Judy Sunde Hanawalt

Things I'm Thinking About

Tag: Tie Siding

Dog in a meadow

Reclaiming Our Place

August 7, 2015 / / 3 Comments

The cabin has always been easy to love. Our relationship has had a few bumps–inconveniences, really–but I’ve felt only love and devotion for the place. Last year’s busy summer kept us away; I was painfully disappointed not to spend our usual summer vacation there, and I couldn’t wait to be reunited. As we made the long trek across Highway 80, I was excited to get there, anxious to relax and enjoy being there as I always do.

Coming up the drive this time, though, it looked different to me. Hip-high weeds obscured the driveway. The cabin loomed at the top of the drive, looking less welcoming and more shabby than I remembered. The fire ring was choked in weeds and fallen trees. Aspen trees and thistles were pushing up through the deck.  We’d neglected her, leaving her two whole years alone against encroaching nature.

Once inside, I was overwhelmed. The mice had ravaged her, leaving their tell-tale excrement everywhere. The harsh winter had claimed the water heater, and mold coated the refrigerator, which had stopped working. I felt disgusted by the mess, and fearful of getting sick from the respiratory virus, hantavirus, that mice can leave behind in the dust with their filth.

For the first time, I wanted to just leave. Leave the cabin and her horrible mess. This time, she wasn’t easy to love. I didn’t know where to begin. I stood in the kitchen and cried, praying to know how to start to undo the damage of cold and mice and time.  We just had to start.

One person started vacuuming, another carefully spraying and wiping up the scattered pellets with bleach, hantavirus in the back of our minds. Others were reclaiming the deck, clearing weeds, beating down old paths, carving our space out of the wilderness again. We  rolled up mattress pads with pillows, blankets and poop into a ball and threw them away rather than trying to salvage them. Whole drawers went into trash bags. A mattress and everything that couldn’t be easily cleaned was pitched into a trailer to be hauled to the dump. We couldn’t sleep there that night; about 9, we gave up for the day and drove to a hotel in Laramie.

The initial mess was cleaned up, but the mice were still there. We captured or killed at least 14 the first week, and the number rose to 20 before they were all gone. The cabin kept letting them in, harboring those little terrorists, expecting me to clean up after them every morning, disgusting black pellets in the drawers and on the counters, exposing me to potential death. The little intruders were bold–scuttling around the living room, jumping into the dog’s food bowl, prancing through my cookware and across my counter. I wasn’t settled, I was tip-toeing around, afraid of what I’d find around the next corner, in the next drawer, nervous even in my bed that a mouse would leap up on me.

My love had cooled. 

It’s not her fault, I told myself. We shouldn’t have left her alone so long. We should have checked, set traps, been proactive to keep the mice from taking over. It’s not insurmountable, we can do better next winter. But even if it is our fault, even if we can fix it, something has changed. I’ve fallen out of step.

My love had kept me from dwelling on the problems before; now they were all I could see. I strain to see what I saw before, the reasons for my love. Some things are still good. The hot tub, the log cabin the boys are building, sitting on the deck with a beer, the way the dog runs and explores and is so happy, the friendly hummingbirds, hovering around my head when their sugar-water has run out. I remember my love, but it’s stretched and pulled and unrecognizable because of  the anger and fear that crowds out my peace of mind.

I have an idea: I need to take a walk to the meadow, that place where I first fell in love with this place. It wasn’t easy and convenient then, before electricity, the well, comfortable beds–but I could overlook the hardships because I was focusing on the beauty: the giant aspen, the bubbling brook, the wildflowers, the big, open sky. I need to get back to that vision of this place or I won’t be willing to put up with the work of keeping the cabin clean and safe and comfortable. I’ll give up and leave and go where it’s easier.

We have an investment here. I can’t just leave it behind. It’s not just me–the whole family counts this as solid ground, a place that will always be home, a place we can always come and find serenity. I don’t have to do this alone. It’s all of us. When I’m tired and discouraged, someone will come alongside and pick up the burden.

