Raising a Puppy - Week 1

Gem! I adopted Gem (or Farm Fresh Buns in the Oven's Gem Lake [formal name; mom's name is Buns]) from Beckett Ranch in Lyons, Colorado, on 1 May 2011. He was born on 7 March 2011, so that makes him a little over 8 weeks old. This puppy caught my eye because he makes eye contact and seems to like to "pose" for pictures.

Like any puppy, he's quite a handful. Or many hands full... For the first three days, I was so sleep deprived I even fell asleep just inside the front door after taking him out for a potty break in the middle of the night. Today is the first day I've felt awake enough to write.

This is really hard. I do not recommend that you get a puppy unless you are prepared for it to be much harder than you think. Separation anxiety is the most difficult thing to battle here, and Blue Aroo, our 13-year-old husky mix, is finding the puppy's crying & barking very trying. He sees it as a distress call, which it is, and he panics and/or comes to us to fix the problem. I'm hoping we can work this out by treating Blue the same as usual, except doing things like feeding him turkey while puppy is nearby and puppy gets nothing, etc., to reinforce that he is alpha and all is OK.

The easiest thing so far has been potty training, with just two accidents in the house that were my fault because I wasn't paying attention. Gem has figured out how to ask at the door to go out. Next (when he stops trying to eat it), I will hang a bell on the doorknob for him to ring when he needs out.

Like Buddy before him, Gem seems to prefer sleeping spread out on the tile floor or with his head up on something. He also moves around a lot, waking up for a couple of seconds, turning around, and going back to sleep. I just wish he would be OK with sleeping peacefully in his crate or in his playpen.

I should probably be sleeping now to catch up on rest I'm missing in the middle of the night. Twice up and outside. This is when I really miss having a yard, but, on the other hand, I wouldn't leave him out in the yard unsupervised, and we have a park-like lawn right outside our deck's fence. Gem is doing well; I have to just remember to breathe and sleep when I can.

I took this week off; I'm not sure how going back into the office next week will work. I'll keep you updated!

The Great Outdoors

As I was hiking this morning along the Marshall Mesa trail south of Boulder, Colorado, I thought about how much I enjoy being outdoors. In fact, I thought, if I could live my entire life outdoors, I would be happy.


Probably that is an exaggeration, but not too far from the core truth: I find a satisfaction and peace when I am outside that I do not feel when indoors. I have already told Bear (my husband) that if I have the choice of where to die (when the time comes), I would like him to wheel my cot out under the cottonwood tree where I can watch the leaves glint in the sun and listen to the wind rustle the branches.


I have had the good fortune of growing up and living in some of the most beautiful places in the United States: northern California and Boulder, Colorado. As I look back, I'm amazed at how much time I spent outside. I realize as I am typing this that it's a bit of a cliché, but nonetheless true: we didn't have a lot of money, but we were rich in environment.


My family played, picnicked, and hiked along creeks surrounding the Boulder area (catching crawdads with my brothers in Skunk Creek); visited Petrified Forest National Park; and stood in the center of the Four Corners, where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah come together — all before I was 8 years old.


In California, I spent hours outside catching ladybugs, swinging on the gymnasium rings in the school playground, riding bikes, playing cars with my brothers, running through the sprinklers, and generally just having a good time.


By the time I was ten, we were living in Eureka, California, way up north in the land of the giant redwoods, amongst which we camped and hiked when we had a chance to get out of town. In town, there was plenty of adventure; I rode my bike everywhere, or I'd walk, fishing pole in hand, down to the wharf to catch little flat fish that were no good for eating but still provided some satisfaction in the catching.


Our family spent a lot of time at the beach, especially Clam Beach (where we'd dig for clams then take them home, shuck them, and make great chowder) and Agate Beach (where I collected agates and made wax candles in the sand).


In Sebastopol, California, where we moved when I was 11, we had apple groves, and my friend and I spent many an afternoon seated high up on the piled tree stakes eating the biggest apples we'd ever seen, the juice running down our wrists. I bought my first little Brownie camera when I was 12, and walked everywhere, taking pictures. A creek behind our apartment building was a source of endless fun, and we'd come home happy in the afternoon scratched up from raiding the raspberry bushes that grew near its banks. 


Near Sebastopol is Bodega Bay. Now, it's a tourist/resort town, all built up and expensive. But when I was 12, it was paradise visiting one of my mother's friends there, staying in her little house, walking to the strawberry fields and picking bunches with which to make jam, and walking just a little further over some grassy dunes to the beach to play in the sand and sea.


We also had great adventures swimming in the Eel River and the Russian River and lots of fun digging holes and creating forts in the sand at Goat Rock Beach, where the Russian River meets the sea.


At 14, we'd moved to Walnut Creek, California. There, I bought a used ten-speed, and I was everywhere. I'd gotten a volunteer job at a school 4 or 5 miles from home and rode there every Saturday. I rode my bike to school and even further to summer school. When we lived in Novato, California, for a short time, I even raced the bus to school (and often won). Also in Novato, my younger brother and I would take hikes into the nearby hills, where once we saw a deer and thought that was one of the most impressive things ever.


By 16, I'd moved again, back to Boulder to live with my grandmother and aunt. And so draws the circle round. That was 1979; in the last 32 years, I've had many, many more outdoor adventures, by bike, by foot, and, during my honeymoon last year, by ship, zipline, and helicopter. One of my favorite sounds is of hiking boots on a trail; one of my favorite sights is that of hawks circling on thermals overhead. And then there's the cottonwood tree; as soon as the weather warms a bit more, I'll be out there in the evenings, watching as the moon passes over. And soon I'll add chapters to this blog to tell about more of my favorite places.


Addendum: I'm about to read the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. I had this in mind as I wrote parts of this post — I'll give you a book report when I'm done!

I'm taking a class - here's my first lesson

I'm taking a class on writing a memoir. We have to describe a family object in 200 words or less. Here's my take, and, believe me, I had trouble keeping it under the word count; in fact, it is exactly 200 words and could be much more.

I'm looking at a large, yellow Pyrex bowl, the last of a set of different colored nesting bowls. It's a buttery, lemon-pie kind of yellow, and the inside is white, smooth and shiny like a polished shell, with traces of fine gray scratches from whisks and spoons going around and around on the bottom.

The bowl nicely reflects the light, and I can see my hands through it when I hold it up to the bulb. It is pleasing to look at and to hold. Its heft is solid; on the kitchen scale, it weighs 3.41 pounds. 

Somehow it reminds me of the belly of a pregnant woman. Round, warm, something people are drawn to rub. It is a vestige of my childhood.

Yes, the bowl holds warmth. That's probably why it makes such a good bread bowl, cradling yeasty dough as it rises round against a dish towel cover. I remember getting to pull back the towel and punch the dough down with my fist. Wumph!

I guess I love this bowl, which my mother has passed on to me. I'm amazed that it's one of the few things that traveled through my childhood unbroken, un-lost, unsullied with sadness.