Kineo’s gift

Kineo, our ancient beagle boy, passed on to new adventures a few days ago. He died on my birthday.

Your dog dying on your birthday sounds like the saddest blues song ever. And it was. But there were gifts in it, too. Between my tears, squeezed out from heartache, I am able to acknowledge the timing, the lessons about beginnings that eventually must turn to endings, and back to new beginnings. I am accepting Kineo’s gift.

Kineo was the first and last thing I “did” each morning and every night. “Thank you for being my dog again today, and for being the best dog ever,” I’d say, wrapping him in a velvety hug. Then I’d regale him with an ever growing litany of noble titles before going to get my coffee or going off to bed. You’re welcome, he’d snuffle, his big brown eyes pouring the depths of his love right back at me. And he’d keep on keeping on—for days, weeks, years beyond what a seasoned beagle owner in her right mind (or any dog owner) could reasonably expect. He was two months shy of turning sixteen.

It almost got to be a joke, how he’d keep needing his annual shots, his celebratory cans of Ol’ Roy gravy dinner, and another five-pounder box of biscuits. I’d mark the calendar for his birthdays, then his half-birthday and, finally, his three-quarters birthday just before Mother’s Day. I’d do the dog-to-human years calculations thinking nobody must have told him he was pushing a hundred and twelve. Until there was no more fooling Mother Nature.

In the end, Kineo gave me the gift of one more boat ride, of watching his ears flap softly in the breeze as his nose tried to hoover out every last early summer scent coming off the lake. He devoted all of his days to making the best of mine, of ours. He shared the wonder of living every moment close to the earth, far from worry. And the grace of going peacefully, gratefully, when the time was right. He came to us a dark, stocky little puppy, ready to live up to his rugged Maine mountain name, and left a wizened, lumpy old hound happy to just waddle around after us and sleep in the sun.

On the afternoon of my birthday, Kineo listened mostly with his heart as I smiled through my tears, kissed his old grey head, and whispered one more time. “Thank you for being my dog again today, and the best dog ever. My Lord Bemis camp beagle, ruler of the afghan realm, the far rug regions, the tall pillow plateaus, the deep, dark blanket bayous, the vast, uncharted forest floors, and all the known couch counties. For being my sultan of the Subaru, titan of the Toyota, baron of the biscuits, guardian of the garden, and prince of the porch piddles. For living in regal beagle splendor all of your days, until this last day, Mumma’s birthday, the twenty-seventh day of May in your sixteenth year Atta Doggonie.”

And then we closed the circle.

First deer, lasting lessons

NOTE:
The following was written by my daughter and first guest blogger, Becky Clough.

In early November, while at home in Maine, I shot my first deer. It was a gorgeous, golden fall morning a mere three days into the season, when a brawny buck with an early rut on the mind strode into the light of his final feed. With great weightiness I can say he did not know I was 50 yards away sitting so still, rifle raised, poised for a swift, ethical shot that I took without hesitation. He dropped in his tracks.

I approached the large beautiful animal, sobbing with disbelief. Taking my gloves off, I knelt with a hand on his head, put an acorn I’d been carrying in his mouth, then gave him a drink of my water. In offering his spirit a last bit of food and drink, I attempted to establish a grounding place—a foundation of respect for experiencing the long, arduous and emotionally complex process of actually harvesting my own meat instead of just thinking about it. This moment was three hunting seasons in the making, backed by unyielding support and education on the matter from my Dad. Although I’d spent countless hours sitting still, walking slowly, scanning the snow-filled forests of northern Idaho and western Maine, seeing deer tracks as I lay in bed at night every November, it never seemed like actually being in the right place at the right time, with the right wind, facing the right direction could ever manifest into a real deer. Until it did, quite suddenly. 

After a congratulatory 6:20 AM sip of my Dad’s whiskey, and being engulfed in a long, proud hug wherein I wept into my Dad’s chest (and he told me whatever I felt was completely acceptable) it was time to snap a few photos and do the real work. (More thoughts on taking photos later.) Riding waves of emotion—disbelief, gratitude, heartache, sadness, relief—I committed to field dressing the animal while getting the feel of a buck knife in my hand as the third generation of Clough to carry it. I attempted to be careful and composed doing, frankly, the most grisly of tasks, which I’d only observed once before.  I knew, though, that burying how I felt was not the point of hunting, and had never been one of my goals. In those visceral moments, bloodied and profoundly human, I was connected to my best self. Diving into something I did not fully understand, I was focused while also feeling. I was vulnerable, inexperienced and alright with it, telling myself it was okay to feel pleased and broken-hearted at the same time. Fifteen minutes later, as I removed the still-warm heart of that animal to bring home to a dinner plate, I felt a conflicted sort of contentment I’d been living too far away from for too long. 

And yes, in regard to the tradition of posing in camo holding up the head of a beautiful, wild animal you’ve just shot, it is weird. And tiring. But I did smile. I also understood why, to folks who do not approve of hunting, such photos (and hunting in general) appear, at face value, to be grimly sporty and soul-less. How could I smile in a moment of such melancholy? Minutes before in my adrenaline-fueled cry, wasn’t I just lamenting how it felt so suddenly wrong because I respect wild animals perhaps more than I do most people? Well, I did not set out on this journey with expectations about the size or weight of a deer, or about counting antler tines as a way to determine my camouflaged prowess. I never thought in the many years that lay ahead of me I’d see a buck quite that mature while hunting, never mind have the right conditions to shoot it. Even now, weeks later, I still feel odd when my Dad, who is not known for his pride, urges me to show so-and-so the picture of my “big buck.”

I became a hunter in adulthood with a handful of simple goals: I wanted to keep putting effort into pursuits that lend to my increased self-sufficiency by way of filling my own freezer. I wanted to eat food that connects me physically and emotionally to a place and that place’s ecosystem. I wanted to remember that when I am eating meat I am eating an animal; an animal that lived wild and well and died quickly. I wanted to carve out a place in my own heritage from which I had become disconnected. 

I am smiling in the photos. I’m smiling because I’m accomplishing my goals, because I know that few other hunters would feel the same deep sense of reverence I felt next to that animal, it being my first. I’m smiling because, for the next year I’ll have a freezer full of the best, leanest, 100% truly organic meat I can eat and share with my friends and family. I’m smiling because my Dad is taking a picture of his daughter, a successful hunter. 

The following few days were filled with more opportunities to learn and feel my way through harvesting my own meat. With my nose to the grindstone alongside my experienced hunting buddies, I had space and time to verbally process my way through skinning, quartering, cleaning and butchering every morsel of venison off that deer, for which I am truly grateful. Under caring tutelage, I was shown the basics of the entire process, learning by doing things I don’t believe I could have tackled alone. It really wasn’t until that last step—butchering—that the whole experience started to feel less macabre and barbaric and more acceptable and satisfying. In fact, I found great joy in butchering, a task that was surprisingly intuitive and mindful. Finally getting to decide how thick I wanted my chops, what recipes I wanted to use with my rounds, whether or not I wanted more stew or burger throughout my winter, brought deer hunting back into a realm that felt well-balanced and wholly worth it.

It feels prudent as well to recognize that, although hunting is the original task, being able to and choosing to do it in modern times is a privilege not to be overlooked. Like many other sporting activities, hunting has become more expensive and commercialized than it needs to be. Even if done “on the cheap”, using thrift store camo that doesn’t fit, and a hand-me-down rifle, venison does not pay for itself. The monetary cost of hunter education, licenses, tags, firearms, ammunition and gas money can’t compare to the further luxuries of being mentored, of having the free time to scout, spend time at the range, and sit quietly in the woods for hours on end. I am grateful to afford and have access to such privileges. 

