Looking For Food

Well, the holiday season is over, the tree and decorations have been put back in their closet for another ten months and here in Calgary we are in the midst of a week long deep freeze. Yay…

In years past when I was young and had more of my life ahead of me than behind me I would be prepared to spend 3 – 4 hours a day making sure that the customers on my route got their bills and letters from aunt Matilda in a timely fashion. I was known to say when asked about the weather “Well, we do live in Canada after all!” or “Yeah…. But it’s a dry cold.” What else was I to say, I had to somehow justify going out in God awful weather conditions with a smile literally and figuratively frozen on my face. I lived through it because I had to. Now, I am content to watch the weather channel for any lessening of the cold, drink my hot tea and occasionally venture out to Tim Horton’s to watch the working people freezing their asses off. It warms my heart.

I do wonder why my ancestors picked Canada as a place to move to. Most were from England and some were from Greece both of which are much milder than Canada. Maybe they didn’t know what they were in for of perhaps they were lied to by the government employees who had a quota of gullible souls they needed to fill. I can just imaging the conversation.

“So what is the weather like in Canada?”

“Well, you would be hard pressed to find a nicer spring, summer or autumn anywhere in the world.”

“That sounds great, what about the winter?”

“Oh…winter is the shortest season and it is nice to have a month or two or three or four to relax and take a break from the hard work you will be doing the rest of the year.”

“Hard work? How hard? Say, is that why you are giving away land?”

Yes, my great grandparents didn’t do their homework or life was so shitty back home that -40°C seemed like a good idea.

 

I watched Buster go outside this morning to do his business. Let me tell you that his business took far less time than it normally does. There was no barking at the back fence, the side fence or the front gate. There was a very small amount of sniffing to find the perfect spot to pee and he just couldn’t get back into the house and curl up on the bed fast enough. While I was watching him I wondered how his distant ancestors handled this kind of brutal cold weather.

I suspect that they would be holed up in a cozy little den that was relatively warm and would only venture out to do their business with a minimum of fuss. Mind you, they wouldn’t have a full dish of food and water waiting for them when they came back in so I guess they would have to venture out hunting every couple of days. That would suck because all of the other animals would be hunkering down trying to stay warm and would be hard to find. Buster has it pretty good and I guess I do too now that I am retired.

Well, time for me to go out and clear away the snow and while I am at it I guess I will be thankful that Busters ancestors aren’t out and about looking for food.

Binoculars

We have had about a foot of snow over the past two days. For those who don’t understand imperial measures, it is twelve inches of snow, which is about 30 CMs more or less. Take a few minutes, take your nose out of your cell phone and learn imperial measures. It won’t hurt and it makes life just a trifle easier for me. That is a lot of snow for any time of year, but it is way, way, way too much for the end of September. I understand that the drive to work was horrible this morning and I feel for those poor people who are getting up and going to work just to contribute to my pension. Thanks!

My dog Buster hasn’t been feeling very good for the past week or so. After a few days and then a visit to the vet we are now giving him some medication and have changed his diet to a rice and hamburger mix. Before this he was puking and had very, very, very loose stools. I felt bad for the little guy. In the past I have had the same problems but my whining and moaning let the people around me know that something was wrong. Buster was a brave little soldier.

When I retired about 11 years ago I had a choice of retirement gifts that the Post Office would give me. There was the typical gold plated watch. I was given a watch after 25 years, which I almost never wear so I really didn’t need another one. There was a very small selection of desk clocks (two) which although nice enough, were kind of useless since I don’t use my desk for anything but piling papers on. The piled papers would very quickly cover up the desk clock making it less than useless. So, no to the desk clocks. The other choice was a small pair of binoculars. I was very surprised because binoculars are actually useful and I didn’t expect that from the Post Office. I chose the binoculars.

Over the years I have taken those binoculars with me on vacation, trips to the mountains and when I wanted to spy on the neighbours without their knowledge. Don’t judge me! Most of the time they sit on the shelf beside my bed waiting patiently to fulfill their primary function. Sometimes I use them to check out the birds in the backyard or the squirrels in the trees out front. I see if I can spy on the people up the alley across the street. As you can tell, the desk clock may have had more use over the years.

Today I did use the binoculars. I have had trouble for the past couple of snowy days to see what shape Buster’s stools were in because if he went then it was in relatively deep snow and quickly hidden by all of the new snow that was falling. Early this morning I shoveled a path around the backyard for Buster to walk around and hopefully do his business in. In short order it was very green grass surrounded by very white snow which is really pretty and should help the stool stand out. I stood in the bedroom with the binoculars searching for any dogshit that might be visible. I wasn’t successful, but I did check to see if the neighbours were up to anything interesting. They weren’t, and the birds were noticeable by their absence.

I am going up to the bedroom as soon as I finish this and will do another search using my Post Office supplied spy glasses. Maybe I need to get another hobby…