Ada comes into our lives
September 15, 2016
Yesterday was the beginning of the full moon, so Ada Croskery decided it was time to enter the world at Ottawa General Hospital. To the delight of Roz and Charlie and the four assembled grandparents, she presented herself as a good natured and inquisitive little creature, undisturbed by the flocking parental units brandishing phone cameras.
Welcome to the world of the selfie, Ada.
I keep telling myself that the birth of a child is the most ordinary thing in the world, but I don’t believe it for an instant. This is the first grandchild for Ken and Helen Dakin of Burlington, as well as for Bet and me.
While the “competing grandparents” waited in a surprisingly comfortable waiting room for Roz’s 2-hour push, we were joined by a frazzled young woman with three rambunctious toddlers of Haitian ancestry. Their single mother had come in for a routine checkup with the kids in tow, only to be sent for an immediate c-section. This kind French-Canadian friend did her best to ride herd on the well dressed but tired and very loud kids who seemed to range from two to five in age. They had nowhere else to go without their mother.
At length Charlie came along, proud as punch, to announce that Ada Croskery had entered the world — no middle name yet — and that we would be able to visit the family in the birthing room in a few minutes. A study in contrasts awaited us as Bet and Helen, arm in arm, parted the curtain to meet The One. Roz was a study in composure. Ada was relaxed, a little sleepy, but primarily aware of her tongue and upper lip. To my untrained eye, she looked a lot like a small Cabbage Patch doll. Maybe it was the toque and the tight swaddling which made her into a 24″ package, readily passed about among the grandmothers.
Roz was a bit tentative on the kid-holding, keeping her positioned across her chest and patting the part of the package opposite to her head. I assumed there were feet down there, but she could have had a tail for all I knew. Bet assured me that Biologist Roz would have made sure all of the parts were there.
If she could focus at the time, Ada’s first impression of family members would have to involve smart phone cameras, flashing gently but incessantly. Charlie had assured us that the flashes wouldn’t be a problem for her.
So today Ada will make the journey home to the family’s downtown apartment. This will be a new driving challenge for Charlie. Roz’s mother will stay around for a couple of days to help out, and then they’ll be on their own. The apartment is a ten minute walk from Charlie’s office, though, so he hopes to get home for lunch each day to give Roz a break.
So away they go down the dizzying slide of parenthood, while we oldsters, bolstered by the new relevance, content ourselves with acquiring trinkets and making plans for visits and Thanksgiving.
Sam
August 27, 2016
When I was a young teenager I had a yearling Chesapeake Bay retriever named Sam who was very rambunctious. He liked to follow me on my bicycle when I rode the short distance to the post office in Westport. One evening Sam was delayed by something along the way, then came blazing down the middle of Spring Street to catch up, still looking back over his shoulder at whatever it was that had distracted him. He didn’t notice Mrs. Murray in her Volkswagen Beetle, headlights on, stopped in the middle of the street as he approached. He hit the Beetle head-on, landed running on the sidewalk, knocked over my neighbour Chris on the corner, and hid in his kennel at home. Finally something had gotten Sam’s attention.
My parents paid for the broken windshield wiper on the car, and Sam seemed no worse for the wear. Chris Murphy, a lad about my age and used to a few knocks from sports, was more bemused than hurt by the encounter with the fleeing Chesapeake.
But for years afterward on hot days, half-way through his run in the woods with me, Sam’s hind legs would quit, and I’d have to carry him home. This was a challenge, lugging the large dog, shotgun, and knapsack the half-mile or so back to his kennel. Once he had rested for a bit, his legs would go back to normal.
Sam had the pain tolerance of a cement block, but he didn’t seem to be hurting when his legs went out, just a bit bewildered.
This was before the days of veterinarians, so I don’t know what the diagnosis would have been, but I rather suspect the back problem was a result of the collision with Mrs. Murray’s VW.
How to get utterly lost in Leeds County
August 7, 2016
“It’s not adventure until something goes wrong.” Yvon Chouinard
I couldn’t believe it. Today I got lost on a paved road.