By the time we were packing up, ready to go home, I had made peace with the cabin. The mice were gone. Holes were patched. We had a plan, thanks to a pest-control expert named Gene from Laramie, to keep them out. We decided to come again in a few months to enjoy a Wyoming mountain fall weekend, to hear the bugling elk, to see the golden aspen trees, to soak in the hot tub under clear, cold skies and then to close the cabin for the season. We want to return in early spring to open it up for the summer. There won’t be mice again–or at least, the cabin will have a fighting chance against the wilderness.

It’s a tension we have to live with, the balance between maintaining and discovering, working and resting, pushing back the wild and loving the wildness and beauty of this place. 

A Long Walk

January 17, 2015 / / 2 Comments

I took a long walk with the dog today. We are staying at a friend’s cabin in the Sierra foothills near a mountain lake, woodsy and quiet. There is a trail behind their house that follows an old rail line for three miles. My feet are still complaining, and I think there’s a blister on the bottom of one of them.

You can tell the trail used to be train tracks; it’s narrow and flat, with blasted out rock on one side and ancient posts holding rusty barbed wire on the other. I wonder if it was a line from Gold Rush days.  A stream meanders along the barbed-wire side, slow and shallow, iced over in places this January day.

Tie runs ahead of me the whole way, stopping to wait for me if he gets too far ahead, running back sometimes to see what is taking me so long, getting interested in a bush or deer sign for a moment, then galloping ahead of me again, ears flying. I’m glad to have him with me. It feels a little creepy in the woods alone when you’re not used to it. I almost expect to see some crusty old miner emerge from the woods, pick-ax over his shoulder, looking for the train to take him to the assay office in town. I’m a little nervous that a mountain lion may be watching me from the rocks above, but assure myself that my brave hound will scare any cats away.

After walking for a while, I forget to watch for unwanted visitors and start to notice the woods. The tiny cedar and pine trees, bright green beneath their giant elders. The smooth, dark red manzanita bushes with silvery coin leaves next to  the  low, spreading limbs of live oaks. Pine needles cover the trail and hang like tinsel from the leafless bushes growing under them. Towering Valley oaks mix their elegant, shapely leaves with the pine needles underfoot and look like upside-down puzzle pieces. The path opens up to shady slopes dotted with tall pines, sunshine streaking in where it can find an opening. Bright green grass pushes up through brown leaves, taking the opportunity a recent rain gave it, taking the chance that snow may yet come and freeze it out.

The trail winds on. It’s supposed to be three miles. It’s starting to feel too far. I still have to go back, too. I check my watch and keep walking. I think about Cheryl in Wild with new respect, walking on a narrow trail like this for months, a huge pack on her back.  I decide that if I haven’t reached some sort of end in 15 minutes, I’ll turn around. Just when I get to that time mark, the landscape changes–there’s a road, houses, and power lines–so I commit to going around one more bend. There it is. A gate across the path. The end. I reach it and turn around to trudge home.

Watching for markers that I remember–a big tree, a black rock by the side of the trail, a hole blocked off by metal poles and wire and covered with rocks (could the miner be in there?)–I walk back the way we came, slower, tired, thirsty. Not nervous, though–except when I notice new animal scat on the trail, not deer, could it be mountain lion? Not noticing the beauty I swooned over on the way, either. Tie’s tongue hangs and he plops down to wait for me when he gets ahead too far.

I start to think. My mind isn’t wandering, preparing to fight or flee, or exploring the landscape. It settles on an idea and turns it over as I walk and walk. Finally, the gate at the start of the trail comes in view. We’re back. It feels like an accomplishment. Not just the effort of the walk, but the taming of my fluttering thoughts. I feel ready to sit and write some of those persistent thoughts down.

Oliver and Tie

November 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Oliver, our golden retriever, was 12 when we said good-bye to him. Our hearts were broken; he had been part of our family since we brought him home as a puppy. He is in the background of almost every childhood memory, his happy, goofy presence at every birthday party, every holiday, every trip to the family cabin in the mountains. Furry blurs of a golden wagging tail brush the edges of photos, and especially in the later years, his sleeping form stretches out in the backdrop of family events. He was always there, a constant companion, calmly witnessing our lives, then jumping up to join us at even the spelled word w-a-l-k.

