Lassie, Get Help

Bed and biscuit

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:55:00 +0000

Yes, Smoke's coat really is iridescent. And the boys are good buds, but I need to visit Costco for a few more dog beds. Chi-whippie Jasper is now in the neighborhood of 30-35 pounds to Smoky's 55 or so. Must make a vid someday of the little guy catching the biscuit -- he's quite awesome ;~)

O Groomers!

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:10:00 +0000

Always the tchotchkes. Poor Grayling. "Get these things off me!" I did, right after I took a few snaps.

I got Jasper's license last week, and the clerk wrote "Whippet x" on the form. I said, "You think so?" and the clerk said, "We put down whatever the vet says on the rabies cert." OK. He does look whippety. The tail, though, is all Chihuahua.

Then this weekend a customer at the groomers looked at Jaspie and said, "Oh, a pit mix!" I was like, "What?!" She misunderstood my surprise. "Oh, they're very nice dogs!" she said. "My sister has one..."

It's fate, people. Lookit the boy ;~)

Roughhouse

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:10:00 +0000

Smoky and Jasper make the most of a beautiful morning.

Zoomies, how we love zoomies!

Grayling [whose left front leg is perfectly normal, thanks], Jasper, and an orange. Mmmm, oranges.

As they say, a tired dog is a happy dog. [Jasp'll be neutered as soon as our vet says it wouldn't be detrimental to his health in any way. He was one miserable puppy.] Can't believe the difference four weeks has made. Has it been a whole month already? Unreal.

Inside, earlier. Rraaarrrrhh!!!

Not the last dog I'd bring home, but close.

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:03:00 +0000

You know the old story about the dog stuck between two food dishes? I've been feeling like that for months, immobilized between this blog and my newer birding blog and too busy to do much of anything with either one. Then this dog showed up on Facebook.

She was a little pit bull [rare blue!], she was terribly skinny and suffering from mastitis, she had the sweetest smile, and she needed a foster home. I volunteered.

You know where this is headed, right? Oh, no, you don't.

It turned out that a most excellent rescue group in Utah had decided to take the blue pit bull, so when I arrived at the shelter on the morning of Oct. 22 to pick her up, my buddy C said, "Foster this poor, um, Doberman instead." I'm not even a little bit wild about Dobermans, so I prepared a quick no-can-do speech as we walked down the hall. I needn't have bothered.

A little red pup was standing in the corner, on his last legs. He was in bad shape. C had fixed him a bowl with tempting cheese and other tastiness, but he wouldn't touch it. When I put some canned food on my fingers and offered it to him, he turned his head away. I was enlisted to take him to the vet. Things weren't looking good.

Long story short: I got the green light to take him home a couple hours later. Took "before" photos as per C's instructions.

Aaaand now the very happy "after," wherein we bond, I fail as a foster, and pup gets in touch with his inner zayde. "So then I said to Morrie, I said..." All that's lacking is the upturned paw ;~)

Bark! Bark!

Cute, no? And smart...! You have no idea. Friendly, too. His name is Jasper, for his red color and in honor of a good kid in Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. He met everybody last week. The collies are... tolerant. Smoky is happy. Smoke is showing him the ropes, teaching him about the joy of zoomies, etc.

[It's pouring rain now, and the south forty will soon be ~~muddy~~ green! Yay!]

In case you missed it: this is a Chihuahua mix, people. In my home. A dog that is going to need a sweater. Facepalm. Facepalm. Facepalm.

*************

Note: I have no Dr. Mom skillz to speak of, but man, you should see me set a kitchen timer. Truly impressive. The first day, I fed Jasp a couple teaspoons of food and a dab of Nutri-Cal every hour. Sometimes he'd eat, sometimes not, but the next morning he was eager to chow down, and it was nothing but steady improvement after that. Amazing what a pup can do with food, a little TLC and a warm, quiet place to sleep. As always, thanks to the wonderful folks at our local shelter — you're the best.

