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Tag Archives: Lucy

Lucy’s ‘twin brother’ in California

10 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by Delena Rose in Lucy

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Austin, border collie, brindle coat, doppelganger, german shepherd, Lucy, twin dogs

Lucy and DelenaI received a few unexpected reader comments regarding Lucy back in late January. First, Vicky commented on how much Lucy reminded her of her own border collie, only that her coloring was different. Around the same time, Whitney in California wrote…

 I was searching the web for currants to plant in our California front yard when I came across your pictures of Lucy. She looks EXACTLY like our dog Austin who we adopted from a local rescue group. Austin – like Lucy – is a gorgeous silky brindle and whenever we take him on walks people ask what breed he is. We just say Big Hairy Dog because we have no idea his lineage. We were told Australian Shepherd and Chow – but we can’t believe there’s any Chow in him. We had him tested and nothing definitive came up. I’m writing to ask if you know Lucy’s makeup. Austin and Lucy look like they could be from the same litter!

We exchanged pictures and yes, Lucy and Austin look like they could be brother and sister! What makes this so surprising is that we both get constant comments on how beautiful our dogs are due to their unusual brindle coat. Whitney, her husband and Austin live in California but one never knows.  I’ve often heard it said that we all have a twin, or ‘doppelganger’ somewhere in the world. It appears that Lucy’s twin has found her! I’ll post the pics below. See if you can tell these two gorgeous dogs apart:

 AustinLucyAustinLucyAustinLucyAustinLucy

Whitney also has a blog called Burbette’s Feast and I am dying to ask her a few questions, such as:

Is your blog named after Babette’s Feast (my favorite movie of all time)? and

Do you keep bees? I’d love to hear more about it!

And of course, more posts on Austin, please!

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picking rosehips for winter tea

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Delena Rose in tea, wild berries

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berry picking, herbal tea, immune-boosting tea, Lucy, rose hips, rosehip tea, rosehips, tea, vitamin C, winter tea

rosehips

I like to let the tea steep overnight and the next day make a delicious rosehip ice tea with a squeeze of lemon. ~Beverley Gray, Aroma Borealis

Last evening, we brought our berry picking baskets with us on the evening walk. The rosehips have been turning bright red, beckoning us cheerfully along the trail and letting us know that they are ready for picking. As I still have many jars of rosehip jelly and syrup from last summer I have decided to simply freeze this year’s berries and use them for winter teas.

rose hipsI pull the ends off of the hips before freezing in large ziplock bags so that they are ready for use straight from the freezer. Then, when I am feeling under the weather in the winter months I can dip into the bag for a quick immune-boosting tea. Click here for a previous post on the medicinal and nutritional benefits of rosehips, or recipes for rosehip jelly and rosehip syrup.

For the tea, I use about half a cup of hips to about six cups of water. I allow the tea to steep on the stove on low heat for a few hours and add agave nectar (to taste) to sweeten.

Lucy also kept us company on the trail. She is a handy berry-picking companion as she is always on the alert for coyotes or the rare bear. She also keeps the spruce grouse, mice and pocket gophers busy!

Lucy

 

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autumn passing

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in appreciate the seasons

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Autumn, autumn leaves, fall, field, lake, leaves, Lucy, rubber boots, woods

 

 

Winter is nearly here but before I get too excited about skiing and snowshoeing and dark cozy evenings by the fire I wanted to share a few autumn moments here around the cabin.

Just a few weeks ago we were surrounded by gorgeous walls of yellow as the leaves of the aspen poplar trees began to change color. Then a few days of strong winds blew all of the leaves to the ground. Each autumn it shocks me just how intensely bright and beautiful these leaves become.

As the grasses and woods turn brown, Lucy has suddenly become perfectly camouflaged. She is back to her joyous leaping through the tall grass and chasing the spruce grouse.

Below is the view of the lake from the cabin. In spring and summer I can’t actually see the lake because the trees leaf out and block the view. I don’t mind as I love the privacy and I can still smell and hear the water all summer long. I also spot many kinds of water birds as they pass through this time of year. Last week we had a large group of swans at the water’s edge.

