Seven Random Things About Me.

Seven random things about me:

I know how to hand cut and braid kangaroo hide because I was lucky enough to learn it at the feet of a 94 year old saddler who was from three generations of saddlers. He was a lovely old man and used to tell me stories of his life as we sat outside in the shade of a beautiful tree and did our work. He also had a tame magpie who would bite my ankles till I did Ttouch on her until she was so relaxed she had crept up into my lap and fallen asleep, and she decided I was ok after that.

The best moment of my horse-riding life might have been this time, I was maybe 17, and I was galloping a palouse pony down this sandy hill bareback and he tripped and staggered forward for a few hair-raising strides and tipped me off, but I ran alongside with my hands stilled gripped in his mane and vaulted back on at full gallop. No-one saw it, sadly!

I have a Second Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo, that I earned after 7 years of training and grading. I was 39 when I passed that grading. I started by going to a self defense course and found I was good at it and loved it and it went from there. Andrew, my hubby, who was already a Black Belt in Karate came along too and we trained together at home and passed all our gradings the same day apart from our Black Belts, where I pulled a muscle in my calf halfway and had to redo that grading a few weeks later.

From the ages of 10 to 30 I had a stepdad who was not only a sociopath but had munchausen's and munchausen's by proxy, as well.  It has shaped me in very odd ways, some good, some not so good. I am proud, though, that I became ever more honest rather than follow his example. It made me ever more determined to be a good and honorable person. My mum and sister and I survived him and stayed together. It was quite an accomplishment. He is still alive somewhere and I will be really happy the day I know he is dead because no-one else will need to suffer from him or be changed irrevocably by him ever again.

When I was a teen I got a ten week old puppy called Keech who was a Kelpie (local herding dog) crossed with who knows what. She was so beautiful, with her broad head, black and tan coat, gold-flecked brown eyes, and tall pointed ears. She was my heart, my sister, mother and friend, for fifteen years. She had love for everyone and yet was always dignified. She taught me so much, and still comes to me as my Guide in my Druid journey meditations. All my dogs since have been like my children, but Keech was/is a soul mate.

The very first ever novel I wrote was in the evenings and weekends when I was doing my teaching degree. It was a swashbuckling sword and sorcery with a very feisty female lead character, and it was funny and quite rude too! It was a great relief after my days of trying to be something I was not. I banged it out on the little orange typewriter my grandmother gave me many years before when I said I'd decided to be a writer. I'd get quite involved. I remember one night I was madly typing some exciting fight scene and a piece of wood fell out of the fire behind me and I nearly hit the roof, I jumped so hard!

When I was in my twenties and early thirties I never cut my hair, so that it grew till it was to the backs of my knees. I nearly always wore it in two long braids like a viking, but when I took it out it was like a river of gold and bronze. I felt like my hair was my strength like Sampson did. Maybe it was. It was only after I cut it that I got sick! It's growing again now and I keep saying I will only grow it to my shoulderblades, then trim it, but I haven't for a long time and it is on the way down my back again...

The Things You Find When You Declutter...

Like the cartoons you did for christmas cards 20 years ago...

1997, Isabeau the horse, Nermal the cat, Keech and Sam the dogs. 

1998, Isabeau the horse, Nermal and Massey the cats, Keech and Sam the dogs.

1999, Isabeau, Nermal and Massey, Sam and Tam.  

Yes I used to have very long hair.  And Roo had no beard and numerous piercings in those days too!



  

Dogs of my High Pack: Trudy

Trudy was the first dog who was all mine.  She was brought into our home by my evil stepdad, who rescued her and was also the cause of her death.  This pretty much sums up our life with him right there.

I don't have many photos.  I have two, and also one very faded instagram of her condition when she arrived, because she was so very thin and we might need proof of that. She had been tied to a sprinkler at a local market gardener's block.  The vet said she was very close to death by starvation.  My stepdad just took her to save her.

She was a beautiful purebred German Shepherd. She was fairly dark look at, but all of her undercoat was creamy.  As I soon learned when she blew her coat and we brushed bags and bags of creamy fluff out of her!   

