Me: Friend of Harbor Seals

One cool thing about living at a marina is one day you're walking home to your boat and there's a new baby seal that wasn't there yesterday.  

Mom quickly urges the baby to swim, and most importantly teaches him to get out again. 

That's the very first time the baby managed to get out of the water, and I was there to watch! 

They took up residency on a section of dock right behind our boat, which wasn't the greatest spot because it was a thoroughfare leading to many other boats. They might have been better off on the exact finger of dock where the birth happened which has much less traffic. But okay, we get lots of seal pictures! 

Not very many days later, Baby is filling out nicely and looks half as long as Mom already. 

They're gone most of the day fishing, but sleep up there at night. 

Jeff says harbor seals want to sleep on the dock because it's warmer. Cold water takes away their energy, so their survival is directly connected with how often they need to jump in. Whenever someone comes along, they watch, hoping the people don't get any closer because they don't want to have to go into the cold water again. 

I don't want to get any closer. I'm just trying to get home to my boat home so I walk in a nonthreatening way around their corner, making soothing baby talk. 

The night before last, we came home from shopping with a cart full of bags of groceries. Only the baby was on the dock. Mom had jumped in the water at the first sound of the cart. But since it turned out to be "you guys", she hopped back out of the water right in front of us and lay down! 

But then, unfortunately, I casually pulled a bag out of the cart too fast and without any baby talk to prepare them. They both bailed. Splish, splish. 

"That was just one grocery bag too much," Jeff said. 

Or maybe they heard about that lady in Oregon who carried a baby seal home in a shopping bag and killed it. 

Last night they had lain down for the night and I came walking around the corner in the dark. When they heard someone coming they both started hurrying towards the water, but then they realized it was me and stopped. 

I said, "Nice puppies, good puppies, stay there, it's just me" and they stayed still and watched me walk by only five feet away. 

I feel so honored! 

There's a video that goes here, I'll add it as soon as I find it :-) 

The challenge is to write some words, add some pictures and actually post. "Finding the video" is mastery level one step beyond that and one step beyond me. But I haven't given up! 

Mar 2023 ::remembers:: oh yeah, I put it on Youtube. 

Gently down the stream

Dave: row, row, row

Me: merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily!

My experience with water and boats is so limited that a rowboat is a thrill. 

I got to go again with the darling a couple days after. We were bringing the boat over to an end of the beach where we could pluck it from the water and carry it to our truck. 

You would think I could row. I'm strong enough, and I'm reputed to have a knack for mechanics and there's the spatial relationships thing that does me so well on IQ tests. But the one or two times I've been in a rowboat I look like a confused toddler, going in circles, splashing around to no purpose, unable to get the boat to make any efficient progress or even in the right direction. I've conceded that the darling gets to row. 

But he got an important phone call and abandoned rowing. I could have sat nicely and waited, but I grabbed oars and started hauling as randomly as usual, and eventually got us over to the target beach and THEN I got to do a totally excellent thing I've always wanted to do-- didn't realize it was at the top of the list of things to do before I die, until the opportunity for it was at hand! That thing I've seen a dozen times on pirate movies, where you jump out of the boat into the water and pull the boat up the beach. My shoes were off so quick you'd think somebody was about to tell me not to do that. 

That thing. 

The darling usually says, "That's not a job for a princess!" 

But he was on the phone and didn't notice I was pulling him in. When he hung up, there was the boat up on the beach and me looking like I'd just saved the world. 

One of those high points of life! 

Not Mountains, but Not Little Hills

Every now and again I get to do something fun. 
Every now and again I organize my photos folder.  Here we go! 

Soooo... I drove down to Cali and here's the photos of my sorta vacay.
On the way I stopped at Riverside Park in Grants Pass, where I've been before.  It's so pretty! 

The sign says you have to be under twelve.  Bummer. 
But luckily I came at the playground from a different angle and didn't see the sign until I was already all played out, and nobody yelled at me. 

Don't I look under twelve?

That sort of thing right there is why everybody yells "Smile!" at me.
Maybe I should.
I'll make a note.

I did some wandering around in Yreka. 

 

The playground is my favorite place in any town. 

Went to Greenhorn Park!

And climbed, if you want to call it that, those hills, which are a challenge for me at this point, esp in 98 degrees which I'm not exactly used to any more. 

But there's a lovely view from the top, down at the valley with I-5 and Mt Shasta in the distance.

Look at those two pictures. They're basically the same composition, but in one the crowning blob of white is just a little cloud, and in the other it's Mt Shasta.

The next day's bathroom selfie at church, because I still had mountaintop glow on me, or at least it was still in my head and I liked myself for once. 

See, I'm smiling now, because mountain!
The mountain is where we need to live, and why should we ever come down?

Then I went to Medford and went up Table Rock. 

Here's a couple from Wikimedia because none of mine are this cool.  And wowwww, the view from the air! 

Here are the ones I took.

Heading up there. 
Looking at where we're going.

The prettiness on the way

Almost there!

The top and the view from the top.

Very aware of rattlesnakes and poison oak-- which I'm not aware of usually-- I'd just had my consciousness raised.  This horrible-sounding stuff was pointed out to me, and I took a photo of it for reference!

It sounds nasty.  In fact I did not enjoy the trip back down at all because I had to GO and I'm a girl, and that poison stuff was everywhere I looked, so I basically ran all the way back down to the reassuring concrete restroom.

Oh well, fun was had!

It was a journey of a thousand miles, or almost. 

I'm Still a Housewife

I just had to write a summary of myself.  I really hate those.  Do they want my categories, my facts and statistics, or a list of my interests, talents, and skills, or a list of everything I've ever done?  

If I must be summed up in a word, housewife is the best one. 
I've had extra pleasure in using it ever since a feminist type saw me writing it into the "Occupation" box on a form and commanded me not to-- "For the sake of your self-respect!"


Since my self-respect is based more on the right to define myself than on my pride in how well I can follow others' instructions, here we are.  A housewife.

I recently looked up the word husband to be sure I could use it as a synonym for steward in the sense that I wanted, and found out something interesting.  Y'know how we joke about a house husband-- well, they're ALL that because "hus" means house!

hus·band late Old English (in the senses ‘male head of a household’ and ‘manager, steward’)
from Old Norse húsbóndi, from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil.’

The word wife just means a woman who is doing an occupation.  Like the old fishwife, a woman who sells fish, or still-used midwife, a woman who assists (another).
So a housewife is a woman whose primary occupation is the upkeep of a house, and husband is her male counterpart. 

That I haven't a husband is of no matter for my choice of self-descriptive terminology.
Why should a man's wrong choices deprive me of my calling?

Since I live in an apartment, I'll have do some more creative defining.  I'll go with "house" as a private establishment which shelters a family and supports the daily activities of all of its members, the good keeping of which makes it possible to live economically.

Haha, oh, I really came over here just to rejoice! I've been so happy lately! Quietly keeping my little place, peeling my little vegies, sweeping my floors, sewing and selling stuff. These are my favorite, most contented days.

Dave's butterfly

Dave came in the house and went upstairs without noticing this critter had come in with him. 

That’s not as bad a surprise as some other critters would be, if found in the same position!

Blue Boy

Blue boy in blue togs. 

Blue boy in red togs.