Larry Gibbons
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Does Wily Have a Microwave? 

28/3/2016

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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.
Picture
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.
Picture
***
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


Picture
Snowshoers on the Skyline Trail in a blizzard a couple of weeks ago
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Buster Whisperer

26/2/2016

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Picture
Sue walking Buster down our road.

“Holy ink cartridge, Batman. We’re on the second upper half of a century of blogs. That’s gosh darn awesome.”

“Calm down, Robin. It’s not a big whoopee. We walk around in public, wearing long underwear and a cape, and nobody finds that gosh darn weird. They call us heroes.”

Speaking of underwear, Buster, our dog, has come up with a new line of evening clothes which he calls Buster Wear. It consist of long underwear, a pair of shorts and a tee shirt.   

Picture
Buster Wear

I mentioned Buster Wear because I wanted to get the word Buster into my blog. Because I have received, once again, more requests for Buster blog epistles. Maybe they want a Buster Bible.

“Holy dog poop baggies, Batman, love that Buster Wear and all, but what is it about Buster?”

Putting aside all this Batman and Robin guff, I can tell you, when it comes to Buster, that we’re dealing with a basic philosophical question. Who is training whom?

The answer is we don’t know.

And I have another question. Is it possible, that while I think I’m a dog whisperer, that Buster is a human whisperer? Is the egg before the chicken or the chicken before the egg? Who is whispering to whom and who is training whom? This is definitely heavy philosophy, man. This is hey man stuff and figuring out the who and whom stuff was absolutely taxing to my grammatical weaponry.

Anyway, and for example, has Buster got me trained to such a degree that he only has to walk into the washroom, touch his nose to the proverbial ceramic flushing throne, and I’ll know, in an instant, that he needs some water put into his bowl or in a more extreme case, urgently needs a mighty fine dump?

Then there’s the throw and fetch game. This is where we toss a half of a hockey glove, a slipper, a boot or a Christmas doggy toy around the trailer for him to retrieve. He loves this game, usually in the morning. One of the reasons he’s a passionate fetcher is that when he declares the game finished, he gets a treat. In other words we give him a treat for having fun. Good boy, good dog.

Which got me to wondering why he should have a treat for having fun? But then my dog whisperer or Buster’s human whisperer stuff kicked in. Whichever way it goes, I could hear, in my mind, the words, “You have a beer after you have fun playing hockey, so why can’t ‘he’ or ‘I’ have a treat after having fun playing chase and fetch?”

Picture
Poor Buster struggling through the deep snow on our lane
Feeding time is a difficult training conundrum for us. It’s the occasion when we really do wonder who is training whom.

For example, one evening Buster seemed to be in a terrible mood. He was lying on the couch, his eyes rolling around in his head like he was really pissed off at somebody, something or both. We got to worrying that he was ill. He hadn’t eaten his breakfast and he hadn’t eaten his supper. His stainless steel food dish was still sitting on the floor, by the front door, laden with Buster’s untouched, except for bits of our meal, supper mix.

Picture
Sad Buster
Now, I want to say, right off the start, that his meals are not boring. We, of course, put some dry kibble into his dish, but that’s just so the poor sod won’t end up outside, his bum pointing to the ground, and he straining and pushing and crying the blues to the sky, while working his poor little ass off, so he can force out a right and proper bowel movement. And I’m not talking politics here.

Because, in this extremely boring dried up kibble, we add bacon fat and other bits and pieces of our own supper. Because, and I don’t blame him, Buster likes our food better than his food. We put all these goodies into Buster’s stainless steel doggy bowl.

Anyway, there he was, lying on the couch, looking pathetic. Just before our bedtime, which is also Buster’s bedtime, I let Buster outside. We always do that before we close up for the night.  This is the time he does his toiletries. When he sniffs and walks around the trailer, stoops, lifts his leg and squirts and is a time when he barks to the east, barks to the west, barks to the north and barks to the south. A time for Buster to let the world know that he exists and therefore is, and you all had better just know that this is a truth like none other ever recorded in book or tablet.

When he’d finished doing these outdoor, night-time chores he scratched at the door and we let him in. Then he got a bit of a towelling off before he walked over to the treat stool.

Originally it was a stool for us to stand on so we could reach into the top shelves of the cupboard. It was, in the pre-Buster time, called a stool, but now, AB, it is called a treat stool. Who put that word into our heads?

Upon this stool he placed his two cutely crooked front paws. Pointed his almost human eyes towards a higher plain, where the treats are located, and waited expectantly, tail vigorously wagging, for his two tiny, low-cal biscuits.