October is my favorite month of the year. I love the warm colors, the smell of leaves decaying (nutrition for next year), the sights and sounds of migrating birds by the hundreds… I love warm sweaters, wool socks, crackling fires and long scarves. I also love the early darkness as I can reacquaint myself with the stars and moon.

The outdoor projects are done for the summer, the garden has been harvested and put to bed for the winter. I am spending more time indoors now, reading, writing and getting back to my yoga practice. These changing seasons remind me to be grateful for all that I have and to look forward to more beauty and adventures in the new season to come.

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ahhhh…. Lucy

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in Lucy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

dog, dog with head stuck, funny dog, Lucy, Lucy's antics, silly dog

I just had to share what Lucy just did that gave me my belly laugh of the day. While I was baking in the kitchen (chocolate zucchini muffins), Lucy was busy pushing her toy ball around. It holds her evening portion of kibble and she loves to push it and eat the kibble as it escapes from a small hole in the ball. The ball makes a rumbling noise on the hardwood floor so I can usually hear her working away at it until she is done.

After a while I realized that the cabin had been very quiet and I wondered what Miss Lucy was up to. I glanced over at her cushion in the living room and there she was, lying there like nothing was out of the ordinary… a huge smile on her face… and the bathroom garbage lid stuck to her head! I burst out laughing and ran for the camera. Of course she held the pose until I was finished taking the picture, then she let me carefully remove the lid from her head.

Ahhh… Lucy! Each day I feel so blessed to share my life with such a loving and crazy companion!

 

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Lucy gets quilled… again

20 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in cabin living, Lucy

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dog, Lucy, needle nose pliers, porcupine, porcupine quills, quilled

Last week my poor wonderful dog, Lucy got quilled for the second time.

The first time she was quilled she must have barely touched the porcupine as she only had eight quills in total- three in her nose (pictured above) and five in one of her front paws. The quills were not very deeply embedded so I like to believe that she was simply curious, went in for a tentative sniff and then quickly learned her lesson. She avoided the next porcupine we encountered on the side of the road a few months later so I naively assumed that she was safe from porcupine enounters.

Then last Tuesday evening when we were out for our evening walk, Lucy went leaping gracefully through some tall grass as she so often does. On her third landing she suddenly started yelping and running out of the grass. I thought that perhaps a coyote had nipped her and was chasing her (we run into them often but the encounters are never threatening) so I went running towards Lucy with my hiking poles ready to defend her. As Lucy came running towards me I saw that she was holding her body posture very awkwardly and that the entire inner parts of her front legs and her chest were covered in porcupine quills! It was quite gruesome and she seemed to have morphed into some kind of spiky X-men character. She must not have smelled the porcupine in the tall grass. Perhaps the wind was blowing away from her… And judging by the location of the quills, she must have landed right smack on top of the prickly animal. Lucy looked confused and in pain as she limped toward me. Lucky we were not far from home and we slowly made our way back to the cabin.

As we walked home I was wondering if I would be able to take out the quills myself. Last time Lucy was quilled, she was very jumpy and it took me almost two hours to trick her into letting me get close enough to pull the quills out. I was amazed and so proud of Lucy when this time around when she came right over to me and let me snip the tips off of the quills with a pair of scissors. Then she stood very still (she was actually trembling and probably in shock) while held her with one arm and quickly plucked out all of the quills from one of her legs with needle nose pliers. I gave her a few minutes to rest and walk around, then I called her again and did the other leg. After another short break I pulled the quills from her chest area and after a thorough body search found a few quills on the inside of her back legs.

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of her before pulling the quills out. It did not even enter my mind this time around. As soon as I saw Lucy’s quills my only thought was to get them out as quickly as possible. In total I pulled out 141 quills and found 2 more the following day. Since then, Lucy has been more careful on our walks and keeps to the wide path a lot more and she completely avoids the patch of tall grass where she encountered the porcupine!

I’m happy to say that Lucy is doing great! She was tender for a few days but there were no signs of infection and she recovered very quickly. She’s even started leaping again… but she has been keeping to the path where the grass is much shorter!

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saying goodbye to March…

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in appreciate the seasons

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Common Redpoll, Hoary Redpoll, Lucy, March, melting, ski trail, skiing, snow, spring

Note: I have been having a few issues with my internet connection these past few days. Please bear with me as I share this post from a few days ago!

