Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Gussy's Spud Chucker



Granny had some leftover spuds from her chipmunk casserole so she gave 'em to Gussy to play with.
We can't afford store-bought toys. We're like them Waltons on Christmas, where Elizabeth gets the doll with the smashed-in face and it scars her for life. Only we don't live near no mountain – we live next to the kind of river you saw in Deliverance, that movie where Burt Reynolds was a real stud-muffin and the pudgy guy in dirty underwear had to squeal like a pig. When our friends from the city come to visit they hum Duelin' Banjos under their breath. They think it don't hurt our feelings and they're right, it don't. It's like the national anthem around our house.
Anyway, toys are scarce but every once in a while Gussy gets some rotten potatoes for his spud chucker.
That there is cause for big excitement. Gussy puts on his hand-me-down coat that's five sizes too big for him and Dave and him mosey on down to the river with a can of ether. You wouldn't believe how far those potatoes go! Whatever you do, don't stand in front of the chucker cause if you do, it'll be more than the potato that loses an eye
We're real proud of our son. He built his spud chucker all by himself from instructions on the world wide web. He only lost half an eyeball and his right toe in the process, which is pretty good. Dave's a little cranky about the loss of his left nut, but Dave is a little over-protective of his tools. Don't tell him I said that.
Tomorrow is Dave's birthday. If he's lucky, he'll get some spuds for a present so him and Gussy can go out and play some more. Dave likes the chucker as much as our son. He's shot potatoes and little squash and all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Who knows, maybe I'll even get him a cantaloupe for his big day. He's been going around mumbling something about never getting to play with melons anymore, now's we're married.
Men, eh?

Monday, November 29, 2010

Misty's Christmas Dress



When your dog starts getting presents, it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
Misty got her first gift of the holiday season - a Mrs. Claus dress in red velvet with faux fur trim and belt buckle bling.
It barely fits her. Since we got her fixed she has taken to binge eating. Poor baby. I hear that's what happened to Kirstie Alley.
Thanks to my favourite gal pals Leah and Vic for the ensemble! If you see one in my size, please send it along!
Misty really does like it... she only looks nervous because I put her on the table to take the photo.

I sure hope Dave doesn't see this or I'll get the "NO DOGS ON THE TABLE" lecture.
Oh crap... here he comes... quick, look innocent... oh crap.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Better than Bills

The deck stain we chose is called Replace Me Now.
1. Pink Pride & Prejudice, compact and pretty. Warning: contains corsets.

2. An Oprah Book Club selection, The Pilot's Wife. Because, with an audience full of women, Oprah would never pick a book called The Pilot. Unless she's high.

3. A beautiful Asian-influenced journal for any lucid thoughts I might have. So far, empty.

4. Hand-painted blueberries on a bud vase. I have it on my dressing table – now, finally, there is something pretty in front of the mirror.

5. Homemade jam, created with local peaches in the kitchen of Linda, aka @drwasy in twitterland and
Leftbrainwrite on blogger.

6. A lovely note, in tidy handwriting, from one of my favourite writers on the #fridayflash circuit.

This all came in a box as a result of participating in Linda's Month of Gratitude Contest. Isn't it lovely? Aren't you jealous? OMG you should taste the jam...
This is so much better than bills.
Notice I don't post pictures of my bills.
Surely you've seen the posters on telephone poles everywhere: Post No Bills?

(Thanks, Linda.)

Thursday, November 25, 2010

This is REALLY GREAT, really, really, REALLY GREAT!


This is SO cool!
You have to hear it!
It's John Wiswell reading one of my blurbs! 

He reads it SO WELL I sound like Stephen Leacock! 


Or Stuart McLean! 


Or somebody really funny!
Why is King Wiswell reading one of my rants? Why am I calling him King Wiswell? The latter is obvious.. as the purveyor of The Bathroom Monologues, he does spend a lot of time on the throne.
Why's he reading my story?
Because I've got horseshoes up my arse.
Oh, and because he had a contest to celebrate the third anniversary of the Monologues and he drew a winner and the horseshoes in my butt reached down and grabbed my name out of a hat (or was it a toilet bowl?). The prize was John reading anything of my choosing. Anything! I decided on Hello Rock? I'd Like A Coffee because it really happened, and CJ Hodges-MacFarlane really liked it, and because I thought it would mystify the great and terrible John Wiswell. Mystified? Pffft! He read it like a pro. He made me sound funny! I love it so much I made everybody at work listen to it.. and they laughed!
I'm not sure what John is doing with it... I hope my posting it isn't beating him to any punch... I'm just so excited to share.
Go! Listen! John is really, really, really good!
Let me know what you think!
Squee!!!!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Auntie Ellen's Beaver Ending

Me, Auntie Ellen and my son, Angus, at the wedding. I love this photo! (Taken by Erin Monett)

Is it odd to be 50 years old and still think of someone as "Auntie?"
Yeah, well, I'm odd, I guess. Cause my mom's oldest sister will always be Auntie Ellen in my books.
This is Auntie Ellen:
Stylish. Slender. Sophisticated. She always looks elegant. Her make-up is just so. She makes clothes look good on her, all clothes; possibly even potato sack clothes.
Artistic. Talented. She makes her own greeting cards and they are fabulous. 
Not Pregnant. Finally. With seven children, Auntie Ellen spent a great deal of time pregnant. I don't think she's pregnant now, although sometimes Uncle Ted does get that gleam in his eye.
Two Quick Stories About Auntie Ellen:
1. When she was young, she lived on a dairy farm in Buttonville, Ontario, and her lovely sisters (my mom, Dot, and her sidekick, Mary) loaded up sticks with fresh manure and flung it at her. Nice, huh? My dear, sweet mother. 
2. When she was married with a herd of kids running around, she had new kitchen cupboards put in. One day one of her children spilled beet pickle juice on the new (unfinished yet) wood. I haven't seen those cupboards in years but I do believe they are still partially purple. I also have a feeling my cousin's arse is still the same purplish shade.
The other day I got an e-mail from my cousin Kelly (not the one with the purple arse) who was passing on her mother's ending to my beaver saga. Auntie Ellen, you so missed the deadline for this contest. But because you're my Auntie Ellen, and always will be my Auntie Ellen, how can I refuse?
Without further adieu, then – Ellen Gough's Beaver Ending.

