She's Launched!

Yesterday was one of those crystal blue persuasion days and as I came back into the office from the mailbox it struck me - I will be werk werk werkin' so hard this month it might pass me by and I'll never have spent an afternoon outside. With 190 hours of vacation saved up (werk werk werk, that's all I do ) I suddenly decided to Play Hooky. I knew we were covered, btw, and I had nothing pressing on my desk. Instead I took a favorite salad home, (Subway's chopped Mediterranean salad - YUM) and had a picnic out in the yard. ThePrince had just cut the grass a few days ago and in May I actually have grass - or something growing that's green, at least, so I felt very a la magazine.  You know that feeling - the one you get when your house is sparkling clean and you have the nice stuff out and maybe company's coming and you feel proud ... like your house or garden is as good as the ones in the magazines.

I just sat there, looking in every direction, watching the pups gambol about, just allowing my soul to be open. That means eating slowly and trying to taste each bite - which is supposed to keep one from overeating - though it was 2 o'clock and I was really hungry. But there - I digress. The goal of my hooky playing self was to take the kayak out for her first trip of 2016.  This was a birthday present that came to me a few days before Mama died and after that, though I took it out several times, my memory of those days is all black and shrouded and then, you know, winter - and dark - and cold. So yeah.

I am reminded of a cute story about a wonderful woman I know. She met and married her husband shortly before he shipped off to Europe in 1943. He was gone several years and when he came home she greeted him by offering to shake hands. There just hadn't been enough time to cement a relationship.

Well. That is how I've been feeling about my kayak. We met, we fell in love, and then a dark pall fell on our love story followed by the long separation of winter. I was a little hesitant about taking her out again. Not to worry. The moment I slipped into the cockpit I felt like I was back home again and we slid away from the pier as a single unit. I was one with my boat.

ThePrince had created a simple stowage system at the end of the pier so I can hang the kayak out all summer (and not have to drag it the 400 feet back to the bank). I can even launch it at low tide! The wide open cockpit of an Old Town Loon is easy to get into and I love how it has a little elastic strap to hold the paddle in place while you're coming aboard. I'll be buying some sort of tarp or cover to protect it from UV damage but it'll be okay for a day or two. This tiny craft - not 12 feet long - just feels like it was designed for me ... and believe me ... I have looked at and even paddled a LOT of kayaks. I could have spent more $$ but why? Perfect is perfect.

I was hoping I could take the dogs along with me since I did not want a kayak to see how many miles I could cover in 20 minutes. I wanted something I could use to nose up into little inlets, poke into marshy guts, sit quietly in while I listened to red winged blackbirds sing. I figured I'd be going slow enough that they'd be able to swim along with me.

NOT

Those poor things were not just exhausted, but they made a lot of noise swimming so my peaceful trip was accompanied by snuffing and huffing. Also - we've allowed these dogs to tussle so much and so hard that they think it's a good thing to try to duck a sister in the water. Juno is so much bigger than Callie I'm afraid she'll drown her sister. I can take Callie out alone because she's the better swimmer and she's small enough that I can actually put her in the cockpit with me ... something she loves ... but most of the time they'll go in the pen when I go out.

Still and all we made it up Farmer's Hall Creek far enough to see one of Tom Tombe's eagles eyeing us from his guard station. There are 3 active nests within easy walking distance of my house and I am determined to photograph at least one of them. With the new camera. The one I am still learning how to use, but am falling more in love with every day.  I didn't take it out with me yesterday because - well - New Camera - and First Kayak Ride of the season.

Exiting the kayak is the toughest part of the trip. The whole process is a gravity defying adventure, for this boat is narrow and it rocks and I must climb up out of it, depending on the tide, anywhere from a few inches to 2.5 feet. Remember now - a kayak is narrow and tippy. Remember also that I am old and have an injured and weak rotator cuff. Then there is the penalty for any misstep - 4 feet of ooozy black marsh mud. Note Juno's beautiful white fur? Yeah.

