I Am a Dog

Canter

There may not be a famous novel in Japanese literature with the title I Am a Dog, but my name was actually derived from The Canterbury Tales, one of the first major works in literature written in English, and one could argue, a lot more famous than I Am a Cat.  But I'm not here to cause a rift between cat people and dog people, we're all one big happy family here.  I thought I should jump in (I'm good at that!) and get things moving again on this blog because that's one New Year's resolution that Caroline hasn't been able to keep. Gypsy got things started with the very first post, so I thought I might take this opportunity to paint a picture of outdoor life at Caroline's Speakeasy.

This photo is actually one from last winter. We haven't had much snow this year. Winter in Futago has its ups and downs. I love the snow but I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, especially when it snows for days on end.  When that happens, the weather becomes the sole topic of conversation every time you see another human being. Even with all the global warming, getting a few feet of snow is not unusual here in Snow Country. That's the title of a book by Nobel Laureate Kawabata Yasunari, by the way.

While the cats spend their days inside lazing by the fire all winter, my main job is to keep the wild boars at bay.  They have been multiplying at a steady rate since they first appeared in our area about ten years ago and this being the tip of a peninsula, you can imagine how fast their numbers have increased. Local farmers are having a hard time protecting their crops and some have even given up farming because of wild boars. I can usually hear them nosing around in our bamboo grove or the neighbor's field and go after them when I can. I've never actually caught one -- there are traps for that-- my job is to keep them away from the property.  I did catch a palm civet last year, they can also be a nuisance around here. I was told that my predecessor Skye killed a fox once.  I would love to catch the weasel that killed all our chickens a couple of years ago!

Well, I better get back to work.  Here's a photo of the civet I caught in case you were wondering what one looks like: