I can’t decide if this is an auspicious, or inauspicious, start to the new year, but I have been found by lost dogs (again).

Along with making 911 calls, it is also my fated duty to return lost dogs to their owners. This happens so often that I carry a collar and leash in the trunk of my car for such occasions. I can proudly boast a 100% return rate, always within 24-48 hours. In fact, I found a lost dog just a few weeks ago, although fortunately he turned out not to be very lost at all.

At any rate, these two chums have arrived on my doorstep, and are staunchly refusing to leave. We have a male siberian husky:

And a female border collie-ish sort of lass:

I managed to get them loaded into my car in order to take them down to the 24-hour emergency vet to have their microchips scanned, and now they refuse to come out. So they’re out there as I type (I left the door open [and turned the interior light off]).

If you ever find a lost dog, speaking from experience, I can tell you that the shotgun approach is the best method. First, swing by a vet’s office and ask them to scan the dog for a microchip. If that doesn’t come up with a hit, paper the entire 5-mile radius with “FOUND DOG” posters (be sure to mention the type of dog, gender, date you found it, and your phone number). Don’t forget to drop a flyer off at the local veterinarian offices, as well. Call all the local shelters, and leave your information. Post an entry on petfinder.org and on your local Craigslist site.

Then, while you’re waiting for the owner to find you, be sure to act such that a coincidence is more likely to occur. Most of my owners have found us through sheer coincidence (fate seems to favor lost dogs), but the owner isn’t likely to wander into your home. So get out there – walk the dog around your neighborhood, take it with you wherever you go, and be sure to mention it in chit-chat to every store clerk and barrista you encounter.

Both of the dogs are very sweet, and also well cared-for. They have been recently brushed and bathed, and their nails have been clipped. Alas, they have no tags or microchip, and let that be a lesson to you, if you own dogs – even if you think they’ll never leave your yard, be sure to put tags on them anyway. You never know, right? And I can’t call you if I can’t find your number on your dog’s collar, so there you have it. Tag ‘em!

Ah well, I’m off to write up some “FOUND DOG” posters and hit the streets with sheets of paper and a roll of tape. Again.

P.S. On the other hand, if you have been thinking about getting a dog or two, be sure to leave a comment! (Just kidding, I’m sure I’ll find their owner by Monday night).

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Oh my, the FOs are piling up around here. My camera’s batteries ran dead, and then I forgot to bring them into work to charge, and then I charged them but left the USB cable at work, and you know how it goes.

First up, a pair of washcloths for Christmas. I used the Baby Genius pattern from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book.

It’s garter stitch, with slipped stitches on front. Quite lovely!

Next, a gift scarf worked in mock rib, in my favorite shade of Cascade 220, #8401.

… and the back…

Then, looking around for something portable and easy to knit, I picked out a skein of sock yarn. This is the third time I’ve knit this yarn into socks – Version 3.0 isn’t perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s done, and they fit close enough. (I love the yarn – I just made a series of bad choices with it.)

Flush with my success, I cast on for another sock in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, in “Shadow.” This is a really interesting colorway, which alternates one round of white with one round of black-into-gray-and-back-again. Here you can see the effect, with the gray kind of pooling in the middle, there. Love it!

Busy times!

Credits: the green yarn was hand-dyed and gifted by Dorothy. The Lorna’s Laces was purchased on eBay from seller emtnestr.

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Either that, or a wonderful dream. Check out the WSDOT’s Seattle traffic map at 8AM Friday morning. Crazy!

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X is for Xenophobia.

La Conner is a tourist town, with a typical tourist town’s loathing of outsiders, namely, me. So far there is one store (the Pioneer Market on Morris Street) that I will not shop at anymore, because it was just too irritating.

I remember when I was in junior high, I had a friend whose family used to vacation in Cape Cod for a few weeks every summer. I asked him what it was like, and he said it was nice enough, but as far as the locals went, “Unless you were born there, they treat you like crap.” I remember being horrified by this.

Of course, xenophobia isn’t strictly the domain of small towns. Ask any given Seattleite how they feel about Californians – despite the fact that people from California are perfectly nice, reasonable people, who just happen to like Seattle better. Shouldn’t we cut them a break for that, at least? For liking Seattle better? Alas, no.

Xenophobia isn’t even the domain of humans. The other night, I decided to take a nice little walk after dinner. (It was 6PM, and therefore, dark as the middle of the night.) I walked up our dirt road, and passed three houses during my walk.

Each house came complete with a phalanx of dogs who barked like crazy. The dogs barking at house A tipped off the dogs at house B, who began to bark in a half-hearted fashion. Then as I neared their driveway, the barking increased feverishly, which tipped off the dogs at house C to start barking, and so forth. So instead of a nice quiet walk in the woods, it was dark, and barky.

As far as I can tell, it is the divine purpose of country dogs to bark at everything and nothing. This seems to be what they’re for. I doubt the dogs realize that their barking has no effect, that it’s tuned out as background noise, just like the wind in the trees and the chirping of birds. Clearly, the dogs feel passionately about barking. They take it to heart.

Cry wolf, indeed.

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W is for Western Birds, the Peterson Field Guide.

This is my third copy, having given away the first two to other nascent birdwatchers over the years.

Western Birds is a miracle of technical writing. The birds are organized by type – all the ducks and geese and duck- and geese-like birds are together, as are the falcons, hawks, eagles, and other predatory birds, and so forth.

This means that once you’ve familiarized yourself with the book’s general layout, it is simplicity itself to find the bird you’ve just seen. For example, if you see a sort of sandpiper-y sort of thing, you’ll flip through pages 118 through 157, which groups together all of the small wading birds, including rails, plovers, phalaropes, and even sandpipers.
By contrast, most field guides organize the birds alphabetically, or perhaps by taxonomic order. This is great if you already know that you’re looking at a plover, and you just need to figure out if it’s a snowy plover or a semipalmated plover. But if you don’t even know that it’s a plover, yer screwed, and you have to page through the entire book to figure out what bird you’ve seen.

The Peterson Guide also has a magical knack for pointing out just the right field markings, and including just the right information in the comments. The six different kinds of western chickadee all look pretty much the same – so the little arrows on the page show you what to look for, to distinguish between them. Genius!

The written descriptions are absolutely perfect. How can they know exactly what it is you’ll have noticed? Under the entry for common raven: “When it is perched and not too distant, note the “goiter” look created by shaggy throat feathers, and the heavier “Roman nose” bill.” For the brown creeper, it points out “Ascends tree spirally from the base, hugging the bark closely.” Bushtits are wonderfully described as “Very small, plain birds that move from bush to tree in straggling flocks, conversing in light gentle tones.”

This book is a marvel, I tell you.

At any rate, so far I have identified chestnut-capped chickadee, red-breasted nuthatch, golden-crowned kinglet, brown creeper, winter wren, barred owl, and common loon. (I hear the last two at night, in the distance. That counts.)

And of course, I’m not the only one who enjoys birdwatching around here.

W is also for Window. Here’s what you’ll see, looking into mine, late on a winter’s evening.

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