Here is a picture of a pro doing it with only maybe 18 inches of rise:


I have the thigh strength to do this but alas, I come into my pier on the bad shoulder side.  Fortunately I don't have to use this technique. ThePrince shoved a cedar post into the marsh just far enough from the pier that I can slip the bow between it and the pier, keeping it from rocking. I can tie the stern to the pier with it's mooring line and then all I have to do is center my feet and push up with my legs. Voila! TheQueen is on the pier!

And now it is Saturday and lo. Here comes the sun after a misty start to the day. There will be More Kayaking today.

March Mission Accomplished

My New Year's Resolution for March was to create a Christmas Card mailing list. It's the kind of mindless fun sort of job I enjoy - but it's really so mindless it was hard to make myself sit down and actually create it. Then suddenly I realized it was almost April and I hadn't begun. And so. Sunday morning I sat down with the huge stack of old cards, envelopes, and the crusty Rolodex and began to type.

 VOILA! 

I haven't decided what I want to do for April - though we have HVAC guys coming early next month to put in a ductless heat pump. Four Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat Ductless Units, in fact. Here's what they look like.

 

So it might behoove me to clean out the corner in the spare room that is heaped with yarn bins, fiber tubs, laundry baskets full of family photos, a spinning wheel, a chair and several bags of unfinished knitting projects. That might be my April Resolution - or better yet - putting it all back in useful and accessible order might be the real resolution.  Sigh. Sounds like werk to me. 

A more fun resolution might be 

So now it's discourse between head and heart - or conscious and subconscious - or Left Brain and Right Brain. Either way - I will probably do at least some of both. And with that TheQueen will bid March adieu with this fascinating photo of the sun's reflection in a pool of water.  Juno is intrigued. Or is it Callie?

Let The Festivities Begin

And so the Holiday Season begins. Of course I have been Thinking Holiday since Labor Day because after all - that's when the celebrations roll in thick and fast. There are no birthdays in August and we're all tired of the heat and wish summer would end. So even if it's still hot in September We (probably only TheQueen - hence the royal "we") are glad to begin the time of monthly Monday Holidays at last. And then, there is The Birthday. And one begins to think about presents in September if one is a knitter. And when the days grow shorter and the winds blow out of the north - one must think about cleaning the house before company starts showing up. And if one has dogs - one might get some help. But one might not. Yes yes. It's a dog's life around here - especially when Mama's at work all day. 

But finally that weekend before Thanksgiving dawns and when you are very very lucky - family arrives. This year we have both LD and P - who is ready to teach us how to dance the Hora. 

Callie - the graceful one, the feminine - wants to learn how to dance too. TheQueen obliges. 

Today is Turkey Shopping day and since I slaved away all day Thursday cleaning house - yes, the rugs and upholstered furniture were shampooed - I will take the weekend off from chores and save any housecleaning till more guests are closer to arriving. Instead I will untangle the holy mess Juno made of my Christmas knitting - or maybe I will even cast on that oatmeal Aran sweater. I finally realized that I am utterly in love with the cabled  hat I knit 2 years ago and want to use that same super easy, evenly repeating, pattern to make this sweater. I can wait for another time - and another yarn - to knit the complicated sweater residing now in the recesses of my mathematical Left Brain. There will be photos. This is not gift knitting - it's for mememememe.

And So

At TheCastle we're shouting "Let the festivities begin!!!"

It's Just Different, Somehow

Once again the earth has rolled around the sun till it's back in September - the Birthday Month. The Cricket Song Month.  The New Beginning Month.

But somehow, this year, it's different.

In fact, the whole summer was different. It feels as if it's been different for a long time. I've been trying to figure out how long it's been different and I think it's been more than a year really - but certainly it's been different since the warm weather began.