JUST THEN WE heard a loud rumble and the ground started to shake. "O my God" Vern said "we're having an earthquake!" Elizabeth froze on the spot - she was petrified! It seemed to last forever, all the quaking and shaking and re-arranging of the landscape - it was actually only a few seconds!!!

But once the dust had cleared and Vern and Elizabeth decided they would live to see another day - they were amazed.

The river was peaceful once again and most of the trees were still standing. But over beyond the river and where the beaver pond had been there was a new huge pond, full of water, which had nothing to do with the culvert.

There were beavers swimming happily, and busily in their new pond. They had started already to build a new home where they would be snug and cosy all winter. Where they would be raising a new litter of kits who would greet us in the spring.

The road would be fixed and Elizabeth and Vern could get their vehicles back home and they could continue to watch their furry friends.

All was well with their world and the earthquake turned out to be a blessing in disguise!!!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Roadkill - #fridayflash

Credit


Black crow, feathers like midnight, eyes shiny beads of pinpricked light, watching the dead raccoon in the middle of the highway.

Morning rush hour. Constant parade of cars, back and forth, back and forth.

The carcass like money on the white line.

The crow paces, back and forth, waiting for a break in the traffic.

How badly it wants.

Afternoon rush hour.

The crow sits on top of a telephone pole. Waiting for his opportunity. Watching for thieves. Small head on a swivel, patient beyond reason.

It could have moved on, it could have eaten by now, the crow, but it wants what it wants and it will endure the busy highway until the corpse is his.

Hunger rumbles. The crow waits.

Darkness settles. Traffic lightens. The crow flies down onto the highway and feasts.

Car engines, closer, headlights, the crow leaps away with no time to spare. It hunkers in the gravel, savory taste on its tongue, waiting, dodging, snapping one stolen chunk, one at a time.

Back and forth.

Sated, almost. Slower moving. A mini-van, a startled driver, a cracked windshield, feathers drifting on the night air.

We want what we want.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

One More Beaver


Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the beaver pond!
One more beaver ending – can you handle it?
It seems one of my blogging buddies went to all the trouble of writing an ending and then forgot to post it. I mean, you'd thought she might have remembered to do this – after all, she hasn't got anything else to do. Oh, she might complain about birthday parties for five-year-olds, new puppies peeing on the new floors, 15-zillion young children to attend to and a good-looking husband to cater to his every whim. Oh, and she does, I'll tell ya, I've seen them in action – her all bowing all over the place in front of him, cooking his favourite meals, picking the broccoli out from between his teeth, calling him her Incredible Island God – y'know, that sort of thing. Poor thing, she is – all that and she manages to write Canada's Best Art & Culture Blog, plus some pretty fancy schmancy writing. 
The good news about having one more beaver ending to read is that it was written by Canada's Sweetheart, Laurita Miller. That immediately turns it from being a chore to being something I should charge you for.
Lucky devils. Reading Laurita for free.
Oh, and if you're wondering what in tarnation I'm talking about, visit yesterday's beaver blog.



Laurita Miller

THAT NIGHT, ELIZABETH tried to concentrate on work, but the thought of those poor homeless beavers made it impossible. She thought of the home they’d built, the food they’d stored, and how it was all gone. They must be frantic, she thought.

Elizabeth looked at the papers on her desk. She knew a little about how those Beavers felt, working hard day in and day out, never really getting ahead. She found it easy to imagine how it would feel to have that all taken away.

There’re wasn’t much sign of the beavers for the rest of that week. Now and again there would be sounds down by the river, or those smooth dark shapes cutting through the water. Elizabeth hoped that they would make some attempt to rebuild, something to get them through the hard months of bitter cold. Each day that passed left her feeling less hopeful for their survival.

She knew that Vern felt the loss as well, though they no longer talked about it. He would sit and read in the evenings while Elizabeth immersed herself in her work. She missed the long evenings sitting out by the water, talking with Vern as the sun went down. How quickly things changed when you weren’t paying attention.

On Saturday morning, Vern gently shook Elizabeth awake. She rubbed her eyes and he pressed a hot cup of coffee into her hands.

“Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.” He was dressed in his warmest clothes, and smelled of the outdoors. He had obviously been up for some time.

Vern led Elizabeth through the woods behind their home, along the seldom travelled path. Elizabeth remembered when they would walk these trails on the weekends, laughing and talking. Sometimes they would take a picnic and spend the afternoon. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in these woods.

They walked until they came to the part where the river curved around the back of their property. Vern moved slowly here, crouched low to look between the trees. He put his hand on Elizabeth’s back and pulled her close.

“Look there,” he said, and pointed toward the river.

On the far side on the bank was a large pile of twigs and branches – a beautifully constructed beaver lodge. There were some obvious renovations, with the clean yellow of freshly cut timber among the greyed and worn branches. They couldn’t see the dam, but the river had been nicely widened.

Elizabeth smiled. “They had a plan B after all.” She turned to Vern and pulled him into a hug. Suddenly she needed to feel the strength of his arms.

“I have something for you.” Vern pulled away and felt into his coat pockets. He passed the envelope to Elizabeth. “Two tickets,” he blurted before she had it completely open. “A cruise. Two weeks.” He fidgeted and rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “I think we can use the time away.”

Elizabeth stared, eyes and mouth open wide. Time alone, just the two of them, in the warm and the sun.

“How?” It was all she could manage to say.

Vern grinned, kissed her on the forehead. “Ahhh. Beavers aren’t the only ones with a plan B.”

***

Monday, November 15, 2010

Beavers, Winners and Endings


Last week (Nov. 11) marked my blog’s first anniversary.

