Living on the border of two countries comes with interesting regulations. God forbid you cross into the US with a mango or fruit of the hawthorne. I once had a "lemon offense," reamed out by the FDA inspector for surreptitiously carrying a forgotten wee slice of lemon in my picnic cooler. The reasons for transportation of forbidden fruit are tied to control of insects that might affect future crop production. Get this, though, my lemon was American by origin. It was a returning resident. There are no lemon groves that I know of in Canada. It makes me wonder, though, how fruit flies know to stop at the border? Not the larval variety that might hitch a ride on a slice of fruit, but the mature ones hoping for a vacation. That seems like the more likely scenario for potential crop infestation.
During the mad cow scare, there was a rule preventing the transport of pet food containing beef products. Ms. Grace is on prescription dry dog food made of duck, potato and herring. Stinky stuff with gourmet ingredients, not cheap, believe me. We got an in-the-box, by-the-rules inspector who confiscated the bag at the border. No arguing with him, that duck isn't beef. As far as he was concerned pet food was pet food and this was the dreaded Canadian variety. That was an expensive trip requiring a stop at an American vet for a replacement. Maybe he was right, I've been on the lookout for quacking cows since, but haven't found one yet.
Here's our current cross border visitor.This is my mother, who taught me to knit in Brownies. She looks content enough, but she has been suffering with ten out of ten pain from post herpertic neuralgia resulting from the worst case of singles her local hospital had ever seen. None of the traditional treatments seems to work for her. Believe it or not – knitting seems to help. For the first time in two and a half months she is rating her pain at an eight. That's a charity knitting project she's working on – a child's blanket in a basketweave pattern with Paton's Canadiana in Crazy colours.
Life's a Stitch 
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