I've found my people [Brown Recluse division]

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:44:00 +0000

That would be the Brown Recluse spider, ha very ha.

So many years...! So many years I've spent patiently explaining that your aunt in Pacoima or your grandfather in Carmel was actually not, I repeat, not bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, because the Brown Recluse doesn't live in California, and even where it does live, it isn't running around biting people. It's shy and, well, reclusive. And did I mention that most medical doctors are not arthropodologists? May I add that most medical doctors do not spend their days researching bacterial infections, Staph infections in particular? Here's someone who does. Oh, kids, how this makes me smile:

It's not a freaking spider bite

Via this:
MRSA, spider bites and denial

And here's more:
“Spider bite” lesions are usually diagnosed as skin and soft-tissue infections

And more:
Spider!

And more:
Male funnel-web spider [ at somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com — awesome-sauce, I'm telling you]

All with lovely linkage. Like this:

An approach to spider bites: Erroneous attribution of dermonecrotic lesions to brown recluse or hobo spider bites in ~~California~~ Canada [pdf]

California does have a Desert Recluse. [Spider!] It's shy, reclusive [quelle surprise] and reluctant to bite. Just for you, Californians:
Brown Recluse and Other Recluse Spiders

Photo credit: awesome shot of a spider at Kent Ridge Park in Singapore, by Tripod Ape, at Flickr.

Stainless Steel Flat-Sided Pails - Half Price Today Only

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 21:08:00 +0000

Hot tip from Diane at DeltaBluez Stockdogs: these stainless steel pails are on sale from Jeffers Equine, half-ish price, today only. [Doctors Foster and Smith link here, for comparison shoppers.] If Diane recommends these, they're the real deal. I love pails like this and have a bunch of 'em, all sizes.

Again, Diane says these pails are on sale today only. You snooze, you lose, etc. Thanks, Diane!

Link dumpage for a lazy holiday weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 20:51:00 +0000

First off, via Janeen of SmartDogs [on Facebook], here's the Poop Fairy PSA. Awesome. And from the beautiful Northwest via Rachel Maddow, here's a swell video on the same topic. Martin Luther [with sidekick Lola] sings it:

More Dog Doogity goodness here [and a free sticker!].

*************

"Corporate personhood": much like a dog turd, it smells nasty, fosters parasites, and needs proper disposal. Consider that one little house on the prairie serves as the headquarters for 2,000 different corporations, some linked to criminals:

[The Reuters article] shows how critical these secrecy jurisdictions are to making corporations a vehicle of crime and other abuse. And, as [Nicholas] Shaxson has shown, secrecy jurisdictions are also a key tool for corporations to avoid paying their fair share and for dictators to loot their countries. These kinds of incorporation services are a key tool to sucking the money out of the legitimate economy.

At a time when SCOTUS is giving corporations –- even flimsy entities like the scraps of paper at 2710 Thomes –- more rights than actual citizens, it pays to understand how easy it is for people to avail themselves of corporate personhood.

The good folks at Move to Amend have the novel idea that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. "End corporate rule. Legalize democracy," is their motto. Good luck [wry face]. Seriously, it would be nice if some vestige of government of the people, by the people and for the people rose up and kicked corporate personhood's fat butt to the curb.

*************

Poop Week over at the most excellent 10,000 Birds was totally awesome.

"First of all, every birder backpack, rucksack, or other holder of materials should have toilet paper, or, failing that, tissues. Don’t resort to what I had to do once in the vicinity of the East Pond of Jamaica Bay and emerge sockless from the bushes."

Still laughing at that one. Yes, I'm twelve. Check out links to all the posts here.

*************

You knew possums are resistant to snake venom, right? Turns out their ossum super power has to do with one blood protein:

Since the evolutionary origin of the family, the vWF [von Willebrand Factor] of opossum species that prey on snakes has accumulated more changes than vWF in non-snake-eating species. That's circumstantial evidence for the effect of natural selection continuously acting on vWF over millions of years. Jansa and Voss picked out several specific changes that are unique to snake-eating opossums, and found that they're associated with a region of vWF that is known to bind with one of the toxins in pit viper venom.