What an incredible year it has been! I can’t even begin to tell you how it has changed my life – well, I can’t now, anyway. But I will another time! Promise! Nothing I like better than talking about myself!

To celebrate I wrote part of a story called Leave it to Beavers and asked folks to finish it. The winner, I said, would receive a Muskoka prize pack. Well, you know what? I’m not going to pick a winner – everybody who took the time to write an ending is getting a prize! Woo HOO! (Isn’t this just like Oprah’s favourite things show?)

When I asked for endings, I honestly was thinking people might write a few sentences. I certainly wasn’t expecting a thousand words or more! And, in the case of my friend Jason Willis, TWO endings at more than 1,000 words each! Holy doodles!

So, apologies in advance for this post being long. Don’t think of it as time-consuming, though; think of it as learning everything you always wanted to know about the Canadian beaver – and then some!

To everyone who participated, thanks so much! I really appreciate it. And I’ll be sending you something “made in Muskoka” as soon as I can get to the post office!

To start, here’s the piece I wrote, followed by all the endings. Enjoy! 



Leave it to Beavers 

Other things should have occupied the mind of Elizabeth Donaldson but her thoughts always returned to the beavers.

She was worried about them. Worried that the rising water would flood the road.

Elizabeth and her husband Vern lived beside the Red Canoe River in Ontario’s near north. Elizabeth had a stressful job in the city but there was no amount of corporate nonsense that could linger when she sat in a Muskoka chair by the water, listening to chickadees calling to their friends, “look! there’s sunflower seeds in the feeder! come now-dee-dee-dee-dee”; watching pine needles and dessicated maple leaves float downstream in the sleepy current; waiting for a fish to jump, or a flock of honking Canada geese to do a fly-by, or a beaver to surface and swim soundlessly by the dock.

They never had to wait long to see a beaver. There were more than a few of them living on that stretch of the river. All busy, all the time, they moved through the water ignoring Elizabeth and Vern like teenaged girls trying to look busy at a school dance. They always had some place important to go, those girls, as they rushed by boys they were trying to attract, not meeting them in the eye, not acknowledging their existence, but senses acutely attuned to any movement the boys might make. “The beavers are like those girls,” Elizabeth told Vern one day.

“Ayuh,” Vern said, “and you better believe they are keeping an eye on us as they go by.”

“Did you see the road today?” Elizabeth asked.

“Water’s getting close to the road,” Vern said. “I saw.”

“I hope you’re not right,” she said, knowing he was. “Do they stand any chance at all if the township takes out the culvert at this point?”

Vern shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Usually beavers have a back-up house. If they do, and they work really hard at stashing more food away, and if the rest of November stays mild and the river doesn’t freeze, they might be okay.”

It was a lot of mights, Elizabeth realized.

“But if the township waits until the end of the month to do something about the culvert, they might as well just kill the beavers outright.”

Elizabeth looked at her husband sadly. “Oh Vern,” was all she said.

They thought maybe they could pull a bit of mud and sticks out of the culvert, leaving enough water to keep the beavers happy but stopping the water from flowing onto the road. But the beavers had done their job too well and the culvert was jam-packed.

On the last Monday of November Elizabeth turned off the highway onto their road and was stopped short by a sign that read “Road closed at bridge.” Her house was on the other side of the bridge but she had a dread feeling in her stomach that this closure had something to do with the beavers.

Up ahead she saw sawhorses with bright signs on them announcing “Road Closed.” She saw Vern’s pick-up truck stopped in front. She pulled in behind him and parked the car. Vern was standing at the edge of a deep pit where the culvert used to be. The old one, still filled with river detritus, lay twisted and tangled at the side of the road. A new one lay ready for morning.

The pond the beavers had spent all summer building was empty. Their lodge was ripped down. A rank musty smell rose from the muck. Elizabeth gagged. “Where are the beavers?” she said, sweater pulled up over her nose.

“They’re in the river,” Vern said. “They’ve been swimming back and forth, here. Looking for the culvert, I bet.”

Elizabeth felt sick.


Dorothy Robb - my mom 

I was so excited when I received this ending from my mom. At that point no one else had sent one and I was afraid I’d wind up with a lot of egg on my face, having the misfortune to hold a contest nobody entered. But my mom, who comes through for me every time – and I mean every time – came through for me again. Thanks Mom! Love ya! You can read more of my mom's stuff at her blog, Molly & Me.

AS VERN AND Elizabeth sat pondering the fate of the beavers, a sudden wind came up ...

The branches of the pine trees began swaying to and fro.

“Listen Vern,” said Elizabeth, “the wind is speaking to us.”

They listened closely. “The beavers will survive – the beavers will survive.”

And just as quickly as the wind came up, it died down. All was quiet once again.

Winter soon settled in and, in a few short months, the sounds and signs of spring returned.

Vern and Elizabeth were busy out in their garden when a very loud “Whack Whack” caught their attention. Running to the river’s edge, there was the beaver family.

What a wonderful sight to behold!

Where or how they survived will remain a mystery.

Vern and Elizabeth will “Leave it to the Beavers!”




Lou Freshwater 

“Happy birthday,” read the e-mail from my friend, Lou, a fellow writer and blogger in the U.S. It’s always a pleasure receiving a note from Lou – even more so when the e-mail contains some of her writing. To me, Lou’s work has a gauzy, relaxed, homespun style, always infused with deep thinking and a kind of sensible whimsy. You can read more Lou at her blog, Baby’s Black Balloon. 

VERN CUPPED HIS hand on the crook of her elbow with unusual tenderness and began to turn her away from the emptiness. She dropped her sweater from her face and took another breath, this time without trying to avoid the smell, but instead breathing it in like she wanted to take it with her, to make it permanent.

“Come on,” Vern said, “Let’s go home.”

She said, “Okay," but not before taking another long look to see if she could just catch sight of one of the beavers. But she didn’t, she couldn’t, so she pulled her arm away and wrapped her thick brown and orange wool sweater jacket tight around her body and said, “Alright then.”

