Changes

The "Wolf Pack" I sometimes take care of is not exactly a pack any more. The old man of a Malamute passed away and it is down to the two Husky girls. They do their best to act like a pack, leaping and and singing at me as though they want to increase the amount of space they occupy. But it is not the same. The presence of the Malamute was a weighty anchor.

A long time client, who has always been mostly my job because they are nearby, will be moving out of my area this coming spring/summer. The dog and I have an easy, settled relationship. We walk the boundaries of the yard in comfortable silence, the dog watching me to see if I'll let him scoop up a mouthful of something inappropriate and me watching him to see if he might need the plastic bag that I have in my pocket. When it is time to go back in, I say Home and point at the door. He reluctantly goes in, unless he hears the child being very noisy.  Then he'll lead me back.

As far as I know this dog has never been trained to this command and has no idea of what the word means - I may as well say the name of my favorite food. But somehow he has always understood my intent.

At my last visit, I saw a neighbor across the street walking his black cat along the sidewalk. He stopped and opened a side door, waiting while the cat first pretended to ignore him then dash through the door. This was obviously a well-rehearsed dance.

On the Mend

The cast comes off the wrist in 9 days and we'll see how long it takes the hand to get over the violin strings again. Meanwhile I have completed a major upgrade to the Sage City web site, added fresh references to the Wiki pages of people who have been involved with the Symphony and am most of the way through finishing the first version of another Wiki page to get it up for review. The cats have been loving this time, because my butt is solidly parked in a chair for extended time periods. They are doing fine with my lap, but I need a more comfy chair.

I've been much apart from other people and animals during this time except for some pet sitting and a few social forays. While I am glad to be done with it soon, I have very much liked the respite from how hectic my life had become. I'll just have to find better ways to get that time than breaking bones!

House Pets

I'm away from the horses for a bit and house pets have to satisfy for a while. It works, but the mix of the bigger and the smaller critters will feel good when I am recovered from the fall I took and able to shovel horse poop again. 

In the meantime I have had a chance to think about where I want to go with my violin playing, and I well may opt for a change of direction. The woman who has been holding down my seat in front of the second violins in one of my orchestras has again started to get odd about the conductor. Thus far it feels very similar to what happened the last time I was out of action for a bit and she filled the seat. The conductor is easily influenced by someone with a certain type of manipulative behavior, and as a result I felt like chopped liver for a while when I returned to the seat. There was little to no communication and he was downright rude several times in the first couple of performance cycles.

I am resolved that I don't want to go through that again, and I've been thinking of doing some different things in my playing than before. I well may let her have that seat, move to the back, and not get into the fray. This time of being unable to play is helpful in my coming to a decision about that.

Things to remember

The pair of goats at the farm, leaning out over the top of their enclosure hoping that one of us coming by to pick up our box of vegies will go over and scratch their head. The male nuzzling the doe while thay waited.
The ever-annoying Siamese patting at my leg to get some attention, so he can climb in front of me as I type.

From the Farm, Animals Too

The last week has been spent processing vegetables that arrive in copious quantities from the CSA, but my husband doesn't eat. This last week turned up a red beet coulis, which worked great as a sauce over cheese ravioli and for pork chops. The second batch of beets got turned into that and hit the freezer today, with the garlic and ramped up from the original version. Some of the collard greens were hidden in a kimchi soup, and the rest may find their way to tonight's fish.

Today's recipe was to use something that he does like, but Ma Nature tends to pre-package in a quantity that is harder for two people to kill in a single meal - butternut squash. Aside from having overshot the mark a little on the curry, which will not be an issue when I add the cream tonight, it came out well.

I was struck by how much of what I used came from a local farm, including animals. All of the vegetables as well as the pears came from this last week's visit to pick up our farm share. The stock came out of the freezer, made a few months ago from the backs of the whole chickens from another local farm. I buy them fresh and cut them up for our purposes. The vegetables that went into that stock came from the same farm as the squash and the pears.

The only things that did not come from a local farm were the butter and the curry. The cream I'll add later is also from a local cooperative.

Some years ago, I'd have thought that this kind of habit required that I live in a very rural area. But we live in a cluster of small cities with over a dozen colleges and the seat of state government under our noses, in a traditionally industrial valley. The produce and animals that contributed to this soup all came from smaller family farms, tucked into the rolling hills north and east of here.  The local food movement is alive and well around here.

Can We Help You?

I called up a web hosting service to have them refresh the site at their end. My index page wasn't being seen. It took a about 4 minutes and things were fine. I got a customer survey call back.

I called up an insurance company to ask them to send another bill, one that I tend to lose in the house. I got the bill two days later. I got a customer survey one day later.

I got an oil change done on the car. I got a call back with a customer survey.

I get a paper or automated survey after almost every doctor's visit these days, no matter how routine.

It took 7 days, three visits including two times of adjusting the phone line so it wasn't too low and many phone calls to get our land line and DSL moved and functioning at a different address this last spring. I got a call back with an automated customer survey after every call and visit. Some of these came through while I was on hold trying to get to Verizon to find out what had gone wrong this time.

I appreciate that people who provide services want to know how well they are doing. But their needs for feedback are getting to be pretty high maintenance.

Two Makes?

We are well settled into two cats now, though not the two we would have chosen. The only similarity between these two is that they are both very large cats. In terms of disposition, they couldn't be more different.

Atlas the Siamese sleeps curled up against the large, fuzzy Andy, except when he is making godawful meeser yowls at the him. The time spent yowling has fallen, but there are still several bouts a day. Andy just looks at this behavior in confusion unless he is bored. Then he swats at Atlas because he has found it makes Atlas jump interestingly.

They have a competition if we lie down, each trying to get closer to our face. This will work out better as the temperatures fall. It is quite uncomfortable in the summer.

Irene and Lee

This not so charming couple caused record breaking flooding inland in the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys of New York state and trashed much of southern Vermont and the Susquehanna Valley from New York into Pennsylvania before leaving. Irene was bad, unfortunately Lee came through a week latrer and doubled down the damages. It is taking some time to get a gauge of the full impact.

The water was particularly unkind to the major roads through villages in Greene, Montgomery and Schenectady counties and places like Wilmington Vermont. Some villages have condemned signs on the dangling front doors of a third of the properties along their main street. Places that have not flooded in many decades found themselves under 10 feet of water, and places that usually just flood turned into violent, brown rapids.

Lee spawned a small tornado or two as well, one of which was filmed crossing the NYS Thruway near Amsterdam by a panicked young woman sat in her car. The other, a probable but short-lived tornado near Glenville, landed near the therapeutic riding bar. Happily that didn't so more than scare the heck out of the horses for a moment - but stall guards all held and the horses got some extra hay to help calm their nerves as the storm abated.

Farms have had all of their crop fields destroyed, hitting the final crop of hay that was to keep their horses and cattle in feed over the winter. Of course estimates are that there are over 2000 cows that got caught in the rising waters in the Schoharie Valley alone, smaller farmers losing half their herd, and tragic stories such as the horse breeder who failed to heed warnings to move 21 broodmares and colts to higher ground. Smaller animals like pigs got caught with no recourse. There will be fewer mouths to feed this year. But the hay that has been going from this area to Texas, because of the drought there, has stopped moving.

Share farms like the one to which we belong lost some or all of their crop fields holding the harvest that should have made for bulging, heavy boxes of produce we get in this harvest season. Many CSA's like ours are managing to supply something in a box each week, but the owners are probably raiding their own winter food to do that. The dollar value of the losses is significant for operations that barely stay above water to start with. There is talk of some kind of targeted aid for farmers from our elected representatives.

Locks 8 through 11 on the Mohawk, on the Canal, are down until spring with damaged flood walls, power stations out and the river cutting a new channel beside the lock itself.

Our house never had the water nearer than a couple of blocks away. We were quite lucky.

No Eggplant for You

Like most in the area, our CSA had a goodly portion of their fields flooded or severely damaged from Irene. The flooded parts are of no use for the rest of this season. It will take a lot of remediation to clean them of the diesel oil and sewage that was part of the floodwater, especially for an organic farm. The nearly finished crops in other fields - the tomatoes, the eggplants and the squash were fatally damaged by wind and rain. The farm will be finishing the season by breaking into their late season crops - greens and cole crops - sooner than planned. Those crops were knocked around but not destroyed.