But by far the best part of my hunt has come in the weeks to follow. Telling stories, and preparing meals with my loved ones. Sharing the bounty. There isn’t a more labor intense and pleasingly authentic meal I could eat, or pay for anywhere in the world, than the meals I’ve been eating with this venison. The first bite I took of tenderloin, seared in a well-seasoned hot cast iron and deglazed with the bourbon we had on hand, actually brought tears to my eyes. For a big, older 4×5 deer, the meat is tender and mouth watering. Besides the taste, and the umami unique to well prepared wild game, eating food that I brought from the forest to the table is an experience unparalleled yet in my life.

20191104_112642

Channeling my inner beagle

All I really need to know about retirement I’m learning from my beagle.

It’s not that I lack two-legged role models. My husband Tom, who should be a poster boy for AARP, is a shining example, as are many friends and family who have crossed this bridge before me. But when it comes to learning from the best, old Kineo dog is my Zen Master.

I always thought leaving the world of work-for-pay behind would feel more eagle-like than beagle-like. I’d soar up, up and away from earth-bound limits and weighty commitments, honing my sights back down on what I really wanted and needed. But then my path toward retirement became as roundabout as a rabbit trail through the pucker brush. And when I finally made it to the finish line, I was channeling b + eagle energy.

Sleep. Eat. Romp around. Repeat. Become enraptured by a leaf. Let the wind tickle your nose and flap your ears back. Drop when you’re weary but scamper while you can. Kineo’s teachings are as simple as they are profound. He’s never read the Tao Te Ching and can’t begin to explain how he walks his path with so much delight and gratitude. And he certainly doesn’t know that “freedom from attachment” is a thing. Still, he shows me “The Way” way better than my shelves full of New Age books and hours of fireside philosophizing.

“Watch and learn from the Beagle Buddha,” I remind myself whenever Tom and I take Kineo off road far enough to unleash him. We’ll be half way up the hill behind our house and Tom will reach down and unhook him from the tether that’s so often necessary for the traits of his breed—a nose and heart as big as the North Woods and a brain the size of a pea. “Good boy. Go on now you’re FREE!” I holler. Then I stand back and watch a live demonstration of the power of letting go.

It doesn’t happen all at once. So bent is he on sniffing every possible leaf and hummock that, at first, he can’t feel the loss of pull-back from his master, can’t shift his own weight into forward momentum. Then, like a lightening bolt, his new reality hits home. He stops, looks up, and a pinpoint of awareness flashes through the dimness of his primal dome. ZING! He’s on his own! His tail wags double time and I swear he smiles. Then, in a nanosecond, he throws himself into overdrive so fast his hind legs almost outrun his head. Woooosh! Suddenly a floppy-eared Taz/Wile E. Coyote shape-shifter, Kineo beats feet off trail. He’ll circle back eventually. But not until he’s celebrated every square inch of his independence.

“Ever wonder where you’d end up if you took your dog for a walk and never once pulled back on the leash?”

I started pondering that quote by author Robert Brault about the same time I started pondering retirement. “Hmmm…I’d end up somewhere deep in God’s Country where I wouldn’t turn around till my legs gave out, or my heart or my belly called me back home,” I thought. I wouldn’t really know for sure, though, until I went from kinda retired to full-on retired. And I was kinda retired, or at least I told myself that, for a long time.

As I said, mine was not a direct route, a threshold I just crossed over one day and then…boom…I was done working. Already a veteran technical writer before my Big Move to Rangeley, I’d been laid off and rehired, had quit and switched jobs so many times I was worn out enough to just fade away and not look back. Then, when Tom retired from teaching and I settled into a new home office steps from the Big Lake—and many miles from anyone needing the “propeller head” networking guides that used to be my claim to fame and a nice paycheck—I was ready to follow him out to pasture for good. Until I got a “remote” writing contract doing the exact same challenging but cool stuff that used to require commuting all over the place. Wonderful manager, terrific customers, most of whom were on the West Coast and didn’t need me at my desk till late morning. Good pay, flexible hours, great projects using the latest in high-tech publishing tools.

“But I feel like I’m retired,” I’d tell folks who wondered when I’d match my husband’s occupational status. “I travel. I make my own hours. I get tons of fresh air and exercise whenever I want. And I get paid.” Best job I ever had.

Until it wasn’t. Six years later, the fulcrum started to shift. Updated tools sent digital book making back to the Dark Ages. “Challenging” lost its cool factor. And customers got really cranky. For awhile, I kept pushing forward in “it’s OK as long as I can travel, take boat rides, and ride my bike” mode—sucking all the goodness I could out of life in a rural retirement community while telling myself I wasn’t getting sucked in the wrong direction when I’d turn my back on the lake and return to my desk. Gradually, though, I began to feel the pull-back—of meetings and deadlines and the never-ending cycle of rewording the same old stuff—more than my freedom. It might be long and really pliable, but I was on a leash, nonetheless. A retractable one. And my collar was beginning to chafe.

Finally, I cut myself loose last May. I got on early Social Security, bought myself a brand new laptop cleared of any company-sanctioned templates or Skype for Business appointments. I was free! Free to write whatever and whenever the “right” side of my brain wanted while relegating its nerdy left side to crossword puzzles in the Mountain Messenger. Free to watch the lake and the open road without watching my watch.

But none of that happened all at once. At first, I just couldn’t let it. I’d been a good, loyal professional too long, was too conditioned to pats on the back from my managers and the sweet treat of a bi-monthly paycheck. Could I actually shift into autonomy, embrace freedom? Or would my ego convince me I needed to fill up my calendar with some sort of busy work that kept me tethered to reward and recognition?

As with most life altering questions, it didn’t take long for full immersion into Rangeley summer to grant me an answer. And, as usual, when the answer hit I was on my bike heading off into the wild blue and green yonder. Suddenly, mid-pedal, I knew in my core that I didn’t really need my watch or my odometer or most of my old habits. A pinpoint of new awareness flashed through my self-induced fog. I was FREE, and I honestly and truly felt free. I’d turn around when I was damn well good and ready, beckoned home by a warm bowl of food, family, and all the comforts that really mattered.

Somewhere back on my New Age self-help shelf I remembered a passage that likened the power of detachment—of letting go with “focused surrender”—to shooting an arrow from a bow. Authentic freedom, it said, isn’t attained simply by releasing the arrow to fly, straight and true, toward its target. The act of pulling back the bow, of grounding yourself and shifting your sights on what you’re aiming for before you actually let go, that’s where the real magic happens. Kineo already knew that. Fortunately, it didn’t take me a dog’s age to catch on. No reading or over thinking required. ZING! Woooosh! Reality aligned with everything I was shooting for when I came to this retirement community in God’s Country. And like my beloved beagle mentor, I began to master the art of moving meditation, to honor the wisdom of returning to stillness.

36796956_10212237442627484_5947128197001773056_o

For more Beagle Zen, see:

 

A licking time bomb

If by some Christmas miracle the ghost of my Nana could have visited Kineo, she would have gently cradled his head, met his big brown eyes with her own, and said: “If it ain’t your hip, it’s your ass or your elbow.”

Even though he’s not a little, old Scottish lady but an old beagle, Kineo would have agreed. Maybe not about the hip part because, last we could tell, his hips were fine. But his ass end and elbow? Not so good. And one eye was pretty sore, too.

He wasn’t supposed to be a Christmas catastrophe. He was supposed to be all healed up from his minor “elective” surgeries. He was supposed to snap right back just in time for his mommy and daddy to drop him off at doggy daycare and celebrate their 40th anniversary in the balmy Bahamas without worrying about his beagle boo-boos. But, of course, he hadn’t really elected to be operated on. He never said “Oh, sure, as long as I need to have a cyst taken off my elbow and a skin tag off my eyelid, you might as well go ahead and take my testicles, too, while I’m under.” We said that on his behalf—and then forged merrily ahead with our best laid plans.