They pulled into the driveway and Elizabeth felt the cold of winter not the chill of fall for the first time that year. They walked up toward the porch and Vern knocked his boots up against the side of the stairs sending bits of dried river onto the ground. Elizabeth just took hers off and sat them on the mat beside the door before going inside. The house was warm but Vern still headed over to the fireplace to get a fire started. He knew she loved having a one going, and it was rare she was home in time to enjoy those first and most radiant moments of the fire when it is just so alive with heat and sound and smell.

“It’s going to be December tomorrow?” she asked him in that way people do when they already know the answer.

“Yep, sure is,” he said as he bullied the logs in the fireplace.

Elizabeth let out a breath. The rot of the river and the afternoon had faded but they were still with her.

She walked over to the phone and picked it up. She dialed work.

“Who ya calling?” Vern asked.

“Work,” she said as she went into the kitchen.

Vern turned away and pursed his lips together. She was calling work.

After a few minutes, Vern had the wood like he wanted it. He lit the kindling and it started to crackle. Elizabeth walked back into the room and sat down in the rocker she liked to call her old lady chair, the one that she did her Sunday crossword puzzles in.

“Everything alright?”

“I suppose so,” she said.

“Suppose so?” he said.

“Yep, I suppose they’re going to be just fine without me.”



Vic Burton 

Vic Burton is, and always will be, kind of special to me and my Dave. She is, after all, the minister-in-training who helped marry us a couple of months ago (omigawd, I can’t believe it’s been that long already!) Vic is also an accomplished writer who is presently finishing a play she wrote during last summer’s Muskoka Novel Marathon. The play received rave reviews from all three of her judges and it’s no wonder – it was full of funny, insightful truths and some wicked good lines. Vic was nervous about showing me this – she thought it was too much like me and Dave. Pfft, I said to her – Elizabeth and Vern ARE me and Dave! Thanks for writing this, Vic! 

AS VERN WATCHED a Star Trek he PVR’ed, Elizabeth surfed the internet.
“Vern, Vern, Google says they make great house pets,” she blurted out enthusiastically.
“What do?” Vern grunted, thinking he must have missed part of a conversation she was having without him.
“Beavers,” she smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Right here, Vern, she said, pointing at the screen. “ It says they act just like dogs. They will even crawl up on your lap.”
Vern said, “Nothing with those kind of teeth is getting anywhere near my lap.”
Elizabeth gave her best pitiful look and pleaded, “Vern….”.
Vern knew what she could be like, so he headed her off at the pass, “Hon, I love you, but we are not having beavers as pets…
She cut him off, “If you are still the man I married you would be just as worried about those beavers as I am, Vern.”
“Honey, we just can’t. We have the dog and the cats.”
She gave him the pleading look and he knew if he was not careful she would have him cornered, so he drew the only weapon he knew might work. “Bette, we live in a log house and if you think termites would do ‘er in, just think about keeping beavers in here.” He turned and stifled a smile. He had her.
The next night, after work and checking on the swimming beavers that she urged and even yelled at to “Get to work and quit just swimming around” she was busy typing away. Vern worried she was coming up with some idea about keeping them caged. If she did, he did not know what he would do.

He did not have to worry, Elizabeth had Googled and knew beavers did not eat much other than roots and wood and she had not split wood all spring for beavers to eat. She knew if they did not have wood their teeth would grow too large and need ground down by a vet. Just the idea of how much that might cost made her change her mind about pet beavers.

“Bette, what ya’ writin’?” Vern asked from the living room.

“Just e-mailing the neighbour, hon,” she said.

“Oh, you finally made friends with one of the neighbour,” he inquired.

“No, it is business,” she stated, quite clipped.

Followed up, before he could ask, with “not the neighbours neighbours. I am e-mailing Tony Clement.”

“Good,” Vern said, getting political on her. She liked the political side of him. It contrasted with his easy-going side nicely and was rather a turn-on that her man had more than sweet charm, but also had brains and chutzpah. “I do not like that internet voting thing any more than you do,” he continued.

Returning to the conversation at hand, Elizabeth said, “I will mention that later. I don’t want to piss him off before he helps the beavers.”

“WHAT?” her husband said with no less incredulity than he could have mustered if she had just said she was dying her hair green.

She kept typing. Finally, when she spoke, it was professional and matter -of-fact. “I think beavers represent Muskoka and more so the whole of Canada. Who should care? The world should care! The world loves the beaver, Vern! They spent a fortune building a fake lake for the G8 and when I read the news coverage they defended it by saying that the G7 summit had a fake lake. And Vern, it had a beaver in it. Anik and her babies, borrowed from the science centre in Sudbury and guess what, Vern? The international journalists fell in love with them. I think it would be a marvellous use of G8 Legacy Funds to save the beavers already here on a real river. It ties in with the whole environment thing so it sells well with what would be Green Party supporters. It makes the Conservatives seem softer and gentler. He should love the idea, you know how he likes handing out cheques and we all know he adores publicity. If nothing else, maybe they could become mascots for the country. Do you think if I make a national appeal, people would help? I mean, the journalists from all over loved the beavers.”

Vern was left speechless. He loved her and he knew she had given this a lot of thought. She sounded like she could do a telethon or one of those half hours campaigns or make a film with Al Gore. He finally broke the silence, with the only thing he could think of, “Have you lost your mind?”

Her face fell. She started to cry.

He moved to her, “Bette, hon, I did not mean it like that.”

“How did you mean “Are you nuts?” exactly then?”, she wailed before she headed to the bedroom.

Vern muttered the F-word, so quietly even a Klingon could not have heard it.

***

Elizabeth checked the beavers daily, more than once a day, even. She saw them chewing and crossing the road with trees and swimming with them in tow. She knew they were trucking in the food, but she worried the weather would be their downfall. She worried they would not have enough food. Yes, they were busy, but she worried it would not be enough. She thought of how much food she would need to get through winter and she worried even more. She talked about them to everyone who would listen. She talked about them even when people were not listening, to try to make them listen.

