It's been nine months since I posted here?!  That tells me I'm overbusy.  I generally post when I have time to reflect and no time for reflection is bad.

We're just back from a Middle Fork Salmon self-support trip.  Self-support means we were in kayaks and canoes and carried all our gear and food for a week in the wilderness in our boats.  I like that better than going with rafts that bring "the kitchen sink" and many other things that are truly unnecessary.  It was a good trip though the water was very low due to the megadrought in the West.  We only had one night of bad air quality due to wildfires.

Not a lot has changed at the home base.  Covid meanders on.  I'm still wearing a mask to work in the clinic, which stinks but I've gotten used to it.  I have a new job, doing remote lab interpretation.  I still have a patient every now and then for my private naturopathic practice.  It's plenty.

I'm still working on an assortment of writing projects.  I write articles for the local canoe club and for American Whitewater now, about safety on the river.  I have several different books in brainstorm/outline form.  That form can persist for years, but once I have all the points I want to make arranged in the right order with all the supporting documentation the writing part goes pretty quickly.  I've yet to be published in book form.  Somebody is going to publish my stuff though, because it's good and there's a lot of it fomenting.

Kitten is dead.  My beloved wild feline finally gone.  I just returned from a trip and felt the usual worry about her, wanting to see her when I got back.  All that was there waiting was a house full of old smells and some photos which I cried over.  She was with me for many years.

Maybe you're not like my neighbors.  They're fine people, decent people.  However, their two poodles are currently gated on the front porch of their house and barking at everything that goes by.  The constant noise pollution is not welcome.  I will remember this if I ever want to have a loud party or run a saw at 5:30am.  Consideration gets consideration.

This morning when I was done working in the garden I headed for the house only to realize on the steps that something was on the bottom of my sandal.  I scraped it off on the edge of the steps and it was dog shit.  I hosed off my shoe and the steps.  It may seem like a small thing to you, that your dog does not come when you call it and loves to shit in my garden, but it is not a small thing to me.

Yesterday I went for a walk with a girlfriend who has two dogs.  She wanted me to walk one but I begged out.  The one that she did bring, an American pitbull, was kept on leash the whole time.  It took the treats which were offered regularly regardless of behavior, and appeared indifferent to the kiddie talk tone taken in her speech.  It kept jumping on me, and slobbering on my legs whenever we stopped.  Slobbering may be normal in your world, but I don't want it in mine.

I live across the street from a park, and people walk their dogs past here all day every day.  I have a cat.  My cat hates dogs with a ferocity I have never seen in another creature.  She will go out of her way to draw blood if the dog is clueless enough to get in range.  But some dogs would kill her if they caught her, and she recognizes that kind and runs, climbs, escapes.  The park rules are that all dogs are to be on leash at all times except for when inside the dog park, which is always available.  I believe city rules are the same.  Any dog owner stupid enough to let their dog in my yard deserves the vet bill.  Any dog that is hunter enough to threaten my cat should be on leash.

My last pet was a dog.  I loved him deeply.  I did a real dog obedience training with him, with a lady who trained German shepherds for the police.  We both learned, and we had a language.  He did not run off to shit in someone else's yard.  I could call him off a chase when other dogs were still chasing.  He would sit and watch quietly when I spotted wildlife.  He would heel, really heel without a leash on, and stay.  He would stay laying in the shade while I had lunch in a restaurant.  So when you say your dog is well trained, at a bare minimum I expect that you can call them back to you and they will come.  Every time.  If he's not well trained, he should be on a leash.

Postscript: I texted my neighbors to ask for some quiet and admitted that the dog barking was getting to me.  They took the dogs indoors and the noise has stopped.  I can feel my blood pressure gradually dropping back toward normal.

I think that when this cat dies I will not have any more pets.  It is very American to have pets, it helps us with the isolation.  But I would rather hang out with my neighbors than listen to their pets.  I would rather make love to my partner than pet the cat.  I would rather not have a litter box to clean or warm piles of dung to pick up with a plastic bag.  The numbers are astounding about pet ownership in the US: could it be that we are substituting cats, dogs, computers and phones for having real connections with other people?

I just heard her dispatch some squeaking thing.  I did not get up to save it from her.  She is probably licking her chops right now, having just chomped down the last bite.  Maybe it was a baby rabbit.  It squeaked like one.

I'm having trouble keeping her clown collar on her.  I bought her a birds be safe collar but the quick-release under-collar is too quick to release--she scratches it right off.  Maybe if I put it on her when she has just fed she will be happy enough to ignore it and get used to it.

In other home news the raspberries are coming in.  W says they've never ever been this early.  It's still May and we have both pink and blonde raspberries already ripe.  The blueberries are on their way as well.  We will probably not get very many of them, because the crows are waiting for their ripening as well.

I'm planing my tulsis outdoors today.  Rama tulsi, the most medicinal Ocimum, and Kapoor, and Vana.  These are the Ayurvedic names, and two of them have the exact same Latin name according to the seed company I got them from.

Bergamots are going out as well.  Three of them.  Should be interesting to see how they fare.

I never know what will live and what will die in my little garden.  

Downward facing dog aka Adho Mukha Svasana. Re-invigorates the person who has settled into a slouch. Enlivens the gaze. Practice for at least five minutes after 4 hours of sitting. Ok to play with it, go into Wild Thing or whatever variation makes you happy. Try getting around on all fours--feet and hands, no knees. The dog knows how. The heart is the center for this asana.

The environment we're used to is designed to sustain us. We live like fish in an aquarium. Food comes mysteriously down, oxygen bubbles up. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo we call civilization. Then we go into nature, where we are least among equals with all other creatures. There we are put to the test. Most of us sleep through the test. We get in and out and never know what might have been demanded. Such an experience can make us even more vulnerable, for we come away with the illusion of growing hardy, salty, knowledgeable: Been there, done that.
--Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, page 133.

Today I picked up this pet that I call "Kitten" and she felt significantly heavier---more like a cat than a kitten at eight years of age. She is so kittenish most of the time that the name is no stretch. She has been very good company this last week.
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This is a friend of mine. I remain super impressed. They are scoring well.

This lean athlete is a lady that I met in biochemistry class in Flagstaff. Her new dog Squid is lightning fast.