Goodbye, my dear Monty

I sob intermittently as I write this. With speaking still beyond me, at least I can write. 

Yesterday morning, as I walked Monty along a very quiet road, on leash, a pack of dogs came out of a house and set upon him... I'm not sure how many of the dogs were actually involved, but the owner blames one. The owner, screaming and sobbing, threw himself on Monty to try to protect him and I did my best, but Monty took some serious damage. 

The owner and I rushed him to the local emergency vet and they were quite comforting and confident in his recovery... far more than I, but I tend to encompass the negative possibilities in my future expectations. I went back at 4pm, but they were still in surgery, having taken the morning to stabilize him. At 6:00 (closing time), I brought him home, yelping and crying while still deep in anaesthesia, apparently a common event. 

I lay beside his unresponsive and noisy form all night, occasionally checking on him when he thrashed about, putting a hand on his back and gently stroking him in hopes it would get through, At 8:20 I checked and he seemed still... and stiff... and gone. 

I'm broken...but I will heal in time. I miss my little cuddler, one of the two best dogs I've had, terribly. Furthering the heartbreak is the fact that the owners of the dog pack, a very nice man/wife/young child, are going to lose a big part of THEIR family too, as a killing is an unforgiveable offence even here in FL. And I can certainly see that pack of normally nice dogs getting excited and killing a child or even an adult, so I can't leave it unreported. Shortly, I will go with the owner to help him put his dear dog, the ringleader, to sleep, so he can pet it and say goodbye while it goes...

This is just heartbreaking in every way. 

At least Monty brought a lot of joy into many lives and really enjoyed his life with me. Goodbye, my little one. 

A Story With a Morel

 I found my first morel!!!

Not many things make me hop up and down with excitement, but noticing my very first morel mushroom did the trick. These things blend in SO well that I had a hard time seeing it from six feet away. I've gone out and done some desultory mushroom hunting, but never gotten anything worthwhile and to come across this one in my mom's yard surprised and delighted me. 

According to ForageSF.com, the morel I found is “Morchella Rufobrunnea. These morels are nicknamed the “Wood Chip Morels” since they like to grow in mulched areas. That’s because they are saprotrophic morels that feed off of decomposing organic matter.”  https://foragesf.com/blog/2020/3/4/finding-and-frying-wild-morels

I did not bother to pick it, preferring to leave it there. Childhood training to never even touch wild mushrooms runs deep and, while a taste of morels might have convinced me to pick this one, I've never tasted them and was therefore not tempted. Besides, it was all alone and maybe we might get more next year? 

California Wandering

 One of my regrets of leaving CA is being away from hiking the marvelous hills and mountains, either alone or with friends or ESPECIALLY with The Sonoma County Wanderers. I delighted in the steep hills, massive trees, windswept rocky coasts, and open vistas. The east coast is FLAT, until one gets up into Maine. I loved St John for this reason, although the heat made hiking hard for me, especially in summer months. Maine delights me, especially Mt Desert: perhaps I'll spend much more time there this summer.

ANYWAY, I loved this last visit to Sonoma: I went on two trips with my Wanderer friends, once I had regained confidence in my knees and feet. The second was the Carson Falls trail, an 8-mile loop with a bit over 1/5 mile of climbing. We hiked through scrubby brush blossoming after a nice wet winter and along chuckling creeks under a canopy of towering redwood second growth. This rough-hewn bridge delighted me...

 as did the huge redwood....

and the red-bellied newt on the verdant creek-side moss.

It is surely one of the great pleasures of life to be in nature with people who are similarly inclined to appreciate these delights. 

Now I'm in St John with dear old friends, working on their boat, trying out things like open mic night (WAY too loud, but nice folks there), and generally adding to my carefully accumulated store of good memories.

Goodbye, Penny-Lane

My friend Caroline has a delightful pup named Paxton. He and Monty love to race down the beaches at Cape Cod or sniff things in Sonoma. Paxton's best friend was Penny-Lane, the runt of her litter, the essence of the energy and love of a rowdy 1.5-yr-old Cavalier distilled into a 2/3 scale copper body. They would spend hours exhausting one another every day. 

Friday, I called Caroline to ask if she was going to Yappy Hour, an informal end-week event at the local dog park. Monty, Paxton, and Penny-Lane raced about with a dozen other dogs, made friends, sniffed butts, got cuddled, (here is Penny-Lane in my lap)

and generally had a wonderful time while the humans chatted and laughed and petted dogs. Penny-Lane practically went into paroxysms of excitement at the ball being tossed by another owner and raced after it while Paxton tried to cut her off. 

We parted ways and Monty and I walked home, only to get a call that Penny-Lane was in serious condition and another ten minutes later saying she had died.... and a while later to ask if I could help with the goodbye.

Today, with the agreement of my brother and mom, we (Ellen (Penny-Lane's beloved human), Caroline, my mom, and I) buried her near a fig tree just NE of the house. We spent a couple hours talking about her, dogs in general, love, and life.

