Farewell to Belle

 

We said goodbye to Bella-dog on the last day of April.

She was fifteen, perhaps sixteen, give or take. A long, long life for a Labrador retriever, at any rate, and a good one. I knew Bella only in her latter years, but she has been part of Maya's world always, and Nick's companion and sidekick since he was in high school.

She traveled with him from Wisconsin to Maine to Kansas and finally to Michigan. She accompanied him to work regularly when he started the tree service, riding beside him in the truck and overseeing operations throughout the day.

She was a good sport about acquiring an exuberant, if somewhat unpredictable, canine sibling when Nick and I created our "blended family." Or at least resigned to the new reality.

She and Maisie mostly coexisted by ignoring each other, but we did catch them appearing to enjoy each other's company now and then.

She had many good adventures through the seasons.

After she "retired" from Carlson Tree Service, she became a regular on my morning walk with Maisie, followed by long days of sleeping here at the homestead.

She stood up for us at our wedding.

And, wouldn't you know, just as she was settling into a comfortable routine in her old age, she found herself called upon to help raise a baby.

Bella, always nearby and rarely inclined to get up and move, was Maya's favorite thing to reach for when she learned to sit up alone.

As Maya became more mobile, Bella was still there, tolerating whatever this small human dished out.

 

She continued to join us on our morning walks all last year.

As Maya got more capable, they became companions.

 

 

She finally slowed down (as Maya got faster and faster), and by this past winter a walk down the block and back was all she could manage. Finally, this spring, the day came when her body was ready for its final rest.

We held a burial. Maya picked daffodils, and she and Maisie watched as Nick and I dug a hole in a beautiful glen under a massive old hemlock.

The ritual was good closure for all of us. Maya will tell you, "Bella in hole. Old and tired." We feel sure she would have kept up a constant refrain of "Bella go?" if she hadn't seen her laid to rest. We all gave those silky-soft ears a final stroke, and we all said goodbye as we filled the hole with earth.

We assured Maya that only Bella's body is in the hole (a "cozy bed," Maya called it), and that her spirit went up into the sky, all around us, into all of us who remember her. "In Papa. In Mama. In Maya. In Way-zee," she agreed.

Indeed. Goodbye, Bella. Your spirit will be with us still, trotting along with your propeller-tail circling on walks, accompanying us eagerly to the car whenever there's a ride to be had, enthusiastically snarfing at all morsels of food that drop near you, and snoozing away by the fireside.

Halloween Owl

A little owl flew in for a visit at our house on Halloween! We had a fun day, and Maya obligingly wore her owl ensemble and hooted upon request.

Although Maya's bird obsession has been diluted a bit as she's developed the ability to talk about other things, she still does love her birdies and has been particularly keen on "owl birdies" of late. She was spotting them everywhere - in books, in shop windows, on signs at school.

Do you see the owl face?

Then one morning as I was getting her dressed, she looked at her jeans and said "owl birdie." What? I thought. Then I looked closer. Sure enough, there was a button with two big round holes that could be owl eyes (with enough imagination applied). She clearly had owls on the brain, so that sealed the deal on her Halloween costume.

The hat was the first piece I finished, so any mention of Halloween in the week or two prior prompted her to say "Owl hat!" followed quickly by "Hoo hoo!"

When the rest of the costume was complete, she added some enthusiastic wing-flapping to her performance.

We started Halloween with a walk downtown. Our little owl charmed many passersby at the farmer's market and the coffee shop, but she had more important things to do than pose for photos.

There were ducks to be spotted on the bridge over the river.

Grandma and Grandpa came to join the Halloween fun, and we spent the afternoon carving a pumpkin and making two big pots of soup, applesauce, and some hot spiced cider. Trick-or-treaters started marching up to the doorstep. A bunch of friends arrived to hang out, some big and some small, in varying degrees of costume or not. A fire in the fireplace kept everyone cozy on a wet and chilly night.

We put up our umbrellas and took a short foray through the trick-or-treating crowds. No candy necessary to ramp up the excitement: Maya and her pal Grayson ran at full-toddler-tilt, mouths open, yelling "aaaaaaaahhhh!" in their glee. Two blocks to our mutual midwife's house (for popcorn) and then back again was the perfect distance.

Bella did not actually wear these ears on Halloween. We found them in our front yard the next day. They suit her, though, don't you think?

