Uncategorized | Change Is Hard

July 8, 2010
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Into the "jungle"

This week my brother and I took the canoe up to the end of our slough. A creek feeds into the lake there, winding it’s way through cyprus trees and grasses, then on back into the hills.

Want to come along? Here we go!

I loved the shapes of the cyprus tree trunks…and the reflections.

It was fascinating how the dappled light played along the water and the trunks.

When we were inside a circle of cyprus trees I imagined what a great camp site this would be. – till I remembered that I was floating on 3 feet of water.

Then we paddled further upstream.

The creek began to narrow…

…and there were more branches overhead and below the surface. We were taking lots of pictures…

…and we realized it was dark enough in there that our flash would go off. Hmmm….wonder what that would look like?

The photo above is of grape vine roots. The vine is above and the roots have grown down to the creek. They didn’t show up well till I used the flash. Very cool! And even more spooky looking!

Now Diana, I know what you’re thinking…”there could be snakes in there!” And you’d be right, but we didn’t see any, and trust me I was looking!

Eventually we couldn’t go any further upstream, so we edged ourselves around. The trip downstream went much faster, as I had already broken through all the spider webs! LOL

Back through the cyprus trees,

with a look at their seedpods…

…and back out into the open water…complete with sunshine!

It was a really fun adventure, and reminded me of a time several years ago when the same brother and I paddled up another creek on this lake, but we did it after dark. With no lights shining. The sounds of the bugs (and tigers and grizzly bears and monsters) were SO LOUD I was totally freaked out and finally, even after my brother told me not to, turned on my flashlight to realize there was nothing there. No giant snake ready to drop from the trees, no scary bug weighing at least 10 pounds ready to fly in my face! I still laugh (sort of) when I think of that adventure. This one was much more sedate.

But then – we’re much older now.

July 6, 2010
by dawnkinster 4 Comments

Celebrating

I celebrated the 4th down here in Alabama with family and friends. And a whole lot of boating, swimming and eating.

When we were kids we lived on a small inland lake and always took our boat out to watch the fireworks the city was shooting off from the boat launch. We’d pull into that bay and watch all the action directly overhead. Sometimes bits of burned out fireworks would fall sizzling into the water nearby. It was a wonderful way to spend a late evening, and I was always sad in later years that I couldn’t watch fireworks with my family bobbing in a little boat, covered in bug spray, sweating slightly in the warm, humid Michigan night.

Well last year and again this year I got to watch fireworks from a boat filled with family and friends!

It’s just the best way to enjoy them. Saturday night we were in my brother’s big boat on a big lake and along side of us are at least 1,000 other boats, bobbing peacefully in the evening sunset filled light. As darkness sets in the crowd settled back and we all enjoyed the amazing colors and loud bangs of a first class firework show. We munched on homemade salsa from my sister and smoked chicken tenders that my brother made. What a life!

The next morning we took the boat out again, this time to watch the annual jet ski parade on the lake. This year close to 50 jet skis, most decked out with flags and red, white and blue tinsel, gathered near an island, then took off in single file to run the entire circumference of the lake.

It was sort of heart stopping when they all took off, and in an odd sort of way it made you tear up when the long line of people proudly flying their flags roared past.

My sister was standing in the back of our boat playing patriotic songs on her bagpipe as they flew by and the jet ski drivers waved and grinned back at us. I was grinning too, at the absurdity and beauty of it all.

After the last buzzing jet ski was long gone up the shoreline, we moseyed over to the “church island.” It was, after all, Sunday the 4th, and there was going to be a preacher doing a church service there. Every Sunday boats anchor off shore while a minister or preacher provide a service from the island. This Sunday I listed while floating with my family in the cool lake water, boats bobbing all around, the sound of music and prayer filling the air.

Sunshine, flags, blue skies, music, good food, family. Can’t think of anything else I need right now.

Well…maybe my husband and my Katie girl.

July 1, 2010
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

An afternoon on another lake

Yesterday I popped over to my other brother’s lake house. It was a cloudy day, but when one is visiting a lake, one must take a boat ride!

We stopped at a friend of his who also lives on the lake (visiting by boat…how fun!) and got to meet her dog. Such a cutie!

The clouds were dark and ominous, but it only sprinkled a little bit.

All in all, a refreshing afternoon out on the water! Maybe the next time I visit I’ll take out his rowing scull. But the lake would have to be a bit smoother for that!
Just another relaxing day in the south…

Wordless Wednesday

June 30, 2010 by dawnkinster 4 Comments

June 21, 2010
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Another park

The advantage of not having a job (No I haven’t heard anything good or bad yet on the last set of interviews) is that I get to go to the park more often. Today I told Katie that I was bored with our little local park, so we went out to my favorite park, the one I used to run in each week – Kensington – which is about 30 minutes away. It has an 8 mile bike/walk trail around a big beautiful lake. Katie and I didn’t walk all 8 miles, but we did do a total of 2.5!

