The Sunday Schnauzer – What We Found On The Trail This Time

On July 7, 2024June 30, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer43 Comments

Last Sunday, I showed you a cell phone (and a bag of trash) that we picked up on the trail. Well, this time we picked up (or truth-be-told, were picked up by) another dog.

This young female bounded out of a side trail and glommed onto the both of us immediately. She wouldn’t leave us, even when we met other doggos (and their minders) that were more her size and amenable to her…ahem…rough, playful energy.

No tags or ID to be found on her pretty collar.

We went to a nearby holiday trailer park resort but no one there recognized “Missy” (as another person on social media named her. More on that later…). I kept hoping that she would bound away again at some point but Missy followed us all the way home. I gave her food (a couple of cups of Bowser’s ~~horrifically expensive~~ schnauzer chow) and water and secured her in my daughter’s yard. I took Bowser to my place and posted about Missy on our community’s Facebook page and also on ROAM (as one person on the trail suggested). I also called Animal Control to come pick her up as she wouldn’t let me touch her – despite her apparent friendliness – and there was no way I could coax her into a vehicle to take her anywhere.

Missy was howling at being left in my daughter’s yard all alone, and when I went to check on Missy then Bowser was barking at being left behind at my house. So we all ended up together, waiting for Animal Control…

Bowser keeping a watchful eye on this stranger in his yard.

Despite the size difference, Bowser was acknowledged as the “top dog”. *Rightfully so*, Bowser wants me to add 😉.

Animal Control did show up about an hour later and they were no more successful at getting close to her than I was. Things escalated, and Missy escaped through the back fence and into the neighbourhood. I saw a lot of Facebook postings about her after that, and the next day another person was able to get her secured, and again Animal Control was contacted. By this time, all of us who encountered Missy were thinking along the same lines: that she had been “dumped” – abandoned by her owners – and left to fend for herself.

What was especially heart-breaking about this situation was reading on Facebook about how exhausted and scared, and also that Missy had returned to the trail and was found lying beside a pile of women’s clothing. Which makes me wonder if the clothing contained the scent of her former owners, or reminded her of them somehow. I really do believe she was abandoned, and perhaps that person had left the clothing there to get her to stay near that spot.

This time Animal Control were successful, and (not without a huge struggle) Missy was contained and taken away – hopefully to be adopted into a more loving home than her last one.

As someone who grew up on an isolated property on the outskirts of town, I am no stranger to animals being dumped. At least once a year a car would pull up at our house (usually in the middle of the night) and a dog or cat would be cast out, and then the car would accelerate away. I suppose they thought because we had a large property with pets and a barn, we would welcome more pets. Once in a wee while we did, but mostly we had to take them to the local SPCA as we already had enough animals of our own to care for.

Please love your animals and, if you can’t look after them anymore, take them to an agency that will try to rehome them. Don’t leave it to chance.*

Rock on,

The WB

*I know I am preaching to the choir here. None of my regular readers would ever be so cruel as to abandon an animal. I felt I had to close this post with this message, though. I apologize that it is not my usual cute little doggy post.

What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Give Peas A Chance Edition

On July 3, 2024June 29, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures in Food, Dragonfly Cottage Garden 2024, What's On Your Plate24 Comments

Despite a cold, wet spring here on the Island, things are happening in my little garden! And I am “shopping” daily in my backyard to put things on my plate.

I planted peas for the first time – snow, sugar snap and shelling peas – all of which are becoming my go-to snacks as well as being featured at meal time.

I’ve been making a lot of these simple and quick rice bowl meals.

No recipe – just a variety of peas from the garden, cooked rice, a protein (smoked sausage, here) and a dollop of Sambal Badjak (Indonesian pepper paste) run through it all.

And for dessert?

Another simple meal of berries and yogurt.

