Geese on icebergs

Spring has sprung on the river. Maybe not even spring, so much as full blown summer. Yesterday was absolutely phenomenal. Sunny. Hot. No bugs. Paradise.

It was a perfect weekend for being outside. Some people did yard work. Some tried out their bicycles. Most everybody tried on their shorts to see if they shrunk over the winter.

What did we do? We split wood.

See, I had forgotten all about the splitting-wood-thing. Which is silly, I know, because there's been a truckload of logs sitting out front for two months now, waiting for a break in the weather. And how could I forget when we heat our house with wood and therefore carry wood in from the woodpile every darn day all winter long? How could I forget? How????

I think it's like childbirth. The pain is agonizing – so bad that your brain forgets about it. Even though there's a fully formed human being in your house to remind you of those labour pains, mooching your food, peeing all over the bathroom floor and asking for money, the pain part is blessedly forgotten (because changing diapers is its own special kind of pain). So firewood is like childbirth. Yah, you know every spring you work like a demon but the rest of the year it's just a hazy memory.

But – gak – suddenly it's spring. Time to roll out the wood splitter and the chain saw and, by the sweat of the brow and the throbbing pain in the back, transform an entire truckload of logs into wood stove-sized chunks. For those lucky enough to never have endured this process, it's monotonous and painful. Wet wood is heavy. I can carry a big armload of dry firewood with no problem but freshly cut wood is three times as heavy as the dry stuff.

Enough with the whining. Yes, splitting wood isn't my favourite way of enjoying spring's first brilliant days but I must admit I get an immense amount of joy listening to less energetic people complaining about their heating bills in January. Our last load of logs cost $900. The wood will heat our house for three years. People with oil furnaces can spend $400 or more for one month and not even be warm.

Splitting wood isn't so bad. Not really. It got me outside all weekend. It got me some sunshine. It worked all my muscles and it worked up an appetite and it made me feel like I had accomplished something.

Besides, if I hadn't been out in the front yard splitting wood, I wouldn't have seen this pair of Canada geese (above) sleeping on an ice berg. The Muskoka River isn't exactly Ice Berg Alley (as parts of Newfoundland are known) but we do get little islands of ice floating downstream when spring arrives. They're not unusual but goose hitchhikers are. They hop aboard these icy boats and catch a snooze or enjoy a ride. We saw them do it a few days ago but were too slow with the camera.

The weekend wasn't all work. We did go to a wake on Saturday to pay our respects to a family member. They are wonderful people and we had a nice visit. We went to a movie Saturday night. (Saw John Carter. Fell asleep.) We had a couple of fabulous bike rides. (I LOVE MY BICYCLE.) And we even got our canoe out of hibernation and went for a paddle.

It was a good weekend. OK, so now I need to stock up on Deep Cold and Tylenol, but it was a good weekend nevertheless.

Beautiful, beautiful weather. The snow is almost entirely gone (you can see a few small patches on the opposite riverbank) and the river looks so inviting. It's way too cold for swimming (like, barely above freezing)
but it sure looks pretty.

The water is as high as I've ever seen it. Our dock is usually a couple of feet out of the water
– now all but one edge is completely submerged.

Our load of logs in front of the 'bunkie.'
Believe it or not, the pile used to be a lot bigger – we've already split and piled a quarter of it. 

Our progress as of lunchtime Sunday.
By Sunday night we had three full rows – about six cords.
Only 20 cords left to go! Woo-hoo!

Stupid Dog

I am ruled by my stupid dog.

This morning I got out of bed and there was Misty, spinning around like a malformed water bug. I looked down at her with disdain.

"You've already been outside," I said. Only one of my eyeballs were open. The other was crusted shut. My bladder was fully loaded and bumped up to the loading dock ready to hand-bombed into the great white porcelain bus.

The dog ran to the front door and spun there. If she could talk she would be saying

"gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now 

or I'm gonna pee on the floor, on the floor, right now" 

and it would be in a high-squeaky voice, not unlike American Idol's latest long-haired Bob Marley wannabe Deandre Brackensick. (Brackensick? Are you kidding me?)