The black raspberries are getting ripe, and in fact I got to taste one or two. Yummy!

Mostly we just ambled along until we got to the boardwalk that runs above one piece of lake shore. Katie wasn’t so sure she liked it, there wasn’t anything interesting to sniff on the edges, like there had been on the path. And there wasn’t any shade either! But on our outward trip she trotted right along after she checked the edge just to make sure everything was safe.

Since she was doing so well I planned on going about a mile and a half where I knew there was a bench overlooking the water. But just before that bench is a bridge across a channel. It has a wooden deck that moves and makes noise as people ride bikes across it. And of course just as we got there a whole family of bike riders went by. The noise spooked Katie a bit, that and being “inside” something. Then a semi went by on the nearby freeway, running over a joint with multiple wheels, sounding like a nailgun. She jumped and headed back the way we had come. That’s OK sweetie, I don’t always like semi’s either!

On the way back to the car we moved slower. She was getting hot, notice the sideways tongue.

Every time we stopped for a drink (often) I’d pour the remainder that she didn’t finish over her head and back and rub it in. We sat in the shade at the bottom of our last long uphill and watched people go by, families, individuals, runners, people on bikes, people skating. She didn’t bark at anyone. Sometimes a tired doggie is a good doggie!

And she slept most of the way home. No surprise there!

June 19, 2010
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Happy Father's Day

My Aunt (Dad’s sister) found some old family photos, and gave me this one of Dad.

What a serious little boy; wonder what he’s thinking about?

Maybe he’s considering what he’ll be when he grows up. What choices he’ll make and how his life will turn out. Maybe he’s imagining a long and satisfying career as an engineer. Or thinking about all the exciting and interesting places around the world that he’ll explore, all the wonderful things he’ll learn, all the people he’ll meet, all the friends he’ll make, all the good he will do. He can’t know yet the mark he’ll make in the world, but I bet he has an inkling of the family man he’ll become; a wife and four kids, two girls, two boys.

It was a wonderful and full life. And those four kids? They turned out all right too.

Celebrating you today Dad.

June 18, 2010
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Agility review

Another Thursday…another agility class for Katie and me. Again this week I skipped the Rally class held on Thursday mornings so that I didn’t overtax the Sheltie brain. Plus I had a ton of garden related stuff to do and it was a beautiful day. But I’ll blame the Sheltie brain for the missed class just the same.

Again our class was split into two groups, those with more experience (not us!) went over to the other side and worked on contacts. The rest of us got to start with teeter first. UGH. Last time we started with teeter Katie got tired of the game and shut down. Of course the Sheltie brain had forgotten that, while the human brain tends to dwell on the potential negative outcomes. So I looked at my dog and decided to assume she’d do whatever I asked. And when it was our turn she trotted right up that teeter, instructor holding her leash, right out to the end as it gently landed on a couple of stacked up milk crates and got her “Good GIRL!” and treat, then stayed there while I walked a step or two and then jumped off when I released her. YEA KATIE!! And it was like that every time, she was pulling on her leash to head up that teeter whenever it was our turn.

But the chute? What the heck is that Mom? I’m not going in there! It’s RED! MY chute is BLUE! This is an EVIL CHUTE! OK. I’ll go in the tunnel part, but as soon as you’re not looking I’m getting back out of it! Yes siree! I am NOT GOING IN THERE AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!

In fact when we tried to put together a string of stuff, double jump, send to tunnel, weaves, chute, she bypassed the chute and as I was talking to the instructor about how to get her to do the chute she ran off and did the teeter by herself, with NO MILK CRATES to break the teeter’s fall!! Behind my back! I ran over there and rewarded her, she was standing 2o2o looking over her shoulder wondering where the heck I was. Silly girl, you wear me out!

Then we switched sides and our group did contacts. We started with them jumping on the table to get to the downside of the dogwalk, then tossed a treat onto a paper plate at the bottoms so the dogs would pause, eat the treat, and then get released. She did it perfectly every time. “Don’t need no stinking table mom, I LOVE the dogwalk!” When we finally got to run the whole dogwalk she was thrilled, charging up and over it, and even stopping at the bottom for her praise and treat! I was so proud of her.

Her reward, at least in her mind, was that we did A-Frame next and she LOOOOOVES the A-Frame! Though it wasn’t always this way, now whenever she sees it she tugs to run up and over it, so when we got to actually run it a couple of times she was in heaven. Contacts? No problem as long as she got a treat.

