Rudigrrr Wolf has found a new favourite thing to do at THO. The “hobby” is to play with, amputate and eat the legs from the daddy long legs (Opiliones) spiders that hunt there.
We have dozens of amputees in the cloth porch now.
I think that the spiders do not allow this to happen without a fight. The consequence for Rudigrrrr is that he has swollen glands so he went to Hamilton with Big Papa Wolf to get checked out by the vet.
Any suggestions on how to deter Rudigrrr from hunting spiders?
Just yesterday I was saying that I had to do very uninteresting things. This was NOT that I was not calling out to the universe to send me an erratic bit of craziness into my life. Still, a call got me out of bed early this morning which I found only slightly annoying but which got me out of bed when I sort of hoped to sleep.
When I got up, the dogs and husband also wanted to get up. Might as well get to the morning rituals. So, everyone goes to the bathroom, dogs breakfast prepared and gobbled up fast, kettle on, coffee bodum filled, cups out, granola bars. The kettle was nearly boiling when our closest neighbour came right into the house without so much as knocking. So much for a nice quiet morning! I am not sure that I have ever mentioned that our closest neighbour is a chipmunk named Dictator. There he was right in the middle of the room, my husband, myself and the four dogs noticed him at exactly the same time. So, without much warning, we had a crazy chasing freaking out batch of dogs chasing the poor terrified, fast moving, erratic and seemingly insane creature filling up every space in the Tiny House.
Dictator chipmunk built its home right next to THO, moving in right under the tarp where I keep the miscellaneous extra building supplies. Since this little critter moved in it has trained me to bring it water and nuts. It stands near the cloth porch and yells “tuck, tuck, tuck, tuck” at me when it wants something. I think it is sort of cute and with the horrible lack of rain that we have this year (60% less than normal), I think that bringing in an extra cup of water a week for the Dictator next door is not a hardship. I always comply which his orders since I like his company.
Anyway, when the dogs were away last week, Dictator started breaking into the cloth porch and was even into the house a couple of times through the screen door, but I just told him to get out and even though he makes the orders he complied. It was not a really big issue – sort of cute, you know?
Today was different. It was like the world went crazy for a couple of minutes! Dictator finally hid by squeezing into the space under the in-house sink and then under the toilet so while it was quiet we brought the dogs out to their yard. My husband opened the toilet, scared Dictator out and then the little chap ran to the cloth porch and out the hole between the two cement pads.
I had put some wood in there a few times already but Dictator does not want this hole filled so I guess that it must order one of its minions to remove the wood. Today I filled it with rocks and then put a large rock in the way so that Dictator will not have easy access. I guess this is silly because I am certain that he can come in easily by putting a hole in the cloth porch. Still, I hope that the impact of today is just heavy enough that the cloth porch and the Tiny House seem out of bounds.
After I locked Dictator out, I brought out a fresh bowl of water, some soybeans and almonds. After he sufficiently recovered, I watched him enjoy his Tiny feast.
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Of course it was not possible to take photos of this mornings exciting beginning, but I put in a photo so that readers who are not familiar with chipmunks. They are quite cute! Dictator is about 6 inches long plus his tail is about 4 inches.
Last evening when the dusk was coming on I realized I forgot to eat. I put the kettle on for a cup of tea and a cup of soup and opened the bread bag but found that the bread had a green spot. I put the bread out into the composter and made my tea and a cup of soup, and got a few crackers instead. I just sat down in the cloth porch to eat, when I heard rustling in the forest almost right in front of me. It got louder and louder and I started to feel a little bit nervous, so I picked up my tea and soup and went into the tiny house, closed the screen door and watched. I was relieved within a minute, when a baby racoon came out of the “prickly pear”. I grabbed my camera and went out to take some photos of the cute little coon and the sibling that I could now see. I tried to be really quiet when I slid the screen door back open but when I did this the baby coons ran up into the tree which is second in line behind the ancestor tree. The other thing that happened is that Big Mama Coon ran toward the cloth porch. She got about three feet away and stood on her hind legs, hands up and claws out. She growled really loudly at me like a bear from a Hollywood film – she was sort of scary, to tell you the truth. At the same time as this the other baby coons were climbing the trees and some were running toward the composter. I counted 6 babies and Mama.
I tried to photograph Mama but the only thing that I got was shiny photos of the fabric.
I left the cloth porch and went out to the dog garden and took a few photos which also all turned out terrible and made me again wish that I had a better camera. Sigh…
When I came back into the house and had a look at Ted Andrews book Animal Speak to see what some of his thoughts are on racoons. I was not surprised to read that they are tiny distantly related cousins to bears after seeing Mama ferociously trying to intimidate me so that she could protect her babies.
The little bears worked at the composter until they got in and then the played outside the Tiny House for about two hours while I read from the above mentioned book and tried to watch them through the shadows of night. Here are the rather Where’s Waldo sort of silly images. These are the best that I could do with my silly crap camera. Can you see any racoons? I know where they are and I have a hard time seeing them.
What a great brush with nature, I wish I could share it better with you.
I just got my art work back from a show in Kingston when the men were coming to put up the steel. There was a whole box of them, plus I had more here that I had stacked on a shelf. Because there is not a lot of space at Tiny House Ontario, I decided to put my work up on the walls. So, Tiny House Ontario is doubling as a Teeny-Tiny-Gallery.
I also have a new and wonderful painting from the Kingston artist Geoff Smith. I have not shown it to you yet, because I have not yet decided on a frame. None-the-less, if you come to see my paintings at Tiny House, I will give you a sneak peek of Geoff’s beautiful work.
I found it inspiring to have a home gallery. So much so, that despite my having men there putting up steel, that I started a new painting which is sort of abstract.
Here is a sneak peek of my current piece.
Leo and Kyle were back at work again early this morning.
First they got the West wall done.
Then they finished up the East wall.
They did not do the South wall over the cloth porch for two reasons, firstly, I neglected to order enough J-trim and secondly I did not buy fabric to recover the cloth porch which will need to have the ceiling cut out so that they can work. Kyle is going to bend a piece of J trim, eves trough and facia panels for the in-house. They will be back to finish the week after next and I will update you then.
These men never stopped all day. Finally at the end of the work day in the heat and humidity, the father and son team cracked a well deserved cold one. I hope it was yummy!
After the men left, I took a photo, as you can see Tiny House Ontario is brown and lovely like a big brick of Cadbury chocolate, perhaps I should paint candy canes on the corner and have my chainsaw artist friend Steven Kenzora (from Peterborough) carve me some large gumdrops for corner cornices so it looks a little like the witch’s house in the famous German fairy tale?
I am happy that it is done on three sides and also that everything is tidy! If you visit after the rain, the blue chalk lines will be already washed away.
A huge thanks to Leo and Kyle for their great work!
Tiny House Ontario 