At first we could only feed her boiled chicken and rice because her stomach was so damaged.  Since she was only a young dog who had been deprived a long time, she proceeded to grow and grow instead of gaining weight around her ribs, and we got tsked at a lot. At one point I actually felt like putting a sign around her neck to say that we weren't the ones who had starved her!

I had started Uni that year, studying to be an early childhood teacher.  I felt very out of place there, not sure I was in the right course, not really fitting in with my fellow prospective teachers, not getting assignments done on time, or at all.  Looking back, I was intellectually ok to be there, but emotionally I was not.  In the evening, though, I could come home to Trudy and we would go for lovely walks, and oh we loved each other.

I remember how it felt to lie on a bed and use my big dog's ribs as my pillow to read books.  She never minded.   The closer the better, she reckoned.

Like a lot of dogs who didn't get a good start, she wasn't so great at keeping an eye on you when walking, so I kept her on lead.  Anyway she was frightened of men she didn't know, so it was safer. I used to smile to see people cross the road to avoid her, when I knew that if they had come much closer she would have popped behind my legs and timidly peeped out at them as we passed.  She was so gentle.

We did have lovely times at a very large property, more than 2000 acres, where I would go on weekends to help with a horse trail-ride business.  She could run loose up there. It was so safe.  She made great friends with the other dogs there and they would go off rabbiting together while we messed about with horses. She got very good at joining the other dogs in helping us herd in extra mounts if we needed them.  It was such a cool place for a young person and her dog to be.  Like living in a Western movie.

One time, Trudy, was off with the other dogs when we took a trip in a car across to the far side of the property, and we had gone some kilometres before I noticed that Trudy was galloping up behind us, having tracked us, I know not how, all that way.  Her tongue was out a mile and covered with dust!

She would scratch up my car if left in it, and apparently also cried when I was at Uni.  This was her undoing.  We were told there had been a complaint to the shire about her barking by the neighbour.   I know now that it was my stepfather, who had never meant me to keep her when he rescued her and who was prone to making this sort of trouble, at times just for attention or drama.  This was one of his dichotomies: that he loved animals and had a soft heart, but would hurt them too if it suited him.

We had three dogs and should only have two.  I argued but was told that we would have to rehome her. Rather than give up my beloved dog, I took her up to the property where we had been so happy and they said they would keep her for me while I worked out what to do. I should have known that she would not be happy there without me.  She went missing and was found killed on the road.  I found her.  It was a very terrible night.

I still remember the confused faces of my poor neighbours when I knocked on the door in floods of tears and told them I hoped they were happy because my dog was dead.  We didn't yet know all that my stepfather was capable of.

I'm sorry that I didn't keep you safe, Trudy.  We should have had many more years together. 

I don't much like posting sad things here, but Trudy is the last of the dogs of my high pack, and she deserves to have her story too.

It seemed very appropriate to tell her tale today, since my sister and her family have today said goodbye to their loyal and beautiful Freyja at last.  Each and every loss of our family dogs has been very much in my mind, as they always are when we farewell another.

Oh they are so worth it, but Rudyard Kipling had it right when he said, "Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware, of giving your heart to a dog to tear."
                            

 

                       

Busy Busy

Writing has been going well. My sort of novel makes for a very odd website history, though.  This week I've searched for the mating and fighting habits of turtles, how to sail in low wind, giant ground sloths, and many other fun things that would reveal too much if I told you about them!

All that weird knowledge didn't seem to do me any good when we went out to a quiz night with some other brigade members last weekend, though.

I must admit that while it was fun, the noise, perfume and whatever gave me a mostly mild bout of acute porphyria when I got home.  Had the chills and shakes and upset tummy but didn't get to my brain this time, thank goodness. Still meant for a pretty bad night.  Not fun, but I've just got to take some chances if I am to have any sort of life.

Training was fun at the brigade last Saturday.  We had a little turnout race. Which team could get into two vehicles, get out to the pretend fire, and deploy hoses. We lost but we did go first, so the second team learned from our mistakes.  :)

This is me trying to reach into the Light Tanker for a flat hose.  Shortness is a disadvantage in some cases, no doubt about it.  Still, I hardly ever bang my head on anything because someone taller has already done so and fixed it!
 