After he'd had his treat, I heard, with my own little ears, the whispering voice, “Take up my food dish and walk. Walk to the treat stool. Remove one piece at a time from the stainless steel bowl and place this morsel uponst the sacred treat stool.”

I scurried over to the metal dog dish that was still full of the uneaten kibble. I brought the dog dish over and from the shiny bowl I took out one piece of kibble and placed it on the treat stool. Buster ate it. I took out another piece. Buster ate it. I took out another and placed it on his tiny treat stool. He ate it.

“Ah ha”, I thought, and I really do think that it was me who thought the “Ah ha” part. “Place the stainless steel bowl on the treat stool. Now place more than one piece around said bowl.”

I therefore and thus did just that. I placed the steel bowl uponst the treat stool and placed several pieces onto the TS.

I did, for an instant, during this feeding operation, think about calling this whole treat stool thing, TSD. Which means Treat Stool Disorder. Maybe get this made up term published in some thick, blue, hard-cover psychiatry book, which lists and defines all the different mental illnesses you can find in this crazy world.

I thought of all this while I was carrying out the whispering instructions I was hearing being announced from somewhere in my noggin.      
                  
Buster ate all the kibble I put on the TS. I took more kibble out. He ate all that kibble. Wouldn’t touch what was in the bowl.

Then the sneaky dog, human whisperer thing began again. It said, “Woof, woof, get out one of our, (or did I hear the word ‘your’), human bowls and pour all the remaining food into this offering bowl and see what’ll happen.”

I turned around smartly and pulled a bowl out of our private collection. I emptied the stainless steel food dish into the beautiful red bowl with white trim. Buster has seen us eat many of our yummy meals from these bowls. He ate his whole supper. Not a scrap left. Not a crumb.

And, I’m afraid to say, in case it sounds a little psychologically suspect, that the whispering has been giving me other guidance or commands. It has been strongly advising that “We, Sue and I, go to Value Village and purchase some bowls."

“And Larry,” the voice whispered, “mark them in such a way that Buster doesn’t know that they were bought for him and not for humans.” That has to be me whispering to myself and not Buster, I would think.

“And Larry, make room in the cupboard so that the eating containers will look like they are ours so Buster won’t think they are just dog dishes in disguise.” Me, I think.

Buster is a smart dog and I  think Buster is a conniving and strategically scary dog who is covertly and relentlessly playing a canine form of chess or poker with us humans. Almost like a politician, but in a good way.

***
“When I found out that one of my years was seven of theirs, I started biting absolutely everything.”
                                                                 Max Carlson

***
Picture
                                                                           Pileated Woodpecker

Before I go I thought I’d mention the river. The Middle River, to be specific, that has, in a certain sense, been able to show us some form of mercy. Mercy or luck, call it what you will.

Picture
Middle River in Flood Mode
Last week, we had over a day of steady rain. Sometimes it was very heavy rain. The temperatures had soared to around ten degrees Centigrade and the melting was happening at a scary pace.

The river was by the end of the day up to near the top of the snow banks. Thank goodness for the snowbanks. They get frozen and hard and therefore increase the height of the banks which keeps the water from spilling over. However, what has happened, up to now, is the temperature will begin to drop and then the rain will turn to snow and mercifully we are safe again. The river calms down.

Down the road a ways, is a place we call the Twin Churches. That’s because there are two churches sitting side by side. One is a United church and the other is the Presbyterian. Apparently the congregations get along. Very Christian of them.

A road turns off the Cabot Trail at the twin churches. A little way down this road is a bridge which crosses over the Middle River. Sticking out of the river is a tiny island. The day the river was rising, a friend and I drove across the bridge. The friend has lived in Cape Breton for many, many years. He told me that as long as you can see the island then the river isn’t too, too high. We could still see a bit of the island. That’s a good to know piece of information to have along with our own river-rising indicators.

Anyway, what this whole long lead-up was meant to be about was that I think you have to have a certain kind of philosophy, mental quirk or personality trait to live on a flood plain. I don’t know what all these traits might be. I’m sure my readers can name a few.

However, I know one of them is to not have a great big worry lump stuck somewhere up in your skull. This worry lump saying things like, “Why did you buy a place that’s on a flood plain?” “How can we put money into it when we might be flooded out and be swashbuckling it out to sea?” “What’s the old trailer worth anyway? Are we ever even going to get close to our money’s worth back if we sell it? Etc., etc., etc.”

These thoughts can become a vicious circle and can go on and lead to the next and the next and the next. And it’s not as though we approached the real-estate agent and said, “We’d like you to find us a 45- foot, fifty-year-old trailer that’s located on a flood plain, and just to make it a little more exciting, is also located in a snow belt. Please and thank-you.”

