Rumination

Did you think I was some shy ruminant, hoofing it quietly through the woods? Wrong - it is me. Though I am grazing as happily as a deer.

Despite winter's steady refusal to go away and stay away, things are growing. And it is the time of year when dogs eat grass. To put it delicately, it helps with spring cleaning. Plus it tastes good!

You may also notice the faint indications of sunshine too. Still, I am going to keep what is left of my winter coat on for now (though I have left a few bits of it on the couch, on my Person's pillow and spread evenly on all the rugs) because this is not a spring for making assumptions. And I am going to eat all the grass my one stomach will hold because I might be back to eating snow again soon.

White tailed dear

I know I know! That was corny but I couldn't resist. Actually it is more a case of cat got your tail? This poor dove has been hanging around our yard and it is missing most of its rightful tail, leaving these silly white feathers to pull up the rear.

My Person, as you know, is a nut case so she immediately built this dove a little nesting platform. That is thoughtful and all but "building" in this instance means woodworking. If my Person has any strengths they are not apparent to me but I know for a fact that woodworking isn't one of them. To build a home! Talk about sub-prime (and we aren't talking mortgage here).

Well, it is the thought that counts, though after one big windstorm it may all end (as my Swedish human grandmother likes to point out about most things) in tears.

Ephemeral

Well, what isn't when it comes down to it? The madding crowd's taste for the great outdoors sure was. (My auntie veecee was right.) My Person and I pretty much had the path to ourselves today. A steady rain has convinced others of the pleasures of being indoors.

But out we went, and though our way was flooded in places it was beautiful. The tree trunks were elegantly dark with water and a bright green growth is beginning to push through the leaf litter. Spring flowers like this bloodroot emerged in the warm weather that was as ephemeral as the flowers will be. As we walked along the river, brown and still as cold tea, we disturbed a pair of wood ducks. My Person did the disturbing; I am a practitioner of silent sports.

Seeing the beautiful and already fading flowers put me in a pensive mood. We might have sat quietly and watched the silver sky reflected in the endlessly flowing river but our usual perch was under water. So we kept going, our feet padding, the rain falling, the river moving and we both considered the brevity of life, the surprise of change and the enduring cycles of nature.

Privacy

I'm inside having a little bit of privacy and as you can tell by the blur that is my tail I am pretty happy about it.

Just because the weather warmed up and the sun is shining and we aren't expecting a blizzard for at least 24 hours, people (and their dogs) act like they own the outdoors.

All the places I have tromped alone with my Person these past few long, gray and icy months are populated by people in shorts and sandals and by dogs with their tongues hanging out. Where have they been all winter when I have been laying claim to the snowy landscape, sniffing the smells of winter creatures and leaving a few of my own?

I don't mind sharing the path with the wild creatures that have arrived. They have more right than I to the natural world since I am a tame little red dog and have a house to go home to every day. But I wish all the daytrippers would stay out of my favorite private places by the river! It's so noisy down there a loon can't hear itself call. "Young people" as my Person refers to them, are everywhere, standing in groups and talking loudly, playing ball, lounging on my grass, running on my running grounds.

I just had to get away from it all so here I am. Soon enough the skies will darken and storms will come and it will be too chilly for most people and then the world will be quiet again. Just right for the wild animals and a not so wild me.

Left behind

That's not a little red dog. That's a little tree swallow.

My Person left me home today, catsitting, while she went off to a very interesting place looking for sandhill cranes. She didn't find any. She found tree swallows instead.

She could have taken me with her but she was afraid I would bark and scare the cranes. But there weren't any cranes. Therefore I would not have barked. Therefore she should have taken me along with her. This is only logical.

I hope she learned her lesson. And I hope from now on I am not the default catsitter while she goes off on hopeless endeavors.

Working stiff

This is what a little red dog looks like on vacation. I am not on one - quite the opposite as you shall see.

Long long ago when the world was much younger, my Person was not so big and old as she is now. In fact she was just a little girl. She used to go to work with her papa and she thought he was the most important person in the world and his job the most important job on the world.

Now before you think that I feel the same as that about my Person, let me assure you that I do not! Nor do I think I am her child or she my parent. I am my own individual doggie self. And a grown-up little dog to boot. But today, my Person took me to work with her! And it was very exciting. I wore my best red suit. You know which one - it is the one I wear every day. Even though I had to sit in the car and couldn't go into the building, I am sure my role was critical, and my contribution an important one.