She did not understand how Canadians could be so blasé about their national symbol. Weren’t people patriotic anymore? Beavers are as synonymous with Canada as the maple leaf or hockey or maple syrup or moose or Canadian geese or the common loon or polar bears. “Damn,” she thought, “Why does Canada have so many animals as national symbols?”

One evening she rushed in, yelling, “Vern, Vern..”

He jumped from the tub, almost broke his hip on the darn toilet paper holder, went across the linoleum like a slip and slide and shouted, “What?” like he was sliding into home plate and she was the umpire he was demanding a call from.

“They are gone!” she gasped.

“The boys?” Vern asked with fear bubbling to the surface. This was a beautiful secluded place and secluded places were criminals’ favourite kind of places.

Bette interrupted his Criminal Minds-type profiling on child abductions with, “The beavers, Vern. They are gone! The boys and I stopped on the way home And they are gone!”

“Damn you, Bette,” Vern said, “you scared me. I thought something was wrong.”

“Something IS wrong, Vernon. The beavers are missing!”, she snapped.

“Elizabeth, so they are gone, so what?”, Vern said.

“Vernon Edwin Charles Donaldson, did you shoot the beavers?” she asked in that tone.

Vern reached for her, “Betty, you know I wouldn’t shoot the beavers”.

She pulled away, “You are the one who said it would be more humane to kill them.” She started to sob, “They were doing it and the weather was warm and you killed them!” She started to swing. Vern caught her arm and pulled her close, close enough she could see the tears welling in his eyes. “I did not kill those beavers.”

“You wished them dead, Vern, I know you have. You are jealous of those beavers,” she sobbed.

He held her for a moment and then pushed her back enough that she could look in his eyes. “I am worried about those beavers. They may very well starve this winter, but I am more worried about my wife. I know you are worried and you feel you have to help them, save them, be a superhero, but you do not eat and you do not sleep and Bette, they got along just fine before they met you. I didn’t.”

She melted against him. He was a good man, no, he was a better man. He cared about the beavers like a good man would. A better man, like Vern was, would worry about the beavers but more about his wife.

***

Time went by. Elizabeth barely seemed to think about the beavers. She did, but she did not let it show often. The morning look Elizabeth stole at the river started to show the effect of colder temperatures. Soon, there was more and more ice on the water. She was resigned, but she still hoped.

Life in Muskoka gets too cold for walking or being outside for long. Residents tend to not do much they do not have to. They dash out for an armload of wood or to get to the car. The most they do is the snow removal. Without a snowfall you may not even notice if a neighbour died the way folks tend to hunker in. That is, except for the idiots who decided to move in the dead of winter. Who decides to do that?

They lived right next to the bridge and for days Vern and Elizabeth would be sitting there waiting for a truck to back out of the driveway taking up the whole of their little, narrow road. Elizabeth sat there, looking at the house while she waited. It was a cute place. She wondered if they were moving because they found winter too hard. She wondered if they were new and underestimated Muskoka winters. Then, she wondered if they might be getting older and less equipped to deal with them. Maybe it was the darn steps, she thought. Bette could not imagine living in a house on stilts and doing all those stairs every day. Why would they build it like that? This is not the ocean and the river never floods. The truck moved and so did Bette.

It was February when the house by the bridge collapsed, they moved out just in time.

It must have had termites.



Sarah Ryeland 

Sarah Ryeland is my new partner in the newspaper business. She’s the Special Publications Editor for Metroland in the Muskoka area and I work with her producing publications like Sideroads and specialty products like Winter Scene. You can’t help but love Sarah – she is a bubbly, happy, charming dynamo who brightens my day every time I talk to her. Easy to work with, she has a surprising temper that she talks about but I have never seen (I think she exaggerates – she’s far too nice to have a temper, even with her ginger hair). When she “blows” she says she becomes The Incredible Hulk. The thought of that makes me laugh – it’s like a tiny wee mouse turning green and blowing out of his clothes. When Sarah wrote me this she included a note that said the story was “upbeat and perky, just like me!” Thanks, Hulkster! 

LITTLE DID SHE know, that sick feeling was a premonition of terrible things to come.

When the road was finally safe to cross, Elizabeth and Vern sunk dejectedly back into their vehicles and pulled up to the house.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “I can’t believe that nothing could be done. Those poor little creatures must be so confused. Imagine having to start building your home all over again.”

“Sure,” Vern said with a shrug. “They’re tough little guys though, they’ll figure it out. It can’t be the first time.”

Elizabeth sighed again as she hung up her jacket and purse. The house was dimly lit, but seemed warm and inviting when she thought of the poor little animals swimming out there without a home.

They’re only animals, she said to herself. Vern’s right. I’m sure it’s happened before. And really, why should I be so upset? I guess I just liked watching them work.

Vern gave her a sympathetic look as he slumped onto the couch and grabbed the remote.

“Let’s not think about it anymore,” Elizabeth said. “You know what? Let’s just order in and watch some TV tonight.”

“Sounds good to me,” Vern grunted.

***

An hour later, when the doorbell finally rang, Elizabeth was a bit put out.

“How long can it take to deliver a pizza?” she muttered under her breath.

Grabbing some cash out of her wallet, she opened the door and started speaking her mind. “You do realize that it’s been well over forty minutes… hello?”

“What’s wrong?” called Vern.

“There’s no one there!” Elizabeth cried. “Hello? Who’s out there? Hello? Well that’s odd,” she said, turning her back to the porch and swinging the door closed behind her. “I could have sworn I heard the doorbell…” and just as the door was about to click shut, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

A cold, creeping sense of dread came over her as she turned back around to face the man who was casting a shadow over her doorstep.

“Your pizza, ma’am.”

