Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Ahoy, it's a porcupine!

We are surrounded here by steep hills and mountains, which makes getting firewood more challenging. Felling a tree on flat ground is hard enough, but doing it on a fifty degree slope can make a calm man (like Taylor) pretty worked up. He chainsaws the tree so it falls downhill, and cuts it into chunks that I then throw down to the bottom to our waiting boat. I really enjoy this part. Here's Taylor demonstrating (on a slightly flatter slope) a good log toss. Excellent form, Taylor:
Moma discovered porcupines today. She also discovered that you can't bite them, and she ended up with at lest 60 quills inside her mouth and around her nose. Getting quills out of a dog's mouth is akin to sticking your hand in a meat grinder because the fight she put up was tremendous. We got most of them out during a four hour tousle, but there was still ten quills lodged deep inside her mouth.
That is why, in this picture, you will see her inside a sack (to immobilize her legs) and tied down to the table with the lone rope (and later an extension cord). Tying her down was not enough; I had to lay on her, on the table, while Taylor held her head down and her jaw open with a looped belt.
And before you judge us for animal cruelty, saying 'Well, she looks pretty calm and helpless in this picture,' please remember that she is only calm here because for a whole hour before I took this shot she was screaming and thrashing. That much effort would make a monster look like a lamb.
This was one of the most hellish afternoons we can remember having in ages. But, at the same time, seeing her in an REI sleeping bag sack tied to our kitchen table with an extension cord was pretty funny:
She is a-ok now, sleeping like a baby. We are exhausted as well, but happy that our little puppy is healthy again.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey cousin, Vadim and I really enjoy reading your blog and looking at the pictures. We're both really envious of your life up there! I was wondering, do you guys have Skype? Does your computer have a camera? It would be cool to talk to you that way.