First off there is the drying up of my creativity. The lack of art, craft, and creation has been a little painful and a little relaxing. With the retirement of The Doing and The Making has come The Reading - but it hasn't been productive reading. Not the Good For You stuff. It's been escape reading into murder mystery novels - a harmless enough activity, I suppose, but certainly not particularly creative. And even that has been different this time around. BD and I are both reading the same author, Michael Connelly and discussing his books - their underlying ethics, the particular characters, and most especially the literary style and skill he uses. Hmmm. Well. Perhaps that part is the productive bit. We never read the same books unless we're reading out loud to each other. This is a first for us and it's author specific. We've tried to branch out to a few other authors and haven't gotten past chapter 1 with any of them.

I am not horribly unhappy about this inartistic un-productiveness. I know that creativity sometimes needs to sleep, to store up energy. Besides, I don't create out of duty. I do it out of joy and love. But it does feel strange to be so in-artistically unproductive. It just, somehow, feels different.

There is also the unease I've felt over the whole shake-up in our local government. It isn't panic. It's almost anxiety, but not quite. The changes were long overdue and they'll make things much better - they even satisfy my Virgo soul, with it's love of order, routine and stability. But there will be some fall-out and the library will have to revisit a lot of its statistical data in light of Someone Else's now-revealed inadequacy. It's always a pain when you have to clean up somebody else's mess - even if it's only a part of someone else's mess.

So yeah - work feels different. And I made it feel really different by pushing through a software platform change from a pretty intuitive, easy, almost childlike program to a more geeky and sophisticated and, I still believe, better program. That sort of change is always a climb up the hill - a hill that feels steeper, the older the climber is and I'm sorry to say - I am the youngest employee at the library right now. Yeah. Gonna be 61 years young.

So yeah. It feels different.

And then there is the different feeling in the house right now. I am so sad to say that our beloved Captain Jack Haile, our good health talisman dog, slunk away in the night last week and was hit up on the highway - the 4 mile away highway. I found him as I was driving to work and we buried him beside Topsy. I will write a loving tribute to him one day soon. He was too fine a dog, to special a dog, to wonderful a dog to not memorialize him, but right now the pain is too sharp to write about it.

Poor little Callie is very disoriented - when she is reminded of it, that is. She is a dog and as such she lives in the now. A run. A biscuit. A romp with the string toy is always going to get her attention but the rest of the time she's hugging close to our ankles. The thought of her being canine companion-less bothers me a lot and BD a good bit as well. I think we will find her a playmate pretty soon.

And so.

And so now, as the days begin to shorten, as the mornings fill with misty dew, as the crickets begin to sing and the black gums begin to revolve from green to red, I begin the Birthday Month feeling, somehow, a little different. Not necessarily bad. But surely different. 

Callie's Progress

It occurred to me that folks would like to hear how my little Callie Dog is doing so here's a catch-up on the life of the incredible flying dog.

On Monday Dr's L and L operated on Callie, setting her broken femur with 2 pins. Alas, Dr. L said there were some fragments that couldn't be replaced so her leg will be a tad big shorter than it was - but he assured us that she'd adapt. She spent a second night at the clinic but BD took her home on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, I had a night meeting, but I drove home between the end of work and the start of the meeting so I could pet my little girl anyway and arrived to find all three of them, BD, Jack and Callie, on the way home from Jacob's Gut. That's half a mile from the house and of course, inside I was shrieking at the stupidity of Guys Who Walk Dogs Who Just Had Surgery (and I confess, guys in general). She had a pronounced limp and I scooped her up and drove her the rest of the way home.

I know that my methods of caring for sick and injured is to coddle and swaddle and Someone Else's methods include getting up and taking long walks. Somewhere in the middle is probably best and as this week has progressed we've moderated from our extreme stances to a fairly reasonable routine. Of course, as she heals, that routine changes and as she grows stronger, we must be more vigilant because once she thinks she's strong enough to move fast, she will try to.

For the most part she sleeps all day. We didn't get a crate for her, yet, because we thought we'd try penning her in the bathroom, where she spent her early puppy days. She used to love that room and would go lie on the rug whenever she was tired. Not so much now. She prefers the couch. In fact, she prefers the new white bed laid on the couch ... which is fine with me since it's got a waterproof lining and it catches all the shedding white hair.

