Lonely Pets Club

            My in-laws were away this weekend, leaving me in my usual position as pet-sitter. Now I feel compelled to tell you about this atypical group of pets, because they really are quite amusing.

            First, there’s the dog. At least, genetically he’s a dog – we suspect that he may identify as something else. Possibly a sheep. Many dogs, he’s afraid of thunder, but he also takes it a step further – he’s afraid of rain. And just about any sounds, really, which is probably why he almost never barks. He’s very sweet and friendly, though, and is very good about not jumping up on people who have just come into the house – instead, he prances over and grins at them, truly happy to see them.

            When his family is away, I always get a little concerned about him. He misses them so much that he stops eating for several days – except for the treats he gets every time he comes inside from his walks. Of course, I use every a little loosely here; he usually gets a treat when he comes in, but I sometimes feel compelled to do a little training.

You see, my in-laws came into dog ownership later than many people do and, as a result, they aren’t as firm with the dog as they could be. Therefore, when going for walks, he’s used to his humans stopping and waiting for him every time he wants to sniff a tree or roll in the grass. Having grown up with a dog, I have an expectation that the walk keeps moving, and therefore the treat gets denied if I’m kept out in the cold too long. He learned very quickly that I would tolerate nothing more than on very short roll in the grass, and he may even have noticed that he got more treats when he didn’t hold me up at all.

            Then there’s the cat. The latest, and currently only, in a string of abandoned cats the family took in, he is always a bit “my way or the highway”. In other words, he’s a cat. Yet, once the family has been away for a day, he starts begging for attention. As I’m allergic to cats, he doesn’t get it from me, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. He spends the time I’m in the house following me around, meowing and pointedly rubbing against various objects and making me feel generally guilty about my allergy.

            He has, however, given up on trying to sneak out of the house. Due to tome feral cats he’s feuding with, he has been relegated to being an indoor cat, much to his chagrin. I think that’s his greatest sorrow about my in-laws being away. He’s used to a house full of people who are used to him, so they don’t pay him that much attention, making it relatively easy to slip through a closing door (luckily he can be summoned back into the house with the shaking of a treat container – which is ridiculous; I mean, he’s a cat! Cat’s can’t be summoned like dogs!). He has long since learned that this doesn’t work with me. He doesn’t even try anymore. But he does watch me very closely, waiting for me to slip up...

            And, finally, there’s my sister-in-law’s bunny. Now, apparently this bunny is pure evil and hates everyone other than my sister-in-law. It certainly seems that way when she’s brought out in public. She’s certainly very skitterish and ant-social. This is common knowledge.

            Yet, when the family away, she becomes the sweetest bunny in the world. When I check on her, she rushes right over to see me – she doesn’t cringe in corners or kick aggressively as her reputation would have you believe. In fact, she’s so happy to see me that she hops in circles!

            I guess it just goes to show that animals miss their families as much as they are missed. Except, perhaps, the bunny. It is entirely possible she’s just luring me into a false sense of security, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Tunnelling Through The Snow

            Around this time of year, I always used to hope for a huge snowfall. Not just because it would mean school would be cancelled, but because I needed a lot of snow for my favourite winter activity: building snow tunnels.

            Of course, at the time, I didn’t call them snow tunnels – I called them igloos. This is a misnomer, because real igloos are constructed using blocks of ice (or packed snow), whereas what I made involved tunnelling out a mound of snow. Since we Canadians live in igloos year-round, it’s an important distinction to make. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll periodically call them igloos for simplicity’s sake.

            Anyway, the first time I made an igloo, it was a big family project. My parents, brother and I all worked really hard on it. To this day, I couldn’t say for certain how big that igloo was, because I was rather small at the time – in my memory, it was at least five-feet tall with a diameter of ten feet. Big enough for my entire family comfortably fit in, at least according to me. In reality, it was probably significantly smaller.

            After that initial construction, my brother and I got creative. We built a second, much smaller, igloo and attached the two with a tunnel. My poor mother nearly got stuck in that tunnel – it turns out adults are bigger than kids, but we were so proud of our accomplishment that we wouldn’t let her alone until she’d crawled through it.

