Things I've discovered since moving to Ontario

1. Having four seasons is pretty civilized. I could still do with a two-month winter -- or no winter at all for that matter (I've always said snow is something you should be able to drive to), but having well-demarcated, predictable changes of season appeals to my sense of order in the universe.

2. Snapping turtles really do snap (don't ask -- what I did was dumb, but I didn't know that until after I did it).

3. The 401 is amazingly busy, but generally speaking isn't as scary as the rest of Canada thinks it is. I've been waaaay more scared on logging roads in B.C. than I have been on the 401 (so far).

4. It's no wonder Ontario picked the trillium as its provincial flower. My only question is: there are so many lovely flowers --- how did they ever choose?

5. Fireflies are MAGIC!

6. Any climate where grapes can be grown for wine is a good climate.

7. Mosquitoes and blackflies aren't the problem: sand flies (noseeums?) are the problem. Actually they're all awful.....

8. Although they like to think they're different, people are the much the same all over Canada: pretty decent.

I know there's more. I'll drop them into my posts as they come to me.

Zephyr Learns to Fish

It's been a while since I wrote. I had a couple of weeks of vacation, and was for ten days in a place where there was no access to the internet. That took some getting used to. I was with family, and not having Google to answer important questions like: "How do you know when corn is ripe?" or "What do sand dollars eat?" was a real eye opener. It made me realize just how dependent we've all become on the great encyclopedia that's usually at our fingertips.

Anyhow, I'm back now, and as promised a few entries ago, this post tells the story of how Zephyr learned to fish.

Zeph loves to swim. She appears to be just as comfortable swimming as she is walking -- maybe more comfortable. She took to the Ontario lakes like, well, like a duck to water. And the bigger the waves the more fun she appears to be having.

After we arrived here, we took her to the lake often . She chased her water toys, or sticks -- whatever was around. Sometimes she simply swam, just for the pleasure of it. And then winter came and with it the ice, and it was too dangerous to go down to the shore.

In the spring Ian discovered a beach not too far from us that we hadn't visited before. It's a beautiful beach, looking right out onto the vast expanse of the lake. For the two months when school is out it transforms itself into a provincial park, with all the attendant rules, but for the other ten months it's wild and largely deserted, except for dog walkers and the occasional cyclist.

Tall dunes separate the beach from a protected little lake behind, and a stream joins the two bodies of water. And one day, in this stream, Zephyr discovered......fish!!

Well, the excitement was unbelievable! Squirrels

are one thing, but it's really hard to get close to them.

"HEY, DAD!! These things are right under my feet!!!!! What are they? Are they good to eat?? There goes one!! There goes another one!! How do I get them? Howhowhowhow??"

Zeph is a pointer, and after the intital frenzy, she reverted to the methods for which the breed is known. She will sometimes stand for 15 minutes watching her prey, every muscle tensed and ready, before something causes her to break point, and she pounces.

It's hard not to laugh -- she's having such a good time. Check out the tail in the video:

Sadly, so far the "point and pounce" technique hasn't resulted in any catches for Zeph, but she remains undeterred!

Possession Day

So the big day arrived and we drove to the house to pick up our key and take possession. The previous owners were hard at work: he mowing the lawn (which was really kind of him), and she overseeing the movers, doing some last minute cleaning and packing, and trying to stay sane. She was pretty close to tears when we arrived. It was a hot and humid day, and the doors were open to let the movers in and out. The house was damp and smelled a bit; flies buzzed throughout the rooms. She stood at the kitchen sink, sweaty and obviously exhausted, and smiled at us with clenched teeth. "Do you want these?" she asked, pointing under the sink to what looked like twenty different cleaners in various stages of emptiness. "Sure" I said quickly. "I'm sure I can find a use for them".

She pointed to one of them and said: "This one is for the kitchen sink. We installed that sink on Christmas Eve last year and I wish I'd never seen the thing, but I just couldn't pay $1400 for a stainless steel one! It's just impossible to clean. Look at it!!"

I peered uncertainly at the sink, and wondered if installing new plumbing was a yuletide tradition of theirs.

"I always wash the dishes on this side of the sink", she said, "and look at it! It's permanently stained. I use this cleaner on it but it always looks dirty!"

I assured her that it didn't really matter to me if the sink looked dirty at this point.

"God!" she said. "look at this place! It's a mess! It's damp and full of flies and it's rained every. fricking. day. this summer!!!"

I suggested she stop for a cup of tea, but she just wanted it to be over. We eventually found out that the icing on the cake of this awful day was that her cat, terrified of the movers, had crawled up under the ceiling tiles in the basement and wouldn't come out. Period.

"I can't leave her!!" she said. "This has happened twice before to me with different cats, and I had to leave before I found them and I'll never forgive myself if it happens again."

We all trooped down to the basement and tried unsuccessfully to lure the cat from its hiding place. Finally, time ran out. The movers had left, and the previous owners simply had to go too.

We told her not to worry, we'd find her cat, and we'd take care of her until they could manage to come and pick her up. I had my doubts whether the cat would ever come out with Zephyr there. I didn't relish the thought of a dead cat decomposing slowly somewhere over our heads in the basement.

We waved them down the driveway and heaved a sigh of relief. We unpacked our cooking gear, which consisted of a toaster and a coffee maker, and considered the rest of our day. First on my list was to do my own cleaning: bathrooms, floors, kitchen. Then we unpacked what clothes and toiletries we had brought with us, and prepared our bedroom: two thermarest matresses, two pillows, two sleeping bags (and of course Zeph's bed).

By now it was time for supper and we had still heard nothing from the cat. We ate at a restaurant in town and drove home in a kind of exhausted daze. We opened a celebratory bottle of wine and toasted our new life. Then we went to bed.

I awoke a few hours later to an amazing light show outside. I could faintly hear the thunder through the closed windows (the house was wonderfully cool now -- three cheers for heat pumps!), but the lightening was almost continuous, so it must have been quite the storm. I lay there, feeling content.

Suddenly, there was an enormous flash, and in the light I saw a cat racing across our bedroom and into the walk-in closet. At first I thought I might be dreaming, but then I remembered. Zephyr lay beside me, comatose and unaware. "Ian" I hissed, "the cat's in the closet!".

"OK" he said. He crawled out of bed (literally: the matresses are about 2 inches thick), made his way to the closet, and shut the door. "There", he said, "it'll do till morning".

The rest of the night was uneventful. There was nothing in the closet but the cat at this point, so it was a spacious arrangement for her. In the morning we put down a little food that her owner had left, and some water. I spoke soothing words into the closet. I couldn't exactly see the cat, but I assumed she was somewhere in there. Zeph followed me and exhibited not a shred of interest.

It was an odd but memorable welcome into our new home. We eventually got hold of our "hanger on" -- we had to: there was no kitty litter in the closet -- and plopped her into the cat carrier that had been left for her. We then called her frantically relieved owner, who drove three hours from her new home to pick her up and then three hours back again.

But I would have done the same thing for Zephyr......