Good morning! There you are. It’s nice to see you.
I woke up this morning smelling of campfire, so I must be having a pretty terrific weekend. I hope you are too.
People training
Training animals requires repetition and consistency. I’ve learned this over the years. I taught my homing pigeons to come home when I whistle. They only do that because every time I feed them, I whistle. Every time.
Lolo has learned this lesson over the years too. If she wants to go out, she sits at the back door and makes the sweetest eyes she can muster to any human who happens to be nearby. It is almost always me. I dutifully open the door and let her out. I have been trained.
A few years into this routine, I started working from home. When I’m at my desk, I can’t see her standing at the back door no matter how sweet she makes her eyes, so she comes into my office. I’m usually typing away at something and not watching for cats. To grab my attention, she nwalks down the piano keyboard.
The first time she did this, I hopped up and let her out the back door so I could finish the job I was working on in peace. The next day, she did the same thing. I hopped up and let her out the back door. By the third day, we had a routine going. I had been trained again.
A few months went by and this routine continued. I didn’t mind it, really. It’s kind of ridiculous to have a cat who plays piano when she wants to go outside. It wasn’t until she realized she could send me this message at 2 a.m. I began to get annoyed.
The first middle of the night piano solo, I bolted out of bed. It was just. so. loud. I ran to the back door and let her out just to shut her up. The next night, she did it again. I hopped out of bed. She was waiting for me at the back door.
The third night, I realized I had been trained. Her plan had worked.
If you’re ever at our house and wonder why we always keep the keyboard cover down on the piano, this is why.
A few mornings ago, Lolo sat beside my bed about an hour before my scheduled alarm and meowed. Not loudly. Not incessantly. Just a little meow every now and again. After about ten minutes I hopped out of bed, bleary eyed, and let her outside.
As I shut the door behind her, I realized she was training me again. If the next night I hopped up to let her out, she would have succeeded.
Sure enough, the next day at 4 a.m. she sat beside my bed and politely meowed.
“I will not,” I said to myself from my cozy cocoon. “I must not.”
She kept meowing. After ten minutes, she became a bit more urgent. When I still hadn’t budged, she knocked my book of my beside table.
“I must not…” I said to myself.
After half an hour, she left me alone.
She tried again the next night, but halfheartedly. She meowed. She knocked over the book. She left.
The night after that, she left me alone.
I’m sure she’s not done with me. She has just gone back to the drawing board to devise some new scheme. I’m sure of it. She is, after all, an accomplished trainer.
On top of the fridge
Greetings from the top of my fridge, where jars of sauerkraut and onions sit quietly fermenting. The top of my fridge has been mostly quiet the last few months, so it’s been fun to have some mad-scientist project stuff bubbling away up there.
The red onions are perfectly funky after just six days (especially in the warm weather), so those jars have since gone into the fridge where they adorn every burger and sandwich I eat for the next two weeks. The sauerkraut is technically done after two weeks, but I think it doesn’t really start to sing until after three. We’re just rounding the week-three mark now, so we’ll be knee deep in stinky cabbage any day now.
Gutter season
I used to tremble at the thought of climbing this damn ladder. I still don’t love it, but I don’t spend ten minutes climbing to the top with my knees shaking the whole time like I used to.
The gutters on the east side of the house fill with tree debris every spring. There’s a horse chestnut over there who likes to throw its blossoms into the eavestrough and plug up the downspout. Once the downspout is clogged, any amount of rain just spills over the side of the eaves, creating a waterfall outside our kitchen window.
My fear has slowly left with repetition of this job. But also, there are few sounds as pleasing to me as the noise of the entire eavestrough draining into the downspout the second I remove that clog. Whoooooooosh. I don’t know how to explain it. My enjoyment of it is almost primal. Definitely worth climbing the ladder.
I love a fire
Jane’s been having her friends over for a bonfire in the evenings every now and again. It’s exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for when I build the fire pit this spring.
Last night, after she and her friends left, there was still a nice little fire going. I found Erin and Alice out there toasting marshmallows. I grabbed Alice’s guitar and my mandolin and joined them.
The fire had burned down quite a bit, so I added a bit of wood. Not enough to keep it going for long, just just enough to give us an extra half hour with a nice, small fire.
I made an improvement on the pit yesterday. When I build it, I left a bit of space between the bricks to allow the fire to draw air. I apparently didn’t leave enough space, because our fires have been smoky and disappointing. Last night, I removed a couple of bricks from the bottom layer to leave a pair couple of draft holes. You can see the one of the holes in the photo above.
What a difference. Even our small, dwindling fire burned hot enough to not be smoky.
Thanks for hanging out with me on another Sunday morning. Thanks also to the members of my Patreon. I’m really excited for the big wrap up of the Losers Guild so I can start writing my mystery novel. I’m going to be sharing the process (and bouncing ideas) with members of my Patreon, so join the crew at Patreon.com/the_quack.
I hope you have a great week.
Gutter screens (guards) life changing.