Just a Guess

It's too early to call it yet, but early predictions show that Clover the Chihuahua is poised to snatch the title of Best Dog Ever in her tiny, adorable little jaws.

I am swept off my feet! Every quality that a dog should have is here, and in spades. She's attentive, trainable, athletic, active outdoors, quiet indoors, mannerly, and social. She likes other dogs, welcomes my friends, and enjoys the company of men, women, children, cats, goats, mules, chickens, and rabbits. She barks little and growls less. Though she will defend the door against intruders, she's easily quieted with a word. She's clean, she's cuddly, and she's equally comfortable in a lap or on the floor.

In terms of more tangible features, she's my perfect dog: short-haired, glossy, full-tailed, well-conformed, prick-eared, muscular. The vacuum loves her—after the trauma of cleaning up after big, fluffy, white Paisley all these years, Clover is a breath of fresh air with her teeny black hairs.

It's early days, but I may be a chihuahua convert. I hope so . . . if this is my new favorite breed, the future kibble bills promise to be very manageable!

M

A wildly busy week

Bad news: a wildly busy week means I haven't blogged (though Fenway somehow still manages HIS daily posts).

Good news: we've been busy with all sorts of fun. Paid work (always good) has wrested my time away from Puddle Run, and then there was Christmas. Along with it, Clover the Christmas Chihuahua (yo quiero figgy pudding?). HOLY AMAZING PRESENT, BATMAN! She is lovely, and there will surely be Clover stories to follow. Many heartfelt thanks to the Alternative Humane Society for the matchmaking, and to my husband for noticing that we were one dog short.

More posts to follow . . . and, as always, thanks for reading!

M

Food Guilt

Unlike 90%* of American consumers, I think about what goes into the food I eat. I notice the mono and diglycerides, the modified corn starch, the sodium stearoyl lactylate, and the partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

As a fallen vegan, I notice animal products on the label. My informed children make their own choices on the marshmallow question—Dylann, at six, abstains ethical grounds, while Robin, at three, says they're "sad, but delicious." I drink milk and cream from the neighbor's cow and goat milk from my own two does. I also consume store-bought dairy products, but not without a moral burden. I realize that it's the wrong thing for me, with my position on animal welfare, to do. I would like to stop.

In a perfect world, I would like to cook from scratch. Grow my own. Avoid all animal products except those raised in my very own yard, produced by happy, healthy animals, and produced in a system where all male offspring of said animals could end up in happy pet homes. It's not a viable solution for many, but it could be within reach for me.

Parents, what do you do when you've gradually slid into the habit of feeding your children tinned peaches and Annie's mac 'n' cheese? How do you retrain palates that have been introduced to Krispy Kreme donuts and A&W floats? How do you convince your kids that eating with the seasons really does mean no strawberries in December? 

I still have dietary restrictions. I haven't eaten red meat since 1987, and I won't eat a bird again once I finish the sad obligation of eating the 20 home-grown chickens in my freezer. That was an experiment in meat-eating that failed, personally, for me. It just doesn't feel right. I don't eat produce from outside the US, save the occasional B.C. grown-tomato or imported avocado (my weakness). I praise my children for their vegetarianism, and feel grateful that my two littlest ones avoid (non-fish) meat completely.

I would like to say that I won't eat dairy again, unless it's produced by my own very happy goats. I would like to say that I will never touch a soy- or corn- byproduct with a ten foot pole, and that all of my food will be grown in or around this productive valley. I would like to say that my children, my animals and I will eat locally, sustainably, organically, seasonally, and ethically. From experience, I can tell you that those would be false promises. Perhaps, in this season of resolutions, I should say this: I will think about what I'm buying. I will think about it with less guilt and more self-empowerment—not in terms of blaming myself for each choice, but in terms of thanking myself for each choice. I will take credit, in my own mind, for what I do RIGHT. Perhaps my right choices will snowball, and I'll find myself eating without guilt. 

M

*not a real statistic—just pulled this one out of thin air

Dog business

Allie at www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com could not have more perfectly captured the facial expressions and thought processes of Paisley (left, with the grin) and and Story (right, with the anguish) if she had known them personally. So what if Paisley is a fluffy white shepherd and Story a little red heeler—the basic vibe is PERFECT. This illustration perfectly describes our former canine family.

As you may recall, we came to the decision to "rehome" Story after about 14 months of trials and tribulations. She was an unhappy dog—afraid of dogs, cats, rabbits, children, goats, mules, chickens, and men—and wasn't getting the focused, safe socialization that she so desperately needed in this busy home. We got a very happy update recently—her new mom, a trainer and devoted dog lover, has been helping Story grow by leaps and bounds. Story now enjoys the company of other dogs in a safe setting and participates in group sports and classes. She looks wonderful. Meanwhile, our home has been much happier without the submissive urination and defensive nipping.

In the meantime, I have come to love Paisley more than ever. He'll have been with us for nine years this spring, and in all that time he's never done a single cruel, short-tempered, or dangerous thing. Every mistake he's ever made has been what we call an "error of enthusiasm"—a rocketing leap, a vigorous greeting, a bounding rush. He's never made an enemy. He's never been unkind.

So what if Paisley's brain is full of numerals and bumblebees. I love him more for it.

M

We all have our things

D, who never holds still, descending the staircase in an alternative fashion.

We all have our thing, don't we? Some thing we're great at, inspired by, or destined for? Something that charges us up, sets us straight, or fixes our woes? Animals are that thing for me, and I've never been in any doubt of that.

