Sorry, Loggers

     The girls on the Crescent Lake Loggers basketball team didn't get named in the photo I sent to the Forks Forum, and it's not even really their coach's fault.

     I'm a bonobo.  We're different than the chimps of the human race.  We don't like noise and team sports.  We don't scream in groups. We don't follow.  We love sex and we get a lot of it but we don't like to watch; we're the ones during the extended sex-scenes in Sundance films who finally yell, "More plot!"

     I managed to stick around at the game long enough to get a photo of the girls, including a shot of one of the Clallam Bay Lady Bruins  reaching for the flying ball while pelting through a gang of Loggers.  It was easy to identify the Bruin -- she was on the home team -- but I couldn't get the Loggers' coach attention.

      I'm not going to say he was rude; he's a coach for a sports team, after all, and they're like soldiers: too much maturity and brains and the job isn't getting done.  I'm not blaming him for acting like a snotty 16-year-old, because otherwise his girls don't win (well, they weren't winning anyway, but it was the Bruin home court).  

     But -- people -- here's the rules when working with a journalist, even a small-paper nothing job-trained stringer like me:

      1.  If you want to be in a paper for something good, you have to push your own agenda.  You have to stand still and get your names spelled right.  Those kids are your little bags of DNA and if you don't have time for me as the deadline clicks closer, they'll end up being "unidentified" rather than mis-identified.  They're not my kids, I don't care about 'em further than the bucks I'll get for the photo  and/or article.  My editors know this is only my day job.  They'll pay more attention to the passionate local than the payment-driven free-lancer.

     2.  If you want to be in a paper for something bad, just bleed or do something stupid or very illegal. You don't have to try.

     3.  Nobody "promised" they'd get what you gave them in the paper.  A car wreck can knock the inches that you think might have belonged to your community meeting right off the page.  The only way to put a meeting on the front page is to shoot somebody at it.

     4.  If you buy an ad, don't expect extra coverage in your area unless it's newsworthy.  Buying an ad is like buying a male prostitute -- you get the inches you pay for, and no love.
     5.  Don't ask the reporter, "What paper are you with?" if you're making it a condition for information.  Neither the Paris Match nor the New York Times is going to come cover your piddly little game. You're lucky I showed up.

     6.  If you want to find out just how nice newspaper people are, get a copy of His Girl Friday.  It's still not that far off. 

     That said, thanks so much to the very cooperative people who helped me get the right names for the K-3 kids hand-signing the "Star-Spangled Banner."  And to the folks who called me about the game and the signing in the first place.  They promoted what was important to them, and I showed up and took the photos and got them to the paper that evening.

      Thanks gods they sent the stats in for the games; if I had to stay around all that shrieking and running much longer I would have crawled under the bleachers and strangled myself on my camera-strap.
     Front-page coverage!

    

Now I know how the rooster feels.
     E.B. White may have waxed romantical about hens, but when our hen White is standing outside yelling just to hear her head funnel sound, it's hard to think about anything but braised chicken (yeah, that's right, birdbrain, I'm thinking recipes when I look at you).
     She does these fertility dances with her throat out there whenever anybody lays eggs.  Black doesn't say much, and Red just drops 'em in the pen. But White talks her brains out the whole time like she's responsible for all the production around here.
     We figure all this noise was originally about letting the roosters in the original jungle-fowl flock know there was an egg, and to get him revv'd up to fight off anything under the trees. 
     I'm not using "brain like a chicken" to describe stupidity any more. I don't care what our antique sciences (read: religions) say about animals not thinking, the modern sciences are finding out how wrong that was. Chickens think, and it's mostly about how we're Not Doing It Right.

Land of Eggs and Honey

     We have a problem; too many eggs.

     We can't eat more than one a day each, in whatever form -- they're just too rich -- and the girls are out-laying us.  We'll have to take the excess to the folks who give us salmon.  Poor us.