But they are the lucky ones, compared to the dairy farmers who have just several weeks to rebuild barns for the winter. Most were able to move their cows and other livestock to higher ground, but they couldn't move the barns or the milking parlors. And they lost much of the current hay and silage that was being stored for the winter. They have a short time to make very big decisions.

Floods from Irene

We are among the lucky ones from Irene, as is the barn and its residents. The barn got pounded but everything held, including the sandbags that (for the first time ever) meant that NO water came into the low end of the barn from rain. The damage amounted to replacing bedding.

The city in which I live came as close to a truly catastrophic flood as we have since 1948. The river rose to major flood stage and a dam threatened to give way on a "creek" that became a torrent. But the worst flooding was in stretches of houses that get flooded every other spring, where the owners knowingly trade that risk for a spot on the river. Many boats tore loose from marinas along the Mohawk and lower Hudson rivers and went over the federal dam though. The lucky owners were those whose boats came loose south of the dam and were picked up by tugboats out securing just about everything.

In the midst of this, I had a pet sitting job that was smack in the middle of the flood zone if both the dam broke and the river rose higher. The pets would have been OK on floors well above the flood level because of the high basement. But it was the first time I had to think about kayaking to a job. Happily that never happened.

Squash Tomatoes

I saw this on a sign when coming back from the barn yesterday. On a quick glance, I couldn't help but think that it was an invite to stop the car, go to the nearby vegetable patch and start stomping through the tomatoes. The image that came to mind is that of Lucy and Ethel holding their skirts up and stomping grapes in a big vat - from some show of "I Love Lucy".

I understood it to be a sign about vegetables that were for sale, but I like my first impression better.

There was a group from a rehabilitation program at the barn yesterday. They were shown the different breeds of horses and then helped to brush a few. Being around these creatures was a huge boon to the patients, the mass of the animals being an easy target to touch and feel. The old draft mare had her head in a patient's lap, almost resting her chin on him while he petted her. Her head was about as big as his torso in the wheelchair, but she lay it against him as gently as a cat. The patient alarmed a couple of people later, when he zoomed around a little too quickly behind the old mare, but she took no notice. She is huge and a bit lame and - the usual problem is getting her to move at all.

Just after seeing the order to Squash Tomatoes, I heard an interview on the radio with a wildlife expert about the migrating habits of barn swallows. He said that they should have left for southern climes by now. The parents and two broods that were harassing us since June seem to agree. Early last week they were still dive bombing us in the aisles, this week they have disappeared. The nest is still in place at the eastern end, waiting for next spring.

Eagles

Eagles have cropped up in a lot of conversations lately. The newness of seeing active nests and mating pairs aloft seems to have been overtaken by familiarity, maybe too much of it.

We were visiting a young couple in Maine last month, one of whom is in the Coast Guard. He referred to eagles as "endangered sea gulls", a common term among the "Coasties" up there. Efforts to reintroduce the Great Comorant in Maine a couple of years ago were stymied by eagles eating the chicks.  Apparently it is easier to go after young birds than dive for those tricky fish.

A couple of months ago a home owner in the midwest suddenly lost her electricity. When she went outside to find the problem, she spotted a young fawn hanging over the power line to her house (quite dead). A disappointed looking bald eagle was sitting in a nearby tree. No one had seen her carrying the fawn, but the link seems there unless the fawn had learned to fly.

Going after this big a prize is probably rare, but it happens. On a local call-in show, the host was disputing stories of eagles carrying away young goats. A woman who raises goats called in and pointed out just how small goats are when they are first born. She had seen larger hawks go after them, with success being rare but proven.

Our national symbol seems to be as flexible as humans, converting from a diet of fish to being an omnivore as convenience dictates.

Chasing the Cat

Our oldest cat is now on two medications, and we have happily been able to avoid pills for both. The antihistamine is the child's strength liquid form from the local drug store and the hyperthyroidism medication comes in a cream that we rub into his upper inside ear twice daily. We and the vet have made sure to reduce the insult level of twice a day drugs as much as possible.

The cat is not appreciative of our efforts. I am the primary giver of medications - my husband is less diligent as long as I am around to handle it. So usually the cat sees me and runs off to hide under the bed or behind a pile of boxes. 

We are confusing him, which I hope that this will eventually help him to relax. He has already discovered that these treatments are much easier than the antihistamine pills he was first on. He makes all the requisite noises but hides less far away after being treated. While he still foams at the mouth from the antihistamine, the foam is clear white. There is no hint of the red cherry flavored liquid still in his mouth. He will eventually realize that there is nothing to get rid of, or that eating some food would be a better fix. (I hope...)

We have had some entertainment during this process. The first was when the vet in Maine gave him his first pill and assured us that the cat was "really easy". And he was - for her or for anyone else in a vet's office. He is like our other cats, intimidated into stillness (aka good behavior) at the doctor's. It is only at home he recovers his usual temperament.

The second was when I picked up the hyperthyroidism medication at the pharmacy, and was advised to not chase the cat around to treat him lest he get "anxious". I giggled - not only is this cat Siamese, he is the most neurotic and non-adaptive Siamese we have ever had. The only way to NOT make him anxious would be to slightly overdose him with the antihistamine before rubbing the hyperthyroidism med into his ear.

I am thinking about doing that.

More Birds

One of the last days in Maine, we saw hummingbirds going through very odd behavior. Three of them were running into each other trying to get to the feeder, and when one did they often failed to get their beak in for a sip. This feeder has a little perch by each of the four openings, something which none of them figured out in the time we were watching this trio.

We understood what was happening when one ended up briefly hanging upside down on the screen on the porch, chirping as loudly as a hummingbird can and flapping away. The little bird got untangled and went back into the fray to find a spot at the feeder. But that was the behavior of a fledgling. We must have been witnessing the first moments of a brood leaving the nest. By day's end they seem to have worked out the details - you couldn't tell if it was an older or younger bird by how well they handled the feeder.

When I arrived back at the barn for my first shift, the swallows were again dive bombing me as I went through the east doorway. It appears that one brood was not enough for the barn swallows - the same nest that had held five chicks this last spring was overflowing with four more, looking quite ready to take wing. They may be gone by the time I go out this coming week. Orders are set to not leave the riding ring door open, lest this brood ends up stuck in there for a few days like the last set.

While we were in Maine, a cougar that had started its life in Wyoming or similar was killed by an SUV in Connecticut. The cat's wanderings had been tracked from out west by trail cameras and similar sources, confirming the DNA results.

It seems less difficult for animals to live among humans than we might think.

Hate to go

We had likely our last paddle out to an island well offshore today. Tomorrow will be mostly about packing. But we had great conditions, got bounced around some and caught a ride back on the tide. It is always astonishing to get out to an island, on a gorgeous day, and not find company. It seems like more people should want to be out there. But we aren't complaining.

Lumpy

We took the older cat in for a look at two lumps that have been around and seemed pretty harmless, but started showing redness in the last few days. After the insertion of a couple of needles into them and a look at the results under the slides, it appears that are a type of mass that is typically benign in cats but can change and cause a problem. So we have a visit with our regular vet already set up in a couple of weeks to assess his overall health and talk about surgery. The redness is probably more an indication of excessive licking than a scary change, but I suspect that the final advice will be for surgery.

This cat has periodic bouts of being just ill enough to cost us money but never having a really serious or debilitating problem. He's a neurotic mess in a tank of a physical plant. He is the only cat I have ever lived with whose sanity relied on licking a plastic orange bag (grapefruit also OK) a few times a day. When we arrived here for vacation, having forgotten the bag from home, our first purchase had to be a bag of oranges. His rituals at this point include a calming collar, the plastic bag to lick, a rope scratching pad or post of the right shape and size between where he sleeps and where he eats, a ready supply of mouse-like mouse toys and occasional dabs of a homeopathic calming oil. We have spent less effort and creativity keeping cats on daily medication for terminal illnesses on an even keel than this guy. But we keep doing it - proving that loyalty often lacks common sense.

Other than that news, it has been a daunting but good day. We are going home without my violin of over 30 years, herself being replaced with a new (old) one that promises more sound and an easier playing experience than her. She is in good hands and will find a decent home, far enough away from me that I won't find her next to me being played by some fool that I can't stand.

The conditions here today have been quite lumpy, not a day for small craft with high winds and fog banks rolling in and out. It is a damp kind of day all around.