The pre-op vets concurred. Kineo was a Stugged Wonder. Well, actually Stugged (Sturdy+Rugged=Stugged) Wonder was our nickname, but they saw how he got it. “Wow, he’s so strong and healthy for an eleven and a half year old dog!” said the Maine Woods Mobile vet, who previously only saw him for an average of ten minutes a year to administer vaccinations. Unlike his older brother Toby (may he rest in perpetual peace ‘neath the rabbit tracks in the back yard), Kineo was not plagued by assorted issues. Unlike Toby, the only PetMD search Kineo had ever prompted was “Why does my dog insist on eating dirt?” Yup, naming him after a stugged Maine mountain had been a good call. And we were super proud (and kinda cocky) that we could rely on quick trips to the Oquossoc Fire Station once in a great while when the backwoods vet swung through to meet his health needs.

‘Twas a few days before Christmas when Kineo finally set feet inside a real animal clinic in Farmington. “Wow, he’s in really great shape for an old dog,” the vet remarked. “He should do fine.” He wagged his tail and sniffed, totally unaware that this first-time visit was gonna be a doozie. Why risk anesthesia just to neuter the old boy, we always said.  But now that Kineo was a candidate for one-stop surgery, might as well “fix” the potential plumbing issues that plagued old Toby and, while we were at it, make him a better playmate for his doggy girlfriends, we figured. So we signed all the consent forms to “get ‘im done” and left to do some last-minute gift shopping.

“Mommy bought you a can of Ol’ Roy filet mignon flavor dog food for Christmas!” I told Kineo when he walked gingerly out of recovery later that day. He wagged his tail, unfazed and not too much worse for wear after his stem-to-stern overhaul. “Do we need to put one of those cone head collars on him?” I asked almost as an afterthought as we were leaving the clinic.

“Is he a licker?” the vet wondered.

“You mean like Baileys or Kahlua?” I thought to myself. “No he’s a good boy,” I said. “We’ll keep an eye on him.” We lifted him into the Subaru and went on our way back up the mountain, leaving the $12 plastic cone (that the vet had in ample supply for a very good reason) an hour a half away in Farmington.

It took a few days for the anesthesia to wear off and Kineo’s instincts to kick in. Apparently, he didn’t agree with the post-op instructions to let the stitches dissolve gradually as he healed. He preferred to try to self-heal—to tug out those silly little suture knots and lick his wounds to his heart’s content. By then, of course, keeping an eye on him meant never closing our eyes at the same time for more than a second, night or day. And keeping both ears open, too.

“Heard him going after himself again at about 3 a.m.,” Tom said wearily when I found him curled up on the sofa with the dog’s head in a gentle but firm vice grip for the third morning in a row. “The little bugger got a pretty good head start on reopening his incisions before I got to him.” From parenting newborns to providing hospice care and everything in between, we were keen to all manner of threatening night time sounds. But, until then, chronic dog lapping had not been one of them.

That’s when our answer to the perfunctory “How was your Christmas?” line of questioning changed from relating our travel and festive dinner plans to quietly smirking and saying our holiday was different this year. We didn’t think folks wanted or needed the whole ugly truth: We spent Christmas peering at our dog’s shriveled sack and zippered elbow, fretting about foul discharge and how to keep his head pointed up and away till we could talk to the vet. And, being resourceful Rangeley woods dwellers, we became very, very inventive. We adapted YouTube videos about homemade cone collars to make use of materials already on hand. For the first prototype, Tom cut a cone shape out of a giant laminated poster I’d kept from my cranio-sacral therapy training and affixed it with Velcro strips and duct tape. But that didn’t stop our Beldar Conehead beagle. He became a 3-D illustration of the human spinal column and how a canine can twist his vertebra like a Slinky. Prototype # 2 featured an airplane neck pillow, a rolled up towel, a backwards tee-shirt and tons more duct tape. It kept Kineo from reaching his elbow but was no match for his Houdini hound contortions toward his crotch.

How the heck Dr. Jeff the Rocky Mountain Vet could go to Mexico and all over creation to spay and neuter hundreds of dogs and let them walk out of the free clinics unfettered by any head gear became a subject of fascination for me. Maybe Animal Planet just didn’t want to show all the “bad” dogs who ended up festering in the jungle. Or maybe I had a particularly tenacious licker on my hands. Regardless, there I was, a few days after Christmas, snapping a photo of oozing dog junk stitches to send to the vet in Farmington for further instructions. (And making a note to myself to delete that image from my Christmas in Rangeley 2017 photo album as soon as possible!)

“Anyone coming through Farmington today who could pick up a cone collar and antibiotics from my vet on their way up?” I posted on the Where Can I Find It In Rangeley Facebook page. Less than a minute later, I got a yes from a beagle lover and my new best friend, Amy Cooper. And just in time, too. While Tom went to town to meet her, I was “keeping an eye” on Kineo as he lounged by the wood stove. I was doing OK—not eating or going to the bathroom or anything besides staring at his intact sutures. Until the nanosecond in which I left the room to grab my glass of water, and came back to the dreaded sound of serious, hard core slurping.

Tom came home to find me one-arming Kineo’s head on my lap, while my other hand pinched his bleeding elbow boo-boo into a desperate version of a backwoods butterfly closure. We clamped him into the “cone of shame,” pumped him with penicillin, and heaved a huge sigh of relief. He had no choice now but to hunker down and heal up.26172266_1787177327968668_3443104351945885544_o

“Spending New Years Eve with this ol’ dubber, (my parents’ 11 and a half year old beagle) keeping him from incessantly noming on his nads,” Helen posted on Facebook. The caption prompted plenty of comments on how she could liven up her baby sitting stint with festive cone decorations, including shoving plastic olives on a long stick into his cone and making him into a “beagle-tini.”

“Hah! He’s a liquor after all,” I commented with a smiley face.

We were in the Bahamas celebrating our anniversary,  just far enough away from our chaotic Christmas to see the humor.

“Awwww…what a good boy!” we said.

 

 

 

 

Back where it all began

Heading north toward Rockwood, Tom slowed the Subaru to a crawl. I’d been peering out into the steady rain since way before Greenville, picking faded memories out of old landmarks, retracing my way through the steely blues and mottled greens of a Moosehead spring storm.

Then, at long last, there it was. Mount Kineo towering up out of the lake, its craggy cliff face dominating the fir-lined peninsula on the opposite shore. My rock. My childhood center of gravity, back in focus again for real! And, even though I knew it was silly to think it somehow would not have stayed put since the last time I laid eyes on it, I was giddy. The old mountain was still there for me.

Turning toward the dog, I said what I’d been longing to ever since our daughter convinced us that a handsome, rugged beagle pup deserved a legendary name. “Look Kineo…there’s KINEO!”

He wagged his tail, no doubt wondering why we were calling him more than once when he’d been perched right between us the whole ride up from Rangeley. Woods, water,  more woods—kinda like home, but not. Probably smelled really good, too, if only he could venture from the back seat, stop teetering his front paws on the console, and just get out and GO.

Pretty much my feelings, too. But instead of an instinctive need to scour and sniff every inch of this legendary terrain, mine were a mixture of dogged resolve and calm reclamation. After four decades, I could hardly wait to be back on my old stomping ground, to seek out what had changed, immerse myself in what never would.

“Almost there,” I said. Almost to the bridge over the Moose River, to the road into The Birches. Almost all the way back. From that part of the lake, Mount Kineo would show a different side, morphing from a barren, imposing rock wall to the forested gentle giant that stood front and center in my earliest memories.