     The eggs are color coded; the two pale yellow-green (bottom left, top right) are from White.  The large pale brown (lower right) is Black's.  Red lays the dark red with white speckles (upper left).  Black's eggs are the richest -- but she's by far the fattest.  Lift her up and feel the rolls of blubber and all you'll think of is duck-style-roasted chicken.

      After feeding them for a year, was thinking of just buying grown layers next time, but now realizing the rich feeding while they're growing up is what's making them good layers, despite their youth and the season of winter.  We've discovered a source of great calcium; dried-out sea-urchin and crab shells from the beach.  It's where we get the good grit, too, with the addition of sea minerals.  Fat hen + loads of calcium = loads of fat eggs.  Well, d'uh.

     Speaking of feeding animals right to get a return: after years of thinking and research, finally bought a beehive from Sunny Farms.  It has two fully-framed brood bodies and a honey body.  All the amateur -- and I do mean "WTF are we doing?" amateur -- beekeepers up here are listening to me when I tell 'em NOT to feed the bees crappy sugar and corn-syrup to get them through the winter.  Hello?  Colony Collapse Syndrome?  The bees are having enough trouble without being given crummy ersatz food.  Or, to quote, "Thou shall not muzzle the ox that treads the corn," if you need something from that antique-science book. The local Olympic Grays ("Pioneer" bees from Caucasian stock brought in by white settlers over a century ago and gone feral) are pumping out honey and white wax -- from the Douglas Firs, would you believe! -- like little machines.   One keeper has over 100 pounds of honey on one hive. Imagine what fir honey tastes like.  If you like pine-nuts....  At least I'm imagining it; nobody's tasted it yet.  

     My hive is actually painted; I found some neutral base, so the hive can have that nice raw-wood look and still be protected.  I'm not going to buy bees; I'm going to ask one of the local keepers if I can put one of my hive bodies next to his until we get a swam to inhabit it.  Maybe offer him some eggs.

Final Goodbye
     Went back and dug down a bit into Hector's grave, and placed a large butter-clam shell containing a slice each of butter and margarine into the little hole, then poured milk into it until it overflowed.  Covered it back up, replaced the big square beach-tile back on top after scratching "Hector '92-'10" on the surface.
     My brother's cat Holly died the same day. He and I had better have our ducks in a row when we go, or the Old Basement Cats will GET us.  Purr with Bast, guys.
     Dan and I keep looking at the sofa where Hector lay, to check if he's hungry, or comfortable, or needs washing.  Exhausted, emotionally and physically. Now I have a bad case of the 'flu that is turning into bronchitis; will have to have some Skookum tobacco (age-controlled site) on the beach today and actually -- YUCK -- lung-suck it, to kill the germs and clean out the phlegm.

You Can't Keep A Good Cat Down

     First, a poem from Kate Murray:

God bless all pussycats
And keep them safe and warm
Especially those who are in heaven.
Give them a safe path to the Rainbow Bridge
And if they have no human friend help them to find one.
And today especially bless Hector
who showed us that even Basement Cats are full of love
(especially for those who give him smoked rabbit).
Give him lots of prey to chase and subjects to rule with a firm yet gentle paw
and salmon to fress, Amen.

     Thanks to the gods for a hideous head cold/'flu that showed up yesterday morning.  We are much less torn by grief when we're dripping snot out of our skulls.  Digging a deep hole through rocky soil is no fun with aching muscles and a fever, but it's a lot better than trying to do it bawling the eyeballs out of the head.

      Hector was washed down one last time, then formed into a comfortable position on a towel in the cold back-bedroom shelf.  When he'd cooled down (putting any warm cells into a cold hold gives me the willies), his fur looked like it had as a young cat, thick, dark and rich, with only a few grey hairs.  He was wrapped in an old quilt I'd made years ago, and then into an old tatami.  He was given his bowl and plate and bits of nice food, including smoked rabbit, cheddar and milk. Unfortunately, I think I gave him the soymilk.  I will have to go pour real milk on the grave (the cat equivalent of the human bottle of whisky).  I also forgot the margarine and butter.  I'll have to do something about that.  We've dedicated the spirits of all protein we'll eat to him and the other cats.  Or he will be back stomping on my pillow with dirty feet: "WTF??? Fake milk?  Are you high?"