Like Cats and Dogs

We stopped by the local humane society yesterday, one where they encourage visits to the pets. We found, as always, a couple of cats that we could have taken had we needed more and an old hunting dog that was blind in one eye. I was offered him too, but until they can use kitty litter our schedule doesn't work well for dogs.

Our oldest cat will be going to the vet's while on vacation for the second time. Oddly, our cats that were on their last legs never needed a vet visit while we had them away. But Atlas, overall still fairly healthy, seems to need one every couple of years. The last time it was for a tooth infection that we treated with antibiotic until we got to our regular vet for extraction. This time it appears to be a sebaceous cyst or similar that will again take a holding action until we are home. The good news is that we never have to wait long - his wailing makes vets anxious to get him out of the waiting room.

We ended up knocking around today after making the vet appointment for Thursday. We found some gifts at a crafts coop, scouted out a new launch point for the kayaks, visited a historic site and ended by getting ice cream at a local stand. Dinner will be later, after dessert.

The violin decision is made. The one we'll be leaving with is getting a wooden tail piece with four fine tuners, and the two bows are being worked on. So far we haven't heard of any problems with the Knopf bow, and hopefully that'll stay that way. The Nuremberger is getting a new frog which was NOT in the plans until this coming year. But a crack that no one had spotted showed up in this rehairing, and the final part of the support tip fell apart when the old hair was removed. So, at least the new frog looks lovely.

It's hot here, but still better than it would be at home. They'll be a great red sunset from the front porch tonight.

Escape!

Andy has figured out how to get outside from the cabin, and had two escapes this morning. The first one lasted a while - we didn't realize he was out until our friend saw him walking down the path through the woods to the cabin. He scooted from there to the bushes by the shore and we picked him up off a rock at water's edge. An hour and a half later he was out again, having grabbed the thinnest of opportunities to go and help Jim hang out the hand-washed laundry. In both cases he was walking along while keeping the bell on his collar quiet.

Happily he is willing to be caught, but it is a good thing that we are free of company for a while. We need to enforce tightly latched doors for a couple of days until he settles back  inside again.

The good news is that of the two cats, Andy is the most unlikely to panic and bolt far, far away. The bad news is that he is much more comfortable going outside to start with. So one stop today may be a pet store, looking for a much bigger bell!

Settling In

The cats have settled in nicely to the cabin, the only problem being their nearly constant interest in eating. We can fed them 5 times a day and it is not too much. We appreciate the appetite after Val's final months, when we had to cajole her to take in the smallest amounts of food. The other two were off their feed too, discomforted by her crashing health. But it is taking time to get used to this newly ravenous appetite.

One of the constants about this enclave of cabins is its safety for children and dogs. The property wraps around its own cove about a half mile from the main route near the southern tip of an ocean peninsula, with seven ramshackle buildings that have been converted for summer rental. Most were working structures for the operation of the whaling captain that first owned this land - the salt house, the hay barn, the stable and other storage. The owners, a sister and a brother, live in two buildings in the middle of the cluster. One occupies the original whaling captain's house each summer and the other lives here year round in a newer house that overlooks the beach and dock. The third sibling lives in a new log cabin at the southern end of the property, on a parcel of land that was sold to him when he and his wife retired. The properties that bound this tract are large, 4 to 8 acres each, mostly forested with one house and limited road access.

As a result of its natural isolation, renters can come here with children and well behaved dogs and not worry if they go exploring. That means that both can show up at your doorstep unannounced, looking for food (the dogs) or direction (the children). I expect that the kids would take food too, but it is less controversial these days to slip a cookie to a dog than a two legged offspring. The owner's grey poodle makes a regular circuit of the cabins once they are occupied, and half the time when we see the owner it is because he decided to track down his dog. His prior poodle stayed by his side constantly, but this one is perpetually vague and wanders at will. Unlike the two black Labradors that showed up on our doorstep last night – telling us that the July regulars in the salt house have arrived – the poodle is also alarmingly close to coyote food. But so far he seems curiously blessed and has escaped being dinner. His vagueness may disguise better survival instincts than we realize.

This truly idyllic spot, characterized by the sounds of sea birds including osprey and a variety of near and offshore birds, sits in a region with lively year round musical and fine arts activities. There is a major chamber concert program that was started by summer vacationers from the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia and a fine arts museum, both of which have been marvelously managed. Both have also been blessed with high profile supporters that regularly help raise funds and awareness for the programs. The museum, the Farnsworth, has a long time relationship with the Wyeth family most of whom live locally. The Museum has extended its reach into much of the downtown block, putting several buildings back into viable use that would otherwise have been abandoned. The Bay Chamber program maintains its strong relationship with faculty and students of Curtis and the summer program at Blue Hill, and gets strong ongoing support from the Zimbalist family.

One unexpected result of the music connections is that this area works out for serious luthiers. The living is harder than it would be in a large city, but there are enough serious players to keep a good shop going. My violin and bows have been coming on vacation with us for many years now, to go in for their own spa treatment of cleaning and rehairing at this shop. This year I will be coming home with a new violin, or at least new to me. The three that are in the final group run from 1795 to 1923 in their dates. I spent a few hours yesterday sorting through seven violins, each one marvelous in its own right, to settle on two to bring home for more time. These were all instruments that would be the starting point for a young player looking to move up, but they were much better than the one that I have been playing.

It was a confounding experience – I kept going back through playing them, realizing that each was quite different and equally good. I now have no idea how someone who is a world class player decides on a violin. My limited experience yesterday must be the normal one for someone who can access the upper reaches of the violins out there, except they would likely have more made available to them. It may be a relief for players to be loaned instruments from museums – they end up with a remarkable instrument without having to decide whether they want that one, or this one, or the other one...

The hummingbirds are showing up for their morning rounds and the household is awake. It's time to make breakfast.

Bigger

We saw a couple of unusual animal fights in the last two days. Yesterday, a mature bald eagle landed too close to an active osprey nest for the ospreys' comfort. We saw the eagle hauling across the river to find safety in the trees on the opposite side with both osprey after him (probably given the size). Usually when smaller birds take on eagles they stay annoying above them, dropping down on them from an impossible location for the eagle to turn towards and pecking them into leaving. But the osprey were much bolder, chasing flat after the eagle from barely above them. It was probably a combination of their size and maneuvering ability, closer to that of an eagle than song birds, that gave them the luxury of a more frontal attack. The eagle was decidedly uninterested in turning to fight them.

Today we saw a sea gull diving on a black bird in the water as we paddled home, something that would not be unusual were it a duckling. The larger gulls will kill and eat very young birds. But this was not a duckling. The target of this attack was a bird that was about the size of the grey wing gull itself. As we came closer we realized it was a mature cormorant, a bird that is unlikely to receive fatal damage from a sea gull. By the time we got close the gull had given up its attack and the cormorant was on its way, with much shaking of the head and its feathers in some confusion over the attack. We guessed that the cormorant had surfaced with a fish in its mouth and the gull was after that.

Sometimes bigger isn't a factor.  

Horses...

I fell asleep during the news last night and woke up to old Roy Rogers movies. I noticed something I hadn't as a kid, that Trigger really was a beautiful looking horse. His head was not pretty - the long mane and forelock were good ideas. But his build was one I have always liked. He was hefty and solid with great mass in the hindquarters, a build that I don't tend to associate with Paliminos. I had also forgotten that they had introduced a second trained horse during the course of these movies, a lighter built but similarly marked Palimino horse named Trigger Jr.

The second movie that came up was one that really showed the sign of the times. These were formulaic western movies of the 50's, set in a time when the sheriff was as likely to appear driving a car as riding a horse but still wore a holstered gun. The movies each had a wild horse herd available, used for various purposes including rushing Roy Rogers and his buddy to try and break them out from cover, and being led back and forth over the Mexican border carrying diamonds.

But the really striking difference from current times was the violence among and towards the horses. The first movie gave you a hint that some of the wild horses were being killed to retrieve diamonds from their gut. The second portrayed a large white horse, a rogue stallion that was being used to kill horses to convince ranchers to buy protection. They showed some real fights, though the camera pulled back during the worst of it far enough that I suspected Trigger and Trigger Jr were being represented by stand-ins. But these were kicking, biting fights and some horses definitely were hurt. They had quick camera shots portraying a horse that had been killed, though happily those looked staged.

Even with the editing, the violence was real, and these were kids movie. In someways the horse violence bothered me more than the person to person stuff, because you know that the horses were given little choice.