I do, however, think that I have one reason, personally, why I’m not overwhelmed by these investment worries. Well, actually, another reason would be that it’s never very boring living on a flood plain and in a snow belt and it certainly provides me with material for my blog.
                               “Sometimes the river
                                           becomes a river in the mind
                                           or of the mind
                                           or in and of the mind

                                           Its banks snow
                                           the tide falling a dark
                                           rim lies between
                                           the water and the shore”
                                                             William Carlos Williams, The Mind Hesitant

However, I think there is another, maybe even more basic reason and I’ll tell you what it is.

When I was young, I would, quite often on a Sunday morning, wake up to the sound of the kitchen radio broadcasting a man singing a particular song about being poor. I don’t know all the words, but part of it went like this—-. (Please give me a second while I fetch my pitch pipe and blow a C Major.) “Good boy. Good boy.”

The words were, ”I’d rather have Jesus than silver and gold—-“ that’s all the words I remember. It was about a street sweeper who was very poor, but he didn’t care. He had a treasure that wasn’t based on money.

Now I haven’t taken up all the theology of that song, but I do think it painted money a certain way in my mind. And painted the river’s threat and our flood plain and so many other things in a colour that put money in the category where it really belongs. But don’t get me wrong. I know we need money. There’s no getting around that and if I won a million dollars I wouldn’t just go out and waste it by buying a K car or a fur coat.
         
***
“It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good too, to check up once and a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.”
                                                                                              George Horace Lorimer
Picture
Gold Brook Road
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A Nutty Conversation

18/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Cape Breton WinterCape Breton Winter
You may have noticed from reading my last fifteen blogs, that my life isn’t normal. But then, how could it be arse-tight conventional, when we live in a forty-five foot, what looks like an industrial trailer, situated in a snow belt, at the base of the Highlands? Is that possible?

I try. Oh, how I try to be cool and not draw attention to myself. However, sometimes, because I live in the bush, (where I like being), I find myself going into the village and spraying my conversation at everyone near and far. It’s as though the words are stored up and when I get a chance to use them, I do. Then I return home and run the conversations over in my head, and holy crow! Did I say that? Did I say this? What a moron!

So, no matter how hard I try to act like cool, deep-voiced Gregory Peck, I fail, and I will give you one example of my not being cool. Only one, because I don’t like making my blog too long. (The blog regulations can be found in the blog/twitter/selfie manual.)

Last Tuesday night. Yes, let’s take last Tuesday night. I’m chewing on another weather-related decision. I have plenty of them. This time I’m asking myself, do I or don’t I drive to the hockey arena? Because it’s pounding snow out. However it’s not windy. So probably not going to be blizzardy.

Anyway, at seven pm, I decided to drive over the lonely, snow- and-ice-covered mountain road to Baddeck
.
Now, as I may have mentioned, my snow blower, Grinder, was in the hospital for quite a time. However, it was recently returned with a new problem. Now the augers won’t stop turning, even when I’m not asking them to. But they do turn, which is an improvement of sorts.

I said to Sue, “I’m used to buying a second-hand piece of machinery and having it gradually accumulate a list of mechanical eccentricities, but I’m not used to buying a brand new machine and having it, almost immediately, fill out a roster sheet of problems.”
snowed underSnowed Under
So, the lane isn’t cleared of snow and our vehicles are parked two hundred meters down at the end of our lane. That means I need a flashlight, because, when I return from my hockey game, the spruce-bordered lane will be as dark as a horse’s artistic tendencies.
Well, I drove to the arena. It was a nail-biting trip at times and I saw two separate places where it looked like a vehicle had gone off the road.

Whenever I’m in the arena, I somehow morph into becoming a hockey player. In my mind, I take on my hockey player persona. A combination of Gregory Peck and Davy Keon. He was a great centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I turn on my flashlight. Poke its light around in the back of Basque’s cap so I can find my two hockey sticks. I find them, pull them out, then fetch my hockey bag from the front of my truck. I like it to ride in the cab with me. It’s a good conversationalist and the truck heater warms its contents.

I decide, rather than putting my flashlight back in the truck, which I always do, I’ll put it in my pocket. It's warmer in the arena and therefore the battery will be stronger and more energetic.

I haul my sticks and hockey bag into the cold arena and then into the warmer locker room. Because of the bad driving, only three players have arrived. It’s getting late. I plunk my equipment down. I’m pumped. I’m the man. The not-really-so-good-any-more hacker player. Ready for the game, if there is going to be a game.