When I was looking for Nermal photos, I found these old pics I thought I'd lost, of Tam and Buffy and our pool at the last house.

It brought back a lot of memories for me.  Amazing to think that Tam wouldn't swim at all when she came to us at six months. We certainly did a good job of getting her happier with water.

It was a bit of a dangerous game though!  

A new things I've added to my days is learning Anglo-Saxon on Memrise.  It's been fun. I just have to do it, what with playing the Anglo-Saxon lyre and all. I'd like to be able to sing at least a couple of songs on my lyre in that language.  Not that I ever expect to get at good as Benjamin Bagby, or sound as marvelous! 

He gives me goosebumps!  I can now pick out a few words that I know. I hope to be able to read/listen to it all eventually. I do love the sound of it so much.  The lyre, the language.  All of it.  Interesting where learning can lead you, isn't it!




                 

Yarn, old photos and fireys

Look at this lovely handpainted yarn I got from Marigold and dog!  I plan to make some easy crocheted wrist warmers from this tutorial by Bunnymummy.

I love the delicious autumn colours!

Was messing with our filing cabinet and found these old newspaper clippings in a file I'd forgotten I had.  (As you do.) How cute was I? Keech was even cuter.  :)

This next one was our University motorbike club.  I have memories of some very wild rides with that lot!  See me grinning there behind Bill the dog?  I was riding my Yamaha XS 250.  Later I graded up to The Maxx, who was a load of fun. I have little memory of that second bike, only that it was maybe 600 CC and belt driven, and hand-painted matt black, and I don't have even one photo of it! 

  
It's fun to come across these long forgotten memories, isn't it!

Fireys has been going on as usual. Here are Elton and his wife Michelle.

Elton was already in the Brigade when we joined and is a fellow ex-SCAer!


Not sure if we ever met in our SCA days, but I do remember that the first time saw him I thought to myself, "That guy needs to be in the SCA!" so maybe we did, though I do meet other people who I think that about too.  :)

Michelle and I have got to be friends, so I am pleased she has joined the Brigade too! 

     
We had a lot of fun bouncing around in the Light Tanker together behind the 1.4 as we did some track familiarisation last Saturday.

We all switched positions round a lot, so at one point I was being driven by Gogs, who is always good value.

Next thing I was driving the Light Tanker with Michelle, and then I was crammed in the back of the 1.4 with the beefy lads.

Had to leave the door open and hang half out to get the seatbelt done up, we were so squeezy!

It was fun, although maybe not this much fun, Gogs!

Next weekend we're holding a Games Night for the Brigade.  Hope it goes well!
  

 
 

   
      

Dogs of my High Pack: Keech

Keech, what can I say about Keech to do her justice?

She came in to my life when I was, I think seventeen, maybe eighteen.  I'd just quit a job working on a racehorse property where I had lived-in, and was due to start another one working for a car parts dealer.  The real description of that job turned to be "prospective bit on the side," but I didn't know that yet.  I was to move to a bit of a scary area to live beside a garage. I know, I know!  Dodgy!  But after the crappy digs at the racehorse place it didn't seem all that much worse.  Anyway, I wanted a dog for company. I hadn't been able to have one while living-in and I really hated being dogless.  I looked in the paper and there was a pup.  Doberman/German shepherd cross, ten weeks, free to good home.

The pain of losing the first dog who was all my own, Trudy, was still with me, and she had been a German Shepherd, so I decided to see this little pup, hoping I might love her just as much.  They brought her to see me, and I will always remember how she came into the room and trotted round saying hello to each person as she went.  Not fawning, not over-excited, but in no way nervous either, just glad to meet people.

She was rather scrawny and wormy, and I was told that she had been taken from her mother at five weeks. At ten weeks old she had already been in two homes and was about to be in another!  She was already called Keech. I never asked why, or what it meant, and I never knew, though there is a wolf called Kiche in the Jack London book, White Fang.

Anyway, Keech and I went off to live in our little room beside the garage, and the very first night someone tried to break though the big rolladoors into garage next door.  We cuddled together in our bed and waited for the noise to end one way or another, and luckily it ended with the person going away disappointed.  By morning, we were bonded.