Long before I heard the term “happy place” or ever had a need to return there in my mind, I had The Birches shoreline of Moosehead Lake and Mount Kineo. From the time I was six, my parents let me wander alone out to the dock without a life jacket or any concern that I was not being watched. I’d hop out of my sleeping bag before the lake got too riled up, fling a line as far out toward the mountain as my little casting arm was worth, and sit on an Army surplus canvas stool with one eye on my bobber for hours on end. Even then, I knew that my fishing pole was more or less something to do with my hands while I gazed across the water. “Looks like a giant, tree-coated woolly mammoth laid down beside the lake and decided to stay forever,” I remember thinking. And, despite being afraid of the boogeyman, the dark, and you name it, I felt as calm as the early morning lake, protected.

Life hadn’t begun to happen yet. I didn’t have anything to escape from, to overcome, no hurts that couldn’t be healed with a hug or a laugh. Yet something wise in my soul turned my time out on the dock into a teaching moment, instilled a promise in my six-year-old head. No matter what, lake plus mountains equals good. I was just learning to add and spell, to put thoughts and then words to the pictures my teacher flashed in front of me. But I already knew everything I really needed from the simple shapes and basic elements I learned to love that first summer. Go down by the water. Watch it pool around the rocks and ripple, as far as you can see, to the rolling hills and distant blue peaks. Stay. Rest. You belong here.

So began the indelible need to return, if only in my mind, to Moosehead and later, to Mooselookmeguntic. There, as life became sad or too serious, I could be six years old again. I could be whole, innocent, perfect. I could stare at the lake when I wanted to think—and when I couldn’t bear to think. I could stop myself from getting caught up in what I was supposed to be or do, and just be. I could remember my first pair of sneakers, of how proud I was to see them stretched out on the dock underneath me. They weren’t fancy, just plain old Keds. But compared to my “special” shoes (and the brace I’d be wearing by the following summer), those sneakers felt beyond average. They were magical. Never mind just looking at Kineo, I swore I could run all the way to the top!

“Kineo, I present to thee Kineo the wonder dog!” I said. We’d arrived at The Birches Resort long enough to throw our stuff into our cabin and turn around and gawk. Never having seen Roots, the dog was not moved by my Kunta Kinte impression. So I didn’t try to lift him over my head in ceremonial triumph and just let him plant his nose and all fours into the turf. Back inside, I marveled at how the little log housekeeping cabin had not changed much since the last time we stayed there in the ’70s. With its original field stone fireplace and log walls chinked with horse hair, the “Catch a Falling Star” cabin was only a few modern conveniences away from when it was built in the 1930s. Still “rustic with a view” as promised. And I was in heaven.

Not that Tom and I had gone without rustic with a view. Hardly. Thirty years ago, after selling our cabin way the heck up on the Seboomook end of Moosehead, our search for our next (and final) camp building lot brought us to Rangeley, to Mooselookmeguntic. We found the perfect spot, a gentle slope through the white birches down to a clear, cold, uncrowded lake. It reminded Tom of spending summers on Great East Lake, and me of my long, serene sojourns on my fishing stool. I couldn’t see Mount Kineo, of course. But I was surrounded by mountains in every direction. And I could definitely see us building a new legacy right here, tucked in the woods off the beaten track, but close enough to the picture postcard town of Rangeley.

Going back to Moosehead some day still surfaced in conversation from time to time. But how could we ever justify driving up there to stay in an old log cabin when we had our own good-as-new cabin on another big, moosey lake? The answer came in a serendipitous invitation from our friends in town. The same friends who remodeled our original Rangeley cabin into our dream home were building just up the road from The Birches. Would we like to come up and see their new lot? On my birthday weekend?

So there I was, Memorial Day weekend, sitting on a picnic table outside Catch a Falling Star, paying tribute, and realizing that booking a cabin as a birthday present to myself was a very smart move. Otherwise, once I saw that view, I’d have surely stayed right there anyways, immobilized, wonder struck. Had the image I kept in my mind’s eye really morphed from a crumpled Polaroid print—into the digital desktop wallpaper I found as inspiring as it was distracting—to materialize right in front of me?

On the morning of my birthday, I was still pondering. But in order to give myself the ultimate gift, I knew I had to step away from the picnic table and go a ways up the shore. Not way the heck up to Seboomook, but to a tiny log cabin just up the lake from where I sat. Back where it all began. To HOJET.

“Daddy, why’s the cabin called HOJET?” I asked, using my best Dick and Jane reading voice to sound out the wooden block letters that hung over the cabin door. It was 1962, my first trip to Moosehead, the first of many voyages down the Moose River and out across from Kineo onto the lake to dock in front of the two-room cabin. “Water-access-only” meant nothing to me yet, and wouldn’t for many years. Roads didn’t bring you to camp, not all the way. A 12-foot boat did, one crammed so full with boxes of canned food and the block of ice we had to buy in Rockwood to load into the ice box there was barely room for the four of us to bounce across the waves.

“HOJET,” my Dad said, “is the first letters of each person’s name in the family who owns this cabin.” Wow, I remember thinking. They built their own cabin here and claimed it forever with that carved sign. Way better than writing out “Joy’s Fort” (if I knew how to print that well) and hanging it above my special hiding place in the back yard. Everyone else, myself included, was a lucky visitor to HOJET, to this magical cabin with the made up name in the land of Bullwinkle and the beached mammoth mountain.

But who were they, this HOJET family? Some really nice people who let us stay there when they weren’t was all I knew. When and how money changed hands, I didn’t care. And did we need a key to get in? Or could we just pull on the curved branch of a handle, open the thick wooden front door and make ourselves at home? Who knew? All that mattered was it was ours. Mine.

For Memorial Day weekend and another glorious week after school got out, everything in and around the cabin became my place, my movie reel of the simply wonderful things that could happen just because it was summer, we had that spot, and we had each other. “Bare running through the woods!” my parents hollered each time my sister and I finally stripped off our wet bathing suits and scampered naked toward our PJs. Remembering the bears we saw at the Rockwood dump, we’d shriek with laughter, until the night one of them came to visit. Wondering what the commotion was on the front porch, Dad peered out through the diamond-shaped pane of glass in the front door and saw the neck fur of a really tall, fully upright black bear. They all figured I ‘d have nightmares, but they were wrong. I still loved to sleep in my bunk under the front window right next to the door. I’d snuggle in my sleeping bag, suspended on a log frame crisscrossed with rope, listening to my sister whispering from the opposite window bunk. “Don’t those loons sound like lake ghosts?” she’d ask. “Sssh! They’re just singing,” I’d tell her, and hunker down deep till the sun came back up.

“That was a looong time ago, honey,” Tom said. “A lot’s changed, especially with this road connecting the camps. Lots of people have torn down the really old cabins, built new ones. And, by now, even those new cabins are getting old.” Probably, I thought, as I followed him and Kineo up the road past The Birches. But possibly, some relics remained. And maybe, if I conjured up enough old birthday girl juju, I’d find what I was looking for.

“I’ve gone too far,” I said about an hour later when I walked down a driveway and looked across at Farm Island. Apparently the little girl steps I used to take in and around the string of cabins between The Birches and Black Point didn’t match the determined march of a woman in nostalgic overdrive. And my original path—through the Indian paintbrushes, around the spruce tree that Dad swore hid a nesting partridge I could never find again, past the front of the creepy “Boo Radley” camp—wasn’t easily translated to road miles. Maybe after we got the boat in the water I could re-calibrate, get my bearings. But that was doubtful, too. I’d found the Boo Radley cabin, its grayish-blue shingle siding and cobwebbed front porch no less creepy after another half century of disuse. Aside from that, though, I was lost in the Moosehead episode of HGTV Log Cabin Living. Tom’s advice to look for authentic, old-style—or added-on-to old-style construction—wasn’t workin’ for me.

So I did what I’d learned to do at times such as this. I called on my Spirit buddies, my Mom and Dad in Heaven. “Hey, guys, I know you know I’m here and it’s my birthday, and I’m hoping you can help me out a little, give me a sign. Wished I’d asked more questions years ago while you were still around. But if you could tell me now, that’d be great.” I’d turned around and was retracing my steps, noticing the “new” road signs at the top of some driveways that looked like they were from Anywhere Lake, Maine. Moose, loons, a black bear or two, cutesy plays on words about life on a lake with moose and….

