The reason I’ve left you all hanging about various events at Jerome Creek is that the striking of that set and the staging of the next trip happened very, very quickly and, as usual, at the end of trip two I didn’t leave myself any recovery time at home before plunging back into day to day life in Seattle (starting with a trip to the dentist a mere twelve hours after my return. And I have a cavity. Doesn’t get much more unpleasantly mundane than that.).
Specifically, I arose at
That's my mother-in-law on the ground behind her horse. This was not planned. Yes, to add to my two weeks of, well, more challenges in a small amount of time than is ideal for a vacation in paradise, Janet took a spill off Shadow today mid-canter. Sikem, back far enough to see only that something had leapt out of the woods and attacked Shadow, stopped short--I mean immediately--from his fast canter and I flew over his head in what I would like to believe was a graceful arc, but certainly in what was a complete somersault. I landed on my bum, and bit my tongue hard. Not a perfect ten dismount off the pommel horse. 
I took Sikem through last year’s clear cut the other day, out through Maple Creek Meadow and up the east side of Maple Creek—a gorgeous trail that I’d never been on despite coming here five years in a row. It’s a surreal experience to ride through a finished clear cut. It looks, to my un-bomb-educated eyes, as though a bomb went off, leveling the forest and incinerating everything remaining. I assume the loggers burn so that they can control the fires, instead of letting incredibly good tinder lie around baking in the sun, waiting for a rogue spark from an ATV or a cigarette to catch and send uncut forests up too, but it makes for a distinctly end-of-days atmosphere.
24 miles to the gallon this last tank, which is quite a bit better than the 18-20 promised. Not bad for an SUV, eh?
Here’s the thing, the thing that makes it abundantly clear that I am unsuited, to put it mildly, to take care of cats. This has nothing to do with my allergy to cats, which varies from cat to cat in intensity from none to asthma like I’m going to die, even taking Benadryl. No, the reason I am unsuited to taking care of cats is that I—all you feline aficionados take note—evidently do not know for sure how to tell one from another. You see, there’s a cat here. She was here last night, and she was here just 20 minutes ago when I went to the loft to check. She was even lying in the milk crate—documented behavior of Doucely, Miss Missing. The problem is that this cat doesn’t have a collar, and the first cat did. Now, the same things that cause farm cats to go missing can cause (much less dramatically) collars to go missing, so the fact that the first cat had a collar and this one doesn’t is really neither here nor there. The other problem, though, is that there are varying opinions on how the first cat looked. The cat that Laura and Sonja talked with was gray and stripy. The cat that Ian talked with was gray and stripy, too. When I mentioned I thought the cat had been black, Ian said no, but maybe dark gray. Now, two nights ago I did briefly see a flash of gray and stripy cat leaving the loft when I went up to check for Doucely . . . but that cat skittishly behaved very much like a stray. The little black cat that’s here now doesn’t, however. She was quite happy to be held and petted, and purred intensely all the while. So . . . I think the cat that’s established herself in the loft is actually Doucely, albeit naked, re-establishing herself. But it embarrasses me that I can’t be sure, and that I’m going to have to ask A, next time she calls, what, in fact, her cat looks like.
Instead of the nylon rope formerly failing to hold this gate closed, I twisted up some wire using the tool shown. Spackle observed, although not what I was doing. There are some chickens in the next yard over.
One day I went to collect the horses and saw Toby in the creek pasture, which is not where I had put her. Further investigation showed that the Rambunctious Youngsters had not actually jumped the fence a few days before but had, in fact, pushed through this gate (the tangle of barbed wire looped around on the ground).
Today was not quite, in balance, a good day. Certain things were good—my friend S, still a new friend but rapidly becoming a long-term friend, is here, and we’ve been getting along great and she’s been enjoying the company of the dogs and the horses. It rained today, which may seem bad but is actually good, as it keeps me from feeling guilty about not watering the Arbor Day trees in their little blue tubes and the daffodils around the house (spring comes later here than in Seattle), and it created the perfect opportunity to sit on the couch with my knitting supplies and start the mathematically laborious task of working out the new pattern I’m creating. Also, rain doesn’t go on endlessly here—it rains, then it stops and the sun wetly appears and everything steams and suddenly it’s hot again, and then the sun starts to go down and suddenly it’s surprisingly cold. And on our evening ride we came upon a litter of coyote kits, trotting busily about in the waning light.
But the bad things are multifold. First, Doucely the cat has vanished. Doucely is an outdoor farm cat, and in coyote/eagle/barn owl country this is, almost without exception, eventually a death sentence . . . but nevertheless, no one wants to be responsible, even by proximity, for flipping that final switch. Doucely was a very sweet kitty, at least as far as I could tell from the first several days here. She was last seen about 4 miles north by neighbor G, day before yesterday, climbing a large lodge pole pine. Since then two different stray cats have availed themselves of her food . . . but they, I suspect, will be no acceptable replacement. I have not given up hope completely, but S and I have accidentally started referring to Doucely in the past tense. Not a good sign.
Second, Kit has decided that Loper is not, in fact, always welcome. Yesterday there was an episode of angry attack, which I broke up by sounding even angrier than Kit, and today after dinner there was an even worse episode. Spackle was already in the kitchen, Kit was in the kitchen, and Loper was heading nonchalantly in himself when Kit, with no warning, leapt at him snarling and barking. I leapt at Kit snarling and barking myself, and stomped up stairs after him to where he had retreated behind K&A’s bed where we’ve been sleeping, and made him sit, then made him lie down, then glared at him for a while. He stared back at me, not entirely unrepentant, and eventually reached up and licked under my chin. I read Julie of the Wolves, so I know what that means. And about time, too, I say. Eventually Spackle appeared as well, then Loper, then S, and after a bit of residual deep, throaty growls, Kit subsided and we all trouped back downstairs for a civilized evening of wine (S and me) and naps (the three dogs).