After the meeting, the other consultant came out with my Person to the car to see me and guess what? He was a dog also - a Ted dog, and a Yorkie. He actually went into the meeting and sat at the table and I bet the other meeting goers attended to his ideas even as they would have mine. But the most amazing thing about Ted was his size. He is the size of my head! How does an entire dog fit into a space so small?

This was all so exhausting that I had to take a nap when we got back home. I didn't know working was this hard. And I hope my schedule doesn't get too booked up with meetings in the future!

Serious stuff

This was a seriously windy day. The newly thawing ground is getting dry looking already and the branches are blowing around like they are bewitched. The river water was so wildly windblown it had little white caps riding on it and when I jumped in and out I was dry again almost before I got wet.

Some other serious stuff happened today besides the wind. While out for my romp my Person and I came across another Person who had found an injured squirrel and of course my Person wanted to take it to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center to get helped. I personally opposed this plan until she reminded me that someone intervened on my behalf when I was a lost little red dog. And as my Best Friend later pointed out, the only way I will have squirrels to bark at is if there are squirrels around. So off we went with a sad and sickly squirrel to the WRC and I hope it makes its way back to health and its home. But next time I see it I will still bark at it!

No complaints

Someone has been complaining about the weather. I am sure it wasn't me. I am always sunny and the world around me is also. But some People are more gloomy than their dogs.

But today is pretty fine. And what does a boy do on a real spring day? Of course he climbs a tree or two and runs himself silly. And if he's a little red dog of a boy he barks at other dogs and chases them and he jumps in the river and gets wet and runs some more and then falls asleep in a furry damp pile in the back yard.

I think today will be followed by plenty more even better days and I have my schedule ready for all of them: play, jump, climb, swim, bark, run. I hope my Person is ready for spring!

When?

I am the patient type. I am not given to complaining and I try to keep the long view. I am perhaps a russian little red dog. But I have had almost enough.

When will it be nice outside? When will I be able to eat grass and throw it back up just as quickly? When will I be able to sniff the flowers of spring and smile at the sunshine and when will I be able to go for long walks and not have to endure having my feet dried off so unsympathetically by my Person? When will I be able to snooze on the back step in the sun? When will I be able to knock Adric out of the window sill where he should be sleeping in the sun? When will the sun come out again?

This midwestern weather is playing tricks on us all. Just when we've started to shed our winter clothes, and fur, the snow starts again. The mud is cold and stiff. The river is deep and dark. The loons can't fly north because the lakes are still frozen so they are stacking up like barge traffic in the Mississippi River. This just should not happen.

All day I stay inside listening to the thin snores of sleeping cats, the tap tap tap of my Person at work, the drip drip drip of slush as it trickles down the drainpipe. And the sounds of my own sighs. I cannot wait until spring decides to stay for awhile.

Prairie dog

Regard the prairie - level your gaze upon the horizon. Ponder the meaning of all things. Then roll around in the little blue stem and collect your first ticks of the season.

I am a country dog. In fact, the place I was found running wild all these many years ago, before I came to live with my person, was called the Prairie of the Dogs. Only in French. Maybe the French settlers were referring to the oodles of local prairie dogs, something like gophers in appearance, but I prefer to think they were casting their minds forward to the day when Finnegan, a little red real and not-at-all-gopherlike dog, would be roaming in that very place.

I felt at home on my visit to this prairie with my Person and my Best Friend, and the ticks I found felt very at home on me. Unfortunately for them my Person has a sharp eye and they lost out on a trip to the big city. They are still on the prairie even now, perhaps still clutching bits of red fur in their sticky little paws, and gazing at the tire marks we left behind.

But the season is early and I am sure that I will have more beautiful prairie walks this summer and collect more ticks for my Person to find hidden in my fur like I could hide in this place for many happy hours.

Quick change

Would you like to sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me?? Well, no matter who you sit with you'd better have snow pants. Maybe not for today because all that snow is ALREADY gone again but just as likely it will be back next week. It is the silly season for weather.

Today a little dove was sitting under the apple tree, in the mud. Me too, later on. The birds keep showing up from their winter vacations, the ones that are snow birds, not the ones that tough it out up here in the polar regions like I do. Some of the birds that hang around all season are beginning to wear their brighter summer gear. I guess I am changing my gear too - little clumps of my winter coat seem to stay on the couch after I leave the scene. I hope the weather decides to stay warm before I am down to my little red shorts!