She did, however, have quite a Halloween adventure. She slipped out the front door during the trick-or-treat confusion and went on a wander. No identification tag, because it had fallen off and we hadn't gotten a new one yet. Not just a black dog on a dark, rainy night, but an elderly black dog who walks slow and doesn't see or hear well anymore. We searched the neighborhood and promptly posted her photo on the local lost pets page online. Sure enough, social media came through for us that very night. Someone across the alley had seen her on the speeding thoroughfare at the end of our block (yowzers!) and rescued her. A friend of hers saw her personal Facebook post and our lost pet announcement and made the connection. A late-night phone call and a short walk brought her safely home.

Here's a little more about Maya's costume, for anyone wanting the sewing details:

I made the hat from a gray wool sweater in my repurposing pile. I lined it with fleece and made the eyes and beak from felt. I happened to have two big black shiny buttons that worked perfectly for the pupils. The "ear" tufts are just pieces of thick white yarn and gray sweater scraps. The ties are i-cord that I knit up quickly from some bulky gray yarn.

The wings were a labor of love, but one I had been looking forward to. I made a similar set of bird wings before Maya was born for her cousin Maggie, and I knew I was going to want to make a pair for Maya when she was big enough to wear them.

The first pair I made was inspired by these, these, and these. Luckily I kept good notes and could pretty much follow the same procedure to make Maya's, which sped up the process considerably. I was torn between something colorful and fun, like Maggie's, and something a little more muted and owlish. In the end I chose this autumnal palette, somewhere between the two extremes.

After cutting out all those scalloped strips, I sewed them onto the backing fabric, which was two quarter-circles 13.5 inches on each straight side (rather than the 15 inches I used for Maggie, who was nearly 3 at the time). I bound the edges with bias tape and added elastic at the wrists. I'll add another set of elastic loops at the shoulders so that these can be worn for everyday dress-up, but for the costume, I attached them at the center to the back of her outfit.

The last few Halloweens have been cold, windy, and rainy, so I decided to get ahead of the game and make a super-warm and cozy base layer for the costume. Sure enough, this year was more of the same, so it worked out well!

The pants are made from the sleeves of the same sweater I used for the hat. The dress is another repurposed sweater. I started with the Oliver + S Field Trip Raglan t-shirt pattern and modified it a bit (using this helpful tutorial) to make an a-line dress with a pleat in the center. It was my first-ever completed-in-a-single-naptime sewing project. I've never thought myself capable of this feat, although I often read about it being done by speedier sewists. But this time I traced the pattern, made the dress revisions, cut out the fabric, and sewed it all up, all in the space of a single (admittedly longer than usual) afternoon nap. Re-using the original hems for both the skirt and the sleeves was key, but I'll take it!

She'll be able to wear these pieces as basics all winter, so the time investment should certainly pay off. To be honest, though, I hope she'll wear the hat and the wings just as much!

Winter Walks

As Maya's first birthday approaches, I've been recalling this time a year ago. After she was born, I almost immediately ceased to remember a surprising amount about how it felt to be pregnant. It was as if holding that tiny newborn person in my arms erased nearly all memory of the time when she was constantly with me but I hadn't met her yet. Growing a baby was fantastically strange and wonderful and I wanted to remember it all. But I'd look at the photos of my late-pregnancy belly and feel disbelief...and a state of disconnection from that self.

However, something about our winter morning dog walks has been bringing those final weeks of pregnancy to mind better than anything else has in this blur of a year. As the snow piles deeper and I hike along with Maya riding in her backpack, I have flashbacks about making this same journey last winter on more mornings than not. The dogs lead the way, then and now, while I follow behind and the rows of spruces tower over us, forming a tunnel that leads away from the busy road we cross and into a special wild space carved out of our neighborhood and our day.

I find myself chatting with Maya as we walk, asking her if she remembers making this same trek when she was inside my belly. Last winter was one for the record books, both in its severity and its length. "You were cozy and warm in there, weren't you?" I prompt, recalling all the people who told me that my baby would be in no hurry to come out if it stayed so frigid. "The snow was very, very deep," I remind her. I wonder if the rhythm of my booted feet trudging through the snow was familiar to her already as this year's accumulation began.

I think back to how I'd huff across the road at top speed and then have to scramble up the massive snowbank on the other side on all fours. Maisie would charge ahead, which helped to propel me and my belly, while I gave Bella a shove to boost her up and over. (By mid-February, the bank finally got so high, and my tales of climbing it so ridiculous, that Nick went across with a shovel one morning and carved me a set of steps.) Having reached the top of the bank, I'd then sink in to my knees with each step until we reached the main path.

We were often the first to make tracks in the new snow, and the wide-open stretches would be drifted over so deeply that progress was made one slow step at a time. At the end of the trail, plowed-up snow piles reached mountainous proportions that we'd scale like arctic explorers. It sounds epic and it often felt that way, even though the same loop is no more than an easy twenty-minute walk in temperate weather.

