cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Boldest Daffodils After work yesterday I got about a third of the subfloor put down. Ida helped and is learning things like how to use a framing square, how to properly hammer a nail and the names and applications of different construction materials. I think she'll pick up some basic math out of this project as well. Building what amounts to a little house is as good a way as any for a 4 year old to learn how to add, subtract and measure things. I think that I will have all of the subfloor done by the end of the week. It's only about a 200 square foot building, but I only get an hour or so of sunlight in which to work in before it gets dark. Then I am hoping that I can get the whole process of doubling the foundation system finished on Saturday. If I start early then maybe I can even start framing the walls that day? In any event, I should certainly be starting the first wall on Sunday. The first one will be slow and then I expect they'll go quick from that point on. After it got too dark to work, I went inside and kegged the beer for the Democratic party fundraiser this weekend. It turned out quite well. Usually I bottle all of my beer, but Kevin has a huge kegging setup and he gave me a keg to put this batch in. Then I dropped it off at his place this morning so he can hook it up to his tanks and pressurize it. I have to say that I'm liking this kegging thing a lot. WAY easier than bottling. I sterilized one simple container as opposed to 50 fussy little containers. The whole process took no more than 20 minutes. I really ought to get my own CO2 tank and valves. I would certainly brew more often. There was a sad thing this morning. I was on my way in to work and I saw a little dog laying by the side of the road. I pulled over in the next driveway to turn around and see if anything could be done for it. It was a little beagle mix. Only a puppy, really. Probably 7 or 8 months old. He was still a little warm and wasn't stiff so I thought there was some hope, but he was dead. I double-checked by touching the tip of a piece of grass to the eyeball. If something is alive, the reflex to blink when that happens is always still there even if the animal is comatose. The dog did not blink and I could not find a pulse. At least he must have died very quickly. The only visible wound had extremely little blood for what it was, which leads me to believe that the heart must have stopped beating right away. Dead things do not bleed. It probably got hit about 45 minutes before I got there, based on the very minor amount of rigor mortis and the temperature of the body versus the temperature of the air. There was never anything that anyone could have done following the instant that the dog was struck. The dog had no collar or tags so there was nothing else for me to do. Nobody to call or take the body to. So I moved him a little farther off the shoulder of the road where nobody would hit the body again, but he would be visible to anyone looking for him. Then I got back in the car. As a hunter, I know dead from alive pretty well. I wish the dog had been alive, with a chance to pull through under a vet's care. It would have been nice to have a duty to a wounded animal other than killing it. When I come across things in the woods or roadsides like a raccoon with rickets, a half-paralyzed deer and other tragedies like that, there isn't anything else that I can do other than kill them and end the torture. Vets will not treat sick or wounded wildlife, period (for fairly sound reasons). But a dog is different. I hope that Ida doesn't see it out the window on her way home this afternoon. In spite of the incident with the dog, I'm in a pretty good mood today. I have all that lovely wood waiting for me at home. Bob hauled that front door out to our place in his truck this morning and I bought 3 big, matching windows at the salvage store. I managed to talk them down on the price, which is always satisfying. The weather is clear, warm and sunny. After work I will have perfect conditions for building. The crocuses are blooming, along with some of the more enterprising daffodils. Willow trees have their faint, light green wisps now. Like sprouting veils. The willow trees are always first, in spring. Always the first trees to leaf out. I should plant some willow trees of my own. Maybe in that marshy bit of the lower meadow. You want to hear something nice? I've been writing this and my previous diary on Diaryland for something like 6 or 7 years now. Every single spring I write a bunch of entries about how spring is unfurling. And every single time it's like it's all new. I can write about the same crocuses and the same willow trees year after year and every single time it feels completely fresh to me. Maybe I'm even repeating some of the same observations with the same language for all I know. But I really don't care. Because it at least *feels* like one could write pages and pages of totally new descriptions of the changes of spring each and every year without ever repeating one's self. So no matter how bad things get, you've always got that to look forward to. Year after year, there's always going to be another spring. 11:07 - 2008-03-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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