Sorry, really can’t think of a more appropriate way to say it.
That’s my dog Mocha in the foreground with the purple color, making friends with a very pretty (but very loud when in his fenced yard) neighbor dog. Lea (white) and Sophia are Syd’s dogs which he appears to be bending over to, but in fact his target is a lively little brown guy whose working name is Puppy. Behind him is Little Guy, whose name from a year ago probably needs rethinking. The black dog is Jordan, and the white one with black ears and tail up is Street Dog. It is quite honestly amazing he is still alive since his favorite place to nap is in the middle of the road. To the right is Carbón, the name his putative owners gave him, but since he never responds to that, he remains Fuzzy Dog to us.
As you can see, it rained earlier, irrelevant to this narrative but very much needed.
But of course: half a mattress appears in the middle of nowhere.
At one corner, an empty bottle, an action figure, and bicycle reflectors. I had been thinking about buying bicycle reflectors to help me back into our driveway at night, so I took those.
Interesting dog walk – lovely spring weather. Lots of people fishing on the beach, then run into Pedro cleaning up his yard, Uruguayan who tells me in detail of their recent trip to Oregon: Diamond Lake, Crater Lake, Cape Disappointment, Washington, Cannon Beach, then north into Washington and Yakima, Leavenworth. (Made me miss it a little; we lived almost ten years in Oregon.)
Then the local park, absolutely bustling.
The as I round the corner of our block, one of my son’s friends and girlfriend and more visiting and catching up. He and the guys from Australia making tentative plans to visit our son in the USA in 2023.
An extraordinary number of critter tracks, unlike I’ve ever seen.
And unfortunately, something I have seen before: despite the outstanding trash collection here, someone thinks it’s a good idea to haul a bright orange plastic bag full of trash into the middle of nowhere.
Preparation for our first stay – after years – in our little country house involved a couple of trips, to connect gas, fix a few odds and ends. This trip included killing a small wasp nest where we park the car, and bringing back a shovel to bury the dog.
The dog was the smallest of the crowd that bark when we go by with our dogs, and the only aggressive one. Yesterday it turned up dead for no apparent reason, ten meters off the road, right on our path. I took a side trip after the walk to ask the 3XL neighbor about it. No, it wasn’t his but his neighbors; don’t know what happened to it; yes, the owners know about it.
Armed with that knowledge, we had a pretty good idea what would happen next: nothing. Hence the shovel. It would be a quick job as the area is all sand.
Halfway through digging, I looked up to see Syd, who had ridden his bike to see if the corpse was still there, in order to let me know whether I needed the shovel. Not long after a young neighbor wandered over. He’d apparently been thinking he would have to bury this now-fly-infested thing. Syd got a nearby piece of discarded shade cloth (covering an ant’s nest, but hey), grabbed the dog by two legs and dumped it in the hole. The neighbor took the shovel from me and filled it in.
Then it occurred to me that Syd might get a kick out of the rig I improvised to spray spiders in the peak of our bedroom ceiling. He did, and said I should blog about it. So here we are.
Terminator
I don’t remember now why I used wire instead of string.
Probably to intercept less of the liquid coming out. The can is actually slightly offset to avoid spraying directly on the wire.
Hot sun, relatively cool breeze, and welcome episodes of shade thanks to the puffy clouds. Beach jammed, but dogs found nothing to chase in the bush (they missed a couple of little lizards that we spotted).
I haven’t been to the beach with Benji frequently since we started walking with Syd and his five dogs in the wastelands (literally) of Villa Argentina norte. Variety of reasons: conversations with Syd tend to be considerably more interesting than conversations with Benji; Benji usually gets more sustained running given all the other dogs including rabbit scout Jordy; and I don’t have to throw a stick into the waves 20 or 30 times in succession.
But from time to time I am reminded of the age-honored saying that location is everything.
As in, we encounter no cows on the beach.
This was Benji yesterday, halfway through our walk. It may be just the exaggerated olfactory experience, but Syd and both thought Benji stayed closer to us for the rest of the walk than he ever has before. Excruciatingly close. Being able to see and not smell this, I must say he achieved a remarkable extent of coverage.
After two soap bath yesterday evening, and 20-30 plunges into the waves to retrieve a stick, it was only after he dried off that our living room didn’t smell like a barn.
So, what’s new on the beach?
I have posted before about the boardwalks that were poorly designed and maintenance-free. Now in Las Toscas (we live on the border) appears one built with posts that extend vertically to a metal handrail. Progress!
Meanwhile, at the end of Circunvalacion, the boardwalk solution (B) has become unusable, while problem it addressed (A) has grown 2-3 times larger.
Seen from the other side: the boardwalk (B) is completely buried, while beyond (A) the dunes are completely blown away because of traffic through the gap.
Coming back from the beach, I note a number of wine cartons at the overflowing recycling bin — all with corks carefully replaced. Which means that someone at the recycling center will have to remove them, one by one, so the glass can be recycled.
Over the past couple months, trucks have dumped dirt at the park we pass through on the way back. Red arrows mark the vertical poles that are all that remains of the goal posts. The person who cuts the grass has carefully mowed around the mound of dirt (and rubble).
