In my glory

It's been a lovely couple days. Aside from Friday morning, when I had to catch some piglets, it's been largely gardening with some pottery and some socialization, plus organization-without-having-to-lead-things, cat snuggling during much-needed rain, and more gardening.

Thursday was supposed to be pottery day. We were going to be learning the kiln but the teacher cancelled on us and one of the volunteers also cancelled, so three of us opened the kiln (stuff looked good) and then one went home and the other organized the studio some while I (tried to) throw some pots. I was definitely off my game, which I've been expecting -- I've only thrown a couple times since 2014 and there's a strong curve from "first time or two back are good" through "lost everything and keep failing" and then back into "solid skill and also solid muscles" with almost everything I do. So I'm going to need to do a lot of throwing for the next bit to actually build my skills back to be able to do what I did the first couple times.

Anyhow, the other volunteer left and I got some time alone with the wheel and some music just to play, which was lovely. Oh, and my seed potatoes arrived.

When I got home I had a bunch of tidying to do and I was tired and slow, so I ended up doing animal chores at midnight. Amazingly for May there was a warm wind and the moon was full and very very bright. I didn't need a flashlight.

I had Friday off. I got a sunburn while catching piglets, and got the tiniest warning nip from Hooligan. It's the first time I've been touched with teeth by a pig, and we were closing the catch on a crate with a screaming baby in it, so I don't blame her at all. She also just barely touched, but the message was clear. She let me settle her with some scritches after so she doesn't hold it against me. It was a hot day, hotter than some of our summers have managed to achieve, made hotter by the fact that not a single leaf is on the trees yet. Weird spring indeed.

Friday afternoon was planting willows at the arts building. We'd planned to put in a basketry willow hedge in rainbow order: some willows are purple, some red, some yellow, some green, some almost grey. The plan was to line them up in coherent order to block off an area of path where people tend to walk, to make something pretty, and also to give us willows for making basketry in the future. Beyond that there didn't seem to be anyone particular planning it exactly: someone got the district workers to take the sod off the area, someone else got a grant and got the willow cuttings and irrigation line and then went on vacation, and someone else took over planting within the necessary window. I'm not sure anyone who was involved had planted into lawns before and of course I am a pro at it, having done it nearly every move in Vancouver. Luckily I noticed that it was just rock-hard subsoil the day before and we got a tiller sorted out, then some rebar to make holes beyond the depth we could till. Roughly 350 willows were planted, 19 types. I ended up with the extra cuttings, which I need to plant basically right now.

While we were working - I think 7 different people showed up to help by the end - there was a lovely lightning/thunderstorm with warm sprinkling rain so erratic that it would be raining on one person and not on the next five feet away.

Today was Saturday it had rained overnight. I spent the morning picking away at the raspberries and trimming dead out of them in the morning. After awhile doing that I raked the main garden so I could till, dug some extra raspberries, and then it started raining so I took a break. The garlic is finally coming up; I planted many different kinds last fall and somehow everyone else's garlic was up but mine wasn't, so I thought it had died. Actually, nearly overnight everything sort of started: alder catkins are falling everywhere, the haskaps somehow into leaf without ever swelling their buds, my plum tree flower buds swelling, grass everywhere, the clover seeded into my lawn showing cotyledons, willow blossoms everywhere.

With it overcast all day and not too windy this was the first day my tomatoes were outside all day.

The afternoon was cleanup and evening was going in to get the expired grocery store feed for the pigs, but I had time to catalogue the willows this evening.

Tomorrow is supposed to rain. I really want to get this lower garden tilled but I don't want to harm the soil by tilling in the rain. So my menu is:

Till the lower garden in order to:
-plant favas
-plant onions
-plant kale
-plant lettuce
-plant other garlic

Plant elderberry cuttings
Plant willow cuttings
Plant seed potatoes
Start hardening off TPS potatoes
Figure out 3rd incubator
Feed out loop/grocery store food
Start raking/tidying upper garden
Load truck with garbage
Separate doubled tomatoes and put some in the aerogardens
Move some stuff into the storage container
Plant raspberries outside the fence by the electric poles
Cut back the spruce hedge
Cut back the cedars
Cardboard the south hillside
Manure the asparagus
Set up nests for geese

Humans and nonhumans

Two moments from the last few days that require some observation:

One of the willow volunteers does a ton of physical outdoorsy sportsy stuff in his free time: climbing, snowshoeing, hiking, etc. It's been suggested to me that he handles his emotions by doing a ton of physical stuff (like my mom) though this is the first time I met him. He also has a lot of charisma, and it's funny because his charisma was 100% similar to mine in the way it operated: that sort of warm attentive twinkle, the sense of focus, the type of question, the type of approval offered. I know a couple people who operate like that and it's always odd to be on the other side. He was also trying to make eye contact and I was doing the ultra-autistic zero eye contact. I make eye contact to ramp up intimacy, and he was already doing attentive intimacy so it would have felt super odd to meet his eyes in that situation. This is not someone I'm interested in going there with.