It’s that in-between season again. That time when there is still lot of snow to ski on as long as you don’t mind walking or ‘portaging’ over patches of grass here and there! The days have been quite warm this week and certain areas of the cross country ski trails are getting narrower and narrower each day!

In the shady areas there is still a good snowpack to ski on!

Lucy is also enjoying the last days of snow to the fullest…

…rolling around in some invisible smell…

…ahhhhh….

…the good life!!!

When I returned home from the morning ski, this little redpoll was sitting in the driveway. I am wondering if it is a Hoary Redpoll (a rare species) or if it is a young Common Redpoll who hasn’t developed it’s chest colors yet…?

April is now here and soon it will be springtime. The days are longer and I am longing to plant seeds and get my hands dirty in the garden. It has been an enjoyable and cozy winter here at cabinorganic and I truly am enjoying these last few days of skiing for this season… However, I am ready for spring!

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an afternoon with Buddha…

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in Lucy, play

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Buddha, dogs, dogs playing, friends, friendship, Lucy, play, rescue dogs, visit

Lucy has a special friend named Buddha. He’s my wonderful friend, Louise’s dog and he is also a ‘rescue dog’. He’s been to the cabin once and I was happy to see that Lucy got along very well with him! Remember when I first got Lucy and she was still shy and aggressive with other dogs and some people? It’s so wonderful to see how far she has come in her social skills since then!

Since Buddha’s visit, I’ve been teasing Lucy about her ‘boyfriend’: he’s tall, dark and handsome; loves the outdoors; gentle, playful, patient and easygoing… the perfect ‘guy’ for such an energetic four-legged redhead!

Today, we went to Buddha’s place in Leduc. Louise and I had a nice visit and Lucy and Buddha had a play date out back.

It was a very windy day but the dogs didn’t seem to mind! They played, rested, barked at the neighbor’s puppy and enjoyed one another’s company. This is my favorite picture of Buddha. It was a lovely afternoon of spending time connecting with friends!

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moments of wonder, continued…

31 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in appreciate the seasons, be mindful

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

beauty, Laurence Boldt, Lucy, moments of wonder, natural rhythms, nature, Tao, Taoism

After the daily ski with Lucy, I like to spend the rest my mornings doing some reading. Usually the morning reading is on something instructional that will teach me something or enhance my life in some way; evening reading is usually a novel, a memoir or a book of poetry.

At the moment, I am reading The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles For Abundant Living by Laurence G. Boldt. This morning I read his chapter on “The Beauty of Abundance” and wanted to share a few quotes as they relate so beautifully to yesterday’s post on moments of wonder:

…all nature is rhythm, and manifestly so for those who live in it. Whether it is on the beating of the human heart, the inflow and out-go of breath, the patterns of a leaf, the sound sof a stream, the migrations of animals, or the cycles of days or seasons, the pulse of life is rhythmic. ~ Boldt

Like the Taoists before them, eighteenth century American European Pantheists like Goethe and nineteenth century American transcendentalists like Thoreau advocated the contemplation of nature as a path to transcendence. Their writings exhort us to take the natural world as our temple and find in it the revelation and Beauty of trancendent Mystery. ~Boldt

Wisdom is inherent in nature and reveals iself to people of any nation, race, or time if they will open themselves up to it. We too can avail ourselves of this wisdom by making time to spend in nature. ~Boldt

Spending time in nature allows our bodies to slow down to the rhythms of nature, and to begin to feel at one with them. Our senses become more acute and our attention spans elongate. …In this state of grace, we can begin to more fully appreciate the transcendent wisdom that abounds in nature. ~Boldt

Resource:

Boldt, L. (1999). The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles for Abundant Living. New York: Arcana.

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moments of wonder

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in be mindful, cabin living

≈ 1 Comment

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beauty, birds, deer, Downy Woodpecker, Lucy, nature, Northern Flicker

One thing that I love about living out in the wilderness is that you never ever know what you are going to see from one moment to the next. Often I’ll be busy completing a task and suddenly I’ll look up and see a beautiful bird, like this golden winged Northern Flicker (above) and I’ll catch my breath at the beauty of the moment. Just yesterday morning, I had another moment of wonder when I opened the back door to a small herd of deer snuffling around under the bird feeders. (I admit that after enjoying their beauty for a few minutes I let Lucy chase them. She lives for these moments and although she never catches them, she lives for the opportunity to try!) I have also been glimpsing both a red fox and a grey fox quite often this past month, usually at night and in the moonlight.