Read all about it at Jeremy B. Yoder's terrific Denim and Tweed science blog.

*************

India's vultures have all but disappeared. Feral dogs have filled the void:

In the decade of major vulture decline, from 1992 to 2003, one estimate showed dog populations increasing by a third, up to nearly 30 million. The escalation of the dog population corresponds perfectly with the disappearance of India’s vultures.

Read about the dogs and the last Indian vultures here.

[Both links above from Ed Yong'd addictive blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science.

*************

More links, and Pam Kling's you-are-there-as-the-rattlesnake-strikes photos, over at my newish, mostly-birding blog, Crow and Raven.

After the mauling

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:04:00 +0000

During his years as an RCMP officer in the northern communities, Clare Kines recognized the important role of the sled dog in local history and culture. "But because of the ubiquitousness of dogs in the north there have been attacks," he writes. "Too often I've seen the results of children and adults severely hurt or even killed by a group of dogs."

An attack earlier this month involved a dog he knew.

I played with that dog a lot, it bounded with energy and I never saw a hint of aggression from it. It was engaging, and although untrained would easily be led by the collar. Hell, my children played with it. A couple of weeks ago it was off its lead, bounding amongst kids never touching them. It came quickly to my whistle and walked back with me to its spot on the ice. It was playful and gentle, and yet it participated in a savage attack on a little child. Of that there is no doubt.

And that is why this won't escape from my mind. If this is a dog that can do this terrible thing, then any dog can. That the wild in their ancestory must lie in them underneath. Since the attack I look at my children playing with our big gentle puppy, Bolt, and wonder, if the circumstances were just right, what might happen?

Read the whole post at Clare's blog. [Clare is a favorite blogger/photographer of mine — in addition to The House & other Arctic musings, he contributes to 10,000 Birds, covering, natch, the Arctic beat.]

In Clare Kines's photo, above, his children Travis and Hilary play with their dog Bolt. See more photos in the post Sledding. The beautiful, unnamed sled dog at the top of this post was also photographed by Clare. As always, click photos to embiggen.

Kozue's custom dog stamps

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:51:00 +0000

ETSY artist Kozue makes wonderful custom pet portrait stamps like the one on the left, which is totally awesome. I want a bunch of these. Kozue is on vacation at the moment, but you can see more of her dog stamps here, courtesy of Design Milk's artful canine sidekick, Dog Milk.

Please hurry back from vacation, Kozue!

So not Rick Perry

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:11:00 +0000

True story: while riding through a remote meadow in the Colorado Rockies, a mountain biker who is not Rick Perry startles a mother bear with cubs. The mother bear is hella upset. Did I mention that the mountain biker is not Rick Perry?

Shots were taken, which is to say photos in this case, and you can read the whole excellent thing here. Biker/blogger KB also loves trail cams and dogs! Romping and Rolling in the Rockies is one to bookmark, if you ask me.

H/T: the most excellent CougarMagic.

[Wonderful photo by Jim Liestman at Flickr/Creative Commons. Click to embiggen.]

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:59:00 +0000

Peter Houser of Living with Birddogs visited China earlier this month and caught a glimpse of the future:

[N]early all of the enviroment that I saw was horribly damaged. During the entire time in country I saw only a handful of songbirds, a few magpies, no rodents, no hawks. Certainly no game birds. Anything that looks green is under mono-species cultivation. Most of the country is covered by a cloud of smog from the coal-burning electric plants. 5,000 years of human occupation have left a mark on the land and the animals that will not disappear until the next ice age. So, get out your checkbook and send some money to your favorite environmental advocate group. This trip really brought home to me how much we stand to lose if we do not learn to live in a balanced relationship with our environment.

Peter is just one of a number of fine hook-and-bullet bloggers to sound an alarm. Check out Chad Love here and here and here [and, heck, just nab Chad's RSS feed. He's good].