Techno-Cats

The cats are getting readied for a long drive to Maine, with new tags showing their chip information on each of their harnesses and the twice a year flea treatment ready to go. Getting the records set up for each has been interesting, especially since each is registered under a different outfit. One of the services will, for a fee, send out notices online and printed posters (including your animal's photo if you uploaded it) to clinics, shelters and nearby other pet owners upon getting the call that your animal has been lost.

It's actually pretty impressive, and easy to see why microchipping pets has made such a big difference in recovering lost or displaced animals. The return rate for microchipped pets is up over 90% the last I knew.

Both chips can be read by the standard scanners used in vet offices and shelters and both have extensive owner information as part of the registration, so overall either should work well. But the use of technology to get the word out very quickly in one is akin to the alert network available to track lost children. Then again, for some these are almost children.

Cats Rule

We were at a folk song gathering today, one that has now run for over 30 years. At the end of the day there was a parade of large paper mache puppets followed by children and pipers. This is a mascot parade that has gone on for many years.

The lead mascot was... an orange striped tabby cat done large. This figure towered over the others in the parade by at least 2 feet, smiling down on the crowd and wearing the name of the festival across his (or her) chest. There was a dog behind the cat, but the face painting on the children in the parade left little doubt as to the favored animal at this event. I suppose that the dog owners who regularly attend this event (with their dogs) are used to it by now.

Annual Trip

Our two cats went to the vet for their annual visit. This was a relatively cheap one. Neither needed rabies shots, and for the first time in many years we are down under three. Andy was in his shiny new harness, one with better construction than the last which he escaped too easily. Atlas was wailing away in the carrier, out of the carrier being weighed, in fact all the time until we put Andy down next to him and they started his examination. Atlas then started to purr, loudly.

The appearance of more hands, needed to keep Andy's paws down while his teeth were examined, seemed to delight Atlas. Or perhaps he enjoyed seeing the needle Andy get his shot. It would be a stretch to assume that Atlas felt much charity for his housemate.

The nice thing about going the vet's with multiple cats is that each person in the room gets to pick a favorite. This time it seemed to work out evenly. The tech aide responded best to Andy and the young vet seemed to find Atlas funny. (Someone should... he's not easy to live with.)

Up Up and Away

The barn swallows were just about falling out of the nest on Monday. All four heads and chests were visible on Monday, and the parents couldn't get any closer than to hang off the side of the nest. The youngsters took flight Tuesday, unfortunately heading right through the open doors of the riding ring where the riding therapy sessions happen. They were apparently working out the flying thing with the lessons going on.

As of this morning it seems they were still in there. The barn folks left the side door open all night for the fledglings to find their way out, but it didn't work. It was far too rainy today to leave the big double doors open, so they are probably going to be in there for another couple of days.

The three young Decorah Eagles, stars of the internet thanks to good video feeds from a tree top nest in Iowa, started disappearing off the screen on Monday. All three had flown-hopped out to the end of a long limb that the cameras could be repositioned to scan, and seemed to have spent most of the weekend out there. By Tuesday at midday, someone had visited the site and and confirmed that one was already airborne and the other two had just started their first real flights.

These two bird families made air just 48 hours ahead of the Solstice, the end of spring.

Eagles and More

We spent the day paddling on the Hudson River. A mature bald eagle flew over us at one point, and two immature juveniles flew low over the water towards us then landed in a tree at water's edge as we went by. We were not looking hard for eagles - these three pretty much put themselves in our line of sight. There are several nests in the area, so it is normal to see at least one eagle in this stretch of the Hudson on a day's paddle.

Osprey, which have become rare sightings in this eagle-dominated stretch, were more present than we have seen before. We saw an active nest on a transmission pole, with one parent sitting close by, and were overflown by a pair of osprey further north. It looks like the osprey and the eagles are doing better at sharing the same space.

As we returned to our launch point at the end of the paddle, we saw someone in a kayak paddling along the opposite shore. The paddler, a woman in a red decked fiberglass kayak, pulled into the same launch point while we were unpacking the day's gear from our boats and getting ready to load them onto the cars. The conversation turned to where we had been paddling and where we were from.

We found out that this woman regularly paddles the stretch of river that we had just been traveling. She had never seen a bald eagle on the Hudson River. This is not the first time we've heard this, but it is confounding. None of us understood how anyone who spends time on that stretch of the Hudson can miss seeing a bird with an 6-9 foot wingspan, a bright white head and tail and a penchant for eating fish.

Swallows

Yesterday and Monday I was being dive bombed by a pair of barn swallows every time I carried a load of stall cleanings out to the pile, or stepped outside to check on the horses in the paddocks. This same pair of swallows, or at least near kin of theirs, have made a nest at that end of the barn every year for a long time now. And every year they dive bomb us so we won't hurt the chicks, which the parents leave no more than a tall person's arm length above our heads by the nest they use. There are three chicks this year - we can see their heads popping up above the nest to call for food every couple of hours. Until they are fledged, the parents will help control the mosquitoes.

Tonight we were practicing on-water rescues on a local pond in our kayaks. As we finished that work for a final paddle the swallows were out skimming and bounding over over the water, scooping up the small bugs that congregate just inches above the surface.

The barn swallows are quite pretty birds, a well marked rust colored head and wings with black and white markings. The swallows over the water this evening were less bright, but still beautifully marked with white bellies and soft blue-grey heads and wings.

Swallows are a lovely family of birds, or whatever would be the correct term. At times it seems as though they are following me around.

But Do We Want to Find Him?

Our now-oldest cat is a Siamese male who has spent most of his life proving that this breed can be a total pain in the arse. He has one or two truly redeeming traits, of which we remind ourselves when wanders around yowling himself to sleep. He can do this for half an hour at a time, multiple times a day, so there are times when patience turns to throwing a slipper with the intent of knocking him over. Sometimes this distracts him.

But when he suddenly falls silent, leaving us in peace and quiet for a long while, we find ourselves scouring the house to find him. Of course, all we do is wake him up and are shortly choosing again between remembering why we have kept him and tossing another slipper (or stuffed animal or pillow....).But we are masochists when it comes to this cat - we will hunt until we have found him just so he can make us crazy again.

Tonight was a classic round of cat versus sanity, and the cat won again. Once we were both home, we realized that it had been half a day since he had been heard wailing miserably. So we went looking for him. We found him curled up in the dirtiest room of the basement, an unusual choice for him, from which he would not be extracted. He ran from two attempts to catch him. But he will emerge later covered in cobwebs and dirt from the old wood floor, and well rested. He'll probably yowl off and on for a good hour, and we'll half joke again about accidentally leaving a door to the outside open.

Come and Get Me!

I am the primary pet sitter for one of the long time clients of my service, a woman who had two cats that I first met when both were past ten years old. I saw both through their final days.

I had a visit with the male, a big dramatic long haired black with green eyes, hours before the owner had to make the hard choice. It was a tough visit. I cleaned up things as well as I could and lied a little in my note about what I had found. The owner was only away for an overnight, and the state of things was going to be as obvious to her as it was to me. His kidneys were completely unable to do their work.

The other cat, a long haired black female with white markings, faded away more gradually. She finally stopped eating for the last time and forced the decision. The owner had been through every idea to stimulate her appetite - changing the food daily, rounds of baby food and finally warmed up baby food in an eye dropper. But there came a time when they stopped working. The owner was staying home more so I didn't see this cat so close to the end.

The household is now down to one much younger cat, a short haired black cat named Willie. He arrived not long after the death of the older male cat to be company for the female. That never worked out, so each had their own portion of the apartment. The owner watched television in two places each night so each had petting time. Willie has the whole place now, but like all of our cats has claimed the bedroom as the prize.

This last weekend was my first round of visits with just Willie at home. Instead of being underfoot as he had been in his separate space, he decided to play hard to get. He still liked petting when I got to him, but I had to lie down to coax him out from under the bed and sweet talk him to eat while I was there. Owning the whole condo may have gone to his head, at least temporarily.

It didn't last. By the last visit of the weekend he was back to his old self. He came out to greet me, weaved between my legs and got right to chowing down with me standing nearby. I may have to please his highness to pet him again, or he may forget about it now with me. It's never easy to tell with cats. But their cunning extends to humans as well as prey.

Horses will be...

The rain finally stopped and it cooled off as well. Everyone is happy for the break.