So at the end we put the two sides together. Tire, dogwalk, weaves, curved tunnel, A-Frame, jump, double jump, tunnel, weaves, chute, teeter. Piece of cake, right? Well, we haven’t practiced tire in a long time. It was hot. We’d been there almost an hour. Katie was getting squirrely. We had to wait for all the big dogs to go first. Enough excuses. She refused to do tire. It was already after the class hour, and the next class was waiting to start, so after three attempts I just kept going. She charged for the dogwalk, ran through the weaves, shot through the tunnel, flung herself up and over the A-frame, stopped at the bottom, I said good girl! and kept running, yelling “JUMP.!” She did not. I turned to see where she was and she was SITTING at the bottom of the A-Frame looking at me. “Treat Mom? Where’s my TREAT!?!?! I am NOT MOVING until you give me my TREAT!” So I did (probably the wrong thing to do) and we moved on to jumps and tunnel and weaves and were running full tilt at the chute! She ran into it! She got 3/4 of the way through it, I’m yelling “CHUTE! GOOD GIRL KATIE! CHUTE!” and she turns around and runs out of it, runs all the way across the ring and out the ring and into the kitchen.

SIGH.

I went and got her and told her she was a good girl and we tried chute once more, no go, then we did teeter for the treats and that was the end of class.

For the most part she had a really good time and so did I. In the end that’s all that matters. The fact that she has a chute at home that she runs through with no problem is something I won’t think about right now.

June 17, 2010
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Katie and the little tent

The weather here yesterday was beautiful, cool and dry. As evening descended I suddenly wanted to be camping, but it seemed like too much work to drag the tent up from the basement and accumulate all the pillows and blankets. But husband said he’d help, so in the last few minutes of light we popped the tent up and loaded it with everything I needed to make it through the night.

Katie watched us put the tent up; she was very excited because she loves to camp. But she’s never camped in the little tent, not really enough room, and no little doggie window near the floor for her to keep track of the night’s comings and goings. A couple of nights ago I slept in the little tent all by myself and had a wonderfully relaxing time sans dog. This time I wasn’t going to get away with sneaking out the front door and creeping around the house so that she wouldn’t know. She knew.

So Katie and I trooped out to the tent. As usual she was in first, claiming the biggest pile of pillows for herself. She’s such a pillow hog. As we settled in she was restless, moving around and around the tent, plopping down, getting up, sighing, trying to see out the windows that were still zipped up.

Then I had a brilliant idea. How about if I unzipped one of the windows so she could see out?

Turns out that is a WONDERFUL idea for both of us. Suddenly we were sleeping in front of what seemed like a big picture window. We both watched it get darker and listened to the birds heading home for the night. The fireflies started to dance, the freeway noises lowered, and the frogs began to sing. Katie curled up in a ball on her (two) pillows, let out a big sigh and fell asleep. I drifted off too.

She was such a good girl all night. While I had trouble getting comfortable she slept on, upside down, curled up against my side, or flat out by the wall. She didn’t even bark when the guy with the noisy van drove by and threw the newspaper onto the driveway.

And this morning? She didn’t want to go back inside!

June 16, 2010
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

Wordless Wednesday in the garden

Thanks for visiting!

June 15, 2010
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Peaceful morning working in the garden…and stuff

Last night I set up the little tent even though rain was predicted for early this morning. I don’t mind the sound of a bit of rain when I’m camping, but Katie is definitely an anti-rain girl, so she stayed inside with her Dad. I spent the night listening to the bullfrogs, traffic on the freeway a mile away and the breeze in the trees.

Sometime during the night I woke up hot, and sat up to unzip the window coverings. Outside, across the yard and under some trees were dozens of fireflies! These were the first I’ve seen this summer and there were seemingly hundreds of them – dancing among the branches and in the long grass of the dark night shadowed lawn. I watched and held my breath – they looked just like magical fairies dancing in the night and I was entranced. Finally sleep claimed me again and I didn’t wake until I heard the gentle patter of morning rain on the roof. I lay there and enjoyed that too, wallowing in this opportunity to sleep past 6:30, Katie’s normal “got to get going Mom!” time.

When I finally ventured back into the house, about 8 a.m. I found Katie curled on the sofa, nose hanging over the arm, facing the front door (waiting for me to come home?) sound asleep. Such a guard dog. I snuck right up on her and she only had time for a quick yip before she was all wiggles and tale wags and licky-licks. As I was petting her I suddenly realized that Katie had an appointment this morning! She was supposed to be at the groomer…like right NOW! As soon as I started to quickly move around the house, getting myself dressed Katie realized what was up and went to hide. Silly (smart!) girl! She shook all the way to the groomer and was visually shaking when I handed her over to the groomer. I felt so bad I apologized to her, which probably made it worse.

While Katie was getting a bath, and probably talking ill of me to all the other doggies, I got a lot of gardening done. Husband has planted more than a dozen trees and they all needed watering, there were weeds to grab, and a bed of wildflowers to plant. All done without interruption, because chief interrupter was off getting groomed.

I was going to sleep out in the tent again tonight. But thunderstorms are predicted, so I guess I’ll sleep inside. Good thing, because as gusty winds came up this afternoon my little tent rolled across the back yard. Guess I should have staked it down.