Friday, July 13, 2007

...why yes, it's raining. how did you know?

Ok fine, THIS is why I haven't been blogging lately.
1. I'ts been HOT OUT. During the mornings I rush to get my usual household chores done, then spead the early afternoons painting the shade side of the house. Then I spend the rest of the day supine, shotgunning lager and sitting in front of an electric fan, periodically firing a blast of ice water (scented with patchouli) at myself with a small trigger sprayer.

2. Because I've been painting my house. Scraping, by hand mind you, no pusscake pressure washers for this muklet- each individual centimeter of siding, setting nails, re nailing where necessary (and it is, LOTS)...then PRIMING, by hand, each individual board of siding, all of which have the surface of an unpaved road upon which Sherman tanks have been drag racing.....and finally PAINTING, by hand, each individual board of siding and trim with liberty and justice for all.

3. Because it's been hot, and I've been painting the house.
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My girldog, Jett, is a small black terrier. Instead of the usual hard terrier coat, though, she ended up with the double coat of a Labrador retriever and the undercoat density of a Siberian Husky. This is not an exaggeration. The animals' fur is packed closer than velour. In this kind of heat it's only humane to shear her down, and this I set out to do.
The clippers burnt out.
I go through a set of clippers every year on her in just this fashion. I swear to God I keep this animal brushed, folks!
Finally I resorted to sewing shears, and struggled through that animals pelt for nearly an hour. For once she did not spaz and tweak, and I think some dim idea of the favor that was being done her might have shot through. Which is probably wishful thinking on my part; she was more than likely dazed by the heat. In any case, I now have an even smaller, grey dog which looks like a whippet with a Labbie head sitting on top.
And because I had to use a scissors, she's bumblebee-striped. Like shearling, but ridgey.
My dog is corrugated.
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The heat has brought my garden forth like an Imax special effect. There are spaces so closely packed that the ground cannot be seen....hemerocallis of various types, Love In A Mist, Pot Marigold, phlox, all kinds of papaveracea, knautia, penstemon...it's wild! Things that normally finish by June are still blossoming. I finally stopped my Easter Lilly; I was afraid it'd bloom itself out and exhaust the bulb.
I attribute this to nothing on my part except maybe planting too closely. The late rains combined with the sudden sunshine, heat and humidity are what did the trick.
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Around here you get used to odd combinations of sound...all the usual countryfied songs like cows bellering, roosters, bees and birds, alongside police sirens, helicopters, military aircraft booming overhead, and automatic gunfire (we live close enough to Abbotsford, Canada to be able to hear the drug dealers picking one another off when the wind is coming from the right direction.) The rest of the sound track is thanks to an overeager local and state police force, Lynden Airport, Homeland Security, and The Border Patrol.
Lately the last two have been running NUTS. I don't think I'm ever going to get used to armed personnel flying overhead so low you can smell what they had for breakfast. If all you had to go by were the number of government, military and law enforcement helicopters in the air, a person would think that Sumas is Los Angeles North.
Now. Does all this increase in official activity mean there's been an increase in illegal activity around here? I don't think so, no. I think what's happened is that the weather's been nice and all the uniforms are out profiling in their shiny toys like a bunch of teenagers.
Not three miles from where I sit begin miles upon miles upon miles of unpatrolled, uninhabited border marching up across the wooded hills, headed east. You see nary a black and gold helicopter up there, though, heck no. They're all doing circles over my back yard watching the fat broad flip them off.
Everyone knows that the illegal activity happens UP THERE. You want to take a bite out of crime? Stop burning avgas needlessly. The criminals you want are too bright to come through the damn border crossing AT SUMAS. Homeland Security in particular has no excuse because they have broader powers of stop and search. Go sit your black and gold asses down on Mt. Baker Highway, switch on the A/C and start randomly stopping vehicles.

14 comments:

  1. Rain? How nice! Send some to the desert please!!!!

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  2. Anonymous2:32 PM

    Yay I'm first!! I love the corrugated dog..maybe it does kinda know its for its own good? I plant things too close together, like it says on the packet leave a 2 feet gap and I think it looks to much so I leave a six inch gap...cuz I have too many plants. Mostly I am growing veggies...

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  3. lmbo @the corrugated dawg, sugar! and yeah, i finished the meme

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  4. Anonymous9:44 PM

    you'll never know how happy you make me some nights beb.

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  5. I got tired just reading about how much you've been doing. Fuck I am a slacker, I have got to get off my ass and do some shit around the hovel.