I spent some time yesterday morning being a side walker for a couple of lessons at the barn. It was a good lesson in the sometimes odd behaviors of horses. The horses were all a little more alert, probably because of the sudden change in temperature from very hot to fairly cool and damp and having been kept inside most of the day during the last rounds of rain. But no one had any problems until the second lesson near the end.

The second rider I walked with was a young boy on one of the Welsh ponies. He needed to be taken to the bathroom just before the last planned exercise, so his father lifted him off the saddle and left carrying him. When he returned, still carrying his son, the pony caught one look at him from the corner of her eye and decided that this was scary. She hunkered her hind end down in readiness to run. We tried walking her around to calm her down for a second attempt, but the little mare had quite made up her mind. The boy and his father were scarey, and no one was going to ride her with that weighing on her nerves.

There was no sure way to tell what had her so concerned. The father was a big guy, so the visual impact of him carrying his son may have been too much for the little mare. He was a fair distance off but still came up from behind her. It's not the direction from which horses like to be approached.

The session ended with the pony standing in front of the trainer and the father and son, seated, sniffing the boy and being petted. There isn't a bite in her, so that was quite safe. She was acting more like a big dog than a horse, and it seemed everyone enjoyed it. But her spooky response was quite an education for the father on the sometimes erratic behavior of horses.

Casting Around

I've been casting around on where this blog is going, frankly waiting for inspiration, and we've had major distractions on the home front. But I heard an interview on the radio yesterday from a writer who said that in order to write, you have to do it. Her advice is to sit down for some time every day, preferably on a schedule, and skip waiting for inspiration.

My experience of the last couple of weeks tells me she is right about waiting for inspiration - it isn't going to just hop out of the closet and sit on my shoulder. I'll have to muddle along on most days without the guiding voice of a Muse.

Casting around turns out to be an apt title for this post. One of the older horses got cast in his stall at yesterday's barn shift. We got him up after after several minutes and he never panicked, so all ended well. But it was very hot and we could have done without the excitement.

When a horse gets cast, usually in an enclosed space, they have gone down to roll and ended up choosing a direction where they can't complete the roll without getting stuck against a wall or other blocking object. Even if they could solve the problem by rolling to the opposite side, which is sometimes possible, the horse will keep trying in the direction they first planned. That is one reason that the inside of horse stalls have to be solid rather than open slatted walls - you can't have openings where a horse could get their leg trapped if they get cast.

A horse can get cast if they are rolling around trying to relieve the discomfort of an intestinal blockage (colic), and that can end very badly. Yesterday's event was much less dramatic. All of the horses were hosed down because of the heat. When he was returned to his stall, the aging chestnut thoroughbred decided to add a comfortable layer of shavings and dirt to his newly dust-free coat. He has the biggest stall in the place with plenty of room to manage this safely, but this old guy could get himself stuck against a cactus in a 100 acres of desert.

Luckily he didn't panic or get scared, probably because this wasn't a new event for him. I tried sitting on his neck to keep him down until the other white haired volunteer got a halter and lead line to help pull him up. But I need to eat a lot more ice cream and fried potatoes to weigh enough to keep a horse on the ground. It didn't take much for him to put me halfway across the stall at one point - I was doing better when I was just holding his nose down lightly.

He came up fine when the other white haired volunteer leaned all 125 pounds of herself against the end of the lead line, though in hindsight we should have put a second person on the end of that line. The old guy got a second hose down, another round of fly spray and a brief walk around the lot after he got up. He was relaxed and enjoying the heck out of the extra attention. It is possible he planned this.

He repaid me for sitting on his neck later. We added water to everyone's grain and fed it in increments because of yesterday's heat, starting about an hour after the chestnut's second round of care. I went into his stall to check whether he had finished what he had so far, and he lifted his head to spray wet grain on my head and torso. I swear that if it had been anyone else he'd have missed dousing them with his dinner.

Dogs and Cats and Everything

This week has been full of animals again - a week plus of taking care of the Malamute and two Huskies that I have dubbed the "Wolf Pack" and the dog plus four cat household. I have been able to get out to the barn both days as well, something that has been harder to do lately with the work of moving back into our house after renovation and the start of spring paddling. I haven't made it up to New Skete again yet to work with the puppies, but June looks good for a couple of visits.

The rise in temperature, now into the 70's, is being noticed by all the animals. The dog who lives with the cats is moving slower when he chases the toy, and the white mare is packing on a daily load of mud to keep away the bugs. Fly masks, mesh masks which go under the halter on a horse's face to keep bugs out of their eyes and ears, are showing up out at the barn. It seems that we just suddenly jumped from late winter into early summer.

We have promised a number of people that we'd get them into kayaks once the water warmed up a bit, and our promises may be called in starting next week. Somehow it seemed that it would be much easier to carve out time a few months ago than it seems now. But at least some are retired or work independent schedules, so I can take some of them out during the day.

This warm weather has been long in coming. I am appreciating it as much as the critters.

Are We There Yet?

The remaining two cats, left behind after the loss of our old female, are still moving forward on their adjustments. They are even sleeping together between the spats. A number of followers of the latest end of time prediction, for a series of worldwide catyclsms starting at 6pm on Saturday May 21 in each time zone, appear to also have been left behind. At least they have not been taken by the Rapture. The embarrassments and arguments are already alive and well on the internet, which seems silly because there is another popular end of the world date in May 2012. They'll be plenty of time to argue after that has gone by.

I have a hefty week of pet sitting going into the holiday weekend. This morning I was able to visit an old/new friend, the newest black cat of a woman who had two others when I started doing pet sitting. I miss her older cats myself, a little, but the new guy is a sweetheart and will wear well. I also started a round of visits of visits with a household of dog and cats nearer by. They have used this pet sitting service for a very long time, and I have seen the dog's muzzle grow noticeably whiter.

Tomorrow I start a week long set of visits with the "Wolf Pack", a Malamute and two Huskies which are quite a bundle of dog up close. They also have very good teeth. I left a plastic pitcher for water on too low shelf one time, and came back to shards of thick plastic all over the garage. Happily they hadn't ingested any, but they'd done some pretty effective chewing. This may be the last time I see them. The owners are moving to Florida sometime this summer. I am not sure how these three will do if there is a power failure and the air conditioning goes, but the owners have done what they can to make things ready for them.

We spent the last weekend on the water, kayaking off of Rhode Island, and saw a huge variety of birds. We were able to sit close and watch them a number of times on sandbars where plovers and sandpipers were eating, with no nests nearby. One pair of house sparrows had started to build a nest over the light outside our motel room door. We didn't get yelled at much so we think that attempt was abandoned for a better site. But as grey as this spring has been, the wildlife seems to be on schedule.

We'll see if their efforts to build nests and raise chicks are ruined by the next end of the world. But this last week it didn't feel like most of the critter world agreed with the preacher's predictions.

One Week Later

Atlas has two new challenges. One is to live with Andy as his primary companion, the other is to survive moving back into our house. We have been out of it for several months while it was repaired from water and smoke and fire fighter damage after a major fire next door, another three story city townhouse of lineage from the 1800's. The fire fighter damage was by far the worst. By the time they had competed their work they had put numerous holes in the roof thinking we had a common wall with the house that had the fire (we don't), torn up every roof in the third floor including most of the original tin ceilings, smashed two internal locking mechanisms on doors I told them were unlocked (firemen don't turn knobs) and relocated several pieces of wood trim from stairs to the floor. We are sleeping in our house again tonight, surrounded by mountains of boxes

Surprisingly, both cats are doing well. They have found the bed - the critical part of any house. I hope that the same is true for ous by the time we have made it thru all of these boxes.

We are supposed to be getting our cable TV service transferred to this address tomorrow morning.We have about 60 boxes between the new futon to replace our sleeper sofa and the television, so we will have service long before we can see it.

First Week Without

It is a week since we had to make the hard call on our oldest cat, a blue point Siamese named Val. We brought her companion with us to the vet's office, a slightly younger Siamese named Atlas, in hopes that it would be an easier adjustment for him than having her suddenly disappear. Alone among our cats, Atlas seems to understand illness and death well. It did seem to help.

He has settled down a state of being a little miserable but tolerating the situation. His version of tolerating it comes with twice daily rounds of pacing and inconsolable yowls, but this is not so different from his normal behavior. For a Siamese who has never been without another of their kind, we are doing well. Atlas quiets down and starts purring when one of us is sitting still for a lap. And sometimes he sleeps  with the big fluffy cat-cat who came in off the street a few years ago. The Siamese instinct for physical companionship is beginning to overcome their normal anxiety-ridden relationship.

