Winter with Dogs (and Cats)
With the arrival of Disney+ came the magic of Willem Dafoe as the infamous Leonhard Seppala, musher who put in the most miles during the Serum Run of Nome, Alaska. As a homeschool parent I have the luxury to put aside some school books to build educational unit studies on a whim. We spent weeks on sled dogs and illnesses, tundra and survivalism in harsh weather.
Kiddo read the Dog Diaries book featuring Togo. I read The Cruelest Miles by Gay and Laney Salisbury (phenomenal) as well as a novel called Dead Run by Michael Caruss (pretty good). We watched the movie together. We became smitten with a beautiful picture book by Robert J. Blake.
All the while our own dog was dying. We said goodbye to him as we ended our dogsled reading binge. Our best boy who was the greatest protector we’ve ever had. Named after Tahmoh Penikett’s character Karl C. Agathon on the Battlestar Galactica, Helo, our Siberian husky-pit bull-German Shepherd lived up to his name. Handsome, loving, and always ready to defend us from any threat, I’ve never had a better dog.
“Any man can make friends with any dog but it takes a long time and mutual trust and mutual forbearance and mutual appreciation to make a partnership. Not every dog is fit to be partner with a man; nor every man, I think, fit to be partner with a dog.” – Archdeacon Hudson Stuck
Helo was my greatest partner in getting my kiddo from age one to nine. I trained him to stay with her, he trailed her as she played in the yard and on playgrounds. He slept in the threshold of our doors, guarding us from the outside world as we dreamed. He loved his ball. He could never have been a sled dog like Balto and Togo, he neither had the build or the heart for it, too barrel chested for his smaller legs to support for long distances (he had a hard time keeping up with his mother who despite being much smaller could outrun him in speed and duration), but he was perfect for the job he was given: preserve and protect us from all threats.
Through all this studying of harsh winters, learning about famous dogs, and burying ours (he was nine)… we had the warmest winter I can remember in a long time and many, many cats…
Well, caterpillars.
Living in the lower coastal plains region of Texas means we have some tropical tendencies sweeping up from the Gulf of Mexico. It also means Monarch butterflies! We’ve raised quite a few in our pollinator garden, have ordered books, and plan to study them more in depth as we observe them more regularly through various seasons. The photos below are all from this winter.
Tidbits from Miss Golightly Make a Come Back…
“In a small square on the left bank of the Seine, the door to a green-fronted bookshop beckoned…”
Another swell recommendation from Andi Kay and Emily. Sally likes it too, y’all.
One Woman Everything
Title: One-Woman Farm
Author: Jenna Woginrich
Genre: Memoir / Farming
Length: 207 pages
I’m in research mode. I’m elbow deep in tree and herb encyclopedias. I’ve been reading every homesteading and nature memoir I can get my hands on. I’m scouring the fields, ditches, and woods for new specimens of plant life to identify, and I just helped my mother-in-law build a compost bin.
One-Woman Farm was one of the recent memoir selections, and it was a breeze to get through. Daily journal entries, basically, of farm life through out the year, the author’s quest for a Fell pony, and to learn to play the fiddle.
I enjoyed reading Woginrich’s book mostly because I want to homestead… but I don’t want what she has. She’s too far north. I want more plants and fewer animals. I want the freedom to get up and travel when the inevitable wonderlust kicks in. I don’t want to be a one-woman farm, I simply want to do EVERYTHING, and also not quite that much. But it was nice to live a year in her shoes for a bit, and I would like to select baby chicks and hold a baby goat. I would love to have fresh milk in the mornings…
The book is full of sweet illustrations as well, which made it spunky. Her talk of pigs felt more in depth with a pencil sketch of a pig sharing the page. Faux paperclips in the margins, like a well-worn guide book to life. Typed recipes and quotes added a richer flow to her sparse text.
Now on to the next… I’m reading The Last Great Walk by Wayne Curtis and The Quarter-Acre Farm by Spring Warren.
To My Beagle
Oh dear boy how you’ve aged…
As a pup I loved your floppy ears and soft belly
Now ears are lumpy, feel like hardened jelly
That belly is fat and your hair is half gone
You are going gray and don’t have long
Oh my dear, dear boy
How you’ve aged
You were so tiny, you brought me my keys
You gazed at me ’til I gave you a squeeze
We snuggled and played every day
On long walks you’d lead the way
You still snuggle, despite your bad skin
When we walk, you have trouble breathing in
Oh dear boy how you’ve aged!
My sweet little beagle, once so soft and fun
Has gotten old and greasy, too tired to run
I called you ‘boyfriend dog,’ side by side we slept
You’d rest your head on my shoulder whenever I wept
And now you curl up, away from us all
Old, tired, your peppy step now a crawl
We love you old boy, our sweet beagle dog
Our little old man, a bump on a log
My dear, dear, sweet boy
How much you have aged…
A Tidbit from Miss Golightly
“My dog and a book are ideal company when I feel sickly.” – Jennifer Joy Golightly
Agatha, Eggs, and Book Hounds
In my pursuit to read all things Agatha Christie, I have been reading through her entire Crime Collection. It’s a 23 month program that I set up for myself. I love reading things in lists this way, but the only draw back is in getting an awful lot of Christie at once. In doing that, I found one I didn’t care for a lot faster than I would otherwise. Three Act Tragedy just didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t as exciting, it wasn’t a page-turner. I’m not sure if its my mood, if this one just isn’t my style, or if its Egg. Yes, I have a problem with Egg, and in a bit of stream of consciousness, I will tell you why.
I’m not sure if I don’t like her character or if I’m just hung up on her name. I just know for certain that I can’t go along with the idea of naming a character Egg. It really bothers me. The only remotely forgivable occasion is in True Blood, where there is a rather tall gentleman by the name of Eggs. 1. He’s a dude. 2. There’s an ‘S’ which gives me the impression that maybe its supposed to be his last name. 3. You can call anyone almost anything in the South, but Europeans should be a little more respectable in my opinion. I can say that, I’m from Texas.
I read “Egg” and am immediately filled with images and smells:
* green lights, The Great Gatsby, and eggs for neighborhoods
* lots of colors, Easter egg hunts, odors from the yard due to un-found treasures (yuck)
* yummy smells, too…. breakfast. omelette. Hobo omelette are the best.
* the feel of a cold egg cracking under my fingertips, I like the sound of the crack too
Good or bad, none of these sounds, smells, and recollections should be brought to mind from a charismatic female character in a murder mystery. How funny, too, that she even says “That is a bit catastrophic. To go through life as a Mugg -” in reference to another’s name. Whereas I think, more catastrophic than to be called “Egg”? While pondering this, Sir Charles interrupts my thoughts with some chatter about the murder and then says, “Oh, damn, why do I beat around the bush?” At that, my middle school humor kicks in and I begin to giggle as Egg is being spoken to by a man who used the word ‘beat.’ I immediately feel the need to make a Quiche, or a cheesecake, rather than solve a murder. Although Poirot is the best sleuth around and it is said that he has an egg-shaped head.
Oh Hercule Poirot! “That man! Is he back in England?” “Yes.” “Why has he come back?” “Why does a dog go hunting?” – 3rd Act, Part 10
Although, naming a character Sir Bartholemew Strange nearly makes up for this little irritation about the Egg. In fact, it would be a great name for a dog. I would call him Bartie for short, and I think perhaps he should be a hound of some kind. I have a beagle named Geoffrey Chaucer, perhaps Bartie could be the Walker Hound of my future. I’d love to have a Jack Russell named Agatha. Mmmm, no, not a Jack Russell. I’d like Agatha to be a Fox Hound…
Anakalian Whims 