Brackensick

I sighed. Heavily. "Really?" I asked.

The dog spun and looked sincere.

"Fine," I grumbled, "but you better get out there and go pee."

I waddled to the door, barely unable to see through my gummy eyelids, and opened the door for Her Royal Pain in the Ass.

"Go pee," I said, because the dog weighs seven pounds soaking wet and her brain is the size of a fava bean and you actually have to tell her to "go pee" or she'll just stand there like a dumb turd and stare at you.

I stood by the door, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, having to pee so bad my back teeth were ordering lifeboats. The dog stood on the front deck and looked at me, not a brain in her ever loving head. The fava bean had left the building.

"Git!" I hollered. "Go pee!"

She gave me a look that said I was torturing her and hopped down the porch steps and sniffed the closest snowbank. After 10 seconds of sniffing, she turned to see if I was still looking, then sniffed for a bit more. That done, she got a happy "I'm done!" look on her face and scampered up to the front door, wanting to be let in.

I was furious. "Get down there and go pee RIGHT NOW."

She got that hurt look on her face, like I was the world's meanest owner, and slunk back down to the snowbank. She didn't even sniff, just stared at me mournfully.

"GO PEE." I ordered, feeling like the evil dictator of a smallish country.

She took a few steps, sniffed half-heartedly at a pine cone and turned a baleful gaze back to me.

"oh please don't torture me anymore missus, i promise to be a good doggie, 

look how cute i am, why you be mean to cute doggie like me?"

Misty is such a creature of habit.

Someone gets out of bed, she has to go to the front door.

Someone shifts their position on the couch, she has to go to the front door.

Someone coughs, sneezes, farts, burps or breathes, she has to go to the front door.

It doesn't matter if she was outside two minutes earlier; if any of these things happen, she has to go outside.

Dave says it's my fault. "Why do you let her run you? She's a dog!"

True. You can't refute logic like that. (Whatever that means – she's a dog? That's supposed to make everything clear? Dave's theory of relativity – she's a dog.) But I am bound to the "what if" of the situation. What if she really has to have a crap? And what if she craps on the floor because I didn't let her out? Who would have to clean that crap up? Me, that's who.

Anyway, feck her. She wanted out so badly, she can stay there. Forever. Who cares if she freezes like a pupsicle? Who cares if she gets eaten by a bear? Bah. Stupid dog.

***

She's still at the front door. Staring at me. Big puppy dog eyes looking like she's the saddest dog of all the saddest dogs. Queen Sad Dog. Staring. I feel like I should let her in, like she has been punished enough.

Or I could make like she's a football and field goal her into the Muskoka River. *cue evil laugh*

Taking pictures in my underwear

You know you live in the boonies when you can go out the front door in your underwear and take a photo. Of the scenery, not your underwear.

The view from my window was particularly pretty this morning so I tried to take a picture from the warm place where I sat then realized my winter-windows are too filthy for that exercise. So I threw a coat on and some boots and wandered bare-legged into the front yard.

The sky was sun-peached and rosy behind the snow-laden trees and the river was as ink black and ice cold as a murderer's soul. A gorgeous morning. The kind of morning you feel so good just to be alive and breathing.

Oh. That reminds me. Somebody online posted a link for a quiz where you can determine how long you're likely to live. I pounced on it, all excited because I quit smoking years ago, I've just lost 58 pounds, I exercise daily – I figured I'd be told I'd live until I was 90.

54.

Apparently I'm going to croak in three years.

I tried not to let this get to me (stupid internet quiz) but I felt the cold finger of death touch my bleating heart. That was two weeks ago and ever since all I can think of is three years.... three years... I wish I could remember whose blog I found this stupid test on so I could share the link and you could try it and be as depressed as me. But I can't remember. Maybe it's a sign of my upcoming demise. I tell you one thing: if I'm going to die in three years you can bet I'll be eating, smoking and drinking every damned thing that isn't nailed down. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Ya think?

