’s owned by this fella who, strangely enough, is called Ed. Ed loves books and misses nothing. I know this because of what happened last week.

We walked into his book store. Ed said, “Hi Larry, I have something to show you.”

I was impressed he’d remembered my name. He held a book in his hand. It looked like some kind of yearbook.

“I have a school yearbook here and I think you might be in it.”

I glanced at the book and then at him. I said, “It wouldn’t be me. I went to high school in Kingston, Ontario.”

He opened the book and showed me a picture. There I was. Dark short hair, thick black glasses, and looking like I was straight out of a Stephen King movie.  He had somehow got hold of a 1968 Loyalist High School yearbook. Boy, did he floor me! Ed then gave me the book as a gift.

So, as a gift back to him, I’ve mentioned his bookstore, and I’m mentioning his toll-free phone number, which is: 1-855-264-2665, his not toll-free phone number, which is: (902)564-2665 and his email address, which is: edsbooksandmore@eastlink.ca and his address, which is: 446 Charlotte Street, Sydney, NS. and a picture of Ed and his store. Oh, his store is also on facebook.
Picture
That night, I went through the book. Looked at all the class pictures. The memories rushed at me like a herd of radicalized terrorists.

Because, you see, nineteen-sixty-eight was the worst year of my life. Bar none. No death, divorce, firing, injury, bad relationship or life decision can or ever will compete with nineteen-sixty-eight. He is the winner. Hands down. The year of the big bottle of nerve medicine sitting on the kitchen table. The religious skirmishes breaking out like revivalistic measles.

Well, I have to admit, there were two female students amongst the class pictures who could have made that year a hell of a lot better. And, there was my grade one sweetheart. Yes, it started that early.

It was awfully nice of Ed to take the time to keep it for me. That’s Cape Breton for you.

***
A brief note.  Grinder, my snow blower, needs a new ticker. The motor is dead.

The mechanic made a funny comment, if you can find it comical when your almost brand new snow blower has a dead motor.  He said, “There were a whole lot of pieces in your motor that wanted out.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. He should write a blog.

I have just dug out two pairs of snowshoes from our tool shed.
snow shovelling
My New Snow Blower
***
Picture
Let me see now. I think, with regard to Buster, that I left you with an image of Sue standing on the middle of an icy Gold Brook Road, with her telephone cord make-shift dog leash dangling in the air like an empty fishing line, while Buster hoofed it after a large snow plough monster.

But Buster is a Buster. No more appropriate name for him could be had and he makes us laugh a lot. Sue told me that Buster is the funniest dog she has ever owned. I think I have competition.

He also is a bit of a pain in the ass from time to time. For one thing he might be putting a bit of a strain on our relationship with the neighbours. They have a big dog and many cats. Their dog likes to wander down to our driveway and drop off unstamped, brown wrapped mail. He also likes to paint our hub caps and snow banks a peculiar yellow colour.

Yesterday, Buster spotted the big dog standing on the road, watching us return from our early morning pre-Buster’s-breakfast forced march.

Up to this point I had been able to keep Buster from heading down to the neighbour’s house. Not this time. Not with the big dog staring at us. So, Buster took off. I was worried that there might be a clash. But instead, the big dog ran to his porch. He then barked at Buster.

The neighbour came out and began to yell at Buster while she reeled her dog into the house.

While all this was going on, I was stupidly standing by my lonesome shouting, “Buster, come here!”

I was hollering at Buster, the neighbour woman was hollering at Buster and her dog was barking at Buster. Buster was oblivious. Totally.

But you know, I think all Buster wanted to do was play and sing and dance with the big German shepherd dog.

However, after the woman had got her dog into the house and then hollered at Buster some more, Buster finally did comply, like the good dog he is.  But, before he complied, he lifted his leg and whizzed on our neighbour’s porch railing. Then he came to me. But he came to me with the name Buster and a Buster he was.

All the way home I would periodically shout, “That was bad. Bad boy, Buster.”

Buster, who was now in no mood to dilly-dally, because he knew he had a well-earned breakfast waiting for him at the homestead, would, every time I rebuked him, turn around, and with furious growls, make play charges at me.

It went on like that until we got home. Then I told Sue the story of big, bad Buster while Sue prepared a nice breakfast for Buster. Who enjoyed his tasty breakfast.

Meanwhile, I searched our forty-five-foot trailer for my other slipper.

Buster is Buster.


Snowy Trees
Winter Beauty Along Our Path
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