Saturday, January 22, 2011

Frozen Gnome


I'm guessing he's actually blue in other places besides his coat, with the snow at that height.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

To Mr. H

Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you that contrary to popular human belief, we don't prefer peanut butter to cheese. This may be true in California, but in this geographical area, no self-respecting Wisconsinite would prefer an appetizer of peanut butter to a fragrant, wedge of blue, cheddar, or brick.

If you'd be so kind as to stock your little contraptions with some fromage, me and mine will make a concerted effort to throw ourselves on this:


Or this:


P.S. Genetically speaking, my kin and I are also allergic to nuts.  I thought you should know.

Cordially Yours,

Curtis P. Mousewitch

Monday, January 17, 2011

Winter







Did you just hear that?
 
Doga (Dog/Yoga): Downward Dog
also known as
Dragging Kimi Down A Steep Hill




Do I have something on my nose?

THE END


Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Wind in the Woods: Not A Happy Ending

I promise we will try not to visit only stories of demise for all of the cute little woodland creatures out here, but this time the White Husky really floored me. 

It was 5am and I had just stumbled into the barn after filling Old Man Taylor with wood.  Incidentally, does anyone know what a Scotch Pine Christmas tree smells like in a wood burner? Not evergreens and candy canes, my friends: it smells like burning marijuana fields. I'm sure my neighbors have called the DEA assuming we are the whitest part of a Mexican drug cartel, but I assure you that I was only trying to dispose of our Christmas tree in an eco-friendly and thrifty way. The sad part is I still have half of it to go: the whole thing will definitely not fit at once.

Back to the story:
I stumble into the barn, ready to take Gunnar for his morning walk, when he comes in through his dog door from the outside kennel with something rather large in his mouth. At this point I wake up fully, but don't want to accept what I'm seeing: my Husky/Pyrenees mix (or whatever he is!) has just walked through his dog door with yet another playmate--that's not moving.  I see huge hands and claws and can only envision it being a baby badger.  Then I remember Mr. H's nemeses in the yard, creating huge dirt mounds in our beautiful, lush, greenery: we really do have a pretty lawn here.  It is only marred up by numerous mole hills and nothing we do is getting rid of these rodents.

I distract Gunnar long enough for him to forget he has Morty the Mole in his mouth and I let him out of the kennel while I grab a shovel. I can't bring myself to pick up dead creatures yet, even with my gloves on. The shovel and Morty hang out in the workshop while I try to harness Gunnar for his walk without getting a sloppy kiss from him anywhere near my face!

I have always loved the tale of The Wind In The Willows with the cute little illustrated animals; sadly, the White Husky is removing them from the storybook one by one.  Besides that, how did he lure that mole into his cage and sit still long enough to fit his furry buddy into his mouth?

The Wind In The Willows, illustration 1983, by Philip Mendoza.


Gunnar's Hunting Statistics since arriving in Bluebird Hollow:

Snakes: 1
Mice: 2 (that I know of)
Moles: 1 (that I know of)
Dog Beds: 1

Broken down, that's Gunnar 3: Rodents 0. Pray that he does not start associating Chihuahuas with rodents.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Relaxation And Mastication In The Woods aka "Oops, He Did It Again"

I took thirty minutes out of my work-from-home day ( I get a couple of those each week) to walk the White Husky.  I reluctantly did this as I am finally going to get some action on the career front: I will teach my first class next week and really need to do a bang up job.  Unfortunately it is on a topic that I was less than familiar with when I started work two months ago, and now I know just enough to be dangerous—in case my boss is reading this, don’t worry, I still have six days to cram yet!

To put it mildly, I am a bit tense.  The pressure to learn this computer stuff which really seems like it’s in a foreign language, coupled with barn and house chores, errands, and any other usual life responsibilities is weighing quite heavily right now. Even the smallest amount of time spent away from work, even if it is on my walks with Gunnar—one of my favorite things ever—is time I can’t afford to waste right now.

Today Gunnar wanted to walk up the path to the woods and since the gate was closed that meant The Hunters were not staying at their cabin, or more importantly, hunting in those woods. I kept Gunnar on a fairly loose leash as I do now, but not so loose he could wrap me around a tree if he decided to chase a deer, which he did on our morning walk today. Those white-tails are ignoring my memo about not foraging between the hours of 5 and 7am. I also had to police someone’s brass this morning on the side of the road. The SIDE of the road I live on, literally 100 feet from my driveway! There were two 30/6 shells; I couldn’t believe it. Who is shooting down the road; or, who is tossing their brass out the window as they drive? I have no time to ponder that stupid thought right now.

As the White Husky and I hike up the steep path into the woods I look around at the intense beauty the woods has even with no leaves on the trees and minimal snow: it’s breathtaking.  I look up to my right and see a rickety deer stand just a few yards from the path and wonder if The Hunters would mind if I turn that deer stand into a cute little cubicle writing studio.  You know, complete with waterproof beanbag chair and binocular stand—for creativity.  I’d love to see their faces when they try to climb up the ladder and they see pink curtains hung in it!