When he died, I missed him. In the grief though, there was also relief. I didn’t have to worry about leaving him home alone too long, or about his increasing pain and difficultly with daily tasks . Over the course of a few weeks, the tumbleweeds of golden dog hair diminished and the floors stayed clean. When the mood struck, we could leave home for a few days without having to make arrangements for dog care. I decided I would get used to the empty feeling the house had when the kids were away. I was a one-dog woman, I consoled myself. I had known one great dog love.

The kids, though, began to agitate for a new dog. We need a puppy, they told me. Even the kids no longer living at home joined the cry for a new dog. A dog exactly like Oliver. It doesn’t feel like home when there’s not a dog greeting us, they lamented. We can’t go to the cabin without a dog, they implored. I admit, I had looked at Golden puppies on the internet, just a quick peek to see what was out there. When the pressure came, it didn’t take much to persuade me. Before the excitement had a chance to mellow into reality, we were hot on the trail of a puppy.

Our little Tie came home two months after we lost Ollie. We named him for the tiny town our cabin is near, Tie Siding. He was adorable, energetic, hilarious–he cocked his head and perked up his ears and we were smitten. He reminded us so much of Oliver, but was so different at the same time. He charmed us with his love of snuggling, his ability to lay on his back and manipulate his toys with his agile front paws, and his eagerness to please. He was exhausting, though. The promises of help and commitment from the kids wore thin and all but vanished when school started in August. It was me and Tie, and he wasn’t lying down in the background.

Walks and exercise became essential daytime events, and missing one meant an unpleasant evening of diverting Tie from destructive chewing and annoying attempts to pull us into his slobbery games of tug-o-war. He loved his toys, and he loved putting them under the furniture and then digging and barking to get them. A tired dog is a good dog, so the adage goes. It was my job to do the tiring out, and I wasn’t very good at it. I began to question the wisdom of getting another dog. He was driving me crazy.

A neighbor who also had a puppy told me about a park up the street where neighbors with dogs met to let them play. A few minutes of frolicking with other puppies was much more effective than a long walk, he assured me. After trying it once and reaping the benefit of a calm evening, I became a regular. As often as I could, I went to the park, let Tie off his leash for his romp, and settled in to chatting with the dog owners who visit the park every evening. After a few weeks, I started seeing these neighbors around town, and inviting other dog owners I met to join the fun. Some evenings, the park was crowded with racing, wrestling dogs. Other nights, it was just a dog friend or two. Every time, Tie would come home happy and tired. A good dog.

Still, I wonder if it was a good idea to get a puppy. My fifth child left home to start college, leaving our nest nearly empty. One more remains at home for a few years, and Tie will be a sweet companion for him. The work of caring for a dog, though, could outweigh that on certain slobbery, busy evenings. I was ready to be done with that responsibility. He ties me down. Was our name choice a subliminal cry for prudence?

He also pulls me out, though–out into my neighborhood for some exercise when I would rather sit on my couch, out into my community to meet people I otherwise would have no connection to, and out of myself to see the world from the viewpoint of a purely happy, loving, excited canine. Tie is breaking into my one-dog heart. I can’t resist the look of expectation on his furry face when he rides in the passenger seat of the car, taking in the sights; his love for his blankie, and how he shows it to all visitors; the way he leaps in the air with all four paws when he sees me putting on my shoes for a walk; and his warmth on my feet when he follows me wherever I go and lies down near me. Whether it was a good idea or not, I think I love him.

The other day on a walk with Tie, I realized I don’t accidentally call him Ollie anymore. I’m not constantly evaluating Tie’s personality and behavior in contrast to Oliver’s, the only way I could make sense of him at first. My memories of Oliver aren’t quite as distinct as they were, now blending into general dog experience. That makes me sad, missing Oliver again, my first dog love, but also happy for Tie’s sweet company.  I guess I’m not a one-dog woman.

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