            In future years, my brother and I became experts at tunnelling through the snow. This was, in part, for safety reasons. Around this time, there was a great deal of concern about kids getting injured in collapsing snow tunnels. One of my friends (you know who you are, and I know you’re reading this) was only allowed to play in our tunnels with us as long as she kept her head outside. My brother and I felt this was unnecessary because none of our igloos ever collapsed (unless we jumped on them or they melted) – we believe that the any that did were poorly constructed.

            Here are the guidelines we used for making our tunnels:

-          First, only use snow that packs decently. Light, fluffy snow won’t hold together well enough to form a solid structure. It is a good idea, once your pile of snow is ready to be tunnelled, to ensure it s sufficiently packed. To do this, carefully (so as not to leave footprints) climb to the top of the pile and roll down the hill. If the pile isn’t too high, it is also possible to jump lengthwise onto the top before rolling down. Repeat this until the hill is sufficiently packed on all sides and feel free to continue for as long as it’s fun.

-          Second, when tunnelling, make sure the walls are the correct thickness. If they are too thick, they could collapse from the weight. If they are too thin, they won’t be strong enough to hold up the structure. The ideal thickness is right before the point when you can see sunlight through the walls. The best way to achieve this is to tunnel until you can see a bit of light – then pack some snow over top of that and use that location as a guide for the continued tunnelling process. It is especially important to focus on getting the roof the right thickness, since that is the most likely part to cave in if there is a structural problem. In that event, a thinner roof is less dangerous.

-          Third, the don’ts. Don’t freeze your igloo – the process of freezing it will make the structure weaker and, in the event of a collapse, more dangerous. Don’t fill the walls with windows and doors – one entrance is enough, maybe one or two tunnels if you have a complex structure. And whatever you do, don’t jump on top of it – especially if there is another person inside.

Using these guidelines, my brother and I crafted many interesting snow tunnels. From a triplex of interconnected igloos to an igloo fort with a tunnelled outer wall, we had a great time every year we got enough snow (right up into out twenties). It helped that we had a large driveway – big enough to hold 6-8 card or 3 (friendly) dogsled teams. The snow needed to be shovelled anyway, so why not put it all in one place?

            So, if you’re stretched for things to do this winter, and you happen to get a lot of snow, try tunnelling. It’s a great deal of fun – just make sure you stay safe.

Disclaimer: To the best of my knowledge, that driveway has never had a dogsled team parked in it – and no, all Canadians don’t actually live in igloos.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

What is it About Darkness?

            Colleen was out of the country with her family for most of the week, leaving me at home and in charge of the various animals in the house (For those who don’t regularly follow this blog, I live with my in-laws with the house separated into two separate units). It was on an overcast night when I was taking the dog out before bed that I noticed just how dark it was. We live out in the country, so the only lights around at night are the ones on the houses. Outside the bubble of light from the house, the rest of the one-acre property was almost completely black.

            My stomach clenched in its way of saying, “We’re not really going out there, are we?” while the dog tugged playfully at the end of his leash. It struck me, then, how much instinct we have built into our system – and close to the top of those instincts is a fear of the dark.

            I found myself wondering why that is. The answer is obvious for if we look to the past, before we had all this technology – back then, there was a lot of danger out in the darkness. Now, though, we've tamed the world. At least, the parts we live in. There’s almost no chance of a threat being out there.

            Yet, still, our instincts tell us to freeze – to stay in the safety of the light. We know it is safe. In my case, I even had a dog with me, with senses far better than mine, showing no signs of distress.

            Still, I hesitated. My instincts told me not to go. I realized that it was more about the uncertainty than the darkness itself. I'm used to being able to see everything around me, of knowing when there was a threat. What the darkness hid wasn't something I was afraid of, but the potential of something – anything – being out there. The fear wasn't of the dark, but of the inability to know for certain everything was fine, even though I was already certain.

            Once I left the “safety” of the light, my eyes started adjusting to the darkness. It wasn't so much that I could see everything, but I could see enough to feel comfortable and confident. That’s when I realised there could be something more behind our innate fear of darkness.

            Our ability to create light.

            Ever since we discovered how to make fire, humans have been able to control light and banish the darkness. Our instincts became based around staying in the light, where we could see clearly. Meanwhile, those same instincts gradually forgot that by being out in the darkness for just a little while, our eyes adjust and we can actually see fairly well. So, we keep to the light.

            The ironic part is that someone (or something) out in the dark can actually see more than someone in the light. More than that, from the darkness, someone in the light sticks out as a clear target.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.