I say "yet", though, because we may borrow one anyway, so that BD can leave home while I'm at work. Another option is to get a baby gate (a kind neighbor has offered to lend us one) for the bathroom. We shall see. This is an ongoing process.

The big deal for us is blocking the staircase. Not that she's interested in going upstairs right now - or even that she might have trouble going upstairs. The danger is falling down - so we have barricaded the staircases - a makeshift solution which Jack just shoves aside so he can go get up in the Big Bed every morning. Yeah. I know. We should do better but we are slugs. Besides, I can step up on the little chair to the side of the staircase, then over the card table and onto the 3rd step. It's a nice bit of aerobic exercise. I am always finding reasons to be glad we don't have a railing and banister on that staircase.

All last week we had nice enough spring days and Callie spent her few waking hours outdoors. Here she is checking out the incision on her leg. BD was working on his boat every afternoon and she went out to supervise. Her gait is much less tortured looking - that first day she really seemed to have to pump her whole body to move but she sort of glides along now. I love walking with dogs and love to see their pretty little legs trotting along in front of me - so although her movement is graceful, my heart constricts as I see her carry her right leg off the ground. It's shaved too, so it looks so much smaller than her left leg. Whenever I start to feel gloomy about this I put the feelings in a box which I will open later - At Tara - when she is healed.

Which I have every confidence she will be - just look at the difference between Wednesday and Sunday! She also wanted to play a little with her toys and to tooth wrestle with the red leather glove. She tires quickly when I play with her, but just seeing that little bit of interest in her usual pursuits lifts me up a bit. She's also developed a few new vocabulary barks. She has a little ARF for when she wants to go outside or come in. Then there is the YIP that means it's time to be fed. (Jack is much more subtle. He just comes up and shovels his nose beneath your hand over and over till you feed him.) And now she has a ROWELROWL that she moans out whenever she's left alone and wants you to come play with her. A talkative dog - ya just gotta love it!

Till her incision heals she is not supposed to get wet and with the spotty rain we had all weekend, she had to stay indoors for most of the time - something she definitely did NOT like. In the wee hours of this morning I thought I heard her ARFFING by the front door but I knew BD wouldn't have forgotten to bring her in last night.

WRONG-ish. She was outside and he didn't forget. She refused to come in. And in the slushy wet snow and the black darkness of a country yard he wasn't about to go prowling around looking for her. She spent the night with Jack in one of his dry spots - they neither of them ever use the dog house unless LD is here with his dog, when Jack gets very with-a-bone-ish and tries to shove Buster out of His House. But when I let them in this morning they were both dry so I know they were alright.

So. That is the state of Callie's Progress. Let us hope it continues apace and in a month I will be able to show you a picture of her dashing out into the world. Thank you all for caring so much about my little white dog.

Fall Cleaning

The truth is - I rather like housework. There's something precious about stroking my hands (or a dustcloth or broom or vacuum) over my things. I like to admire what I have on the buffet. I like to stroke my fingertips along some of the picture frames. I certainly love the way the house feels when it's completely dust free and, happily I can ignore the smudges on the fresh-paint-starved walls just so long as they're at least clean. But even something I really like, like chocolate cake or cheeseburgers or sweet woodsy perfumes, can be ... well ... just too much. With housework, it's a case of it too frequently lifting its nagging voice. If only I had to clean house about as often as I eat chocolate cake or cheeseburgers, why, I would say it's one of my favorite pastimes.

But the need for housecleaning doesn't show up once every few months. That need rears its ugly head with mind boggling frequency. You see, I live in a breezy (leaky) house. It's at the end of a long dirt lane. It's to the east of a big open field that gets plowed either once or twice a year. I have dogs. I live with guys. Mind now, those are all good things too, but they are not conducive to keeping a cleaned up house ... clean. In fact - it is my belief that any one of those conditions is a deal breaker when it comes to any clean house transaction.