We continue on our walk with Gunnar rooting around in the snow constantly, the smells in the woods attracting him with every step. I am a little leery of letting him sniff in one spot too long as that is how we conjured up a huge meadow vole the last time.  Meadow vole is a fancy—or at least less disgusting—term for “field mouse.” I still have the heeby jeebies though. Why? I’m getting there.

As tense as I started that walk, I realized that I would not be so uptight or inclined to pick people off from a watchtower with a pellet gun if I would just be allowed to walk in the woods at least once a day. The path to the woods is 50 feet from my house; we own six of those wooded acres for crying out loud! (The Hunters own 80 acres back there, but let us cross the path every now and again and we let them all traipse up and down our driveway with their trucks). It is so relaxing in those woods, as if there's sedative sprinkles in the air-now that's a novel idea.



Much more relaxed, the White Husky and I meander back down the trail. He swerves back and forth sniffing everything, and then stopping sharp to look around as if he is stalking something big.  Gunnar looks back at me too every once in a while as if to say, “Lady, I am busy tracking here; do you think you could waddle a little more quietly?” He continues (yes, Gunnar the White Husky), “And while we’re on the subject, that baby talk might work for those miserable excuses you call dogs in the house, but that is not how I roll—so knock it off.” The G-man is rather harsh today.

We are almost to the end of the wooded path, about to cross under the closed gate when Gunnar pounces; this time I see what he’s got because of recent experience and due to the apparent frozen and spread out nature of the carcass. Unlike the poopy-flavored lollipops the Chihuahuas love to snack on, this beast has just gone up to the invisible ice-cream truck playing annoying trolley music and scrounged a mouse-sicle.  Why does he do this when I’m about to feed him his dinner?!

This frozen mouse was just lying on top of a snow bank and now the tail is hanging out the left side of Gunnar’s mouth. This time I even grabbed the mouse-sicle tail to try and free the trapped little body.  So, we go through the whole rigmarole again: “Gunnar! Gunnar! Drop it! Release! Release! Don’t do it!” Why have I not taught this dog to “Release” yet? I even get to hear the bones crunch this time--I'm actually just going to pretend it was ice.  And again, where is his absentee father in all of this? Spreading Old Man Taylor’s ashes over the garden: the garden! As if spreading ashes now is going to keep me from killing the fruitin’ vegetables next spring! Why am I no longer relaxed? I was just in the woods?!

Why can’t mice give each other a good ol’ Viking funeral?  You know, put a horn helmet on the deceased and set them on fire. That’s sure what’s going to happen when I catch them in my traps in the barn—and garage.  They will make their way to the “smoker,” aka the crematorium, aka Old Man Taylor…I think I’ll skip the little horn helmet though.

*P.S. Technically Vikings didn’t actually wear helmets with horns, but it is a cool notion.


The Tale of Desperaux, "a gentlemen, not a mouse"- so he says
courtesy of http://www.moviewallpaper.net/


Thursday, January 6, 2011

Brain Freeze

In defense of the Arizonans who are frozen to their notion of "freeze," I will post a picture from our favorite Tucsonan who indeed stated "The ground is frozen! I took a picture of it for ya'!" ...Seriously?


Frozen tundra in the Rautenberg-Nunn Corral, Tucson, AZ


Sunday, January 2, 2011

Oh Yes, He Did Something Else!

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to do this story justice, but it's a Gunnar story; therefore, you can imagine this in your mind better than I can describe it.

G-man and I were on our usual morning walk a couple of days ago. It was freezing out--need I set that stage--and the white kid and I were walking in the horse pastures as the ground was so frozen we could walk on top of what was left of the snow. I feel that I need to interject something here that coincided with this Midwestern occurence:

During the last week, the beloved state we just moved away from (Arizona), has been experiencing chaotic and frigid weather. That really didn't happen while we were living there; we only saw snow once in Lake Havasu and it melted before it even hit the pavement, and was gone ten minutes after it started.

I am on the phone with my girly Seneca, as usual, but she is describing the outdoor conditions. This girl never complains but she was mentioning that some of the outdoor barn chores had been interesting because--as she put it--"the ground was frozen." Now darlin', it was 80 degrees the week prior to all of this in Tucson and you were shoveling horse poop in your flip flops. It has only been really cold, i.e, less than 50 degrees for a couple of days. There is no way ground freezes (really freezes) in a couple of days' worth of freezing temps. But folks, isn't that just cute?

Back to the story: Gunnar walk, blah blah.  We scared a field mouse, blah blah. Mouse did not move fast enough..."Gunnar, put that down-it's got germs! Where is your father? Never around for this sh*t," blah blah. CRUNCH: dizzy, dizzy, nauseous, world spinning...back to the barn.

Gunnar hasn't gotten kissed since. It is killing me!