Great little sayings

Time's a wasting!

Cut me some slack.

Pipe up!

Think I'll hit the sack.

So long.

Stick around.

Fuck off.

What is it with Purebreds?

While walking my dogs, I often run into people who admire my dogs. "What beautiful dogs!" they say, "They're so well-behaved! What kind are they?"

I'm always proud to say that they are mutts. I'm partial to mutts and don't mind saying so. Mutts are known to carry the strongest characteristics of whatever breeds they are composed of; they are therefore healthier and more balanced than the average purebred of any breed. The whole idea of *purebred* dogs has always smacked of racism to me; left to their own devices, dogs don't seek out others like themselves to mate with. Research indicates that mammals (yes, us too...) are attracted to the pheromones most different from our own. We instinctively seek diversity, so that our offspring will be strong. And the idea of people manipulating dogs and deliberately mating them to others to create a certain look has always seemed... well, kind of pervy to me.

But anyway. People often express disappointment that they are not some specific breed. The funny thing, to me, is that my dogs are about as different from each other as dogs can be. There is an old Warner Bros. cartoon about a coyote and a sheepdog who go to work together and punch a clock. The coyote tries to catch the sheep and the sheepdog tries to protect them. I believe their names are Sam and Ralph. Well, those are my dogs. Yes, they are about the same size and they sometimes walk side by side but it has been many generations since they shared anything like a common ancestor. Yet people are forever asking me if they are siblings. Sometimes it cracks me up.

So, MOSTLY my dogs are really good. Really well-behaved and obedient. And when people ask me how I achieved this, I say, "Diet and exercise" which is ironically, my answer to many other questions as well. But it's true. If dogs get adequate exercise, (which, I'm sorry to say, only working dogs get; most need many hours a day) they will be well-behaved. UNLESS you feed them dog food, which for the most part is garbage filled with poisonous chemicals and allergens. But my point is, that it's not that they belong to some magical BREED that makes them act wonderfully. People seem to be always looking for that; Oh, we wanted a dog that would be good with our kids, so we got a Golden.

As an aside, I've seen a Golden so out of control that her owner had to muzzle her on walks. That dog never got off leash because she would viciously attack other dogs. And they got her as a puppy. Explain that, purebred enthusiasts.

It's not the breed. It's what YOU do with the dog. Dogs need lots of exercise. Dogs need nutritious food.

I don't have a flock of sheep to occupy my dogs, nor do I have the inclination to spend all day preparing fresh food for them, so despite my strong opinions on this topic, my dogs too get less than they need to be perfect. But when they do something "wrong" at least I recognize that the fault usually lies with me. Dogs really do want to please us but first their basic needs have to be met. And I have yet to meet a purebred more eager to please than my two mutts.

And then I planted garlic!

Yesterday, for the first time, I planted garlic. I have always wanted to grow garlic but for some reason it never really panned out and this year I thought it wouldn't either; I have a community garden plot that gets rototilled every spring, so it just didn't seem to make sense. Garlic must be planted in the fall if it is to do well and between the spring tilling and the fall freezing, garlic just didn't seem to be in the cards.

But then, a few things magically conspired to make it work for me. First of all, the woman who runs the community garden told me that they had decided NOT to till next spring but instead to use the tilling rental cash to put beams between the plots. (I'm new to the garden and at first I thought she said "beans" which simultaneously excited and confused me, but anyway, I digress...)

Then, I was working a coffee gig at the market and I went early to admire the produce. Some folks had bags of local organic garlic for $6.00/lb which is about the going rate here and it was beautiful garlic with tight, fat cloves and a mauve skin. I asked about it and the woman told me that the variety is called "Music". Then, without prompting, she mentioned that I could plant it if I wanted to. I've read that Music does very well in Ontario, so I bought a bag thinking I could eat it all if I didn't plant it. (I like to slow roast whole heads of garlic with olive oil and salt and eat them, smeared on toast.)

Finally, my sister Karen boasted on Facebook that she had planted 300 cloves of garlic in her big garden and I became consumed by envy. I wanted a garlic garden too! I even had some garlic to plant! But those in the know say that root crops should always be planted under a waning moon and time was running out. I was in Toronto for a few days and when I got home it was the last day before the new moon. In Chinatown I found bags of shallots, 2 for a dollar. Why not? I said to myself.

So when I got home, I flew into action. First, I walked the dogs, then I threw garlic, shallots, stakes and red string into a bag with my gardening gloves and hurried off to the garden. I dug and cursed and planted and cursed and marked the plot with red string, then mulched it lovingly with yellow leaves. I only planted 30 garlic cloves and perhaps 8 shallots but I left feeling totally smug.

I won't have a whole lot of garlic but I'll have some and maybe even some shallots, too.