More on Amos

Say that three times fast.

Amos has reached 30 pounds. Our growth chart suggests he's headed for an adult weight of around 50 pounds. He's a little over 5 months now, and his brain still hasn't developed.

Today, on this cool Thanksgiving Day we went for a walk in the park. For once, it was all of us together; the whole of scaq and Amos, too. We had the park pretty much to ourselves. A little rain was falling, and the temperature was around 40 F. It was very pleasant.

I'd like to let the oak leaves in our yard lie where they fall. In a few years our yard would look like this park. Much better it would be than the green monoculture so valued and required by our society.





Amos had had a bath yesterday, so shortly after we started down the path he found some poop to roll in. I'm not sure what sort of poop it was. It was kind of gray in color, with a shiny surface. I know it wasn't goose poop because Amos didn't eat it.

Legg Park is long and thin, comprising the natural levee and bottom lands between the Red Cedar River and the railroad track. In some places small trails head off and cross the tracks. We were hoping a train would come by, but maybe they don't run on Thanksgiving.



There were muddy spots on the trail, but Amos was not worried about getting his paws muddy. He did, however, generally avoid stepping in water, choosing instead to try to walk on the logs or boards to get across small rivulets.

I think it would be fun if Amos would learn to play in water, so I had the bright idea to position myself on the opposite side of a stream from him to see if he'd cross when I called him. It sort of worked. I called, and he really, really wanted to come across. He bounded back and forth along the water's edge, but he did not cross. I moved to a wide spot along the creek where the water was shallow so he could cross easily, but Amos had a different idea. He ran to a narrow point where the water was deep and flowing and attempted to leap across. He landed in deep water in the middle, up to his belly, and didn't know what to do. What he did was the last thing I ever expected. He did nothing. He just stood there. We didn't know what to do. We tried to call him, but he wouldn't move. A minute passed, perhaps two, and he still wouldn't move. He began to shiver, so I stepped into the water, well over the tops of my boots, and pulled him out. We were near the car and done with our walk, so we dried him, and took him home for another bath.

Raking leaves again

This month we had to go through the seasonal task of leaf removal. We raked the front yard first, moving all of the leaves to the less-used side of the driveway where they sat for a couple of weeks while we worked on bagging them for pick-up. We understand that they go to some sort of giant community composting system, not just to the landfill. We filled up 30 bags of leaves, but that only got us half way through the pile, and we still had the back and side yards to rake. At that point I decided we should get some professional help.

A couple weeks later we moved all the remaining leaves in the yard and driveway to the ditch in front of the house. The pile in the ditch was huge: at least six feet deep and extending the full width of our yard. We had a lawn care service suck them up in a truck and haul them away. They quoted us $70 before they saw the pile. That's all they charged us, but after seeing the pile said that next year it might cost more.

Amos and the kids really enjoyed the leaf piles. Amos would get a tremendous running start and leap into the pile. He would bound around the pile, disappearing under the pile and bursting out in a spray of leaves. In many ways, he's much like a small human.





Had we ever posted any pictures of the house since we painted this summer?

Fish Point

I had a nice morning of duck hunting on Saginaw Bay a week ago Sunday. I went with Frank and his son Matt to Fish Point where we rented a duck blind and decoy spread through Fish Point Lodge. It was actually the first time I've ever been duck hunting.

We went out to Fish Point, which is along the southeast shore of Saginaw Bay. To take care of some of the logistics, we arranged the trip through Fish Point Lodge. They have various waterfowl hunting packages from basic to elaborate, with options including lodging, dinners, and guide service. We took the least elaborate and least expensive option. It simply involved arriving at around 5:30 a.m. to get shuttled in a flat-bottomed aluminum boat to a blind in Saginaw Bay. We loaded our gear into the boat and our guide -- our ferry driver, really -- took us maybe a 1/2 mile to a floating blind that was anchored about 30 yards from shore. Well, not really a shore so much as a finger of marsh vegetation running out into the bay. Fish Point Bay is very shallow, so the blind was only sitting in 2-3 feet of water. It was easy to get out -- in waders -- and retrieve birds. Although Frank has a big retriever, for some reason he didn't get to come along.

The blind was a 2x4 and plywood sort of structure built on a a pontoon boat platform, probably about 16' by 8'. It was covered pieces of vegetation -- arbor vitae branches and phragmites stalks, mostly -- so it mostly looked like a clump of misshapen marsh grass sticking up near the shore. It was sort of like a giant rectangular Kleenex box with a slot in the top so you could easily stand up to shoot. Unlike a Kleenex box, however, the top on the back side was taller so there was just enough room to sit under it. The front side was lower so we could see over it while seated. It was very nice, really, although at the same time sort of old and patched, with new boards screwed over old. Inside it had a slightly squishy plywood floor with four old chairs and a trash can. When we arrived at the blind, the lodge folks had already set out a spread of about 30 mallard decoys and a goose decoy between the blind and the shore. Seemed like lazy hunting, I thought. But very convenient and good for me since I'm lacking in this sort of equipment.

We saw lots and lots of ducks, egrets, herons, cranes, swans, and lots of fast little shore birds I couldn't quite identify. It was really incredible. When the sun was coming up over the water the birds were everywhere and making quite a racket. It was great just to be sitting there watching and listening to it all. Once the sun got a bit of clearance over the horizon, the day turned sunny and the avian activity slowed down. Frank and I each got a mallard in those early hours. Our blind rental was for the whole day, and the birds probably would have started moving around again in the late afternoon or early evening, but Matt had to back in Kalamazoo so we left not too much after noon. We had arranged to have the guide come back and pick us up around 12:30. I would loved to have stayed longer, but I was running low on food and my feet were a little cold.

I wish I'd put a little more effort in to taking pictures. If I get out there again, I'll try to do a better job with camera.