And don't miss Hal Herring's great editorial in Field & Stream, and Bob Marshall's special report, here.

Maybe you saw the April 15 NY Times article: G.O.P. Push in States to Deregulate Environment. [Alternate link via Google.] Quote:

In the past month, the nation’s focus has been on the budget battle in Washington, where Republicans in Congress aligned with the Tea Party have fought hard for rollbacks to the Environmental Protection Agency, clean air and water regulations, renewable energy and other conservation programs.

But similar efforts to make historically large cuts to environmental programs are also in play at the state level as legislatures and governors take aim at conservation and regulations they see as too burdensome to business interests.

If we hope to save our country from the ~~big oil billionaires~~ business interests that control so many of our politicians, we better get busy. Don't wait until the next Ice Age. Get busy now.

That fresh hell in the photo at the top of this post? Not China. It's Canada. And it kills me to think of it, but that toxic landscape used to be a boreal forest. Did I mention that Canada is the #1 supplier of oil to the US? Countless wildfowl die in those tailing ponds. The air, the rivers and the people — the men, women and children — who live nearby are being poisoned. But we mustn't burden the business interests! Oh, no, mustn't do that.

See also:
Boreal Songbird Initiative
Contact Elected Officials Seriously: they are public servants. They work for us.
iLoveMountains.org Because mountaintop removal mining is in a horror category of its own.

The Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Terje Sorgjerd, who created last month's awesome video of the Northern Lights, has done it again: another great video, this one filmed on 12,000+ ft stratovolcano Pico del Teide in the Canary Islands. Terje writes:

This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide.
Spain´s highest mountain @(3715m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide.

Read more here. Oh, and play the vid on full screen — it's beautiful.

H/T: the most excellent Starts With A Bang, who knows a thing or two about the night sky.

This most inconsolable of sorrows

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:49:00 +0000

Bounce at the cabin, looking for the bobcat. August 2009.

She's gone. My good girl, best, dearest, friendliest, happiest, smartest, kindest. She had the biggest and most joyful personality. All heart. All good.

Found out last fall that she would not, in fact, live forever, but I kept hoping. It's impossible that she's gone. Dear, brave, noble to the end.

Went to the shelter later, looked at the run where I first saw her 13 years ago. Everyone who knew her, loved her.

I can't believe she's gone.

I hope to heaven Julie Zickefoose can forgive me for repeating this, since it comes from a post honoring the memory of a human loved one, but I'll say it anyway: "Death is undone by love." I love you, Bounce.

Seismology quote o' the day

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 04:57:00 +0000

The San Andreas Fault runs through Cajon Pass [lower left to upper right] in Southern California. See Lost Lake in the middle of the photo? Good place to bird — I saw a Purple Martin there last year. Photo by cocoi_m on Flickr.

A most excellent comment from geologist [specializing in tectonics] and science blogger Chris Rowan, on Twitter:

Anyone using the word 'overdue' automatically forfeits their right to be taken seriously.

Chris tells it: How to (and how not to) talk about earthquake hazards in the media. USGS seismologist Susan Hough, A+! Newsweek and "journalist" Simon Winchester, F- and dunce caps all around.

H/T: Ed Yong on Twitter.

Nature, you so scary

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:00:00 +0000

"Vladimir! Put the !@$*!! camera down and get this thing off me!"

This lucky shot of an unlucky videographer [I've messed with the quality - follow link to the original] was taken by Vladimir Zaikin of Kazakhstan, and is posted on his photography blog here, in a post with other shots of raptors and their handlers. Mr. Z has some impressive landscape photos as well [and some NSFW shots elsewhere in the blog, FYI]. The photo above did some viral rounds a year or so ago, but never, as far as I can tell, with any kind of attribution. Thank you, TinEye and Google Language Tools.

Fear not, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:27:00 +0000

A couple videos of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and what you can do to help:

Reclaimed land and liquefaction: Californians will feel a chill.