The third, and worst part, is Toby. I’ll say right off that it’s not serious in the scheme of things, and she’s going to be perfectly fine, but she’s out of commission for at least a week. Late last night, I was sitting in this very office, typing away at my recalcitrant email and listening to the frogs singing outside. Suddenly I heard a CLANG-WHACK-CLANG. The dogs snored on. I put my ear to the open window and listened intently . . . nothing. I assumed a horse had banged into a gate and left it at that. Soon after, I went to bed.
This morning, I got up around
Shadow had managed to get herself into Toby’s corral, the inner of the three, and couldn’t get herself back out. She had wedged a gate and a door together, and it took some muscle to get them apart. Inside the stall, Toby had pooped quite a bit—which I know made her unhappy because she is the horse that leads all the others to poop way down at the bottom of the yard away from where people and horses sleep, when given the chance. Clearly, she hadn’t had a choice because Shadow’s menacing presence was blocking her way. Lastly, I saw that some kicks had evidently been aimed at the wall of the stall—two boards had been knocked out on one end, knocking this other sliding door askew on its track. I hammered everything back together, cleaned up the poop, rehung the doors, and sighed with relief. It could’ve been worse.
It was.
S and I walked up to collect the horses for our afternoon ride around
Shadow had bitten her, or she’d scraped herself in her stall trying to avoid Shadow, probably a dozen times. None of the marks is awful in itself; hardly any showed any blood at all; the only puffy one wasn’t hot to the touch. Fortunately her legs weren’t injured at all and she’s walking fine and eating fine. I slathered her sores with Bag Balm and crooned to her, and fed her a bit of extra grain. She snuffled my hair and my chest, and seemed to have forgiven me, or never have blamed me. It was my fault, though. I had failed to fasten the gate between Shadow and Toby’s stalls, and Shadow (is it part of her Machiavellian nightly routine to push on each gate, just to make sure?) took advantage. And when I heard the quick CLANG-WHACK-CLANG I listened, very carefully even, but I didn’t go check on anything.
I’ve spent the evening feeling kind of sick to my stomach.
I eventually had to stop with the photo essaying--I started to get car sick staring at the ground so hard as I strolled briskly along. I also got carsick watching the New York Marathon a couple years ago . . .
Things that are different this year
Things that are the same that I wish were different
Reasons why it’s awesome to be alone
Reasons why having another person here would be nice
We had a funeral here Friday afternoon, for a beloved 13-year-old family member, Baylor the big dog. He was actually a member of K&A’s daughter W’s family, and represented even more than merely thirteen years as their best friend. He was older than W’s son T, so T has never known life without him. And he had been adopted by W and T’s father J, who are now divorced. And so, when Baylor, who had lived a good life and loved Jerome Creek like all dogs do, breathed his last on Friday in their home in Ballard, several things ended with him, and the logical thing to do was bring him here so his spirit could roam in this singular place.
The beautiful convergence of family dog funeral (including W, ten-year-old T and W’s S.O., R) and long-term family friend housesitter-plus-husband-plus-two friends-plus-five very live dogs, is something I hope to foster in my own home now and in the future. We all came together like old friends. I’ve known W all my life but I’ve never met R; she’s maybe met Ian, but never Laura and Sonja. I warned W about the five dogs so they were all prepared, and T seemed to enjoy throwing sticks into the pond for Spackle, who’s insatiable, and he also enjoyed riding out on Shadow with his mom on Toby, while Loper trotted along, pleased to be out in the world with people who like dogs and horses who tolerate them. Everyone spent the night and there was plenty of room for seven people and five dogs; we ate dinner together by plan, and the next morning converged at the table without planning at all, for a group breakfast. Those of us whose dogs are very much alive were sobered by reflecting on their inevitable deaths; those whose dog had just died were heart-warmed by the goofy aliveness of other dogs.
Ian watered the burial mound this morning, last thing before we left for the airport. I’ll keep it up as long as I’m here.
Rest in Joy, Baylor.
Well, I’m on my own (at least for a couple days). Took Ian, my last bipedal compatriot, to the airport in
Being alone out here is surprisingly social, though—I’m going to dinner at a neighbor’s house Thursday evening, I have riding lessons on Thursday and next Monday, a different neighbor dropped off half a delicious rhubarb custard pie this morning, and I’ve been a bit of a secretary for K&A (hiring K to perform a July 1 wedding), who are off in southern France on a canal boat cruise with Mom and Marsh and another couple. The people at the Harvard post office (size: 8 feet X 12 feet) know me, and the people at the Hoo Doo recognize me, too. I even occasionally run into the same people out trail riding. And on Friday another friend arrives, and on Monday my in-laws, who loved last year with a passion, return for a second go-around, and on Wednesday night a friend visits on her way to
So yeah—tomorrow and Wednesday, when I’m all alone with nowhere to go, I’m gonna love it.
Send your Best Friend on the vacation of a lifetime with Taylor-made DogVentures. The fun begins with a pick-up at your dog’s home (collar and leash are the only necessities—we supply everything else), and a group ride in the camp car (up to four dogs per car) so everyone can get acquainted. We’ll stop once along on the way to the wilds of Jerome Creek, Idaho, for sniffing, marking of territory, erratic running around and that old dog favorite—Expando Leash Dog Maypole (unfortunately, heretofore it has been impossible to capture this spectacle on film as all hands have been busy participating in the Maypole). Once at our destination, we will take Rover and pals on daily hikes and trail rides, accompanied by Giant Dogs or Dragons (or horses to you and me), with countless opportunities to chase small wildlife such as rabbits and ground squirrels, and larger wildlife such as elk and the occasional feral cow.