Of course it's fun(ny) and easy to blame Others but TheQueen can't escape her own share of the responsibility. She is scattered and slothful. She's famous for just putting things down - not away. She is unfocused and while actually cleaning a house, must frequently stop to play essential games of Spider Solitaire. She has low standards. She has doors and an attic! She can pretend the clutter isn't there for long stretches at a time by simply refusing to acknowledge it..

But give her 2 or 3 days  home alone and boy can she do some scrubbin', sortin' 'n' tossin'.

Which is exactly what I have been up to for the past 2 days. First came the general Saturday house cleaning - what I'd do on any weekend. But because nobody was coming in, flopping down on sofa or bed and asking "are you done yet? Can I read to you? Do you want to take a walk?",  I could do things like, take down the pictures and dust behind them ... eew.  But because it's the end of October and surely a frost is nigh, I also swapped out more summer clothes for winter. And that's when the shameful part began.

I store the off season clothes on a long pole in the attic. A long pole, 3 large plastic tubs and a number of lawn'n'leaf bags - great emergency storage when you can't stand to look at this stuff one moment longer. Of course - once crammed into those bags and bins, the clothes disappear into Never Never Land and come the equinox or even a little before, when the New Fall/Spring clothes appear in the stores, it's easier to just buy another white turtleneck than to paw through forgotten containers upstairs. But because there was nobody I had to accommodate this weekend, I began tossing those bags and bins down the attic staircase and going through them and I tell you this. As gawd is muh witness, I'll never buy another white turtleneck again!

Frequently along the way I thought about taking photographs of the dread clutter but truth is - I was too ashamed. It's funny to write about but pictorial evidence is too lowering. I did take this snap of the give-away pile. There is a trash pile of stuff nobody would wear and another pile of maybe things. There are also 4 drawers of Enough Stuff. Plus all the summer stuff I need to make decisions about before I take those bins back upstairs. And I suspect, yea, even dread, there are More Hidden Lurkers still up in the attic. Ah well. I will make an attempt to get them all - but I shan't break my heart if I don't. Just so long as I can get to the Christmas ornaments in a few weeks.

LOL - and guess what I found in the bottom of the umbrella crock? All of Ike's old toys. Most of our pets have shunned toys for more canine pursuits, but a dozen years ago we had a big black lab named Ike, who absolutely loved toys. It was such fun to have a dog like that because you could actually buy presents for him. Callie-girl loves them too, especially the ones that squeak. She will play a song for you anytime she can find one. Jack not only doesn't like toys, he positively hates the ones that squeak. If Callie leaves one lying about he'll take it off and push it behind him.

What do you mean there's a dog on the
couch?

And now - it is Monday. I could use another day at home but we're short staffed this week. ThePrince will have to look after the pups and their toys. As for the rest of the clutter that is not yet put away... I'll think about that to morrow. At Tara. Where there ought to be servants to put it all away for me.

Why it's hard to keep a clean house when you live with dogs

The Perfect October Day

We woke up Tuesday morning with no firm plans on how to celebrate this 41 year first-date anniversary. All we had decided was to do whatever felt like fun. So I took breakfast up to bed and BD read some Wendell Berry to me while I knit (Yes. TheQueen still knits!). But the most beautiful October day ever kept beckoning and eventually we shucked off the bedclothes and stepped into a magical outdoors. 

We live down on the flats and our landscape lives up to it's name - flat flat flat - so we drove up country to forage across new landscape. You will never know how many secret delights await you off those narrow county roads till you get out of the car. Treats like wildflowers ...

and ponds just right for puppy swimming

I love the way white labs blend into the pale autumn grasses - 50 shades of khaki, hmmm? 

 

I was also on the lookout for color schemes - especially things that combine blues and autumn reds. Here, beneath this sweet gum tree I caught just that lovely pale blue of mid afternoon sky.




Proof I was actually here - along for the walk. The photographer, like the cobbler's children, is often the last one in line.








There were two more ponds for a little new baby puppy to explore and Daddy and Jack had some quality time together too.