Please join me and my co-host Donna (she’s back!!!) and let us know what’s on your plate this month! Feel free to leave a link in the Comments or join the Link Party:

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Dog Math

On June 30, 2024June 24, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer33 Comments

I’ve been working for a while now at the Come Command with Bowser. (With Schnauzers, it DO take a while. They are stubborn creatures. IYKYK!). He is pretty good at responding (and quickly) now that he knows there are treats involved. Usually.

*Bowser, come!* Running hell bent for leather, anticipating a reward.

Now that I’ve got your full attention… *Pardon the dirty fingers. I did a spontaneous trash pick up on this walk. I usually plan these things better, and pack gloves to wear.*

Bowser’s Dog Math: only 1 treat instead of 2 = no treat given; treats fall to ground and not eaten out of hand = no treat given; one treat falls to ground and one eaten out of hand = no treat given. *If you think your dog can’t do math, try showing him 4 treats and only give him 3.*

Camera focused on proper “person” now! Get a load of that steely gaze. What focus! What concentration!

This walk’s trash haul. I can only pick up the small items and I only stopped gathering because the bag is full. *Sad*.

I also found a cell phone on this walk. Thanks to the power of social media, it was quickly reunited with its rightful owner.

The morning’s exciting (*snacks!!!*) walk over; time for a snuggle and a nap. *When are you joining me on the couch, Oma?*

We hope you are having an exciting weekend, with lots of snacks.

Rock on,

The WB

A Glutton For Punishment – Kayak Skills Course Level 1

On June 29, 2024June 29, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures in Retirement, Badassery, Goals & Dreams, Sea Kayaking38 Comments

Longtime readers may remember that I took a Basic Kayak Skills course almost a year ago. You can read about that, here. Even though I gained much in knowledge and confidence from that course I knew there was still much more I needed to learn, and further training was definitely going to be on the agenda.

After all, my aim as I am aging and adventuring is to “Be an inspiration, not a cautionary tale!” 😉 🤣

To that end it was a no-brainer to go back to Caroline Ross and her company CrossCurrents Kayak to grow my sea kayaking knowledge and skills.

Caroline Ross, owner of CrossCurrents Kayak – ready to school us in trip planning via a marine chart. Photo taken at Brickyard Beach Community Park in Nanoose.

After Basic, the next rung on the Paddle Canada ladder for skills certification is Sea Kayak Skills – Level 1. In this weekend-long course I practiced all the rescue skills and strokes learned in the first course plus I learned the basics on how to read a marine chart and navigation, where to find weather and tide information and what it means to paddlers, and even more rescue techniques and strokes (including the all-important self-rescue).

All photos from this point forward were taken by Caroline and generously shared to our group.

First day of practice and I am heading to my boat – At Westwood Lake in Nanaimo.

Our group rafting up, including someone you may know on the far left – Jude of the North aka Dr. Sock Writes Here. As you can see, the weather was not ideal (or was it, since we were going to be wet anyways? 🤔). Rain, rain and more rain. *Look at how comfortable Greg and Kirsten look in their matching drysuits…hmmmm*.

First of many planned capsizes of the day, while Jude looks on.

Practicing a self-rescue using a paddle float.

Beginning a heel hook re-entry. Thankfully Caroline stopped snapping at this point, leaving the graceless heaving of my carcass back onto my boat to your imagination 😉.

By close to the end of that day, I was a shivering, teeth-chattering mess. And I was starting to think that a dry-suit might not be that ~~fucking~~ ~~damn~~ ~~prohibitively~~ expensive after all.

Second day – Brickyard Beach, Nanoose Bay

Marine chart on deck for navigation, I am heading to Southey Island with our group, for a lunch stop. If I remind you of the Michelin Man, it is because I am wearing a merino t-shirt under a Farmer Jane wetsuit, topped with long-sleeve merino base layer and followed by a full wetsuit topped with a paddling jacket. I did not want a repeat of the previous day’s shivering!

Practicing a contact tow rescue maneuver with Jude.

Securing mine and Greg’s paddle before he practices using a “stirrup” to get back in his boat.