      His grave was planted with white Dutch clover and dark red and pink Columbines.

      Yeah, yeah, he can't feel a thing.  Funerals are for the survivors; ritual is like medicine.  Such as Gratefulness Candles.  Try 'em; they work.
     Then the whole of Sunday was thrown away watching Dead Like Me DVDs. That's another thing that works.

Hector's leaving
     These notes aren't really for you.  They're for us.
     He had a good dinner last night, then began to fade.  Last night he couldn't move any more, but he was breathing quietly.
     This morning, his heart rate is going up and down.  When I tried to re-adjust his head, he told me to stop it, that he was doing this himself.  He has begun to take the final deep gasps.
     19 years, doing whatever he wanted to do, and the last few being Top Cat with all the purr-ogatives.  He'll be buried in the back yard with Lina and Treat, lying together just as in one of our old photos.  A fruit tree will be planted in the middle of their circle.
     We should all go so well. 
     He just left.  I've bathed him and the fancy funeral is later on, as soon as I dig the hole.  I'm the daughter and granddaughter of grave-diggers.  Explains my shoveling skills....

The Hector Report

    Hector's still here!  We think we've found the secret for turning around the don't-eat, don't-drink phenomenon at the end of a cat's life:  bathing.

     We'd given him meds, hydrated him, worked on his bad stomach.  Nothing really seemed to make him feel better.  Then I began, morning and evening, to scrub him rather briskly all over with a washcloth.  This was originally because it's becoming hard for him to walk and he's had some toilet accidents.  He's easily exhausted.  After the first head-to-tail scrub, he seemed better.  I remembered how I'd scrubbed our cat Lina as a tiny kitten when she'd gotten crusty from her food bowl.  So I started regular baths and bed changes for Hector.

      It seemed to turn him completely around.  He's purring, alert, and eating readily, even hungrily. No, he's not getting better, but he's enjoying himself, or at least sleeping, watching us and his food.  As long as Grampa can do that, he's not going anywhere.  It's not hard to keep up, either.  His brain and his heart are still good, so the rest can be supported a bit.
     Oh, and if a cat won't drink water, heat it up.  They come from desert areas and what little water they drank was probably from the hot edges of the oasis. When they weren't just getting it from the meat they ate (Don't feed your cats dry catfood if you can afford it -- they'll die of kidney failure for sure. Well, don't they?).

Hoko River Shake Mill
     Ever seen a sawmill saw sharpened by machine? 
     Tim van Ripper runs the cedar shake mill at the Hoko River sawmill.  Even when he doesn't run into the rare rock, he has to regularly pull the big saw out of his shake cutter and sharpen the massive teeth (in the film, you can see the swoop of the metal rim that contains the saw as the camera swings back into the sawmill after showing the Hoko River and the old sawdust burner).

     Sharpening is a three-step process. The first two steps, which usually take from five to fifteen minutes each, true the teeth.  The final process (shown) normally takes about three complete revolutions of the saw in the sharpener.  If the cedar chunk contains a rock grown into its wood, it can chip a sliver out of a tooth and then re-grinding the teeth and final sharpening can take as long as three hours.

     This is van Ripper's newest saw.  He has two others; the oldest is marked 1899. These big circular saws have been sharpened by machine since they were invented, by devices orginally powered by steam and then by electricity. They required machine-grinding to keep them true, or lined up absolutely flat to their cutting surface. The sharpeners take surprisingly little power.  All that's required is a 1-horsepower motor to turn the saw and lift and apply the grindstone.  The grindstones are replaced every couple of years.
     Note to art welders:  Tim's got some old saws over ten feet in diameter and piles of massive old gears and parts. Think of those in your next installation.