This makes me wonder how many moments do I miss each day simply because I am so engrossed in a task (and forgetting to look up once in a while) or perhaps because my mind is ‘somewhere else’ and not ‘here, now’. These fleeting glimpses of nature’s beauty are truly gifts. They take my breath away, make me smile and fill my days with magic and wonder.

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paying attention to January

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by Delena Rose in appreciate the seasons, be mindful

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

dog, dried grass, dried leaves, January, looking closely at nature, Lucy, mindfulness, seed pods, snow, winter photographs

It has been unseasonably warm this past week so I have happily been able to spend much more time outdoors. This has been a rare treat as I do miss the long hours of being fully immersed in the natural world. This week, while the temperatures were well above zero degrees (C), I couldn’t resist taking the camera out for a walk and taking time to once again, look closely at the profound beauty of our natural world.

Everything, a bird, a tree, a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable ~Eckhart Tolle

In his book, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes about ‘mental labels’ and our human tendency to label objects around us. Once we know the ‘name’ of something, we immediately stop inquiring about it and, instead, we fall under the illusion that we know all there is to know about that object. This often prevents us from fully experiencing the awesome beauty, wonder and mystery of life.

The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you. ~Eckhart Tolle

When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arrives within you.~Eckhart Tolle

The other day I was watching some birds at the feeder outside the window. As an exercise, I deliberately refrained from labeling anything. For example, instead of thinking: “That’s a bird sitting on a branch eating a berry…”, I reminded myself that everything is ultimately connected (We are One). To keep my mind busy, I thought, “That is Oneness, sitting on Oneness eating Oneness…” Looking at the bird in this way, and with a truly inquisitive mind, I was able to see it fresh and new, as though for the very first time. As I continued to observe and be fully open to the experience, the little bird suddenly cocked its head and I found this simple movement so profoundly beautiful that I began to weep.

To help me refrain from labeling and thus experience my reality more spontaneously and with wonder, I sometime focus on the experience of the ‘architecture’ or the texture of an object. Sometimes I use my imagination to try to experience the object as though I were the size of an ant…

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. ~Bhudda

Nature has no desire to be anything than what it is. When you are able to experience nature unspoiled by human intervention, you can feel the depth of peace and harmony in its expression. You will be awed by the complex interworking of nature to support itself and to provide for a multitude of life. ~William Lovett

Nature has no beliefs or no reason to desire anything outside of itself. Nature has so much to teach us about simplicity in action. It is the awareness of unity consciousness that nature can teach if you can be open to it. Sit with nature whenever possible and let the silence become your experience. This silence is your portal to the awareness that you seek. When you can quiet the mind your connection to nature will develop. Your spirit and the unity that nature represents will dance together expanding your awareness more than ever before. ~William Lovett

I often find that it is when I remove my preconceived notions about what I expect to discover both in nature and in everyday life, that I immediately expand the scope of possibility from limited to limitless, and I become completely open to being surprised.

In nature there are no static and stable “things”; there are only ever-changing, ever-moving processes. Rain is a good example to illustrate this point. Though we use a noun called “rain” which appears to denote a “thing,” rain is nothing but the process of drops of water falling from the skies. Apart from this process, the activity of raining, there is no rain as such which could be expressed by a seemingly static nominal concept. The very elements of solidity(pathavi), liquidity (apo), heat (tejo) and mobility (vayo), recognized as the building material of nature, are all ever-changing phenomena. Even the most solid looking mountains and the very earth that supports everything on it are not beyond this inexorable law of change.~Lily de Silva

I couldn’t resist adding this irreverent picture of Lucy, engaged in what looks to be a highly enjoyable activity: paws straight up in the air, rolling in some pungent animal essence. This girl is my greatest teacher, daily demonstrating how to fully embrace life and live in the present moment each minute of the day. This teacher always knows how to put a smile on my face!

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