Atlas' response since her passing has been proof of the similarities and dissimilarities in the bond between animals and humans. For all of his many annoying behaviors, he has wonderful instincts when a cat is in their final days. He will stay with a cat who is ill, even one he normally hates, and knows when the other cat has died. He will leave then, as if his job is done.

The difference this time, when it was Val who had passed, was that he didn't leave when the second shot had stopped her heart. He would have stayed by her side indefinitely had we not put him back in his carrier after a several minutes. It was both a moment of comic relief and of pain when we saw that we would have to call the end of his vigil. Atlas has no lack of the Siamese stubbornness.

As in a human loss, he was missing Val on the car ride home and for the first few days. The tone of his complaints were unlike anything we had heard before, uncharacteristic small sounds that spoke as clearly as words. He wouldn't play with toys and was unable to settle down to sleep. The only time he got any rest was when we were home and sitting down. If a cat can look miserable and depressed, he did. He has always had curious habits with his over sized ears - they fall up and down telling his mood. His ears were parked and immobile. Atlas was acting much like any human being would in the first days after the death of a friend or lover.

But a week later, it is clear that he may feel lonely but no longer remembers Val herself. He seems confused at times by his state - as if he doesn't know why his life is like this - but he doesn't look for her nor is he drawn to the places where her scent would still be the strongest. He has played with the cat toys a few times and is sleeping easily during the day.

Atlas is not as comfortable as he was with Val here, but his inability to remember her is allowing him to recover a normal routine. It may be that animals have the right idea - honor the one who was lost for a time, then place them in some closed folder and move on without the burden of grief.

On the River

My little Vela, a sea kayak, is on the car and I will finally get on water - outside - soon. The first evening paddle of the local ADK group is tonight, and the water on the Mohawk River has cooperated by dropping a good bit. It is still brown with mud and the water level is a little high, but I didn't see things like the entire trees that are still coming down the Hudson River.

It will be interesting to see how many people turn out for this. The day is grey with rain promised later and this morning's forecast originally had thunderstorms. A lot of people would have already decided to skip this paddle before leaving for work today. So we may be a small crowd tonight. I brought extra rain jackets in case.

I stopped to check out the river on the way home from an oil change earlier and noticed a number of pair of geese along the shore without chicks. I wonder if the floods decimated their ranks. I did see one family with four and another with three chicks. The parents did their job though, and made sure I didn't get too close.

Long Week

Our oldest cat Val was finally too uncomfortable, too weak and to scared by her own ills to fool ourselves any longer. Over the course of the last two weeks we had gone from baby food out of the jar to heating it, then to mixing it with warm water trying to make it easier to eat. Each variation worked for a day or maybe two, with the amounts being consumed dwindling each time, until she had wasted away to a state that we could not ignore. We brought her to the vet on Friday morning and paid for her to be individually cremated. The office wisely finishes all the arrangements including forms and payment before you go inside.

We buried the first two cats we lost in our yard, but by the time we lost Max to cancer had realized that our house was not suited to aging in place. It is a three story, skinny old house that is utterly charming. But its hallways and doors would barely work with a walker, let alone a wheel chair. In addition to the three flights of late 1800's stairs, with square landings that turn twice inside, the front door sits on top of a flight of nine wide brownstone steps with curved ornate iron railings. Each front door, actually a pair of two both for the outer and the inner doors, is as narrow as the hallways upstairs. So we started getting our cats cremated and they live in cat-theme metal cans on our mantelpiece. Once in a while a cat knocks them down, but we just have to put them back up again.

We brought her younger companion Siamese named Atlas to the vet, hoping he would understand why his lifelong mom/girl cat had suddenly disappeared. Atlas is a confounding mix of contradictions. He is high strung and dim - there is no problem too simple for him to be unable to solve. But despite his constant noisy angst, he is the best companion we've ever had for ill and dying cats. While his other companions have have feared illness and run from it, he goes to a sick cat and stays by their side. He knows when they have died as well.

Atlas and my old Grey cat, who came in off the street as a kitten, hated each other. After a few tossed sandals they realized that fights would not be tolerated and kept a constant distance from each other. But the night that Grey died, Atlas spent the entire time nestled by his side. I knew when Grey was gone by Atlas. There was a final puff of breath, as I felt it Atlas touched his nose and nuzzled an ear. Then he got up and was gone to a warm bed. It was as if his job was over.

So when we had to make the call for Val, we brought Atlas. We apologized to the vet for the inconvenience, explaining that it was our best chance to avoid a month of tranquilizers. They didn't seem too surprised by it so we were probably not the first. Atlas parked himself by her side while the shot to make her fall asleep took and stayed there the whole time. As her heart was stopping he nuzzled her head, but didn't budge. We gave him a few minutes but finally lifted him away. It was clear he was going to stay with her as long as she was in the room, in any form.

Atlas made a few noises on the way home, not his usual complaint, and hid under the bed with our third cat when we got inside. The remaining two get along but it is an awkward alliance. The third cat was either afraid of another cat carrier appearing, or knew something was wrong. By the next morning both cats were eating and looking for sun spots on the floor, but are very subdued. Atlas often plays with cat toys - the only cat we've ever had who actually finds cat toys interesting. It is the second day after and so far the toys are undisturbed.

Brown Water

The horses all came in with layers of mud on them yesterday. The pastures were wet with puddles from rain, the air was warm and it was just too just too tempting to take a few rolls. Big fat honey bees were lazily hanging in the air just outside of the barn door, running into our heads as we wheeled out the wet bedding and poop from cleaning the stalls. I brushed the muddiest of the horses before I left, but I only relocated a portion of the accumulated earth. For the white mare it is protection against the bugs. She would rather I do a bad job at cleaning her anyway.

I stopped by the river today, in a parking area at the head of a bike path, to see how the rising waters looked. We hit flood stage today in most spots along the upper Hudson River and some distance south of the Federal dam in Troy. The water was brown with large parts of trees going by in the channel. They will be joined overnight by lawn chairs from the back yards of flooded communities upriver, once they get over the dam. Two male mallard ducks came floating by at 5 or so knots riding the safer run of current near shore.

The winter's precipitation hasn't stopped, it has just changed to liquid form.

Red Lines on the Radar

Spring is here again with a very warm day. The air mass is so warm that we have tornado warnings up southwest of us. It looks likely that we'll just get the wind, thunder and lightening here. But it'll be hard for the barn owner - there's a good chance that she'll be out at the barn at the wee hours of the morning to make sure the horses and grounds are all right. Horses tend to want to flee in storms. While these horses associate the barn with safety, lightening is still alarming.

Our cats will be less upset. They live on us when they are comfortable, so a little rain and boom boom won't change anything. 

Bells

The bells at the Roman Catholic church across the way started at 6AM this morning, and continued for an unusually long time. Apparently this congregation really takes time to enjoy their Easter morning Mass.

Shortly following that, the local public radio station played portions of the Messiah by Handel, a lovely touch since it is usually only played around Christmas. If you read the words to the whole work that is a strange choice. Except for the initial sections, most of the work talks of events around the Messiah's death and subsequent resurrection. But we rarely hear this work played at Easter, the very moment of the the fulfillment of God's promise for the forgiveness of man's sins. It was good to hear the section of the Messiah talking about Christ rising from the dead on the heels of those very enthusiastic bells.

This morning we finally found some food that our oldest cat would eat, after nearly a week of being unable to get anything into her. We made the hydration schedule more frequent, but that's not enough. We are really just forestalling the  inevitable at this point, but we want to keep her feeling better as long as we can. It was fitting that this was Easter morning.

Move Them Bones

Sunny day today and the horses were all snoozing when I got there. Several were out cold on their sides - the Halflingers, the old Quarter horse, the Andalusian mare at at least one of the other boarders. The Halflingers decided to start getting up when I stopped to shoot them on the way in to do stalls. The quarter horse stayed on his side until he heard me come out the back side of the barn, the same place that his noon time feed arrives from each day.

We should all sleep so well. That has been a little harder to come by this week because work being done on our house is nearing completion, so a whole new set of tasks will soon start. And our oldest cat is nearing the end of her journey.

I learned this morning that I am old enough to be unaffected by the proposed changes to Medicare/Medicaid, by just a few years. Perhaps my spending time with old things is similar to carrying around a rabbit's foot.