Tom and Kate Stutzman offered to drive us to Hotel Kenney for Sunday lunch, so Bet and I cheerfully loaded into their shiny Hylander named “Pearl.” Tom showed us the many features of the SUV and even pulled from his wallet the slip from Canadian Customs which forbade allowing a Canadian to drive it — on penalty of confiscation of the vehicle.
Had I been driving, this adventure would not have occurred, because I wouldn’t have missed the turn to Elgin. But I wasn’t, and the road surface was new and black, and I don’t remember the road sign. To be kind to myself, perhaps it wasn’t there. Harder to believe was my failure to notice the two bridges and the hydro lines, but I guess I was distracted by something.
In any case, it seemed to be taking a long time to come out to the road that joins up with the Davis Lock Road, so I asked Bet to check the map on her phone.
No service.
To be fair, the nav system on the Hylander didn’t offer much help, save to assure us that we were, in fact, on a road.
Everyone in the car seemed quite prepared to heap the blame on me for this cosmic trick which had transported us into some alternate dimension of winding asphalt road lined by trim lawns and neat houses.
“Where are we?”
We stopped to ask a group of three examining a jet ski on a trailer in a driveway. The smiling woman who responded to my plea found our plight the inspiration for no end of comic riffs, the gist of which indicated that we were exactly in the middle of nowhere. Every place we knew was precisely twenty-five miles away, down that road we were on, or back the other way.
“Where do you buy your groceries?”
“Seeley’s Bay, or Kingston.”
About there I tuned out. We left our joking hostess. Tom drove down the road a bit and made a left onto another road. A series of rather nice houses floated by as we meandered around corners, passing a bit of water, first to the right, and later to the left. Then came a large campground on an unnamed lake. Somewhat later we came to the bridge across the Rideau Canal. Tom traded a couple of American cigarettes to the bridge master for a map. Hwy. 15 and Elgin lay ahead.
When I checked Google Earth I realized that the turn I had missed lies 800 yards from the entrance to Hotel Kenney. The lesson from this? Don’t miss that turn or you’ll end up in Battersea.
The sound of a barn falling
May 24, 2016
It took ten to fifteen seconds and ended in a cloud of dust, and it was a sound unlike anything we had heard before, a tearing, scratching, snapping mess of sound, and it went on and on.
And then the old Young barn, a landmark on Young’s Hill, was a twisted wreckage of tin roofing, timbers, and sheeting. One of the nesting turkey vultures circled the heap in dismay.
There are a few thousand feet of hardwood lumber in there, a good Herreschoff pram I’d like to rescue, and a generation’s discarded tools, winter tires and furniture.
And then the Opinicon dinner bell began to ring…
April 25, 2015
My old classmate Don Goodfellow called it crowdfunding. He was impressed that this many people would come out on a Saturday morning in April to heave several years’ accumulation of oak leaves onto large tarps, then drag the sodden loads a hundred yards to the edge of the lawn, dump them, and climb the hill for another go. But lots of us were there with rakes and gloves, happy to help out, equally grateful that the black flies had not yet arrived, and that someone had had the foresight to lay in no fewer than six portable toilets for the crew. For 200 people, that’s luxury.
Further foresight had banned the leaf blowing crew to the far end of the property, so we could hear ourselves think.
So we went to work with a will, as long as wind and muscles lasted. Then we found things to lean against and chatted. One woman and her son come from a farm just outside Elgin. The family business is a grain elevator. Another couple own a lovely property on Newboro Lake. We had corresponded extensively over the years as part of the Annual Ice Out Contest. Specifically, I had named the winner two years ago only to have Pete comment that he had pulled a log off the “non-existent” ice with his Rhino that morning. From that point on I announced no winner until I had first toured the lake looking for ice.
Turned out they were head-hunting, and before long they had found an energetic member of the raking crew, a teenager willing to add more hours of wood splitting and raking to his busy week.