This morning I heard someone shouting so I ambled outside. I have a neighbour two down who has a pair of absolutely magnificent guardian-breed dogs (I don't know what breed specifically, maybe pyrenees, but the size, coat, colouring, and carriage are unmistakable). He's had them for maybe a year, or almost a year, and they're always immaculately groomed and he's constantly walking them and working on either boundary training or invisible fence training with them, they seem incredibly well taken care of. I was therefore surprised when one of the dogs was, in true guardian fashion, standing at the edge of his property looking down the road and the owner was repeatedly yelling at him to come back, sounding upset/angry. The other dog was, also in true guardian fashion, ambling back towards his owner.

I did a lot of research on guardian breeds and a lot of research on training when I got my pups. It was all just words until we spent some time together, at which point it became so ingrained into me that I don't think about it anymore.

Guardian breeds have a job. They know their job, and they have moral certainty that they should do it and do it well. They're smart, determined, problem-solving, and driven. They're also generally very confident, to different levels based somewhat on breed (independent vs partnered-with-humans workers) and somewhat on personality. Trying to make them not-guard when they think there's a problem is setting everyone involved up for trouble and conflict both external and internal. LGDs can often be convinced (by a trusted person) that something is safe and doesn't need to be guarded against, but they can't be convinced to respond without thinking in the same way that so many other dogs can. They're always evaluating the best way to do their job. Thea has come to get me when there was a wolf she couldn't handle. Avallu has slowly learned I'd prefer he get me if there are humans at the gate, instead of feeling like he has to deal with it himself (Tornjaks are one of the more people-oriented LGD breeds).

Plus, dog training isn't separate from life. Every thing I do is feedback for my dogs, and likewise everything they do is feedback for me. Training isn't about forcing them to do something, disciplining them if they don't, or imposing my will on them. It's just figuring out the most effective interspecies communication, and making sure that my behaviour consistently aligns their interests with mine.

So to come back to the neighbour and a bit of foreboding I had: my dogs really like to mark right outside my gate, so when I open my gate to drive the truck in they go out. At first they would run down the road, I'd call them (Avallu is moderately deaf, so I'd sign to him, but he's also more headstrong) they would keep running down the road to clear and mark the area (because disincentivizing things they're guarding against is best done further away, it's safer from their POV), I'd go get them, bring them in, and ignore them because they'd done the bad thing of running too far. This was not working for anyone. I'd read that every recall is a training session, and that dogs won't come to someone who primarily yells at them, but at some point it clicked. Instead of ignoring them when I got them back in, I had a little hug-and-pet party with them. Now as soon as the motor turns off on the truck they run back and find me for hugs, after having done close-by marking as I pull in. I'd changed from a disciplinary mindset to a teamwork mindset and it made a huge quality-of-life difference to everyone.

That's why I feel a little uneasy when I hear my neighbour yelling at his pups for recall. This is the first time I've heard that, but: they're coming up on the big shift that happens around 2, when their guardian instincts kick in and they become more independent. They are never going to be a dog like a herding dog which lives to instantly obey: they will always think it through first. There are two of them and they probably almost outweigh him individually: these aren't dogs that can be physically controlled or disciplined (not that any dog should be physically disciplined, eep). They can also be very dangerous dogs. So I hope he sorts out a good way to communicate with them, and also that they don't, for instance decide to guard his home from other humans. I am wishing him the best of luck, they are glorious dogs.

Poem-a-day catchup

#9 Highway of tears on red dress day

Discarded red dress
Weather-beaten, rain-faded
Never forgotten.

Abandoned red dress
Ignored, highwayside, until
Marchers lift it high.

Discarded women
Red dresses line the highway
Marching in hope


#10 Wedding Morning

Fertile soil, they call it
I check.
Hand thrusts into the earth.
Is it moist?
Is it soft?
Does it accept my touch?
I plant my seed slowly and deliberately
Or sometimes I scatter it by fistfuls.
I ensure
The burgeoning earth
The continuance of my line
So that those after me may be
As those before me were
Wedded to the soil.

#11 Survivor Bias During Breakup Season

Every year I write a poem about
Breakup season
Because
Breakup season
Always comes.

Snow always melts.
Ice always cracks
And gets blown clear to the far shore.

Every year I write a poem about
Breakup season
Because
Under the snow there are
Always
Flowers.