This is one of the most hair-raising videos I think I've ever seen. The sight of the roofs moving in the smoke and dust...

MESSENGER:
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.

MACBETH:
Well, say, sir.

MESSENGER:
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The Wood began to move.

*************

PCMag.com has an excellent round up of "many options for online donations, as well as sites that will help you keep tabs on the rescue effort." I recommend California's own International Medical Corps: "The group said it will focus its efforts on earthquake and tsunami affected communities that have not yet been reached. To donate, text MED to 80888."

Our hearts are with Japan.

ETA: Satellite before/after shots at the NY Times here.

Quote of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 20:22:00 +0000

From Language Log:

I am sure I have said this before, but here I am saying it again, for the Guardian's editors to hear: you just cannot exaggerate the stupidity of the brigade of morons who carry on the "things they don't have words for" trope. (I should add that I hope it's stupidity. It may be worse than that: mere bullshit, written by sophisticated people who know they haven't looked for the relevant facts but couldn't care less.

Here, for good measure, is Language Log's 'No word for X' archive. Awesomesauce.

H/T, again: the most excellent and essential Ed "No one puts baby in a cohort!" Yong. I am so stealing for a tag line his "Nature! Hell yeah!" aside.

Well written

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Jessa Gamble had a close and unforgettable encounter along a frozen lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories: read A Dead World at Sunset over at the science blog The Last Word On Nothing.

H/T: the most excellent and awesome science journalist Ed Yong, whose most excellent, awesome and totally addictive blog is essential reading in these parts.

Super Cool Vid o' the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:57:00 +0000

As it happens, the day this went up on YouTube was December 3, 2007. But still: super cool.

[H/T: Will My Dog Hate Me?]

Sweet Jeebus on a dinosaur [with Finals vids and Dewi Tweed goodness]

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:39:00 +0000

Because actual scientists are just big old snobs. jesus horses by wullagaru for threadless.

For decade after weary decade there have been chuckleheads claiming that working border collies aren't all that, and who needs a real stockdog nowadays, anyway, and oh — remember to buy a pup from my non-working kennel! It's such an unoriginal, predictable sort of background noise that by now most people with working stockdogs simply tune it out.

Retrieverman is the latest to troll these waters, with a post entitled, of all things, Intellectual honesty on the effects of trials and shows. [H/T: For the Pit Bulls.] The one bit of intellectual honesty you'll find in his post is this admission: "I know next to nothing about actual herding trials."

And I'll be darned if he doesn't proceed to write paragraph after paragraph demonstrating just how little he knows about working stockdogs and actual herding trials. Seriously, I can't wait for his "Don't know much about geology" post.

A few points. First: nice to know that the press coverage of the USBCHA Finals has made an impact. Working border collies are amazing dogs, and it can't be repeated often enough that the border collie's brains and biddability and athleticism are a direct result of rigorous selection for stockwork, as opposed to rigorous selection for a pronounced stop.

Point Two: if you think the following comment by BC Board moderator Eileen Stein is "the funniest bullshit [you've] ever seen," you might be as ignorant of working stockdogs as Retriever Man:

[Border collies] are like Alaskan Huskies in that they are bred to a working standard rather than an appearance standard, and they are a breed rather than a type in that they have been bred to that working standard long enough that they almost always meet that working standard better than any other kind of dog.
[...]
Alaskan Huskies don't have a registry and border collies do -- that's the only significant difference.

I think the part he missed is that working sheepdogs and racing huskies are bred for different purposes, but who the hell knows. And not that racing husky people concern themselves with bloodlines or anything like that.

Point Three: there is nothing esoteric about a USBCHA sheepdog trial. Any stockdog remotely deserving of the description should be able to gather stock, drive the stock to specific areas, and help sort and pen the stock. This isn't rocket science: I've seen Lhasa Apsos manage it in a small corral with tame sheep — which, I should emphasize, doesn't mean that Lhasa Apsos represent the gold standard of stock work, however proud of their efforts you may be. A really good stockdog will be able to accomplish those tasks in wide-open, unfamiliar terrain, in an efficient manner, with unfamiliar stock. That's what a USBCHA sheepdog trial tests, and if that's hard to understand, I'm Lady Gaga.