On a completely unrelated note, we're babysitting a friend's dog – Charles is his name. He's exactly the same colour and the same size as our own dog, Misty. They're like tiny-dog bookends. Incredibly cute. Diabetes-inducing cute. I tried to take a picture of them but have you ever taken a photo of two jet black dogs in a snowbank? When I got back in the house I blew out the background completely just so you could see their wee faces dusted with snow. They weigh about seven pounds each, soaking wet.

And those flowers? They're mine. A gift from my sweetie on Valentine's Day. Aren't they gorgeous? Aren't I lucky?

All this and it's Saturday morning, the best morning of the week. It's a long weekend here in Ontario. Monday is Family Day so we have three long, lovely days with no "must dos" and no plans. No money, either, but that's beside the point. I have a light, happy heart thinking of the time ahead. I hope your weekend is equally light and equally happy :)

THIS JUST IN: I found the link for that depressing "you're gonna die in three years" quiz.
http://gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/mortality/perl/CalcForm.html
Let me know how long you've got, OK?

The Legend of Catfish Hunter

"CATHY! SAM! GET OUT HERE! GET THE CAMERA! I GOT HIM!"

Hell's bells, can't a person even loaf around on the internet for five minutes without some kerfuffle?

Dave's face is positively fuchsia. His eyes are as round as tennis balls and he's got this shit-eating grin on his mug.

"I got the fish!" he says as we run to the dock.

"THEE fish?" I ask.

"Oh YEAH," says Dave, without any regard to his daily limit on all-caps.

THEE fish is the fish of local legend. It is the Catfish Hunter to Dave's Grumpy Old Man. He has been trying to land this elusive pike since we moved here, almost three years ago. So many times he has been so, so, so close: a spit hook; a line severed by the pike's sharp teeth; divine intervention, oh, who knows?

Dave isn't the only one who has tried and failed.

"I had something on my line and there was this huge swirl, something BIG right at the surface, and then it got off," says Vic.

"I had the !$#@$%#^#%& on, too," says Dick, the sultan of swear.
"%#$#$^@!#&^(&*$#."

(Just a coincidence that our friends' names rhyme? I think not.)

Perhaps destiny was simply waiting for Saturday to arrive, when all the seaweed was aligned and Dave's Green Hornet was perfectly attuned to the cosmic tides of the river.

"Where is it?" I ask.

"In the canoe!" Dave says, like I'm stupid because where else would a fish be than in the canoe? Next time he asks where his keys are, or where the clicker is, I'm gonna say, "in the canoe."

Sure enough, there's ol' Catfish Hunter floundering in a few inches of water in the bottom of our boat.

"I had to put him somewhere. I yelled and yelled for you guys to come and you didn't hear me so I had to put him somewhere and run up to the house. Quick! Take a picture!"

Dave picks him up and hoists him proudly in the air. It's definitely not the biggest fish I've ever seen – pike can grow to be enormous. But he's bigger than most of the small bass we catch in the river and he was certainly a scrapper.

"Hurry up," Dave says. "I need to put him back. He's been out of the water too long."

I snap a couple of pictures and Dave places him in the water. We wait for Catfish Hunter to swish his mighty tail and disappear but he rolls belly-up instead. His gills are moving and his fins are waving slowly but this is not a good sign.

Sam and I say "oh no" in unison.

We all wanted Dave to snag the big fish but nobody wanted the big fellah to die.

Dave jumps in the canoe and paddles to Catfish Hunter, who is floating downstream belly up and whose fins are no longer moving. Things do not look good. Dave pulls up alongside him and grabs his tail and turns him upright. Then he swishes the fish back and forth in the water for a minute or so, to push water through his gills and oxygenate his bloodstream. Sam and I hold our breath.

"Is he...." I ask.

"I don't know," says Dave, and swishes the fish through the water some more.

It's like he is doing CPR on the fish; such is his determination. He is applying the same will to saving Catfish Hunter as he used to catching him.

He lets him go, waiting to see what happens. Waiting to see if he floats belly up again.

The fish swishes his mighty tail and disappears down into the black water.

"Woo HOO!" We all say.

Sam and I give Dave a standing ovation.

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of that which is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. 

– Anonymous