 

It was the Perfect October Day. We topped it off with a splendifferous dinner - cooked at home - I know - shocking! Filet Mignon from TBonz'n'Tuna and a bottle of Ingleside Merlot 2007 - just about the best merlot I've ever tasted! 

And now this wonderful day is at an end. It's time to head back to werk. 

But I can think about today tomorrow. At Tara. 

Puppy Puppy Puppy Puppy Puppy

Yes. Look who's come to live at our house. A little debel puppy to chew things up.

When we lost our Socks last summer in that intense heatwave of early July it seemed too much to add another little animal to the long hot days of summer but it was always our intention to add another dog to TheCastle. We didn't want Jack to be an only dog. We needed at least two dogs to pet. But I was not in any big hurry, either. I felt the new dog would come along when it was the right time.

Himself, otoh, had different plans. He began to hanker after another Lab in August and one day he called me at work with the news that he was looking at Labrador puppies. I was a bit surprised since I'd thought we were going to get a pound puppy first. But I could hear the longing in his voice. I knew it was time to get a puppy and it was time to get another Lab. It was a given that we wanted only girl dogs and I'd already told him that if we got another Lab I wanted a black one. But that was merely abstract thinking. Puppy love knows no color and since this summer, in Virginia, most of the litters with girls had only white, yellow or chocolate, I was willing to have a look.

We had cousins F and A visiting the day we drove up to Fauquier County to wallow in puppylove, so we could get lots of opinions on which one was the cutest. There were 8 girls in 2 litters and they were all so perfect I could hardly pick among them. They were only 3 and a half weeks old so it was a moot point anyway but we plunked down a deposit (Lawsie I was not prepared for the price of AKC labs) and went home to wait.

Last Monday the furbabies were at last old enough to go to new homes and BD and I drove up to pick out our own little sweetie pie. It was still impossible to pick because each one of them was a perfect specimen of cuteness and puppiness. First we narrowed it down to the two girls who were old enough to go home with us then and there. One was a little more golden than the other  - a selling point with us since Jack is so white already. She was also the most high octane energizer of them all, though her sister was no slouch, chewing on her cousins from the other litter. Wild baby never stopped chewing and pouncing but suddenly she began to make little coughing sounds as if she had some puppy fur caught in her throat and the whiter one ran up to see what was wrong. That tenderhearted gesture was the tipping point for me. I knew I had my new dog. 

So home we came, Little Miss Tenderheart sleeping in my arms the whole way

Jack is already taking an avuncular interest in her, teaching her all about long walks and leaving the garbage can alone. When those needle teeth sink in too deep, he just rumbles in his chest a little and she backs off. Besides, there is always something else to chew on in TheCastle. You can be sure - my good shoes get put in the closet every night. 

It was hard to go to work every day last week. There were moments when I wondered if we ought to have waited till Friday to pick her up - though I comforted myself with the thought that, had I not picked her on Monday, somebody else would have gotten her. But my long absences made it hard to pick out a name. I liked Molly. BD liked Toots. I said Toots was not a name a woman would ever use. He thought there were already too many Labs named Molly. We kicked around 2 or 3 dozen names till Friday night when we got to borrowing names from our Bedford cousins; the Burks. It felt funny, sort of like we were poaching, but we've always loved all their dogs: Cora, Ace, Belle. And I liked the name Bella because our puppy had such a pretty face. But them BD said "Calliope" - which actually means beautiful voice... she is the muse of epic poetry .... I knew we had a name.  

Chesituxent's Calliope

And I believe she approves.

(or maybe she's just hot)

So - look who is at home in my lap while I struggle to reach the keyboard.

Yes. 

PuppyPuppyPuppyPuppyPuppy 

Puppy Love

At Tara

Socks' Story

On a spring day in 2001, ThePrince(Consort) and I were driving off the flats when, just at the top of the bank of Farmer's Hall Creek we noticed a yellow flash streak across the road in front of our car. "It's a puppy!" one of us shouted out as my prince slammed to a halt. He backed up a bit and there, at the old road into Rose Hill was a pile of brush. From behind it, suddenly popped up one, two, three, four, five! Five little mongrel puppy heads.