Last year, what with my swelling belly and flapping unzipped coat, a dog leash in each hand, and two eager canines not always moving in the same direction, I felt like we were quite a show. But now that we've added the actual baby, we're positively an entourage.
 

More people than I can count have felt the need to point out to me that I have my hands full. It's usually fellow pedestrians, but the other day a man stopped his car at an intersection and rolled down his window specifically to tell me just that.

The funny thing is that, this year, I'd say that once we're all bundled and out the door and moving in more or less the same direction, we've gotten to the easy part. It's getting ready that is the real ordeal these days. But that's another post for another day!

First Fall

Would you believe it? Another day, another post. So far my catching-up plan is going swimmingly.

Fall brought us a baby who was suddenly much more mobile and capable and engaged with her surroundings. And fall is a delicious time to introduce such a baby to more of the delights of the world. Sensory experiences abound.

In the garden, there was arugula to be harvested (and sampled). My assistant was eager to help.

Nick filled up our front yard with a big load of firewood to be split, hauled to the backyard wood pile, and stacked. So our woolly little sheep-baby spent some hours out there, watching us work and collecting all the leaves and wood chips within reach.

The backyard swing saw some action on crisp fall days when we were looking for excuses to stay outside. We keep saying we should get a baby swing for Maya, but for now she seems to enjoy swinging on our laps just as well.

We made the obligatory family trip to the pumpkin patch in October. Apple Town, near Burt Lake, serves up fresh apple cider and doughnuts made on the spot, so it's hard to beat that for a pumpkin-selecting location.

Oma Ursula came to visit in October. We made several fun excursions out into the colorful countryside during her stay, including a hike on the Cottonwood Trail off Pierce Stocking Drive on this gorgeous blue-sky day.

Excursions afield are fun, but there was plenty of fun to be had right at home on our leaf-covered deck, too. Our little elf enjoyed some excellent leaf encounters there. I loved watching her take in the crisp textures, interesting shapes, rustling sounds, and, yes, irresistible tastes of all those leaves.

Sometimes she encountered a lab out there, too. Complete with more interesting shapes and textures to explore. Patient Bella. Happy little elf!

Looking for the full fall photo experience?
September album
October album

A Winter Walk

Oh, hello! It's been a while, once again. There are so many places I could begin. How about we just take a walk and catch up?
 

Here's where my morning generally starts, with a loop on our customary dog-walking route. After dashing across the busy road at the end of the block, we set off through this tunnel of trees. When the branches are all laden with snow, you'd think you were headed straight to Narnia. It has looked like this more often than not for the past few weeks. We've been having gloriously snowy weather.

My companions enjoy the snow as much as I do.

Bella Big-Tongue

Maisie Snow-Beard

At the end of the tunnel we come to this open stretch. Not Narnia after all, just a path along the powerlines.

I realize that I often edit the powerlines out of the photos I take on this route. But they are part of the story, this accessible piece of wild land so near my house and surrounded by roads and development.

I am more likely to point my camera toward this view, which looks far more remote than it actually is.

Or to zoom in on some small detail, removing the context of the wider view.

But it's hard to avoid the abundance of wires. And somehow in the stark black and white of these winter scenes, and as a straight-line contrast to all the graceful curves of the snow, the lines finally found their way into some photos. I find that I like the effect.

 

Occasionally Nick joins us for the morning walk. Here he is on one recent morning when the snow was falling fast and thick.

We continue on, skirting a marshy area that's only navigable when it's frozen and covered with a deep layer of snow. With both those conditions met, we ventured out across it a few times last week.

Nick dressed Bella for the blizzard, feeling that she should carry a few extra supplies.
Maisie, unencumbered and energized as usual, breaks trail.

Soon we emerge from the "wilderness" and carry on by way of the sidewalk. One more dash through the traffic and we're home. The house waits for us under its blanket of snow.

The chickens, meanwhile, bide their time in the snowy coop. I imagine they're dreaming of green grass and garden treats as I bring them water and toss in some scratch.

Though the frisbee is likely buried somewhere in the backyard under the previous night's snowfall, Maisie will surely find it and request some playtime before we head inside.

Hope you enjoyed the walk - it was a pleasure to have you along! Having reassured you that I have not, in fact, been spirited off to an enchanted kingdom or even just gotten buried in a snowdrift in the months since I've last posted, I'll do my best to return here soon and fill you in on a few more of the recent goings-on!