Finally, if you'd like to see some of the best stockdogs in North America demonstrating their prowess in September's 2010 National Sheepdog Finals [and I would dearly love to watch some of those runs again], head over to the Finals Web Cast page and sign up for their pay-per-view. As Heather Nadelman reports, "You can skip around in the video and watch it in chunks at your leisure — the clock only ticks against your purchased hours if you're logged into the player." At 400-some yards the Belle Grove trial field was smallish [to this westerner], but the sheep were plenty challenging and the best work was awesome. Yes, I'm looking at you, Riggs and Patrick Shanahan :~)))

*************

This isn't from our Finals, but what a nice vid it is: Richard Millichap's most awesome Dewi Tweed gathers sheep in the Welsh mountains. Enjoy! [For those interested in the border collie's "genetic bottleneck," Kinloch has a link to Tweed's pedigree, with the inbreeding coefficient numbers listed for his ISDS parents and grandparents.]

2010 National Sheepdog Finals

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 05:15:00 +0000

Now with live streaming video of the 40 semi-final runs on Saturday and the double-lift final on Sunday! Awesome.

Jenny Glen is providing great play-by play here, and Heather Nadelman is doing yeoman's work and much more here. Check out additional reports from top competitors Bev Lambert and Robin French.

Have I mentioned that the splendid border collies at the National Finals are the best working sheepdogs in North America? Slick-coated, rough-coated, wire-faced [Polly Matzinger's James ran in the Finals on Wednesday] — yet for all their diversity in appearance, how similar they are in their aptitude for the work! Eileen Stein explains:

[Border collies] are like Alaskan Huskies in that they are bred to a working standard rather than an appearance standard, and they are a breed rather than a type in that they have been bred to that working standard long enough that they almost always meet that working standard better than any other kind of dog[...] Alaskan Huskies don't have a registry and border collies do -- that's the only significant difference.

[As you can imagine, this sort of talk gives conformation breeders apoplexy.]

Here's a lovely sheepdog trial photo, though there are no sheep in sight: this is Dennis Birchall with Mossie and Flash, the 2009 International Brace Champions. Yes, those are border collies. How I love slick-coats:

Dennis Birchall has won the Irish National six times, and is one of four most excellent judges at Belle Grove for our 2010 National Finals. Dennis, Mossie and Flash represented Ireland again this year at the International Supreme Championship in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, a county whose motto, fittingly enough, is "Through trial to triumph," but the triumph in brace this time went to Richard Hutchinson with Roy and Sweep. Michael Gallagher and Cap were 2010 International Supreme Champions — you can find more results at the ISDS website here.

Yes, I am insanely jealous of all the handlers, dog bloggers and others attending the Finals at Belle Grove. Thank god for that streaming video, is all I can say.

About the double lift

About the International shed

Great read: The Dog Wars by Donald McCaig
Zamora Hills [and some dog show]
This is not herding.

Walla, trois de la fourrière [translation: it's a Costco dog bed!]

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Yes, it's hard for the dogs to stay put, what with the fun-house floors and all. They keep me awake all night with their rolling from one end of the cabin to the other [sigh].

Walla, I'll have y'all know, is not just an Indian suffix indicating a person involved in some kind of activity, or half the name of a county seat in the northwest. No, readers, "walla" is a loan word, and this most excellent spelling was invented by a west coast rancher and sheepdogger. He was headed to Canada to judge a trial in 2002:

For me it started getting on the plane from San Francisco, California, USA. I knew it was going to be a challenge because my passport hadn't come in and the officials said I needed 2 federal picture I.D.'s. After all the hoopla and dance the official asked if I had a Costco Card with my picture on it and walla, I had it and on we go. [From Sheepdog-L.]

Can't see that happening in today's ~~police state~~ land o' the free, now, can we?

