I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay

Historically, Canada was a nation of hewers of wood and drawers of water. In the early days of Confederation, lumberjacks were a dime a dozen. Every forest was jam-packed full of them. But today, due to mechanization of the lumber industry, lumberjacks are a pretty rare commodity indeed.

There are other threats to their existence too. If you are lucky enough to spot a real lumberjack, he'll be skittish and will disappear immediately, leaving only a powerful whiff of woodsmoke and stale sweat. Men wearing the big plaid shirts of the forest are an endangered species and they know it.

Some brave Canadian men and women are trying to revive our proud lumberjack tradition by going to special forestry camps on the weekends. At such camps, these Lumberjack Re-enactors wear loud plaid shirts, don specially knitted "beard balaclavas" and saw logs by hand, all while glowering in a manly way and not using deodorant.

Won't you help them in their cause? For only $50 a month, you too can sponsor a Lumberjack Re-enactor! In return for your ongoing sponsorship, you will receive a photo of your personal lumberjack and periodic letters from him/her written on birchbark. All cheques, money orders and bank drafts can be sent care of this blog and will be used for the sole purpose of keeping Our Canadian History Strong and Free. I promise.

Groundhog Day Redux

I'm with you, Impatient Cat! Let's form an Angry Mob! Who wants to come along? I've got a pitchfork. Anyone have a blazing torch?

Wikikittyleaks

Hello. It's me again, Her Royal Highness, blogging in the middle of the night from a top secret location for my own safety.

You readers think Debra She Who Seeks is sooooooooo nice and sweet, don't you? Well, she's got you completely bamboozled, you poor gullible saps. Just be glad you're not me! *sob*

That Beyotch-with-a-capital-B is a total tightwad cheapskate when it comes to gushie food. Oh sure, I have 24/7 access to a big bowl of prescription dry kibble but the key words there are prescription and dry -- yecchhh! Of course I choke it down out of necessity, but what I really want is beautiful moist gushie food. Anything with poultry is my fave although I also accept tuna and salmon in a pinch. But all that miserable Scrooge gives me is one tiny dish of gushie food per day. And even then I have to nag her relentlessly for a couple of hours first.

Can I come and live with you and eat as much gushie food as I want all day long? I'll be the best kitty you ever had! Please?

Buddhists Love Cats Too

[Final photo and caption courtesy of Kal at Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool]

Year of the Rabbit

Gung Hey Fat Choy, everyone! Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! (which technically began last night with the New Moon).

And wow, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit or Hare! So what can we expect for the upcoming 12 months? According to Susan Levitt and Jean Tang in Taoist Astrology:

The year of the Hare is a time of peace, calm, leisure, and rest after the chaos of the previous Tiger year. People enjoy the arts, gourmet food, and luxuries. Money can be made easily, but it is spent easily. The Dragon year that follows will be a wild and exhausting time, so enjoy a Hare year as an opportunity for relaxation, pleasure, family gatherings, entertainment, and comfortable travel. Expect political compromise and diplomatic peacemaking on a global level.

Well, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Every year Canada Post issues a commemorative stamp for the Chinese Lunar New Year. Here is this year's offering, which I like very much:

Now go eat a moon cake or set off a firecracker or something, eh? And don't forget to exchange a penny with a friend! Click here for the details of that little good luck and abundance ritual which I posted last year.

The Awful Truth

Yes, aren't we all, Bill? Aren't we all.

Raising the Tone of this Blog

Hello. Her Royal Highness here. Like the rest of you, I can't help but notice that the tone of this blog has degenerated lately into superficial fluff, adolescent sexual fantasies about Colin Firth and descriptions of gastrointestinal distress. Therefore, I am intervening in order to post something with more literary merit -- an extract from the greatest medieval poem ever written, Beocat. You're welcome.

Brave Beocat, brood-kit of Ecgthmeow,

Hearth-pet of Hrothgar in whose high halls

He mauled without mercy many fat mice,

Night did not find napping nor snack-feasting.

The wary war-cat, whiskered paw-wielder,

Bearer of the burnished neck-belt gold-braided collar band,

Feller of fleas fatal, too to ticks,

The work of wonder-smiths, woven with witches' charms,

Sat upon the throne-seat his ears like sword-points

Upraised, sharp-tipped, listening for peril-sounds,

When he heard from the moor-hill howls of the hell-hound,

Gruesome hunger-grunts of Grendel's Great Dane,

Deadly doom-mutt, dread demon-dog.

Then boasted Beocat, noble battle-kitten,

Bane of barrow-bunnies, bold seeker of nest-booty:

"If hand of man unhasped the heavy hall-door

And freed me to frolic forth to fight the fang-bearing fiend,

I would lay the whelpling low with lethal claw-blows;

Fur would fly and the foe would taste death-food.

But resounding snooze-noise, stern slumber-thunder,

Nose-music of men snoring mead-hammered in the wine-hall,

Fills me with sorrow-feeling for Fate does not see fit

To send some fingered folk to lift the firm-fastened latch

That I might go grapple with the grim ghoul-pooch."

Thus spoke the mouse-shredder, hunter of hall-pests,

Short-haired Hrodent-slayer, greatest of the pussy-Geats.

[From Poetry for Cats by Henry Beard (Villard, 1994)]