I stopped, took a deep breath, and a long, hard look at big stone sign of a loon floating beneath vertical capital letters. From way back in my memory banks, a name surfaced to echo what I was seeing. THE DUNNS. I’ve got to get in touch with the Dunns and ask if we can use the cabin. My Dad’s words reverberated through me as I headed down the driveway, hoping I was right. Was the honey-colored natural log exterior now stained a chocolate-brown with an L-extension built off to the side? Could that small back stoop outside the kitchen window be the same one the bear tracked past as he ambled out of the woods? The location seemed right, the view across the lake to Kineo spot on, the pitch down to the lake the same.

And there it was—a front porch leading up to a weathered front door on a small original cabin. Above the curved branch of a door handle and the diamond-shaped window hung a block-lettered sign made of ancient wood: HOJET.

I froze. My body didn’t want to budge from where I stood bolted in place. And yet, I felt myself moving. Every cell—all that I was and ever would be—rushing, pushing, reaching out in larger and larger circles of distant memories that rocketed back to my very core. I was six again, running up the path from the dock in my magic Keds, dangling a breakfast-sized brook trout from my pole. “What a nice treat for your Daddy’s birthday!” I could hear my mother chirp, her smile so broad she always looked like the sun was full on her face. I could smell the fish frying with a side of eggs, could count the playful slaps I gave my Dad on his rump as he stood in the kitchen. “Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. But you said you’re thirty-three years old today,” I giggled. “If I give you that many birthday spanks, my hand will fall off!”

“I found HOJET!” I cried out to Tom.

“What the heck is a HOJET?” I imagined him saying. He’d forgotten that part of the story and, I guess, never sat around Great East with his family stringing together initials for potential Clough camp signs like my family did after our reading material ran out. He brought the dog around front so they could see for themselves, while I cried happy tears, mumbled gibberish, and watched Kineo across from Kineo, exploring every inch of my beloved landscape.

I never did meet the Dunns, not that trip. But when I do, I’ll thank them. For my best birthday present ever. For their new and old signs that pointed me home. For giving me the foundation to “move up to camp for good,” to a home that still has the old, original cabin where my girls spent summers laughing and playing at its center. And then I’ll ask if I can look around some more. Hopefully, as kids and grand kids of the first Dunns of HOJET, they’ll understand why I need to anchor myself there now and again—to let my past flow from me like waves, soothing the rough spots, leaving me awash in pure peace. They’ll know, as I do, that you can’t really go back. But you can stand in a spot that has spoken to your soul forever and, just for a moment, feel the years vanish.

DSCF4080

For more “Rooted In Moosehead, too” stories, see:

Talking about Toby

I knew this time would come.

I knew it a few months ago when I taped Christmas bows on Toby’s crate and made him Facebook famous for recovering from surgery “at the Bemis Mountain Home for Aged Beagles.” I knew it a few years ago when I dubbed him The Beagle Loser and celebrated how he’d lost enough weight to sprint rather than waddle. I knew it way back when I first bought him a leash and a shiny new bowl to replace the ones I’d just thrown away because I was done with dogs. With every new nickname that was a different twist on calling him a silly old dog with issues, I knew. Someday, sooner then I could bear, I’d be talking about Toby in the past tense.

He was my wish list beagle.

Before Toby, I swore I didn’t  want to talk about another dog ever again. Couldn’t handle it. We’d just put down Jasper, our second dog, who’d performed his duties as the girls’ growing up companion like a trooper. “Raising kids without a dog is just wrong,” I decreed after a brief spell of doglessness in the early ’90s. So we found a good dog, gave him a good ole boy name, and brought him home to fill the spot at the center of our family that Spunky, our “house warming beagle,” had left vacant. And there Jasper stayed, from kindergarten till college, faithfully watching for the school bus to bring his girls back to him. Then, just when his job was done, Jasper’s old beagle body just gave out.

I promptly tossed all the treats and the chew toys and had our carpet cleaning guy power-enzyme the whole house. “Now we won’t have to bother anymore,” I told Tom. “We can just take off whenever we want for as long as we want. It’ll be nice.”

Of course it wasn’t. While not having a dog might have been freer, cleaner and easier in ways that appealed to my rational side, my heart—my soul—couldn’t endure that kind of tidy, unfettered, unruffled nice. I started hanging out at the SPCA, became the local Reiki dog healer, just to get my dog fix and try to heal myself. When that didn’t work, I secretly let owning another dog creep into my thoughts. (What would Tom do? He’d said no more dogs before, too, and they kept coming anyways. Could he make room for one more?)

Then I dreamt of Jasper. He was young, healthy and not in pain, sitting atop his dog house like the old days. He thanked me, for his wonderful life, for making him safe, loved and comfortable till the very end. “You’re not done with dogs,” he told me. “You’ve got too much yet to give. There will be another. And his name will be Toby.”

That was all the permission I needed and then some! I began talking about Toby in the near-future tense, making a list. And it wasn’t long before I shared it with Tom. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t been telepathically inspired by a Spirit beagle, but he had been silently allowing new dog thoughts to creep in, too.

“I want him to be past the puppy stage,” I recited. “No endless nights whining because he feels insecure in a crate. He has to like being outdoors without barking too much when we’re away at work, but want to stay close when we’re around. Not too fat, medium-sized, so he doesn’t pull too hard on his leash, and smart enough to not run into traffic.”

“That’s quite the list,” Tom said. “And it sure doesn’t sound like any beagle in the known universe.” (If you haven’t already guessed, dog is synonymous with beagle in our house. Always has been. That’s because we don’t merely have a preference for one breed over another. We have a love crazed blindness that obliterates anything from sight except black, brown and white, floppy-eared, barrel-chested, braying babies with hearts and noses as big as the North Woods and brains the size of a pea.)

“Oh, yeah, and we have to call him Toby,” I said. “Jasper told me in a dream. I looked up the name and it means God Is Good.”

Well alrighty then, Tom must have thought. But I saw him start mouthing the name, imagining how it would sound if he hollered it repeatedly in the middle of the woods. And a few weeks later, he found Toby.

His first name was Boo Boo, bestowed upon him by our friends, Butch and Sandy, his owners since birth. He came from the best beagle stock, and could out-run and out-sniff the finest rabbit hounds in the land. But other than that, he was timid, afraid of his own shadow. “He’ll hunt like hell,” Butch said. “But then he just wants to come find you ’cause he needs people, doesn’t like to stay out on his own too long.”

Perfect, we said. When I petted him for the first time, he made a soft, snorty, purring sound we soon came to recognize as his signature “happy snuffle.” He snuffled all the way home, wagging and sniffing at his comfy crate and his repurposed dog house, then Velcroed himself to Tom’s side wherever he went.

“Are you really sure you want to be tied down to a dog for another ten or eleven years?” my mother-in-law asked when she first saw me holding Toby in my lap like no other beagle had ever allowed.

“Yes, yes I do,” I thought. “I want to tie myself to this dog, with my chin resting on his warm, snuffling head for a long, long time. And please use industrial grade, steel-core rope, double-knotted right through my heart strings.”

