March 6^th, 2005:

It’s been overcast and windy all day; the temperature started out about –1° this morning, then dropped to –5° by afternoon. We had a couple of real good thawing days, though - Friday got up to +7° and Saturday to +9° and the snow went down noticeably in the yard. Trouble is, the snow slid off the roof of our garage so we had to do some shoveling before Doreen could get the car out of the garage to go to her auction sale this morning.

We had eleven deer in the yard at one time last week; it seemed to be two groups - a group of six and another group of five. There was a fair amount of pushing and shoving among them; one that seemed dominant would rear up on her hind legs and wave her front hooves at another, which would turn and walk away. If the dominant one walked down a path and another was too slow, she would rear up and thump it a couple of good ones on the back. By spring, we should have not too much sunflower seed shells, and a well-fertilized lawn.

Reid Homstol is just finishing building a new cottage west of us. He is baby-sitting his daughter’s dog, which is a Korean Bear Dog, and apparently both daughter and dog have been featured on the Discovery Channel’s working dogs programs. The dog is actually trained to herd bears. In resort areas, such as Banff, a problem bear is trapped and hauled away, but usually makes its way back to become a problem again, and has to be shot. Now, when they release the bear, they sic the dogs on it, make a lot of noise, and bounce a few rubber bullets off it. The dogs’ job is to make the area unpleasant enough for the bear that it looks for a new home.

I was severely chastised at coffee - a couple of weeks ago I credited Merv Miller with the story about a Nobleville man who lost his watch in the snow. The story actually came from Maurice Marquette, to whom I extend my apologies!

Maurice gave me a photo of the Perigord hockey team from 1952. In it, front and center with a goalie’s stick is Alpheze Bossé that I told you about a couple of weeks ago (think I spelled it Elphage). Maurice said of the twelve men in the photo, six have passed away and four still live near Perigord, though Victor and Irene Ceslak have moved to Kelvington.

Colin Mackie and Cameron Gabbs, new owners of the Cove, were down last week to sign the papers and finalize the deal. They are still looking at getting the gas bar going by mid-April. They have a lot of plans for the place - one that will be popular will be a fireplace in the old dining room. They have hired a general manager, who will be moving here around the end of March, and Sheryl will be coming around the end of April. Lots of energy there!