A blood curdling scream filled the air as Elizabeth came face to face the grotesque figure in front of her. A body, stripped down to its underclothing was lying facedown on the driveway, twitching.

“Who – what are you?” Elizabeth stammered. She looked up into the face of the deliveryman and saw a pair of shining, beady, black eyes. Slowly, two massive front teeth showed themselves, as the creature curled its mouth into a sneer.

“We’ve come to ask for your help,” the creature rasped. “You did say you would help us, didn’t you?”

“Nooooo!” Elizabeth screamed. The creature burst out of its clothing and revealed itself to be an entire colony of beavers, standing on each other’s shoulders.

The rodents launched themselves at the helpless woman, now smeared with pepperoni and mozzarella and trying desperately to escape from the beavers’ deadly grip.

As she felt the vicious slap of tails against her face, she looked over to her husband, already lying lifeless on the floor, smothered by cruel dam-builders. Finally, as a pair of giant teeth sliced her jugular, she became still.

The largest beaver of the pack raised his head, blood dripping from his mouth. He looked around him as he raised himself up onto his hind legs and leapt to the ground in front of his kill.

“Well boys,” he said, “It looks like we’ve found our new home.”



Jason Willis - Ending One 

Jason Willis is another colleague of mine at the Bracebridge Examiner where he, too, is a composing dude – he’s the only guy (except for our boss) in a veritable SEA of middle-aged, grumpy women. He’s like our favourite pet – we’re always teasing him and sending him to buy us food and he always treats us with the greatest of grace and charm. Jason, bless his young heart, reads my blog regularly and always says nice things. To help celebrate my first year blogaversary he wrote not one, but TWO endings to the beaver saga. The first one is all his own doing. The second, he says, is more “Cathy-esque.” Hmmm... I wonder what that means? 

SHE DIDN’T KNOW what to do, she just stood there staring at the beavers swimming back and forth, a knot growing in her stomach at the thought of their impending deaths. She couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible, if only she had acted sooner or raised some kind of ruckus to try and save them; it wouldn't be long now before "The Girls" were gone forever.

Elizabeth then turned and gave Vern “the look.” The, “I have an idea and it's crazy but you have to help me or you'll never hear the end of it,” look. Ignorance of the town be damned, she was gonna do what she could to help those poor beavers.

So Elizabeth and Vern hurried to the back of his truck and opened the cab to see what tools and supplies might be available to them. Being a contractor / handyman, Vern always had bits of materials and a slew of tools he kept stashed in there. Vern wasn't the tidiest fellow and Elizabeth always chastised him for never cleaning up or throwing things out, but tonight she was oh so very thankful that he didn't.

Elizabeth dropped the tail gate, climbed up in truck and started tossing items at Vern; without saying a word and using only knowing glances they set to work building a crudely constructed cage that they hoped could house the beavers.

With some help from Elizabeth, Vern had the cage built in under a half-hour, with the sun setting and the air now cold enough that they could see their breath, Elizabeth and Vern headed down to what was left of the beavers’ pond for what, assuredly, would be the most difficult part of this rescue operation.

Down by the water’s edge, Elizabeth stared into the now dark muddy waters that the beavers were swimming in. Vern edged up behind her dragging the cage and a couple of flashlights. They turned them on and scouted for the beavers. They spotted them quickly – the beavers had made their way close to the far bank , which now was only about 30 feet away.

Hesitating for only a moment, Elizabeth took a deep breath, gritted her teeth and plunged into the waist-deep water. The cold hit her like a punch to the gut, nearly knocking the wind from her, cutting into her legs and thighs like thousands of tiny knives slicing at her with every step she took. Almost numb, she continued undeterred, edging farther into the pond.

Vern splashed in right behind her, handing her a rope as they both pulled the cage behind them through the freezing murky water towards the beavers. Elizabeth had no idea how she was going to corral them into the cage, she just knew she had to try; but, as they neared the middle of the pond, to her amazement, the beavers left the shore and were actually swimming towards them. Having no idea how aggressive or territorial beavers were, Elizabeth and Vern stood as still as two flesh-coloured granite statues, watching the critters approach.

But nothing happened. The beavers swam up and around them, no angry noises, no slapping tails. Elizabeth reached out slowly with one hand and stroked the cool, wet body of one of the beavers as it swam by; it didn't even flinch. She realized at that point the beavers must recognize them; all those times swimming buy pretending not to notice them, they had been watching, and thought of them not as a threat, but almost like family.

Taking this as a good sign, Elizabeth and Vern pushed the half-submerged cage all the way under the water and gently guided the beavers into it before closing the lid and heading back to shore. Shivering but elated to be back on shore, Elizabeth cold not believe how smoothly that had gone. However, her jubilation was rudely interrupted, as one of the beavers began to thrash in the cage and started making the most horrendous noise.

Elizabeth freaked out, not knowing what was happening. Everything had gone so well until now. She noticed the frantic animal was staring across the pond; she took her flashlight and shone it over to the far bank scanning looking for possible signs of danger that could have set the beaver into its mad frenzy.

Scanning back and forth she at first saw nothing, but somehow, in between the howls of the one beaver she heard a quiet but constant peeping noise. She scanned the banks again, and this time saw the cause of the noise – two baby beavers, maybe weeks old, were stranded on the far side of the pond. Their "Girls" were, in fact a mother and father, and they were freaking out because they didn't want to be separated from their babies.

Elizabeth wasted no time; she tossed Vern her light and plunged back into the freezing water – she had to get to the baby beavers before they scurried off into the bush. It was dark now and they would be impossible to spot in the woods. Vern stayed with the cage and watched, keeping one light on Elizabeth and one light on the babies. As quickly as she could, Elizabeth trudged and half-swam across the pond, reached the beavers, scooped them up, one under each arm, and and plowed back across. Vern opened the cage as she got to the shore. She dropped them in with their parents and collapsed to her hands knees on the bank beside them, breathing hot, tired, steaming breath into the cool night air... they had done it! Drained but elated, she couldn't believe they had done it.