That 'job' only lasted as long as it took me to work out what was really wanted of me and after that we moved home for a little while, then out again into my car for a little while, and then a share house. I was back riding racehorses at a new place, and Keech would come along and sleep in the car while I worked.

By then it was obvious that what she was, breed-wise, was mostly Kelpie, with maybe a bit of Shepherd that added height and solidity.  Her ears eventually stood up, and it took her a long time to grow into them, but grow into them she did. 

It was an unsettled time for me, and for her too, I guess, as we moved around a lot, but she took it all in her stride, as she did everything that life sent her way.  Keech was ever friendly, ever confident, ever loving.  She never met anyone, man or beast, that she didn't see as a potential friend, but she was capable of looking after herself or her loved ones if necessary too.  She was a true gentle leader dog, in the style of Mark Rashid's passive leader horses.  She ruled by confidence and kindness.  She cared for baby animals of all kinds.

She was such a handsome dog. I've rarely met a dog with as much beauty or presence as she had. Her eyes were to die for; brown with golden specks in them. Warm, wise and friendly.

Still very young and not very settled, and living in a house with no fences, I was not able to stop her getting pregnant, though I did my very best. I still remember her asking to go out the door for what I thought was a quick potty break but, instead, her taking off round the house with a male dog who she must have known was waiting at the back door. By the time I caught up to them, they were already tied. Oh dear!  Still, if ever a dog deserved to pass on her genes it was Keech, crossbreed or not.

There is where she got nickname Keech the Peach!

She had three litters in her life, all on her terms to dogs she chose, and I didn't have a say in it.  The last litter, I never even saw a male dog! I could have sworn I'd kept her with me or shut in the house every minute of her season.  When she managed the same trick with the same invisible dog on her next season, I bit the bullet and had her spayed. Don't ask me why I didn't spay her earlier. I think I was so very bonded to her, and needed her so much, and was terrified she might die.  Would I do differently now?  Of course, but youthful stupidity is only fixed by having some more years under your belt.  Ah well we loved them and cared for them, and did our best by them (though I know now that it wasn't good enough!) and she loved being a mum.

     
I followed quite a few of her pups, and they went on to be wonderful dogs for other people, though I never kept one. I think I felt that no pup of hers could quite compare to the mother, and it wouldn't be fair on the pup.  There were some cracking good dogs among them, though, and very well loved.

Keech on the right, her son Harley on the left

Keech's son. Fungi

Keech's Daughter, Kimba, with the dad, Roach. (Awful name for a stunning dog!)

One of our pups even became a bit famous, being the dog of the skipper of the yacht that competed for the America's Cup here in Western Australia.  Cliff, he was called, after a friend of ours who had very expressive eyebrows! I still have the cuttings, photo and letters they sent me.

Keech knew lots of tricks and loved to show off for people, but never liked to be the butt of jokes.  She had too much dignity for that, and well knew the difference between sharing a joke and being laughed at.

She LOVED to cuddle. If you kept still, you'd be cuddled, man or beast.

 

   
And of course she got painted...

 
Anyway, this smart, kind, funny dog was in my life for 14 years.  We had our arguments, like sisters will, and she had strong opinions...

Tie me up like some ordinary dog would you?

 ...but oh, dear me, one day I looked at her and saw all the grey hairs, and realised that she was going to die soon, and the rush of rebellion that came over me was just incredible. I would have taken on the world to keep her beside me forever, but it couldn't be.

She was just as dear a dog in her old age as she'd been all her life.  Enjoying family, company and cuddles.

 

When her kidneys failed and I had to say goodbye, I still remember the vet exclaiming, "She knows!"  She did too, and she accepted it, and her passing was very calm and loving.  As she went, I felt her come into my heart as a warmth, so that I would not be totally bereft, and there a little part of her stays.

She comes with Sam to guide me on my inner journeys. She mostly stays in dog form because she says it is what I am familiar with, but really, she is the soul mate and guide she has always been, whether here or there, in whatever form, and one day we will be truly together again.