Each of my daughters has a very clear area of interest, and while I won't say these interests are their sole lives' destinies, I will guess that they'll remain significant for all their years.

R, at three, has loved building, fixing, making, stacking, and creating since the day she first grasped a block. She can spend hours with her legos, and can fill an entire summer afternoon with the construction of a scrap-wood metropolis. Duplo highrises, Lincoln log stables, and wood block palaces litter my office floor. The livingroom is a sea of outlying rural structures. She may not be destined for carpentry, like her father, but she is definitely someone with a good sense of spatial relationships, of engineering concepts, and of the process of visualizing and placing objects in a physical space. Whether it leads her into art, architecture, mechanics, or science is yet to be seen.

D, at six, is a physical being. She runs, climbs, wiggles, jiggles, dances, shimmies, and sashays. She cannot eat her dinner without doing the rhumba in her chair, and after a meal her table space looks like it just hosted a dozen toddlers. She dangles from the banister, leaps from the couch, walks on the coffee table, and jumps off the staircase. "The (fill in the blank) is not a jungle gym!" is our constant refrain, and "why dontcha build me one?" her sassy reply. She has other loves, of course—clothing, kittens, crayons, books—but I will bet my bottom dollar that this one will never enjoy a desk job. She needs to move.

M, now 10, has had a singleminded adoration of all things zoological since she first learned to crawl after the kitty. At three, she told me that she wanted to study old whale bones when she grew up. "What are those people called?" she asked. " "Marine paleontologists," I told her. At my next meeting with her preschool teacher, I was told that M intended to be "a marine paleontologist and the next Annie Lennox." M's interests haven't changed much . . . she still loves performing, and she's still fascinated with marine mammals. She sets her sights on aquatic veterinary medicine and amateur theatre. Her interim goal, intended as a means of support during college, is professional dog walking.

As for me? As I've mentioned, I always wanted to be a rider when I grew up. I imagined a towering stallion rather than a 14 hand mule, but then sometimes life surprises us with unexpected gifts. Fenway Bartholomule is one of them.

Marnie

An Eagley Day

Image from www.tourismkitimat.ca

I'm lucky to live in a place where wildlife blooms in abundance: where deer, bobcat, eagles, bear, and elk exist and flourish.

On a typical drive into town last week, D and I counted 14 eagles in two trees next to Lake Whatcom; on our return drive, there were 17. Several perched in low-lying branches, drying their massive wings a mere four or five yards from the roadside.  D's comment? "What an eagley sort of a day!" I agreed.

Tomorrow's forecast? Eagley with a chance of herons.

M

On the Uniqueness of Each and Every Goat

Between buying, breeding, and selling, I've owned about a dozen goats in my three years of saanen ownership. We've been lucky—six out of our seven Bent Barrow kids have been doelings, and have fetched a good price from loving buyers. We've been unlucky, too—one doe, for whom I paid a high sum and drove a long way, turned out to be a straight-legged, narrow-hipped, skittish girl. We found her a quieter home, with full disclosure of her shortcomings.

We have three goats at Bent Barrow Farm now, and not one of them is like the other.

Missy, reluctantly fallen to the bottom of the pecking order, is our oldest doe and the dam of the other two. She was terminally ill this summer, paralyzed and doomed by a near-hopeless prognosis. She sprang back to life and is 98% perfect today. She has regained her lost weight, and has learned to compensate for her hind-end weakness by avoiding pasture scuffles. She is angelic in appearance, inquisitive in nature, and unusually stern. She glares at children, hackles raised, when they inhabit her space. I think her authority over human kids stems from some desire to be the "big goat" in town—as saanen's go, she's very petite, and will never physically dominate her herdmates. She appreciates human attention, loves nothing better than a firm back rub, and will stand endlessly for a massage along her spine.

Missy's son Jasper Jules is a three-year old wether. He was our first homebred kid, born at a whopping 12 pounds and grown to about 200. He's a graceless goat, and a bit of an oaf, but he's kind. He's more submissive than Missy, and a bit flightier. Still, he manages—he pulls a cart, he joins us on hikes, he dances on command. He is a benign creature, and never plots against us in the fashion of his mother. He likes rump scratches and car rides, and traveled particularly well in the passenger seat before his size became prohibitive.

Jasper's sister B.G. (Bent Barrow Gaia) rejoined our family this autumn after spending several years in the custody of our very good friends the Chicken People. They parted with her, and selling her back to us to continue our herd, when Missy looked to ill to go on. Missy would have no such thing, however, and revived within days of the upstart's arrival. Now, they have a peace established. B.G. bosses Missy, though not excessively, and Jasper and B.G. share resources and dominance. All three, however, yield to the awesome might of Fenway Bartholomule.

B.G. is a talkative goat. She's the first one screaming "good morning!" and the last one screaming "good night!" She's a smart goat, too . . . after one week here, she learned that it is possible to exit through a certain unlatched gate by pushing on it. I had cleaned their paddock with an unlatched gate twice weekly for three years before this discovery was made. Since the discovery, not one paddock-cleaning passes without B.G. hammering on the (latched) gate with her hooves and head. She's pushy, physically encroaching, and determined, but she is sweet. She likes rubs on her cheeks and nose. 


The children like B.G. particularly, because she is new and exciting. The children are safest with Jasper, who's too respectful and timid to physically dominate a human. The children are relieved by the survival of Missy, who appears—in catlike fashion—to have begun a second of nine lives. We love them all, and it's hard to imagine a more diverse or a more delightful trio.

M