The next spring, after the snow had melted and the flowers were up, Elizabeth drove the 73.6 km up a winding dirt path of a road towards a small clearing, gravel clinking and clanking off the bottom of her car as she went. She pulled up and parked the car and popped the trunk. She went to the back and pulled out her folding chair, grabbed her book and a picnic basket with small lunch and walked down to the pond, there she spent the day and many a days after that, reading, enjoying the sun and watching her "extended family" swim and play and grow in their new home.



Jason Willis - Ending Two 

HOWEVER SHE KNEW there wasn't much that could be done for them tonight, so Elizabeth and Vern got into their vehicles and took the long winding detour home. On the drive Elizabeth thought long and hard about the beavers and tried to think of something that could be done to help them. She was too tired though, and came up with nothing.

For the next two weeks after the culvert was fixed and the road was opened again, Elizabeth drove by every day on her way to work looking out to see if she could see the beavers, and every night on the way home she would pull over and try to spot them, hoping to god they would be gone, moved on to that back up home that Vern said they might have.

She was standing shivering on the side of the road, about an inch of show now blanketing everything in sight, looking hard for little beaver heads swimming in the river. She hadn't seen them for three days now and truly hoped they had moved on.

Then she heard a light splash up the river bank and looked to see what had made the noise.

"Ahhh, shit!" she said..

It was indeed a beaver, just swimming along a small stick in its mouth. She felt an anger flare up inside her. "You stupid rodents!" she said to the beaver as it swam towards the culvert. "You need to get out of here! You're going to starve if you don't move on!"

She was practically shouting at the beaver now, emotions flaring even more as she realized what they did not – that they were going to die slowly of starvation if they didn't find a new home and soon.

She was angered at the beavers for not moving on, and partially angered at herself for not doing more to help them. She was so angered in fact, she bent down, grabbed a handful of loose gravel and started throwing stones at the beaver, shouting at it and calling it names, telling it leave, all in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to get them to move on.

As she was tossing rocks at the beaver, her feet slipped on the snow-covered bank, and went out from under her, she landed hard on here butt, and skidded out of control down the steep embankment towards the frigid waters.

With a loud noisy splash she hit the waters and was instantly up to her waist. She screamed and scrambled up the shore and back to her idling car, where she cranked the heat and drove the short distance home even more enraged, cussing a blue streak that would make a sailor blush.

Elizabeth roared into the driveway and skidded to a stop, just inches from the front porch. Slamming the car into park, she turned off the engine and stormed into the house still cursing as she slammed the door and tromped and clumped here way upstairs, dripping water and leaving soggy foot prints as she went to the bedroom to change.

Vern was just sitting in his worn out lazyboy watching the sports channel count down the top 10 most outrageous outburst by coaches, and smiled as he found a little irony that his wife would be in the middle of one of her famous outbursts, while he was watching that particular segment; he knew however that the guys on TV had nothing on his wife when it came to outburst. When she got in a mood, it was best to just stay out of the way and let her cool down. Usually she would stomp around, curse, slam some doors, do some cleaning, come and complain to him about what the problem was and eventually settle down. The medication she was taking was certainly making the outbursts less frequent, but no less outrageous when they did happen.

However this time after she had finished changing, Elizabeth went straight down to the basement, which was odd even for her; she hardly ever went down there. The only stuff they kept in the basement was Christmas stuff, some boxes of old junk they never got around to throwing out and Vern's hunting gear. Vern heard her rummaging around for a few minutes then stomped back up the stairs; he had already muted the TV waiting for Elizabeth to come and vent to him. But she didn't make the turn down the short hallway to living room like he thought she would; instead she went straight out the front door. When that happened, Vern realized it was the TSN turning point – and he needed to find out what she was up to.


He got up from his chair, tuned off the TV and went and got his coat; he was lacing up his boots when her heard the first shot. He quickly tied his boots and as he hurried out the door. A second shot rang out. He was running now, out the driveway and down the road to the bridge.

A third shot…

Vern, huffing and now wheezing in the cool winter air, got to the bridge in time to see Elizabeth loading up the next round in the rifle. He surveyed the area and something furry floating in the river below, then he followed her line of sight and saw a limping bleeding beaver desperately trying to get up the bank on the far side of the river.

"ELIZABETH!" Vern shouted. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FREAKING MIND?"

Elizabeth turned and looked at him, visibly upset, tears streaming down her face.

"It's the only way Vern...." she said softly, almost as if saying it to herself.

"It's the... only… way..." she mumbled again. "They are just going to starve to death Vern, and I can't sit and watch that happen."

She gripped the gun tightly in her hands, deep troubling sobs peppered with short hot breaths that seemed to fuel this inner anger that neither doctors, Vern, or even she understood.

"I should have done something sooner to help them. This is my fault, my mess, and I'm going to clean it up." she said; the anger and edge returning to her voice.

"It's my goddamn MESS! You hear ME! YOU STUPID RODENTS! Why did you have to be so STUPID?"

Elizabeth was shouting at the beavers, shaking with a rage that Vern had not seen in a long time; he wondered if maybe she forgot to take her medication. Or maybe she had just finally lost it.

He watched as Elizabeth raised the gun again to take aim at the wounded beaver on the far bank. Vern calmly tried to talk to her, to talk her out of the rage and into lowering the firearm.

“Just calm down Elizabeth… just take a slow deep breath, and everything will be ok. I need you to put the gun down, baby. I need you put the gun down…”

But Elizabeth was having no part of it, she was too focused on her target: The stupid, retched, fowl little water rat that was now getting away!

Vern was getting audibly louder as he continued talking to Elizabeth, trying to reach her, trying to get her to listen to him… to listen to reason.

Still intent on her target, Elizabeth raised her finger to the trigger, ready to take out the beaver for good. Just before she shot, Vern yelled her name as loud as he could to get her attention.

"ELIZABETH!!!!"

It worked!