My friends Tony and Anne Izatt arrived from their new home in Newboro. Tony grumbled when I dragged him away from a conversation to help with a tarp, but when he finally got to work he pulled with a will, and seems to have great wind and stamina. But he’s been working on their house every weekend since fall, so he’s in much better shape than I. Don Goodfellow is ancient — two full years older than I, but he told me he’s already been doing a lot of raking this year, so he as well seemed in great shape. But at least I had had the sense to suggest the tarps to Fiona.
You see, there’s no way I would work this hard at home. I have too many toys for lawn care, and there are all sorts of tricks one can use to get out of heavy lifting if there are four diesel engines at one’s beck and call.
As it approached 11:30, Don kept talking about food. We raked bits of remaining leaf patches, but the bulk of the day’s problem had turned into a pile of compost over behind the dock shed. Then to everyone’s delight the dinner bell began to ring. If anybody wants to go all poetic about the bell pealing out a song of hope or continuity, or any such, please pen away and add it to the comment section below. Suffice it that I was very glad to hear that bell, and it wasn’t because I like hot dogs. The Opinicon is part of what I call Home.
Up the hill we trooped to avoid the slow stampede of rakers descending from around the cottages on the opposing hill. How many buildings are there up there?
A country rock band played quietly on the veranda as we moved into the short lineup for hotdogs, cake and cookies (effortless food delivery noted). The green relish looked unusual, so I tried it. Good. Over at the t-shirt booth people signed in and the woman before me commented beside her signature: “I loved the home-made relish.”
Hands full of food, I led Don toward The Liar’s Bench, but diverted onto the veranda of a nearby cottage, well-supplied with old chairs, painted red. The first one I tried had a cane seat. I sat down gingerly. Nope, too much crackling. I switched it for one with a piece of plywood screwed on ages ago. It took the weight and felt surprisingly comfortable.
People passed. Lots of chats with well liked, if seldom-remembered acquaintances. People seemed in an excellent mood at this event. Maybe in its own way perspiration is as good a social lubricant as alcohol.
Finally, a crust
March 12, 2015
Anyone who has read far in this blog knows about my weakness for crusted snow. I love to travel on it, to enjoy the freedom it gives, to watch the dog react to her new mobility, to wiggle some powered vehicle to the top of the thin icy layer and giddily drive around in expanding circles until it drops through with a great, tire-spinning crash.
After four days of thaws dragged the bottom out of the huge snow accumulation in this area, last night it froze hard. At dawn (after the online papers and breakfast, anyway) I set out with a bemused spaniel to see how far we could get on the snowmobile trails which were the consistency of a Dairy Queen slushy yesterday afternoon.
While the crust over unpacked snow was fine for Taffy, it wouldn’t hold me. The packed trails were solid, though, so we set off, lightly dressed (no vest for the dog, vest and light jacket for me) to explore this fresh wonderland.
The northwest wind was pretty cool, but that sped us along until we reached the woodlot. It’s been a while since we’ve walked through this section. Two middle-aged maples have died and shed their bark at the tops, and one small elm. I might be able to salvage a log or two from one maple.
We came upon feathers and bones from a kill. At first I thought it was a grouse, but the grouse-sized feathers looked more like turkey plumage, and a remaining leg bone was quite large. It surprised me that the predator left a bit of skin and some bones. Perhaps it wasn’t a coyote. A little further along Taffy found another kill just emerging from the snow: something furry, likely a squirrel. I called her away from it in case of porcupine quills, and didn’t investigate further. I haven’t examined a fox kill before, perhaps the smaller canine is less fastidious than the coyote. Or the predator could be an owl, I suppose.
As we followed the trail to the north side of the woods I stepped gingerly around tracks of the mess I made a week ago when the Ski Doo bogged down in drifts. I had to blast a wide circular path through small saplings or else leave the machine there until spring and worse, walk the half-mile back to the house through deep, soft snow. (You won’t laugh if you’ve ever had to do this.)