If you ever hear that I have gone to jail it will be because I actually caught someone dropping of a litter of puppies in the woods, because "after all, they come from wild animals, they can survive in the woods." After I had broken both this evildoer's knee caps I would have walked off calling out "see how well you survive in the woods!" as I brushed my hands in satisfaction. There is very little that can get me steaming, but people who are too lazy, selfish, maudlin and thoughtless to make even the worst of the possible "right" choices and put down a litter of unwanted puppies are at the top of the list.

Okay - off my soapbox - because really this is a tribute to Socks, who came to us out of the woods 11 years ago and last Friday, left us to go back into the woods. It was a very hot day and though she hadn't taken a walk in weeks, this time she decided to follow ThePrince(Consort) over to White Oak Swamp. Whenever she does go on that walk, she peels off and goes to some secret place she loves over there - someplace off the path and known only to her. She always rejoins us, often twice or thrice during a stroll, but certainly she's always there at the tar road, ready to head back to Jacob's Gut for a cool dip and sip. This time, she did not. BD said he saw her twice on this stroll and her breathing was labored - but she soon slipped away to her special place and though we've searched for her numerous times, she has not been found. We don't expect to see her again.

Socks was a mixture of every kind of dog grown in Upper Essex - She had little tiny paws with huge tufts of fur between the toes. She had the golden fur of a Labrador retriever but the thick ruff of a collie. Her triangular ears stuck out to the sides for years, though as she aged they pointed straight up. We would call her "Yoda" and "Airplane Ears" but always with the gentle tone that makes a dog feel loved. Her main activity was sleeping on the bed, her one virtue was that she wiped out the moles in our front yard. She had acute hearing and a stubbornness that precluded ever changing her mind.

Of course, when she came to us she was just a scrawny little yellow puppy, homely to almost ugliness, and totally unwanted. Of the 5 puppies we scooped up that day, BD found homes for 4 of them. He returned with this one little puppy and a pleading look of puppy depravation on his face. "We can keep her. We have hundreds of acres. We can certainly make room for one more. Between the two of us we have 4 arms, we can pet them all......"  TheQueen was not convinced. She already had 3 dogs. Nobody needs four!! But the menfolk in her life prevailed.

BD had to leave town for a week and he swore that if I kept her that one week, he would find a home for her when he returned. Of course - nobody can leave a woman home with just a puppy for a whole week and not trigger her possessive maternal instincts. I began to notice things were disappearing and one day my glasses vanished. I posted watch on that little yellow puppy and when she picked up one of my socks and dragged it beneath the dresser in the den, I followed. There was the whole cache of hidden treasures, all of them carrying my scent. This little dog was creating a den full of her beloved's objects. My heart melted.

Socks loved to be wet. She loved to sink herself in the dog swimming pool, right where the lane crosses the little stream we call Jacob's Gut. A few years ago she caught one of the severe tick-born diseases and though she recovered to some extent, from then on she began to retreat. She loved to get under the yurt and burrow into the soft dirt. Every morning she'd come up to the house to get a biscuit and visit for about an hour. Then she'd slink back under the yurt, to reappear at dinner time. She would follow Jack up to the house and watch Dog TV in the winter (the fire in the stove) or lie on the floor in the den if we were watching a DVD. When we went to bed, she went back out to her little nest of soft sandy soil.

In some ways, she became less of a pet and more of a neighbor who just dropped in now and then. But she always got to do things her way. And so Socks, who became our 4th dog, and then our 3rd dog, who, when Ike died moved up to become our 2nd dog, was here to welcome baby puppy Jack and become our 3rd dog again. Then, last spring, when Priss left us, she became our 2nd dog, and now .... she is gone.

Fare the well, Miss Socks, Yoda, Airplane Ears, Yellow Thing. Go back into the spirit of the woods and know you were loved.