Securing Greg’s boat with my body while he works with stirrup (the yellow band) set up.

As you might have noticed, the weather was much more favourable on Day 2. Even though we were in the colder ocean, I stayed warmer due to all my layers and the rise in ambient temperature.

Once again, I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and confidence in such a short period of time. I also learned that I’m going to stop at Level 1 Certification. Level 2 involves building skills for activities that I don’t anticipate ever doing – such as choosing to kayak in rougher waters than I’d ever be comfortable in. Level 1 was plenty hard enough on my body and I have the bruises to prove it!

Thanks to this course, on my shopping list ~~as if I didn’t already own enough gear~~ is:

a C-Tug kayak cart
a paddling stirrup
a few more dry bags
and, of course – a drysuit!

I can’t recommend Caroline and CrossCurrents Kayak enough. You can find her not only on her website, but also on Facebook and Instagram.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Backyard Chillin’

On June 23, 2024June 22, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer26 Comments

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

The Zen of Bowser.

We hope you are keeping cool and planning adventures this weekend.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Patio King

On June 16, 2024June 14, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer22 Comments

It’s patio season again! And as usual, it’s a race to get to my favourite seat before you know who claims it first.

I’m so nicely settled in here. This is *Da Life*.

What? You thought this was *your* seat, Oma?

All hail the Patio King! We hope you are having a royally good weekend.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Toe Beans

On June 9, 2024May 25, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer21 Comments

Just because …

Zen moment of sleeping twitchy toe beans.

We hope you see some cute toe beans this weekend (even if they are your own).

Rock on,

The WB

What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Mad About Rhubarb Edition

On June 5, 2024May 25, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures in Food, Dragonfly Cottage Garden 2024, What's On Your Plate33 Comments

True confession time: the last time I can recall eating stewed rhubarb was the night before I gave birth to my son. I was 2 days over my due date, it was August in Ontario, Canada (if you know, you know), and I was completely over being ~~a whale a walking refrigerator a weeble~~ pregnant. I thought the rhubarb might get something started, and…my son was born at 930am the next morning. So all hail the power of rhubarb! Actually, my daughter was also born exactly 2 days past my expected date too, and no rhubarb was involved. But let’s give kudos and credit to the all-knowing, all-powerful rhubarb!

Anyhoodle! Flash forward to the present day (almost 39 years later), and I finally have gotten around to stewing my own rhubarb from my own garden again. I can’t explain the long break other than to say I had somehow convinced myself that I didn’t like rhubarb and since I had no pregnancy to push (pardon the pun 😉) to conclusion, there was no need to eat any! Gentle reader, how wrong I was…

This spring I rediscovered this amazing plant (conveniently growing in my backyard) and have been on a bit of a rhubarb tear, ever since.

The first of many batches of stewed rhubarb, from my garden.

Stewed rhubarb in my morning oatmeal and cottage cheese.

Stewed rhubarb stirred into Greek yogurt.

I have also discovered the wonder that is a rhubarb crisp.

Rhubarb crisp with ice cream. My family helped me empty the dish, in case you were wondering 😉.

Rhubarb is such a tough and amazing plant – you’ll know just how tough it is if you ever try to remove it from your yard, like my son-in-law is trying with his rhubarb patch It’s not that he doesn’t like rhubarb – he just wants to put something else in that prime growing location. Good luck with that, SIL!

How do you feel about the wonderful spring tonic that is rhubarb? How do you use it, if you do?

Please tell all in the Comments! This month my lovely co-host Donna has gone walkies so you just get me and no link party either, as that is her area of expertise. Sorry, eh! 🇨🇦

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Doggy Masseuse

On June 2, 2024May 25, 2024 By Widow BadassIn Adventures with dogs, Bowser the Schnauzer18 Comments

Have I mentioned before that Bowser likes to be petted as he drifts off to sleep? Well, he also enjoys a luxurious massage as he wakes back up. I did not see doggy masseuse on my retirement bingo card, but here we are.