Pieces of Autumn

About a month ago, Sammy was sitting on the front porch in the late evening; Dave and I were in the front room watching Netflix when we heard him take off at top speed after what we thought was a cat.  Dave jumped up, opened the front door and called him in so that he wouldn't run into the street.  Within seconds of Sammy's entry we realized what we thought was a cat was not a cat at all.  Rather, it was a skunk and Sammy had been treated to the full effect of an encounter with a black cat with a white stripe down its back.

He was in the mudroom for only a moment when we realized our mistake and hustled him into the garage (where he rolled on the floor embedding the cement with skunk oil).  I bow before the power of the skunk:  that one minute in which Sammy was in the house was enough to infect our entire house with that most nefarious of perfumes.  I removed everything from the mudroom; Dave opened windows; we got out the Febreeze, put on the air freshener and used fans to blow the inside air out the front door.  And still the smell remained for the next three days.

Joe and Jacob stayed home from school the following day in order to wash the dog.  At 34 weeks pregnant, I simply could not face the task alone.  We tied the dog to a tree and washed him down with a mixture of dish soap, hydrogen peroxide and water.  Then we used Murphy's Wood Oil (as per many suggestions on the internet).  I should mention that this was also the dog's first bath ... in seven years.  Thus, despite being a water dog, he was rather averse to the garden hose and insisted on wrapping himself around the tree to which he was tied and thoroughly soaking all of the humans involved in his care.  Dave used the skunk incident in his class the following day to illustrate that our actions, no matter how private we think they are, always affect others.  The instinct of one dumb dog to chase one wily skunk caused a family of eight/nine undue stress, loss of sleep and a lot of extra work.  For Sammy's "sin", we paid dearly.

In happier news, the autumn also brought cross-country running.  Our four oldest trained hard for the annual Partridge race at the beginning of October.  Dave told Hannah that her best training would be to stay with Jacob and, if possible, beat him.  They finished each school practise in first and second, and Ben, apparently also listening to Dave's advice, consistently arrived third at the finish line.

As an aside, Jacob found this photo of the twins online.  They were 4.5 years old at the time and just about to start junior kindergarten.  How they have grown.

Back to the running:  Ben's strategy paid off and he placed second in his field and top in his age group.  The retired teacher presenting the award is actually Dave's grade seven and eight teacher.  It was he who first wore running shoes everyday to class; Dave has merely followed in his footsteps.  The blond woman wearing the toque is Jacob and Hannah's teacher this year.

As you can probably surmise, the weather was quite chilly that day.  The same day last year saw us wearing shorts, t-shirts and sunburns.  It was a full 20 degrees cooler this year.  Hannah's nerves got the best of her in the 1600m race and she limped across the finish line claiming that she had the stomach flu.  I told her to lie down in the van and see if she felt any better.  Apparently the rest (and having one race under her belt) was enough to calm the nerves and she rallied to run the 3000m in the afternoon.  Dave paced the race and ran her to first place by a full 1-2 minutes.  As a result, she won a trophy for Outstanding Female Athlete.  I was extremely proud but also very happy that she had finally seen what she could do athletically and that her nerves could be conquered.  Jacob placed sixth in the 1600m and fourth in the boys 3000m.  In his words, "Mom, do you know what my least favourite number is?" -- "Four, I hate four.  I'm always one step off the podium."  Joseph failed to repeat last year's win and placed fifth:  still an honourable finish.  Perhaps the bake sale table didn't prove the same motivation as it had the year before!