Cloudy Weather, and George the Guard Dog



The weather is unsettled and unpredictable these days, with sun, rain, wind, and snow, often all in the same day. Strange cloud formations scud up, down, and around the mountains, fog lies low on the fields, and the smoke from wood stoves sits above the houses in billowing cloud-like formations. The days are getting shorter as the winter equinox approaches, and the sun barely rises above the mountains.





George is the resident dog. He is a big, black, drooly dog, with very strong body odour. He has a wonderful way of saying hello to me - he always wants to touch my butt with his nose, which I guess is better than the old nose to the crotch dog trick.




George always wants to go for a walk. Even if its 10:00 p.m. and I'm just going out to get some firewood, he's ready to go. When we do go for a walk, he always finds a piece of firewood to carry, and he proudly carries his chosen piece down the road, butt wagging, head held high. George is not the smartest dog on the block. The other day, he almost got hit by a car, as he did the old 'chase the car' routine. He has this habit of running down the middle of the road, whether or not there's any cars coming, and I have to yell at him to get over to the side. A few times he has followed me half way to school - when I ride off, he sneaks through the woods so I can't see him, then I turn around, and there he is, running faithfully along behind me. Someone told me recently that big dogs just don't know when to stop running, so you have to be careful or they'll literally run themselves to death. Great! These days, I have to put him in the garage when I go out.

A dog is necessary where I'm living, because its bear country. When there's a bear around at night, the neighbourhood dogs keep up a conversation with each other, letting each other know what's going on. There'll be a bark in the distance, then another, then George will put in his little woof or two, without even getting off his carpet. Sometimes, he jumps up and dashes off the porch into the night, barking and howling all the way. I've looked out, hoping to catch sight of a bear out in the field, but never did see one this fall, which is fine with me.

Winter is Coming, the Rose Hips are Ruby Red,
and Burn Baby Burn



Now that the cold weather is here, I am forced to deal with the reality of heating a house with a wood stove. Of course, you want the fire to burn, keep on burning, and heat up the house fast. This is no easy task.





Here is the mighty stove, in full flame. But before you get to this stage, there are many preliminaries. First, you have to have dry fire wood. When I look at the amount of wood I have out in the woodshed, I have no idea how to judge if I have enough, or how much more I should get, and of course, that all depends on how cold the winter is. In preparation for a cold winter, I just go a load of dry fir - $250 for a truckload, and the fellas even came by and chopped most of it for me. I got one of the lads to give me a lesson in how to chop. When they first watched me, they said I stuck my butt out like a girl when I chopped. Yeah, well I am a girl......so they taught me how not to stick my butt out, how to pick up the maul, how to hoist it over my head and drop it so that the weight of the axe head does the chopping. I tried, valiantly, and at the end, I produced a modest pile of chopped wood. For some of the bigger pieces, it took me about 20 chops to get it to split. The fellas told me afterwards that fir is one of the more difficult woods to chop. Great! But it burns nice and hot. OK, fine. The next load I'm getting will be green alder or birch, which will dry out for about a year, then be ready to burn next year. I've also just heard that alder is really easy to chop, so I should be able to perfect my technique when I get it.

And then there's lighting the fire. By now, I have laid and lit many fires, but I still never assume that each new one will light and keep going. I have had people give me suggestions for all sorts of ways to lay a fire, but it seems to depend partly on the particular stove, the wood, and how the wind is blowing that day.......or something like that! Generally, my fires light, and then require varying degrees of intensive firewatching for the next hour or so until things are really heated up, and there is a nice bed of coals.

The next challenge is keeping the fire going when I'm out for several hours or overnight. I haven't really managed to be successful at this, though it is not really cold enough yet to have to keep the fire going. What doesn't work is putting one big piece in at night and expecting it to still be going in the morning, and
frugal me doesn't really want to load up the stove at night when I'm asleep under my nice cozy comforter - why waste wood unecessarily! but when the weather gets colder, I guess I'll have to keep it going, just so that the house isn't -5 when I get up in the morning!

Hallowe'en and Remembrance Day are over. Now its time for writing report cards, and getting ready for the Christmas concert. So far for the concert, I'm choreographing a dance with the Grade 1/2 class to the song "Run Rudolph, Run", and creating a "Christmas Orchestra" piece using hand bells, zylophones, jingle bells, and chanting for the 1/2/3/4 choir. Then there's the Bollywood dance I'm creating for the willing female staff to perform using the jingly bellydance scarves I bought in Delhi in the summer, and the a cappella songs with a couple of other staff members. I haven't decided on choir songs yet, but I've gotta get on it, as the Christmas concert is just around the corner - on December 17 to be exact.