Big Bunnies

Easter is near and the local shopping mall had all the signs. The pet store has baby rabbits on display, in an open top case that allows customers to pet them. In the main concourse there was a much larger rabbit, an Easter bunny in the same space that seats Santa Claus each December. The photographer was taking shots of young children with this horrifically large rabbit, or at least the overly large head. I wouldn't be surprised if half the young children taken to meet this Easter Bunny run out of there fervently hoping that it is just a made up story, lest they risk meeting the real thing.

Today there is also a story in the local newspaper about an unfortunate situation for many animals. There have been complaints lodged against a woman who runs an animal hospice, or at least a strange version of a shelter. It appears that she gathers animals that are dying. She claimed that she gave the animals all of their medications and proper care such as making wheeled devices available for the paralyzed ones, but her statements are odd at best.

The most bizarre part was her explanation of why investigators found corpses laying around. The operator said that an animal's spirit stayed with the body for a while after death, so she purposely leaves the corpse out for a few days before burying or cremating it.

The baby bunnies in the Mall store might have no better end than the critters that end up in that hospice - of sorts. Easter tends to create a lot of work for people who rescue rabbits (yes, there is a rabbit rescue organization similar to pit bull rescue groups etc).

As scary as the big bunny doing pictures was, that may be the only kind of animal that should be part of Easter. A fake one.

Forty Years Ago Today

We reluctantly closed the west side of the barn tonight due to predicted rain, shutting the old quarter horse away from the outside paddock by his stall. He did not want to come inside, but he is an easy old man so I didn't have to get a halter. I just took a small bit of his mane in my hand and he walked into his stall beside me. There are some very sweet things about old horses.

As I drove away from the barn I pulled off the road to look at a towering black array of clouds in the west. I considered going back to close up the sheltered side of the barn as well. I decided not to, that I was seeing more dark than immediate danger, but it was impressive.

Something on the drive home made me remember one of the odder experiences of my college years. In the spring of my sophomore year, I ended up traveling to Montreal with a small busload of young men from the college Wesleyan group to see the show "Hair". I no longer recall how I met this bunch, let alone how I ended up seeing this play with them. They explained at the time that they wanted to see it to help them understand the part of the world that fell outside of their ordered view. But frankly, they wanted to be shocked.

As it turned out, we didn't have pricey enough seats for a really good bout of righteousness. The famous nude scene was done mostly under filmy material with the lights very low, so the only chance at seeing anything was a brief instant when they turned up the lights at the end of the scene. You had to look quickly. For most of the time, the lights were so dim that only the first two rows could have seen anything other than vague forms and some movement of the fabric.

By the next semester I had long since found that I was not a fit for their white pressed shirts and two piece suits. But they did make interesting company to see "Hair". And unlike many of my later companions in trips to Montreal, we didn't have to worry about what was in the car when we came back across the border.

That was about 40 years ago now - probably the same year that the old quarter horse was born. In fact it may have been within weeks of today. It is possible that this remarkable old man was just beginning to learn to run on wobbly legs, with the knobby knees of a foal, when I was seeing "Hair" with a bunch of shocked young Wesleyan students. This would make a nice story for the old man if horses cared about such coincidences, but they don't.

Crossing the Sea

There were stories on the radio today about Passover and the escape from slavery under the Pharaoh by the Israelites. One format was a gathering of various departed relatives in a family which was joined by Frederick Douglas. As a result, there were snippets of music from the days of slavery in this country and southern chain gangs along with the traditional Jewish songs that ran behind the radio dialogue.

I had not previously made such a direct link between the two groups - the memory of having been enslaved. The music and conversation made a good radio show, serious and weighty comments mixed with family banter about parenting and daily habits in a household.

The last story I heard, about God parting the Red Sea so that Moses' people could flee the Pharaoh's army, had especially good timing. It aired about the time that I was realizing my playing at the rehearsal of our trio tonight had been affected because I was still tired from last night's rehearsal of Debussy's "La Mer" with the Vermont orchestra. And it began raining just as we brought the horses in for their evening feed today.

This year seems determined so keep me thinking about precipitation in some form, whether liquid or the solid form that is still on the ground. I stepped onto a pile of snow tonight getting out of my car at the cello player's house.

Inching to Spring

The demonstrations of kayak rescues went well yesterday. I was approached by a few people, all women, who seemed like they may be interested in learning more. I tend to get more follow-up than the guys do. It may be that a white haired broad helping a person twice her size back into a boat and doing a roll is more surprising. But it really doesn't matter why - we've succeeded if only one or two people are encouraged to learn to be safer on the water.

The attendance was not as robust as in some earlier years, with cold nights still making summer seem far away. The water in the pool is drawn from a reservoir that is still quite chilly regardless of how warm the season has been. I've done this demonstration wearing a drysuit with two fleece layers underneath while the crowd of observers around the pool are in shorts. Yesterday was cool and rainy and people were in long pants and jackets still, so the difference was not so extreme.

It was still worse in the pool though. One of the guys who was standing in the water while little kids had a chance to noodle around in whitewater boats started getting hypothermic, even wearing a dry suit. He made a run for an infusion of very hot coffee the moment he got out of the water.

Unfortunately at least one of the observers got to be more a part of the demonstration than he had planned. One of our club members was taking photographs at poolside, and when we were pumping out the boats after one of the rescues I apparently got him dead in the face! He didn't come back and give me hell, so I assume both he and the camera were OK.

New Starts, Old Friends

The signs of spring are in bloom - the crocuses are up and the daffodils are well started. Garden plots have been cleared and are ready for the new plants. The peepers have been in full chorus for a week now, and the horses now spend most of their time without any blankets and with windows wide open until after dark.The sun is warm enough to drive with windows open.

We start the new season without one friend. Spicey did not survive the last early winter. The inflammation in her hooves became more than she could bear. But for the last few months she had much attention and grooming, as a few of us old ladies at the barn spent time untangling her thick mane and tail and brushing her equally thick coat. She had a metabolic order that meant she never fully shed out.

There will be a small ceremony remembering those who have passed tomorrow at the barn. I will be naming Spicy - apparently no one else asked. So I am glad I can make it.

Finally Warmer

There were deer by the muck pile again last night, the first I've seen for a while. They eventually took off but weren't very organized. Most of them ended up going over the fence at the back of the rearmost turnout ring, flashing bright white tails as they went over. One ran back and forth in front of the fence a couple of times before launching into the air to join the others. Unfortunately I don't carry a camera while hauling a wheel barrel bucket full of muck.

I was hauling the muck from a pile near a gate between pastures where the horses gather and make a small mountain of the stuff. We had a little time after getting the grain dropped so I grabbed two helpers to clear that area. We were all surprised to find an inch of ice between the poop and the mud underneath! With a day of temperatures in the low 70's earlier this week we didn't think that was possible. But with luck (and no more insulating poop), today's sun should melt it.

Aside from the ice is the pasture, we seem to finally have reached consensus about spring. The horses are shedding out, with tufts of long hair sticking out from places that they have rubbed against a fence. Brushing them creates a cloud of horse hair that lands on everything, like a coat of snow from the white thoroughbred mare. The ground has started to turn green from grass between the paddocks, despite overnight temperatures that can still linger around freezing.

Open water beckons for paddling as well. This weekend we'll be demonstrating kayak skills in a pool at at outdoor show, to help inform people thinking about learning to kayak.

Running Water

Yesterday was the first wonderful day where the network of hoses was turned on again at the barn, so we can now turn a faucet to refill water buckets rather than hauling them the length of the barn. Cleaning water buckets is much easier too, because they can be removed rather than having to tip out the dirty contents ever -  so - carefully in order to avoid disturbing the heating elemens under each that keeps the water from freezing.

Heated water buckets are nicer than breaking ice with a hammer. With no heat, the buckets have to regularly be brought inside to melt because the ice layers build up, which was how things went when I had my horse many years ago.

The outside buckets can be filled with a hose as well, though it is often as easy to carry buckets for the last walk from the end of the barn to the outside bucket as it is to take the time to extend then recoil the hose.

I stopped by a parking lot at the head of a bike path that runs along the Hudson River on the way home. The draw of the river in the most urban of places is impressive. On a weekday early evening, the parking lot was full with cars of joggers and walkers and riders, all in the shadow of a six lane highway.

