When we moved to this house at the edge of a cliff we were left with the parting words of the previous owners. If you start to fall off the cliff, just push-off. The indication being, we would be clear of the rocks and be safe enough in the water.

Sitting with our son and his friends out on the deck this weekend, the usual raccoon came to the tree to steal bird seed and bravely listen to our conversation.

After a particularly loud burst of laughter he reconsidered his position and climbed higher up the tree to listen. Higher he climbed, just to be sure he was shielded from this unusual crowd on “his” deck. Our evening continued, and we kind of forgot he was there.

You can spend all the money you want, and attend to the finest detail of a new water system but you can’t know if it works, until it rains.

Last Saturday, it rained and while it rained E and I sat expectantly, waiting for the automatic pump in the rain harvesting water tank to kick in. We listened as the water poured from the roof through the Wisy into the tank. We watched the leaves and seeds spin out the off flow pipe. Everything looked like it was working as it should. Our weather station program indicated 21 mm of rain had fallen that day. As the millimeters of rain were measured, the excitement grew.

Then it happened, on its own, a sound we had never heard before. I think E might of actually said “Hark”. We thought this new sound must be the pump, but we could only know for sure by checking the tank in the morning. Sure enough, the tank under our deck was empty and the tanks 400 feet up the hill had 400 more gallons of water than they did before the rain. The new system works!

My daughter introduced me to a new Canadian author. I have finished the first book and if you like Louise Penny you might like her,  Iona Wishaw. At this point she has written three others and I have added them to my winter’s reading list.

Where was I? Right, about the other night. While we sat on the deck enjoying the conversation, the raccoon was long forgotten. Out of the darkness came a thundering splash in the water, next to the deck, below the tree. The raccoon had climbed too high into the tree and the branches weren’t able to carry his weight. He can presumably swim because he returned a little wetter, a little later in the evening to finish “his” bird seed.

Apparently, he knew

to push-off