292633_3367999795029_656751184_nDuring our first summer together, Toby and I stayed tethered like that for hours on the porch. He could sit in my lap, watching the lake and the squirrels through the ripped screen door that used to be an escape route for beagles who wanted to get out, not get smothered. “But my Toby wants to stay with his Mumma,” I whispered, “and not be sick, or hurt or grow old too fast.” He always snuffled agreement and did his best to live up to my wishes, even when he started having seizures and other issues that weren’t on the original list. It was all good though. Toby was right where he needed to be, my “almost empty nest” beagle, a fairy tale with a few caveats. Over the years, Toby convinced me that raising kids without a dog was definitely wrong, and I was a giant eight-year-old. He even helped Tom and me feel like we were still young, trusting and foolish enough to bring yet another dog into our lives. Coaxed by Toby’s gentle ways, we opened our hearts just wide enough to let the math going flying out of our heads. Two dogs plus another decade or so added onto our beagle legacy? We could do that! So we welcomed Kineo into the family. Bred by Butch and Sandy from the same stock as Toby, we named him after a rugged mountain in Maine, the backdrop to my childhood happy place. And there we were, blissfully roped and knotted tighter than ever, our two beagles romping out ahead of us toward our new life past middle age.

Our beagle boys were like book ends, a tri-colored, two-headed bundle of brotherly devotion. On good days, they both had boundless energy, too. But slowly, try as Toby might to stick with the program of staying forever young, it became more and more obvious he couldn’t physically cooperate. Ever so gradually, like when a part of my own body is not really in synch but I refuse to rest, I could feel Toby unraveling.

Even before his last invasive procedure, Toby was really lagging behind. We’d kept his seizures medically controlled for 10 years, had him neutered in an attempt to shrink his prolapsed prostate, had half his chronically bad teeth yanked, and pumped him full of doggie glucosamine. Then, at age 12-and-a-half, the vet opened him up and found enough stones in his bladder to plug every culvert between here and Route 17. Plus, on top of all that, his heart murmur measured a level four on a scale that stopped at six.

“It’s OK, Toby, we’ll take good care of you at the Bemis Home for Aged Beagles,” I said as he lay snuffling in his crate post-surgery. He recovered valiantly and, for a few glorious weeks in January, could pee like a young stud dog. But then even the simplest pleasures a dog should have while surrounded by miles of pucker brush, plenty of food, and a loving family, started slipping away. And by late February, I uttered a new set of promises to Toby. “We’ll take good care of Kineo,” I told him. “And we’ll save you a spot out on the dock this summer.” He snuffled, held out his paw, and thanked me.

On a dreary March day, with a veil of late winter mist hanging heavy over the melting snow and the first hints of spring, Toby took his last whiff of the damp forest smells he loved so much and laid down forever. “We tried our best, Toby, and so did you,” I told him, stroking his soft, soft ears. Then we held him close as he went from struggling to be good and strong and always there for us to having done his job till the very end.

I’ve spent weeks now wondering how the hell I was going to tell Toby’s story, to write about him in the past tense while just the other day he was right here under my desk, sitting full weight on my toes till I’d finally get up for the fifteenth time in an hour and let him try to go pee. At first, I just had to let the grief of having him gone roll on over me like a freight train. And slowly, as I’ve begun to smile more than cry when I picture his old white face, I know what story to tell. Toby’s tale is about more than floppy ears and all the warm, steady things that made him my best friend. And it’s certainly about more than the long chronology of ailments that were at the center of our conversations for so long.

As much as I hated to admit it, Toby taught me impermanence, to live fully and freely, grounded in the knowledge that all things, however good, must pass. When he could barely toddle down to Indian Cove, he taught me to lead, to stay strong with a soft heart. Together with his brother, he showed the true meaning of “down to earth,” the natural balance of being as close to the land as his little barrel of a body could keep him, ever joyful along the journey. In his honor, I can dare to keep loving the nine-year-old beagle he left behind every moment of every new day. Thanks to Toby, I can hope to know when enough is enough, to be at peace when abundance eventually swings back toward scarcity and suffering. That’s what Toby was all about. And, ultimately, he left me knowing how noble it is to hold a blessed being, gently but firmly, across love’s final threshold.
Toby
Yes, my sweet, loyal Toby. God is good.

 

 

 

Beware the packin’ kraken!

Kraken (kra-khun): Noun — A legendary sea monster that, when provoked, is believed to have devoured helpless voyagers.

Just when I think it’s safe to get back on a plane, to venture away from mud season in Rangeley, I hear its primal bellowing. What begins as a low, guttural vibration soon erupts into a full-on war cry. “Whaaa….ugmph….AARRGGGGH!”

Did I make that beastly sound just trying to lift my own luggage? Did I bring the devil of unwieldy travel logistics out of hibernation to, once again, haunt me for packing way more than I needed?

“It’s just vacation stuff,” I mumble. “And ah…eeergh, it feels like I’m going for a year!”

Each time I go through this me-versus-my-material-belongings ritual, I remind myself of the classic George Carlin “stuff” monologue. According to George, we spend our whole lives getting more and more stuff till our houses become just “covers for our stuff.” Then, right after we convince ourselves we need bigger houses for bigger piles of stuff, we realize we have extra rooms to hold more and more stuff, and on it goes. Traveling poses the huge dilemma of selecting, carrying, and reloading some of our stuff into a new, usually smaller, containment pod till we have to reverse the process and lug the stuff back home.

But each time my packin’ kraken resurfaces, I also console myself that I am not a Carlin joke. I now have less stuff than ever, not more. During the Big Move to Rangeley, I sold stuff, gave or threw away stuff, whittling my stuff hoard down to what would fit in my smaller log “cover” by the lake. My vacation stuff—a subset of the downsized stuff—fits into a small bedroom holding area, neatly encased in Ziplocs and Tupperware. Come travel time, I plop it into rolling luggage fillable to within a few ounces of the standard checked baggage limit, a backpack fillable to cram but not jam into an overhead bin, and a personal carry-on fillable with just enough overflow to not sprain my shoulder and still pass as a “pocketbook.”

Fortunately, most of my vacations are in climates where a perfect day means changing out of my bathing suit long enough to eat dinner and watch the sunset before I’m back in the summer jammies I can only wear a couple days a year on Mooselook. Lightens my load as much as possible. Otherwise, I find myself whittling down my packing list to whatever color scheme I think will get me through various climate zones. Like my “green” trip to Chicago last fall, where my entire wardrobe was various shades of green so I could “mix and match” a week’s worth of carry-on clothes.

Wherever I’m going, when I get there I blissfully unpack my stuff, admiring how my plain necessities look better, more exotic, while temporarily arranged on a gleaming Hampton Inn counter or tucked into cute, eclectic little condo shelves. And then the race is on to actually use most of my vacation stuff—my dental floss, my ear wax removal kit, my alcohol (rubbing and drinking) and all those things so critical to my temporary survival I lugged along like I was going to Timbuktu—far flung from any place resembling a Rite Aid or Hannaford. I start swapping just enough stuff out to cram in souvenirs and any last-minute tingums I buy at the airport in a moment of nostalgia-tinged panic. And, on the last day of vacation, I practice good condo rental ethics, paying it forward big time. I hope that the thrill the next renter gets upon finding a bottle of Worcestershire sauce and a box of Wheat Thins in the cupboard far outweighs my need to haul ’em home.

Still, when the time comes to transport my stuff back through the airport, there’s a fine line between getting the most bang for my baggage allowance buck and not being able to drag it along without bellowing or taking out small children in the process. When the equation works, the packin’ kraken and the TSA agents are temporarily tamed. Passage is smooth till the last leg “up over the mountain” back to Rangeley.

AAAARGH!” I groan, thundering over the threshold with bulging canvas now covered in all manner of travel spewage. It’s all worth it, I tell myself, leaving the stuff in a pile till tomorrow. Besides, the packin’ kraken always roars louder at the end of mud season. It’s a monster of mythical proportions until it can haul out summertime stuff and submerge in the lake once again.

The Beagle Loser

“Let’s get you on that scale, Toby!” she ordered.