The view across from the parking lot is the county jail, upstream is a bridge and more industrial development along the river and behind is the painted smokestack of a local paint manufacturer. But the draw of any water is still strong. This little strip by the river is full of people once the water is liquid again.

Leaving the Nest

I have been watching an eagle cam from a link that was posted on a paddling message board. The video feed is excellent quality, showing a nest in the upper Midwest with three chicks.

Normally eagles fledge at most two chicks. While this pair seems to have a historically higher percentage, raising three chicks is still unusual. That means at least one of these chicks may not survive. Even in a few days you can see which of the three chicks is the strongest, which seems least likely to make it. The adult seems to be feeding each chick based on how aggressively it competes for food.

Eagle cam link: http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

But this morning offered a different view, when it seemed that the female sitting the nest was making a special effort to keep the smallest chick warm. Is this an instinctive act to help the chick survive, a kindness to one that she knows will not, or disinterested activity while larger fates decide whether this chick will live? I share the human impulse towards trying to alter fate, so it is hard for me to interpret the actions of the wild creature in this video.

This morning my neighbor's truck was filled with trees from last Christmas to be chipped, ours among them. His wife takes discarded trees from the alley each January and sets them up in their back yard to provide safe nesting for the sparrows and small song birds that return each year. The neighborhood has a resident Cooper's Hawk that also comes back, and who regards the fledglings as his personal buffet. The pile of trees in the truck means that these birds have fledged.

In the case of my neighbor's efforts, she is just evening the odds. The density of the ground cover and foliage in these city backyards can be lush, but still can't offer the same protection these small birds would find in thick, wild woodlands. For the eagles in the video, the urge to intervene is more difficult.

Merging Signs

Today is the first of my spring concerts, with the pops orchestra. The riverbanks are finally free of ice. All that is left is compacted piles of dirty ice and snow in large parking lots from snow plows. We may even be free of ice below our back porch by weekend's end!

The cats have arranged themselves in the strips of sun coming through the front windows, each just big enough for one cat. They have been doing this for a while now, but the slots of sun are coming earlier.

Even the players in Washington D.C. have managed to pull out a win. With just a few hours to spare and furlough notices being printed for federal workers, a governmental shut down has been averted. The tourists arriving in the Capitol for the Cherry Blossom festivities will not be surrounded by piles of garbage bags by week's end. And the trees outside our front window are sprouting buds.

For the moment, it must be spring.

Governmental Inaction

The stalemate over the federal budget in Washington DC is hours away from causing a shut down of the Federal government. The two major parties, especially the hard core Tea Party Republicans elected in November, are making it very difficult to find common ground.

Each blames the other, but the Republican side has questionably financial conditions. They want a rider that would ban the EPA from publishing regulations that have undergone the full public comment and review period and are ready to release. This has fiscal impacts somewhere, sometime, but lacks the urgency of the problem for military families when their paychecks stop. The Republicans also insist on a policy of no further funding, ever, for any aspect of Planned Parenthood. This is fiscal, but its purpose is more in line with their love of social engineering. 

Some of those arguing to defund Planned Parenthood are insisting that this would increase women's freedom. I must be unfit for public office. I don't understand how removing a source of affordable medical care enhances any one's freedom.

In my younger years I volunteered as an escort at a local Planned Parenthood office. I usually went on a Saturday morning, when the more aggressive protest groups came through. The group would bring a couple of bus loads of people to hold signs and make access to the clinic difficult for a few hours. It never bothered the more extreme of them to bring young children, who were often freezing their arse off on a cold early spring day and risked being hurt by the crowd if things got nasty. 

The protests were futile for the stated purpose. Clients looking for an abortion, their issue, avoided Saturday mornings because that was always when the protesters came in. But they would get a good shot in the newspaper since it is usually a slow news day, and that was probably their goal. Not that I am cynical or anything... 

I noticed a new place to view one of the area hydroelectric power facilities when I was driving around today, a dead end street behind a rental place on one of the islands in the Hudson. I stood on the shore and listened to the water flowing over the dam, watched it spread into three channels around two more islands to my north. We'll soon be taking our kayaks out to play there, in the white rills beyond the waterfall and the two low head dams that were beyond my view. Two geese were sitting in the grass just behind me, likely a pair with a nest built somewhere nearby.

A short term government shut down has no effect on them - the water will still flow. But longer term, could it? Maybe, if no entity is there to mediate between the competing interests for the river's water. If the water was taken upriver, this pair might find their little piece of urban heaven gone.

Music in Our Ears

Early this morning I caught up with an old movie called "Boys Night Out", a classic comedy from 1962 where four suburban businessmen get an apartment in Manhattan for evening entertainment not involving wives. The apartment ends up including a blonde woman who the guys believe is an escort, but is actually a graduate sociology student using the opportunity for her thesis on the sexual fantasies of suburban married men. Of course it is a comedy, so no one actually gets their clothes off in these dalliances. The lack of hanky panky is the face of assumptions otherwise is one of the comedic threads.

The film has a classic ending, with the blonde, the husbands, their wives, a private detective and the student's professor all in the apartment and yelling at each other, shortly followed by a scene months later where all four couples are out for the evening together.

The movie is a successful silly comedy of the era, well executed in terms of sets, clothing and cast. And it has music - real music. When the first of the men sharing the apartment arrives for "his" night, he brings a bottle of champagne and puts a recording of a Mendelssohn violin concerto on the stereo.

There was a time where this was common. The theme for the  Lone Ranger television show was from the "William Tell Overture" by Rossini, families listened to recordings by Heifitz and the last time I played Rachmoninoff's second symphony I could have sworn I heard the start of the theme song for "Million Dollar Move" in the middle movement. Many popular films used classical music.

But this is long lost. When we were walking out of the movie "The King's Speech" a few months ago, several people in their early 20's were commenting on how wonderful the music was. It was a lot of Mozart, with the ending music being the magnificent Adagio movement from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. We stopped to tell them what they had heard and they were floored to hear it was classical music. They were talking about getting the recordings - maybe they did.

There is a good reason to put classical music into the common marketplace, even if it does risk playing the more accessible works to death. It gets it into peoples' ears as something familiar, not music that can only live in stuffy music halls. It's a shame this doesn't happen so much any more. The are still some moments, like the use of Orff's "Carmina Burana" in the movie "Excalibur", but they are too few.

Velcro Pets

We have many friends whose experience with cats fulfills the stereotype of cold, distant and uninvolved creatures. There are chasms between that and how we live with ours. I regularly have to lift them up before they walk across the keyboard while I type, and it is impossible to sit or lay down without acquiring at least two of them. One, the biggest, regards any shoulder within reach as his perch. His concept of reasonable reach is broad - he has been known to climb up our backs when we were removing around inconveniently.

My sister's dogs aren't so different, though they are inconveniently large. Any sit on the couch is taken as an invitation into a lap. Sitting on the ground puts a dog head under each arm, looking for a pet.

I was on a pet sitting job tonight, and stopped the play in the back yard for a bit for some cuddling. Even a couple of the horses at the barn will seek physical contact, butting their heads out as you walk down the aisle looking for a scratch.

I increasingly wonder how these stereotypes are born. It seems impossible to live with any animal without a lot of physical contact.

Mud and Medelssohn

The performance last night went well for a "practice" concert, if that means finding the spots that need a work before the final performance. I have plenty to work on over the next several days. Warts and all the audience seemed to like the program, especially the Wagner. Perhaps they also felt that a dark work was apt for the day. The grounds at this place are quite nice when the the flowers are in bloom, but right now the residents are taking their daily constitutionals under grey skies and trees still laden with last year's dead leaves.  

Days like yesterday would have seemed odd when I was working a day job. I went out to the barn and did my normal afternoon shift. I had to turn out all the horses when I arrived because it had been raining earlier, so I got some time in the deep mud of the paddocks before going in to clean stalls. By the end I had accumulated a few inches of new mud on my boots and splatters on my jeans to nearly my waist.

I changed into the black skirt and white top for the concert in the small bathroom at the barn, with the spare water bucket to my right and parts of a harness hanging behind me. I waited to change into civilized shoes until I had made my last trek from the barn to the car, holding the skirt in an unladylike fashion to keep it out of the mud puddles.

After a half hour drive I joined my fellow players, most of whom had spent their day in clean houses or offices, to present light and terribly civilized music. I keep waiting for someone to notice that I have spent my time in less sterile environments, but so far performance concerns seem to outweigh olfactory alertness.