Finally

I have been getting nagged to write a bit about life but it just has been an endless slog of chores. Laundry, classes, harvesting (I am by origin a farm dog), herding cats. The usual summer fare. I even did a little Tom Sawyer routine and helped paint the fence with my chin and ears but more of the time I kept the chipmunks from leaving pawprints in the fresh paint while my human cousins labored under my Person's stern eye.

But finally, today, I had an adventure worth telling about. We were on our way home from the usual Monday bluebird trail inspection and what did we see ahead of us as we trudged on the bridge, high over the Mississippi? Ducklings! On the foot path, along the busy car traffic!

I was pretty surprised and excited. My Person was pretty surprised and full of stupid life-saving ideas. We tried herding the ducklings along, hoping to get them off the bridge, but at the foot of the bridge is a busy intersection! The ducklings kept veering toward the edge of the bridge, peering under the railing at the water 60 feet below. Then my Person hailed a passing cyclist and he stopped to help us try to gather the ducklings. I was tethered to the railing as my Person thought my happy barks were "not helping the situation." She told me as much. The cyclist tried to block the ducklings from running into the street. My Person frantically grabbed at them. She caught one and bundled it up in her shirt. Another jumped off the bridge - horrors! The others swirled and beeped and peeped. I barked and howled (I admit a little loss of self control). The ducklings surged. My Person grabbed another and then another. One ran along the bridge and then jumped down from the bridge into a tree top on the river edge. The cyclist stuffed the captured ducklings into his backpack and then we all walked along until we got nearer to the river and let the ducklings off in the weedy ground where they continued to swirl and beep and run into each other. Believe it or not, the tree-top duckling made it there too having fallen out of the tree and followed his siblings' calls.

Hopefully the ducklings have made their way to the river and haven't gone bridge climbing again. For myself, I am exhausted and need to rest in the shade. Until I have another chore to do that is.