In today’s cold I decided to jog back to the house. That worked fine until one foot broke through the track, then both feet, and then my wrists and elbows. Oh, well, I wasn’t cold any more and the lungs were now getting an excellent workout.
A fast walk would have to do. Taffy enjoyed the chance to range across the small fields wherever her nose took her. She had a great time digging beneath the crust near a small ash and came up chewing a couple of times. There’d been a lot of vole damage on those particular trees last winter, so go get ’em, Taff.
And back to the house, still clean, refreshed, and a bit chuffed at taking advantage of the window of cold temperature. I love the crust.
There’s a lot of snow out there.
March 5, 2015
Just back from a very strenuous snowmobile ride in the woodlot. Is there ever a lot of soft snow in those tall drifts! Three times I corkscrewed my machine into bottomless snow when I lost the edge of the packed track.
The last time with my dog aboard, the trick of using the throttle to get out of an unstable situation (before the laws of physics applied themselves) didn’t work. Neither could I shift our weight fast enough to right the tilting snowmobile as it found its way into pristine snow under the overhanging boughs of a walnut tree. It probably seemed like any other disembarkation from the snowmobile for Taffy: face first into deep snow, swim to the track, run home to Mommy. That’s how she gets her winter runs. This one was shorter than most. By the time I found my way out of the white abyss, she was well on her way back to the house.
The tumble, however, was a novel experience for me. I just lay there for a while, weightless after the low-speed overturn, mildly surprised that when I put a foot down to stand up, there was no down to stand up on. There was nothing for it but to swim up onto the Ski Doo, perch on the far side, and power out of the snow, panting mightily from the unexpected exertion.
Great cardio, I guess. Non interficat triumphat.
Great Lakes Ice Coverage Records
February 20, 2015
For those of you who like to use meta data in formulating your ice-out predictions, here is a bit of climate geography courtesy of Tom Stutzman.
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/compare_years/compare_years_o.html
February 2nd, and its impact on our culture
February 2, 2015
A new meme has swept through the comic strips today: eating sausage on Feb. 2nd: Ground Hog Day. Blame it on tiny text screens or auto correct, likely.
A bit of black humour on the calendar’s jokiest day isn’t amiss, it’s just a different approach from the usual trite Groundhog Day gag such as:
“What happens if the groundhog sees a maple leaf?”
“Six more weeks of dull hockey.”
Or this rather obscure B.C. effort on Feb. 2, 2015:
http://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/bc/
This morning there’s actually a live feed from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania as the sun rises. But it’s the usual assortment of aging men hogging the microphone while clad in funny hats and ill-fitting ceremonial coats. No sign of the rodent yet.
Groundhog Day is a great fuss about nothing. Likely that’s why the jokes are so lame. And as for Phil, or Chuck, or whatever the locals have named their marmot? It’s a pretty good gig: free food, no coyotes, and no risk whatever of seeing a shadow this snowy February morning.
UPDATE: 10:29 p.m.
Priceless. This marmot had had enough of the whole stupid business:
Good fences make good neighbours.
February 1, 2015
I’d thought of using that path across my neighbour’s field as a shortcut to the Cataraqui Trail for snowmobile expeditions, but I hadn’t for fear of leaving a track as an open invitation to trespassers.
On a warm-up round of the farm this morning, though, I ran across the tracks of an intruder made the night before: the snowmobiler had found his way onto my property through a gap in the fence not traveled since the plowing match in 2007.
Had he followed my established tracks I wouldn’t have been annoyed, but the yob took a shortcut through several acres of little trees, trampling them in his quest for a short cut over Young’s Hill. Inevitably he ran up against a closed fence, so he made an awkward U-turn, clipping an 8 year-old pine, then waded through more yellow birch, spruce and walnut on his way back off the property. I hope this guy realizes his mistake and does not return.
If this happens again, I’ll be forced to rebuild the fences we took down for the International Plowing Match in 2007 and haven’t had reason to put back up since. But driving a snowmobile over little trees is uncool.
the Walnut Diary 