Suddenly, the room filled with as much drama as could be mustered on a March morning in Rumford. Tom and I held our breath, waiting with hopeful trepidation. Watching the flashing electronic numbers climb, then dip, then soar again was like a moment straight out of my favorite TV show. Except there was no music building to a suspenseful crescendo, no Alison Sweeney in a tight dress and high heels wishing Toby luck (and making Tom wish for things he couldn’t have). And there was definitely no Dolvett the trainer waiting in the wings in Spandex, flexing his biceps and flashing his Hollywood smile.

“Thirty-eight point six,” she announced when the numbers finally stopped. “Toby’s gained over seven pounds!” Tom and I did a classic “agony of defeat” expression just like on the show, jaws dropped, shoulders slumped. But teammate Toby just whined a bit and waddled away. Nope, he was not The Biggest Loser and probably wouldn’t be for a very long time. He was an old, fat beagle, plain and simple. And that verdict was about to be unceremoniously verified by Dr. Kent during the dog’s annual day of reckoning at the Countryside Animal Hospital.

For the first time, Dr. Kent’s assistant had to use caution when hoisting Toby onto the exam table, lifting with her knees not her back so they could proceed to prod the hound’s expanding girth. Toby just tried to maintain his footing and a scrap of his dignity, too complaisant to put up a fuss, and much too simple to remember what happened on that cold, hard table last time he was there. A year ago, after an eye-popping search for his prolapsed prostate, the vet recommended neutering. “Plus, while I got him under I should really yank a bunch of those rotten teeth, too,” he said.

“Guess the poor dog needs help on both ends,” I agreed. “And whatever you do, don’t let us leave without a refill for his phenobarbital. Wouldn’t want to be back up in Rangeley and have him start seizing again!”

Seizures, we’ve discovered, are a beagle thing—almost as common in the breed as their unbridled urge to eat until they pop. Luckily, Toby’s seizures are kept under control with Phenobarbital and, luckily, he is the only family member on meds. Preventing his little brain from misfiring means administering small doses of a controlled substance twice a day,  blood tests once a year to check for side effects, and stockpiling a steady stash for him up in the woods an hour away from the nearest pharmacy. I’m pretty sure drug cartels are masterminded with less planning than scoring Toby’s pills!

“We’re hoping the poor guy’s liver isn’t shot from the medication,” I told Dr. Kent as he continued to poke and palpitate. “Seems like it’s distended. And his hind end is starting to give out a little. He can barely hold his tail up anymore. I read that was a side effect, too.”

The vet cast us a knowing smile. He was no stranger to old dog owner denial, and ours was a classic case. “This dog’s just fat,” he chuckled. “He’s getting old and he’s eating way more than he needs.” No liver problems. No masses. Just beagle blubber. Turns out that two cups of Purina is an excessive amount of dog chow, especially if the cup measure is an ancient oversized coffee mug, and the dog who’s chowin’ on it is devoid of metabolism-boosting testosterone. Plus the real Catch 22, according to Dr. Kent, is the poor pooch can’t exercise because he can’t exercise. Increased poundage stresses his joints making him unable to walk much faster than a turtle, which results in—you guessed it—increased poundage.

“It’s official, Toby,” Tom announced as we loaded our lard hound into the Subaru and headed back up Route 17. “You’re on a strict diet.” Toby just wagged his tail as best he could and stared out the window, oblivious. The reality of his new regimen would not start to sink in (if anything ever really sinks in) until later. His ritualistic dinnertime prance around the pantry would be rewarded with one measly scoop out of the food bucket and, a few gulps later, he’d be dumbfounded worse than ever as he stared into his empty bowl.

That was over a month ago. And while Toby isn’t saying much, we think it’s slowly starting to dawn on him like an overcast morning over a very shallow pond: his two-scoop days are over. Getting a peanut butter chaser to make his Phenobarb slide down easier is a thing of the past, too. And, instead of pre-washing every dish before it goes into the dishwasher, he’s now left standing in the kitchen, watching me with sad, gravy-colored eyes as I rinse the dishes myself, and his favorite bad habit trickles down the drain. It’s hard, we imagine, being on a doggie diet. He’s got no Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz, no buddy system or online support. He can’t “go out and do something special for himself” because he’s been good all week. He can only go along with the program, his unconditional love for us—his food dis-ablers—still somehow compensating for the growling in his stomach. In many ways, though, he’s got it easy. He has no dilemmas about working healthier eating habits into his lifestyle, no worries about midnight binges, no choice whatsoever in whether he’s going to slip up and put the food bag back on big time. And, best of all, Toby’s got company. So as to not follow in his fat footsteps, Toby’s brother, Kineo, is cutting back too. (He’s still young and pretty trim but, hey, he’s named after a rugged mountain on Moosehead Lake and can’t just be letting himself cave in.)

Toby Tubbette. Mr. Pin Head. Little Fat Boy. Sausage Pooch. Beagle Bongo Belly. As Toby looks less and less like a circus balloon dog stuck too long atop the air tank, our pet names for him will most likely change. But, for now, we’re just glad he stopped walking like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh while his brother gallops ahead, and that even his “erect tail dysfunction” is going away. Course we won’t get the official weigh-in till next March when we go back down the mountain for blood tests and another drug run. Meanwhile, Tom got an interim progress report the other day when he couldn’t help sneaking a peek on the bathroom scale. “Toby’s lost three pounds already,” he announced after weighing himself, then hopping on while holding onto Toby. Good thing for our beagle loser it wasn’t me getting on the scale with him! Then I’d be dropping pounds, but the numbers wouldn’t even budge for poor starving Toby Tubbette!

Songs of warmer weather

South of here, the sounds of spring would call me out of my seasonal semi-stupor even if I  was still hunkered down and had barely cracked a window yet. I’d be driving somewhere in a fog or maybe stuck in my kitchen, hoping that first blast of fresh April air would blow some dust off me. Suddenly spring would reach in and knock me upside the head.

Peeeeeep…..Peeeeeeep…..Peeeeeep!” Peepers! Their familiar falsetto was loud enough to jerk me awaketo make me look hard for daffodils and other boisterous signs of the season I’d probably missedand mesmerizing enough to make me leave the window open till the heat had to kick back on.

Once they caught my attention, I’d be all ears for the peepers. Standing on my back deck in my fuzzy pants each evening, I strained to hear them bring every little pucker brush puddle back life. As the tundra thawed, the crescendo swelled until, by May, hundreds of teensy frogswound to a frenzy in the circle of lifesurrounded me in one, long tumultuous chorus.

Peepers weren’t the only species to wake me from my hibernation. During one particularly belated spring, I didn’t even need to open the window to hear the rhythm of pent up instinct bursting forth outside.

“FWUMPPP….Fwapp, fwapp, fwapp, fwapp….flop.”

I lay in bed listening and wondering. An early morning illusion perhaps, a figment of a pre-dawn dream state? “FWUMPPP….Fwapp, fwapp, fwapp, fwapp….FLOP.”

The only other noise it resembled was the coffee maker. But, this was way before Mister Coffee came with a computer chip to automatically respond to my brewing habits andunless wishful thinking had somehow started it perkingthe thing wasn’t even on. I shuffled out toward the kitchen to be greeted by the roundest-breasted robin ever perched on the deck railing staring at my dining room window. He peered up at the glass so intently it was obvious he wasn’t just admiring my African violets on the other side of the sill. He’d cock his head from side to side, take a running leap and FWUMPPP… right into the window he’d go. Then he’d hover and peck, perch and fly…FWUMPPP and repeat. Over and over and over and over.

Our first explanation was that he had the worst case of jet lag in bird history and was disoriented and starving. Five days later, we were still waiting for Nature to help him get his groove back when we finally went out to observe his view from the deck on the other side of the window. “He sees another big robin sitting all fat and sassy in a tree in his territory and he’s fighting back,” Tom concluded. And judging from the appearance of the deck railing, this feisty fella was at least a pound of food a day away from starving. Two days later, he was still defending himself against his own reflection and driving us completely batty. “What is that bird’s problem?” I hollered for the 15th time in a row.