But anyhow. I can't think of Costco these days without 1) saying Walla! to myself, or 2) thinking of cheap dog-beds. Huge, cheap dog-beds. Bounce was sleeping on one of them this morning, and then Smoke curled up next to her, and then the landshark came diving in for some Smoke-wuv, and there I was trying to aim over my shoulder with the little point 'n' shoot. Good times, good times ;~)

[heart]

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:45:00 +0000

My best girl ever takes a snooze at the cabin. Labor Day weekend, 2010.

SB 250 is dead, yay [whew!]

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:42:00 +0000

According to a nice phone person in Assemblymember Monning's office as of 7:35 or so.

I sure hope this is the final stake through the heart of [state-wide] mandatory spay/neuter. From my lips to doG's ear...

UPDATE: Then again... see Save Our Dogs for the latest.

UPDATE II: It's 10:15 PM, and darned if this crappy bit of legislation isn't being voted on again. Sheesh.

Aaaaaaand UPDATE III: SB 250 not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead.

Huge props to Laura S of Save Our Dogs for all she's done and continues to do for dogs and the Californians who care about them.

And so to bed.

Home range

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:06:00 +0000

In the San Bernardino Mountains, looking north towards Big Bear Lake from the high country along Forest Road 2N10. Click photos to embiggen.

The San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California are a transverse range, which means they run east-west, unlike most mountain ranges in North America. If I remember correctly, California has the only transverse ranges in the nation. Geology is ~~hella~~ hecka interesting in these parts. Thank you, tectonic plates! The east end of Big Bear Valley is lower in elevation, hotter and drier — Mojave Desert to the east, Sonoran Desert to the south — but the west is green and high and wonderful.

If you're feeling adventurous you can reach Big Bear Lake from the south via Forest Road 1N54: Clark's Grade. Back in the early 1900s this dirt track was the main road to the lake, and visitors generally traveled in the motorized stages operated by White's Mountain Auto Line. My mother's father drove a stage for the Mountain Auto Line every summer while he was a student at USC. I'm looking at his badges right now, along with a photo of Grandpa and his fellow drivers in front of the Freight & Passenger Station at Big Bear Lake. "Registered Chauffeur": 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919. It was in 1916 that my great-grandmother got the lot lease for the cabin.

Clark's Grade was [is] a series of dusty switchbacks, and it must have been an experience to drive up the Grade in an open stage. The descent from Clark's Summit [elevation 8000'] into Big Bear Valley is beautiful. Bluff Lake and Metcalf Meadows are as lovely today as they must have looked to visitors escaping the inland valley heat back in 1916. [Speaking of which: 99F down the hill today — 79F at the cabin.] The stages used to rumble down Mill Creek Road [below our cabin] and pass through the toll gate at Oak Knoll Lodge, and then they'd roll on a few more miles to the other lodges and hotels by the lake.

Nowadays the main roads to Big Bear are City Creek [Highway 330] and Highways 18 and 38. Clark's Grade, the toll gates and the old dirt roads are ancient history. Those roads belong to mountain bikers now, and to high-clearance vehicles like my trusty Ford pickup. On a recent drive to Bluff Lake [it's two/three miles from the cabin] and then east for seven miles to Moonridge via 2N10, we saw maybe a dozen mountain bikers, and just three or four motor vehicles.

A marshy meadow at the east end of Bluff Lake.

Ferns along the north shore. I was birding here in early June [a month before these photos were taken] and there were no ferns in sight — just pine needles and scattered banks of snow.

From the gallery of Unfortunate Family Photos: my sis holds a confab with Lily the Pug at one of the forest's countless boulder formations.

Bluff Lake, with mallards.

I know what you're thinking: this rock would look better with a pug.

And walla, as we say here in California. Much better.

Home, sweet home: old cabin on the north shore of Bluff Lake. From left: Grayling the border collie [who turned eleven in July], my beautiful sis, and the always photogenic Princess LilyPug.