She snapped out of her rage-filled shooting spree and flung her head in Vern’s direction. The loss of focus however, coupled with the quick shifting of her weight, made Elizabeth lose her footing, and on the same spot she had fallen earlier, she slipped again, her arms flailed to the sides as her feet went right out from under her, sending her down the embankment once again.

The only difference between this time and the last was the rifle she was now holding in her hands; loaded, finger on the trigger, squeezing it as she fell.

The shot rang out!

Elizabeth splashed into the frigid icy waters!

A second large splash happened only seconds behind her own….

***

Elizabeth's body was found three days later.

A friend had stopped by to ask Vern about borrowing his truck – he needed to move some wood he had chopped earlier in the week. With both vehicles in the driveway and no one answering the door, the friend checked to see if everything was ok. The door was unlocked, so he let himself in. It was then that he found Elizabeth; her body, slumped over the kitchen table caked in blood, the pistol still in her hand; she was laying there surrounded by hundreds of pieces of note paper that had been ripped from the note book that had now fallen on the floor beside her.

On each piece of paper the same message was scribbled on the front and back: "Stupid Rodents!"

Two weeks later while clearing out the new culver that had become plugged again, they found the bodies of two dead beavers… and Vern.







Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Write Me An Ending! Win A Prize!

The beavers who live on our section of the Muskoka River are an industrious, engaging lot. Just pull up a chair on
the riverbank and wait for a few minutes and one or more of the beavers will swim by, always in a hurry, always
with important business to attend to. My family loves watching these furry engineers; it's one of the best
things about living by the river. This photo was taken by Erin Monett of Everimages on our wedding day.
I just realized that November 11 is the first anniversary of Life on the Muskoka River.
A whole year has gone by since Dave farted in bed and drove me to the computer where, with nothing else to do while the fumes cleared, I started a blog.
I have a few rather ingenious ideas for celebrating and the first is to finish a story for me!
I started writing it tonight and I liked the way it was going but didn't know how to finish it. 
So instead of fluffing off some lame ending I thought I'd ask you to write something for me. I'll print all the entries sent my way and then reveal a winner. I might even take your endings to my writers' group and have them pick a winner for me. That way there won't be any favouritism. (I am, however, quite receptive to bribery.) I'll send a great big fat Muskoka prize package to the winner. Hoo boy!
Here's the story. It's called:

Leave it to Beavers

Other things should have occupied the mind of Elizabeth Donaldson but her thoughts always returned to the beavers.
She was worried about them. Worried that the rising water would flood the road.
Elizabeth and her husband Vern lived beside the Red Canoe River in Ontario’s near north. Elizabeth had a stressful job in the city but there was no amount of corporate nonsense that could linger when she sat in a Muskoka chair by the water, listening to chickadees calling to their friends, “look! there’s sunflower seeds in the feeder! come now-dee-dee-dee-dee”; watching pine needles and dessicated maple leaves float downstream in the sleepy current; waiting for a fish to jump, or a flock of honking Canada geese to do a fly-by, or a beaver to surface and swim soundlessly by the dock.
They never had to wait long to see a beaver. There were more than  a few of them living on that stretch of the river. All busy, all the time, they moved through the water ignoring Elizabeth and Vern like teenaged girls trying to look busy at a school dance. They always had some place important to go, those girls, as they rushed by boys they were trying to attract, not meeting them in the eye, not acknowledging their existence, but senses acutely attuned to any movement the boys might make. “The beavers are like those girls,” Elizabeth told Vern one day.
“Ayuh,” Vern said, “and you better believe they are keeping an eye on us as they go by.”
“Did you see the road today?” Elizabeth asked.
“Water’s getting close to the road,” Vern said. “I saw.”
“I hope you’re not right,” she said, knowing he was. “Do they stand any chance at all if the township takes out the culvert at this point?”
Vern shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Usually beavers have a back-up house. If they do, and they work really hard at stashing more food away, and if the rest of November stays mild and the river doesn’t freeze, they might be okay.”
It was a lot of mights, Elizabeth realized.
“But if the township waits until the end of the month to do something about the culvert, they might as well just kill the beavers outright.”
Elizabeth looked at her husband sadly. “Oh Vern,” was all she said.
They thought maybe they could pull a bit of mud and sticks out of the culvert, leaving enough water to keep the beavers happy but stopping the water from flowing onto the road. But the beavers had done their job too well and the culvert was jam-packed.
On the last Monday of November Elizabeth turned off the highway onto their road and was stopped short by a sign that read “Road closed at bridge.” Her house was on the other side of the bridge but she had a dread feeling in her stomach that this closure had something to do with the beavers. 
Up ahead she saw sawhorses with bright signs on them announcing “Road Closed.” She saw Vern’s pick-up truck stopped in front. She pulled in behind him and parked the car. Vern was standing at the edge of a deep pit where the culvert used to be. The old one, still filled with river detritus, lay twisted and tangled at the side of the road. A new one lay ready for morning.
The pond the beavers had spent all summer building was empty. Their lodge was ripped down. A rank musty smell rose from the muck. Elizabeth gagged. “Where are the beavers?” she said, sweater pulled up over her nose. 
“They’re in the river,” Vern said. “They’ve been swimming back and forth, here. Looking for the culvert, I bet.”
Elizabeth felt sick. 

***
You've got until Sunday to send me an ending but, gawd, it should only take you a half an hour to whip this off. Even if you're off there in nano-land you could probably do it in your sleep. 
E-mail the thing to me here
That's it. 
No more rules. 
Whaddya waiting for?
Go!
Get busy!
Still here?
Unbelievable!



Sunday, November 7, 2010

Beat of Five


A superhero

In a velvet cape.

Standing up for the

Minions and the poor.

Fighting for justice,

Truth, honesty and

Canadian ways.

Crying in coffee,

Pouting in pillows,

Wailing in washrooms.

It’s time to stop now.

My smile is real now.



Somebody gets me.







New at Muskoka People: Graphic artist Lynda Sinclair.