As I’m standing in my straight and true hockey pose, a fellow hockey player casually says, “You have a flashlight in your pocket.”

Big deal, I think. I pull it out of my pocket, to show him it really is an authentic, two-battery flashlight. But when I take it out of my pocket, I’m surprised, and somehow not surprised, to see the flashlight shining forth in all its brilliance. My goodness, I must have looked funny, strutting around while the flashlight shone out of my pocket. Like a walking lighthouse.

Last year, one fella, who had only shown up for one game, asked me if I had stayed in Cape Breton and played hockey the whole year. When I said, “Yes, I’ve played the whole year in Baddeck,” he said, “Oh damn! I missed all the fun.”


Picture
Now, what did he mean by that? I think I know, but it’s not just me. I have a weird computer too. It’s over twenty years old. Maybe twenty-five years old and I bought it second-hand a long time ago.

Do some of you want a name for my computer? Okay, how about “Percy Macintosh”?

Percy has a word-changing feature. You know, if I want to change a name from “Tom” to “John”, I just fill in the existing name and the name I want to replace it with and hit Change-all. Then my whole manuscript has the name “Tom” changed to “John”. Can be a thousand “Toms” and they will all zap to “Johns” in a matter of seconds.

One day, not so long ago, I decided to change a character’s name from “Ken” to “Calvin”. Hundreds of Kens lurked inside my manuscript. So, I clicked on “Edit”, wrote in “Ken” and “Calvin” and hit Change- all. Voila, all my Kens were Calvins, and I was hoping it wasn’t too traumatic for Ken, and for poor Calvin, who must have felt a few pounds heavier.

Everything went well. Except, Percy is very, very efficient. Possibly too efficient. So he conscientiously changed all Kens into Calvins.

Example: She hung her tocalvin around her neck.

Example: She said to poor Bob, “Sorry Bob, but I am already spocalvin for.”

Example: Larry wasn’t a very good hockey player and ended up with a brocalvin arm.

My god, it changed every darn “ken” in every darn word.

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Computer, I think you have a flashlight sticking out of your stupid pocket.” Hardy, har.

A few weeks ago, I was in the trailer by my lonesome. Sue was in town. I went into the bedroom to get something out of the closet. I opened the door and heard a funny chirping sound. It stopped. I hit the closet door. It chirped and squeaked. It stopped. I kicked the wall. Heard a cackling sound. I went to the other wall, near the phone, which broke down last week, gave the wall a knock and heard the tattling, crackling, dripping noise. My god, do we have squirrels or ghosts in our walls?

I walked to the living room. Listened. Nothing. I stomped on the floor. From the bedroom came the weird, playing-a-horn sound, a squeak and something like the sound of dripping water from a tap. I walked back to the bedroom and as I went to knock on the wall, a crow flew away from below the window.

Picture
It was our friendly crow, who now had decided to hold a conversation with me through the walls. This crow often follows me down the lane and along the road. As a matter of fact, this crow followed me around the first day we moved in. He must have been curious.

One afternoon, he was sitting in a spruce tree sounding off. The tree grows close to our woodshed. I went there to fetch some wood, and when I opened the door, I found a poor red squirrel, standing in the middle of the room. He was pleading with me not to evict him.

You see, the wood pile is getting smaller. So, I was literally about ready to break into his home, hidden in the last row of wood. Poor squirrel. I felt sorry for him. And maybe the crow did too, and when I went to bed, I got worrying about whether I should make another home for the squirrel to live in. It was still very cold out
.
squirrel gnaiwng on moose skull
Squirrel gnawing for minerals on our old moose skull
I even said to Sue, “Maybe next year we should buy three and a half cords of firewood. That way, the squirrel will have a permanent winter home. Rent-free.”

Which I know sounds rather funny to some folks, because what many folks do is pop them off for trespassing. Which makes me wonder about who was there first, but I won’t go into that.

So, see what happens when you live in the bush too long? But maybe it’s good to have shining flashlights in your pockets and peeping-tom crows, and snow blowers that don’t follow new snow blower rules and computers which are overly conscientious. Because it means there will always be wacky material to draw from. At least enough to keep this blog going.

Anyway, I like surprises, inconsistencies, wackiness and the humour that arises from these incidents.

Sydney Cox wrote in his book, Indirections for Those Who Want to Write, "Humour frisks the minute to make incompatibles unite. (We earnest people - whom atom bombs and dated obligations to salvage civilization keep on the jump and on the dot - miss that “waste of time.)"

Have any of you found yourselves being wacky without trying?


PictureMountain view of Gold Brook Rd
View of our road from halfway up mountain
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