    Yeah, I know, who am I trying to kid.

    We can always tell whenever the military is getting ready to send some major kind of airstrike thing overseas, because we get to listen to jets and fighters and bombers swooping around all day long for a week or two, and then next thing you know, it's all over the news that we just started a new campaign in Iraq or wherever else they've found oil this week.

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  6. I too plant too closely together. i can't bear gaps between my plants. It makes them look..well..planted.

    My cats have developed a loathing for my lillies. i don't know why - they simply hate them and attack them on a daily basis. my lillies are now dead and i have a bare patch in my otherwise perfect garden. That bare patch really shits me. I am going to plant new lillies today, carefully spraying them with anti-cat spray. i will win the lilly war, oh yes.

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  7. Anonymous3:52 AM

    God I wish it was hot here, here its been raining raining and then raining some more. Honestly, the only reason we aren't underwater right now because our apartment's on the third floor.

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  8. Well thank goodness those chickens have gone - it reminded me too much of "Eraserhead" *shudders*

    we are having CRAP weather in the UK, after the hottest April since records began its been cloudy and wet, wet and more wet.

    I feel cheated, still my cherry tomatoes and runner beans seem to like it.

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  9. You live in a shed?

    I'm reporting you to the Animal Welfare League. Corrugating pooches is downright evil.

    All this stuff about plants has reminded me to check on my lovelies in the attic. You can't beat hydroponics.

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  10. guess what? It's raining here - I would have painted my house, obviously, if it hadn't been raining, but it is.

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  11. I myself have a corrugated Cocker Spaniel and a corrugated Schnauzer.

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  12. Yes , its raining here too AGAIN... my garden is sparingly planted , but I have standing stones!!!! , i didnt get it together enough to get bedding plants to go in the gaps , but I am planning a garden fest shortly , and need a bit of colour.
    Because of all this rain the slugs and snail population has exploded, they are creeping about in their hundreds , whats the best thing to do with em o' gardening guru FN
    PS I am a bit of a Budhist when it comes to killing things , I cant help but fear I am building up a huge karma backlash at some point , they may only be a humble snail in this incarnation , but it could be mother Theresa . pope john paul and Princess Di taking a re incarnation holiday and munching my plants

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  13. kindness: MY RAIN! MINE! MINEMINEMINE!

    mr. the dog: the plants don't seem to mind it much, do they? mine sure don't. i wonder what that spacing stuff is about? maybe growing specimen plants or something?

    savannah:oo, you did. see? wasn't that easy? and painless, too!

    rock: my darling, you know I'm thinking about you. or whoever it is over to your place. actually i have a suprise for y'all coming up......!

    fatty: i wouldn't mind quite as much if only they'd GIVE US A DAMN CLUE as to what's going on when they deploy en masse like that. makes you think the canadians are invading.

    junglyjane: do not start me on cats and gardens. oh. my. god. every time i fire the hose at a planting two or three of the neibors cats come blasting out leaving evil piles of shit behind them, crawling-literally- with intestinal vermin. GAAAAAAAAH.

    hendrix: and you get to go hiking in it, too! gosh, i envy you. that was sarcasm, by the way.

    frobi: the slugs took my damn beans right down to the ground. send me beans. ps-i think you better go check the coldframe-beast hit you with a midnight charlie!

    garfy: you have gone shed mad, sir. barn swallows live in my shed, and the neibors cats occasionally come to die or give birth in my shed, or to deposit some tattered piece of roadkill. me, i live in a car out behind the supermarket.

    ziggi: OH SUUUUUUURE you woulda. you live in a brick house anyway. so ha.

    gale: corrugated dogs: its the latest in canine fashion! call Tufts immediately!!

    beast: or they could be adolph hitler and richard nixon, too, in which case you could be aiding karma by acting as it's agent while you stomp them. i heave lots of mine into the field out back. if you don't have a field, wait until the neibor leaves his car windows cranked down one night.

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  14. I always had to shave my Jackie Boy who was a huge Keshond/Lab mix every summer..I think that it was the nicest thing that I have ever done for anyone or anything in the universe.

    I'm out doing summer too.

    I didn't realise that you were so close to those 'furrin' Drugdealers in Abbotsford, sheesh kapeesh, here in Humanitoba we are mainly importers.. except for all of the growops in our Biblebelt near the American border...hey wait a minute, I see a definite trend forming.

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