Way too much bird-and-bee kind of energy, I figured. I was grateful that my friends the peepers could keep their spring fever percolating out in the swamp where it belonged and didn’t use it to propel themselves headlong into the house!

At the time I didn’t fully appreciate my little heralders of spring and their constant background noise. I didn’t realize that moving north would trigger a complete role reversalthat I’d be the one busting forth announcing to the world I’m ready for spring, yearning for an answer to my call. Sometimes I’m drawn to go outside in my PJs or even out in the yard till my slippers get soaked. Other times, I find myself on shores even more exotic than Mooselook.

Ruck…ah…caaaauuw!” I sang off my lanai. It was early spring a year ago and, after a winter in Rangeley that almost froze off my tail feathers, I was more than thrilled to answer the call from the nearby plumeria trees. “Ruck…ah…caaaauuw!” (A couple mornings later, I’m pretty sure the folks from California on the balcony next to me were much more curious about my mental state than where I’d traveled from on the mainland.)

Luckily, by the time I migrate back to Rangeley, the songs of spring aren’t far behind. But, more than ever, I need to go out of my way to listen. “WhaWHO….WHO…ha…WHO….WHO…ha…WHO!”
Filtered through my R-25 insulated log walls, the first loons on the lake beckon. I rush outside, closer to the sound, tilting one newly-naked ear to the night air. Sometimes I answer, especially if Jim Beam comes with me. But mostly, I look out over the dark, ice-rimmed water, and smile. Soon, the Joy Birds will join in the song!

Much as I love peepers and loons, if I ever had to set my feelings for my Maine home to just one melody, it would be the Joy Bird’s. He’s been calling me back here ever since I was a kid, letting me walk without ever missing an IPod. “BOO..DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum!” To sing that sweetly, I imagined he had to be prettier than anything that came to my feeder before the squirrels took over. Must have lots of red on him to sound like that, or maybe blue, I thought. Then, when I finally got my first good look at the lusty whistler, I stood in disbelief for a long time before consulting Audubon and finding out my Joy Bird was actually a white-throated sparrow. A rather nondescript brown and white-throated sparrow, he was, with the tiniest thatch of yellow on his fervently singing head. “Fondly known as the ‘Whistler of the North,” my bird book said, “this sparrow heralds spring in the woods with his familiar song: Oh sweet, Canada, Canada, Canada.

“Really?” I thought. I guessed BOO…DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum was too much of a mouthful for the Audubon folks.

Back outside with the bird book closed, my Joy Birds concurred. “BOO…DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum” they called, reminding me that the simplest creatures often sing the most beautiful songs. “Sweet Canada, my ass!” I chuckled, these little guys know the sweet spot is right here 40 miles from the Quebec border. Throwing my blonde-tufted head back until my parrot-bright tie dye peeked out from under my almost-summer fleece, I answered: “Oh, sweet warm, weather warm, warm weather!

Out like a lamb-eating Yeti

Good thing nobody said it, at least not within earshot and, in particular, not while I was looking outside on the first full day of spring. Watching fresh snow pile up on the glaciers not yet receded from my yard, I knew that somewhere somebody was saying it: “Gee, looks like March isn’t going out like a lamb this year!”

“Looks like! Not unless it’s a lamb to the slaughter,” I imagined myself having to reply with a fake giggle. Luckily, I didn’t have to respond or come up with any new twists on restating the obvious. Alone in my kitchen with the Weather Channel on mute and my cupboards full from my last trip to town, I had no need to socialize and no risk of rehearing the same, lame, lamb-to-lion analogy I’ve heard every March since 1956. So I just stood there, staring at the latest blizzard. And, except for a couple feeble, lion roar sighs, I kept quiet as a lamb.

It’s human nature, I know, to lighten our Man versus Nature defenselessness by making trite fauna and flora seasonal correlations. We find the rote repetition of habitual phrases soothing—especially this year in these parts. Way back when, somebody worth listening to must have looked to the heavens and made a proclamation, right? “In like a lion…out like a lamb!” he announced and probably etched out some pictographs to record the whole story. Some years, he must have been right. Most years, his clan must have pointed to the faded drawings and retold the tale while hunkered down in whatever could shelter them from the unpredictable March weather. And the saying stuck.

I’m not sure what sort of creature this March is, but I know my daughters would have fun drawing it. Back when they were the only kids in the universe not allowed Game Boys, they used to occupy themselves during long car rides to Rangeley by challenging each other to morph as many animals as they could think of into one sketch. “This time, draw a moose-leopard-eagle-rhinoceros,” one or the other would declare, and the car would stay quiet from South Paris nearly to Rumford. I found one of the resulting animorph masterpieces shoved in an old dresser yesterday. Not really in full spring cleaning mode, but feeling like I should start taking baby steps in that direction, I was sorting through some 20-year-old camp stuff. Folded up next to a dog chewed Barbie, I came upon a pencil drawn creature with a long alligator tail, and both bird talons and moose hooves to balance his lion-like head on his camel-humped body. It was enough to snap me out of any sour weather doldrums I’d let myself slip into.

“Just keep laughing,” I told myself. “It’s all good. Spring has been finding its way up here every year without you around to fidget over it, so keep the faith.” For an extra boost, I dug out my brightest spring green sweater and put it on. Over coffee, I changed my Elmer Fudd-like Facebook picture to a profile of me enjoying warm weather and a bright blue shoreline. But when those strategies failed to do the trick, I knew it was time to shift into full-throttle attitude adjustment mode—to rely on my tried and true home remedy for keeping my chin up and my thoughts prosperous: Put the right gear on my feet, point them away from the cabin, and just get out there!

The right footwear part of my plan is crucial to its effectiveness, I’ve learned. Choose wrong, and a brisk walk to gain fresh air and a new perspective can easily turn into a death march. In January, in Ice Road Tracker, you might remember me professing my love for Yaktrax which, back then, were just the thing for keeping me safe and vertical during my daily walks. Well, I’m much worldlier now, and my needs have matured. Once my road surfaces got really serious from repeated thawing and refreezing, I had to ditch my Yaktrax like a middle-school crush. Lately, I’ve been going out with real studs—metal ones strapped to my boots so I don’t cripple myself six ways to Sunday taking a walk. And, when I want a real fling, I can still strap on my snowshoes and get way out there.

“I guess we’ll still be walkin’ on the wild side a few more weeks,” I concluded as I reacquainted myself with my snowshoes. My gear of choice the other day, they helped me negotiate my luge track of a driveway till I was once again trekking up my favorite hillside across the road. As usual, it wasn’t long before my attitude fell in step as I made my way up the path that always brings me back to center. No matter what kind of footwear and how much resolve it took, I’d walked this path—in summer, through winter, and back into the promise of spring. And, along the way, I’d eaten raspberries sweet as the August sun, watched lupines bloom and hibernate, and a moose leading her yearling to browse. On a snowy day not so different from this, I’d brought my first Rangeley Christmas tree down off the hill with me. Once again reaching the top on the first blustery day of spring, I paused to appreciate my place overlooking the lake and mountains, and the reasons why I was there came back into focus. As I pointed my feet homeward, I could feel the sun gaining strength and hear the gurgle of melting run-off finding its way down Bemis  beneath the snow. Spring was under there somewhere, I could feel it.

By the time I reached home, my Elmer Fudd hat was crusted over with new snow again. But even though I had to inch down the driveway like a drunken penguin, my smile didn’t fade. Not much can stop me from strapping on gear and getting out there, I’ve determined. I have given up, though, on trying to decide exactly what kind of creature the month of March is. He’s a gnarly one, I figure, with thick fur and long, ice gripping talons on the end of his paws—a beast that eats little lambs for breakfast. Whatever he looks like, I sure hope he lets spring come to Rangeley sometime before April showers bring May flowers.