Penny-lane: all lives are brief and end, the only questions I have are whether you enjoyed life and whether the world is better for you having been here. On both of these I think we can answer with a resounding “YES!”. Penny-Lane, we will miss you and cherish your memory. Thank you for bringing your joy to our lives.

Sonoma Visit and Citrus Update

I arrived here about 2/18 and depart on 3/24 for St Thomas. Travel was fine, although Monty didn't pack light and seemed to expect ME to carry his suitcase... (ok, just kidding!)

Monty acts DELIGHTED to be here: a comfortable house, cool conditions for walking, a couch, and a lazy-dog... um, lazy-boy.

Pretty nice! AND he always loves being around my mom. 

Monty also loves seeing friends, even if they have dogs. He mostly doesn't care much for most other dogs, but played wildly with Mattie, a 6-month-old wild-and-crazy fluffball. 

I feel a bit sore, perhaps from hill walking or perhaps from a hot yoga class I tried. It turns out that, while I enjoyed the class and company, I tend to overdo the exercise and get some injuries.... and I run warm, getting rather woozy by class end. Some like it hot, some can't handle the heat... and I recall being in the latter group, needing to load my pockets with ice in order to function in the boat yard in St Thomas, while others seem to revel in warmth. Ah, well: we all need to know our limitations: perhaps I am better off with boat yoga.

Citrus Update? WELL! The grafts from the beginning of Covid are doing just great!

April 2020: https://hydrophiliapow.blogspot.com/2020/04/pandemic-stuck-in-sonoma-twiddling.html

October 2020: https://hydrophiliapow.blogspot.com/2020/10/update-on-sonoma-citrus-grafts.html

Now: 

Here are blood, satsuma, and cara cara citrus. I understand the blood would have better sweetness, color, and flavor with more warmth. Right now they look like smaller, less-sweet cara cara oranges. 

The blood oranges produced about ten fruits, the satsumas about 20 and the Cara Cara oranges around 100 or 200! All three are tasty and juicy, so the grafting has been a big success! Two other trees we planted are doing well: the lime has about 8 nice fruits and the satsuma has grown considerably. All things may pass, but I revel in the delights along the path.

Paddling in Key Biscayne Mangroves

Monty and I are back in Fort Pierce! We dropped anchor Sunday 2/11 after an overnight sail from Key Biscayne during which we caught a small mahi. I'll add my future travel plans to the end of this post. 

Cynthia and Lucy visited flew in to Miami and spent ten days aboard in rather cool weather, during which we actually got to explore the mangrove swamp and associated human modifications beside No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne. Cynthia also took ten lionfish, easily doubling out total lifetime haul from Florida waters: Cynthia gets so much satisfaction from hunting them, getting good exercise, looking at underwater life, and helping the environment by removing these invasive species.

Our favorite adventure? Paddling up a mangrove swamp tidal creek!

I think I would really like to find some of these salt creeks that have been less modified by humans as we both really enjoyed the adventure. 

Least favorite bit? The midges we dealt with on windless evenings in the harbor: they are even smaller than the midges in Cape Cod and Maine, but DEET still does the trick! 

Cynthia & Lucy, both well exercised through long walks and recharged by the Florida sunshine after months of midwestern gray skies, departed at about 9:30 Saturday 2/10, Monty and I set sail when the tide turned and helped us out past the shoals at about noon. Neither Monty nor I enjoyed much of our sail north as it was rather rough, but we caught a nice mahi Saturday PM and dropped anchor in Fort Pierce before noon. 

Future travel plans? 2/18-3/(20?) Sonoma, -4/(10?) St John, -4/(20 or 30) sail to boat yard in NC or VA and spend a week or two on bottom paint etc, 5/(1? 10?)-6(15?) sail to St Michaels/Annapolis area and visit friends/family, -7/(1?) sail to MA or ME and visit friends/fam/islands. (9/15 or 10/1-ish) putter south.

Exceptionally Lovely Launch from Canaveral

Space has fascinated me, from watching Apollo rockets go up to seeing the first man on the moon on TV to pulling over in a bar in WY to see a space shuttle launch to being in awe at what SpaceX has done with re-useable rocket boosters. And, as I sail south along Cape Canaveral, I love to see the launch structures and rockets standing by the water's edge, lit by floodlights if it is night.

Recently, I went up on deck in Fort Pierce at twilight to see a launch. The skyline in the north lit up with an orange glow like a sodium vapor lamp, then an accelerating orange spark rose in the darkness

until it reached the sunshine. It went out for a few seconds, then smoke blossomed and swirled as the first stage spun around and fired rockets to slow and return, while the second stage lit up and continued on its way (up and left). 

I have never before had the experience of watching this twilight ballet and the beauty and detail was quite lovely. And, amazingly, some of these launches can be seen from the Virgin Islands! What an amazing world we live in!