Well, we finally managed to work our woofer like a dog.  Unfortunately our primary experience is with Portugese water dogs so Phoebe went paddling.  And, when she got back, we fed her.  I felt an impulse to scratch her behind the ears but, luckily, Megan butted in and I regained some propriety before making a fool of myself.  Wouldn’t want to be seen as a fool by anyone, now would I? 

Sally, Jorge, John and Phoebe took the kayaks yesterday and went paddle-about around Surge Narrows.  The tides and currents at this time of year are moderate and so they could explore the nooks and crannies of the islets that form the constriction that is the pass.  They could see what can’t normally be seen.  Mostly just more rocks and Xmas trees, of course, but at one point they came upon a small, dry rock with a couple of dozen seals lolling about.  Seeing seals from a few feet away in a practically-water-level kayak is a neat experience and especially one for a young woman from London/Melbourne.

They caught a glimpse of a sea lion in the distance and, naturally, there were eagles and other winged denizens of the area to witness in their environment.  The ‘paddle’ was about ten miles long and took a few hours.  All good.  

While they were away, I worked on a small deck extension to make hanging the clothes on the clothesline easier.  Yes, that’s right – we hang clothes on a line.  The line wends its way through the trees so finding bark and twigs in my sock drawer is the norm.  Paw prints on the sheets tend to mystify me, tho.  Just how does a dog get a muddy print on a sheet hanging six feet off the ground?  More mystifying is the fact that the first time I noticed this, there were a series of prints as if the dogs had walked all over the sheets.

“Sally, how did the dog print pattern come to grace our sheets?” “Never mind.  A little dirt will do you no harm!” “But, really, a little dirt kind of defeats the purpose of washing them in the first place, doesn’t it?” “No. This is just a little clean dirt.  We wash the sheets to get rid of the dirty dirt.”

Seems the dogs generate clean dirt and we, in our sleep, make dirty dirt.  If only it were so.   There is so much to domestic work that I don’t really understand.

At one point in the day I was in my executive corner office writing (actually a corner of the bedroom with a small table on which the computer sits).  I looked out the window and there, strutting it’s stuff, was a huge, speckled, female pheasant.  This bird was the size of a large chicken.  It slowly worked it’s way around the flower bed and meandered back up into the forest.  It was gorgeous.  I’ve seen grouse from the window and all the other animals you’d expect but how a big ol’ pheasant manages to live undetected on this peninsula is a mystery.  Maybe she was just passing through.

It is back to dirt scrounging after breakfast for Phoebe and back to deck making for me.  Sally will bake some bread and then come to screw on the deck.  (For PC reasons, please place the emphasis on the words in that last sentence to indicate her fastening planks with the screw gun.) 

And so it goes………