going, going, not gone yet

My Person is so very sentimental and is practically going around the backyard saying goodbye to the flowers. It seems that it is officially autumn and the flowers are past peaky and getting in short supply.

Some of my back yard companions are getting scarce too. This cute little fellow was a regular for a while this summer even though my yard was chock full of men with power tools for months and months, or at least weeks and weeks, sending up great choking clouds of sawdust, leaving the gate open and interfering with my job, which is to be in the yard doing what I want whenever I want. (But I got a porch out of it so I won't complain too loudly.)

Anyway, the little Red Squirrel packed it in after a while and moved down the road a bit. I am left with the much more common and imperturbable gray squirrels and they will be around all winter too. But it was fun having this guy's almost constant presence and a new sound in the back yard as he chipped his bossy warning cries from the treetop and went about his business gathering food. And napping.

Ah, languid days...I think there are still some to come and there are still sights to see in the yard.

Transitions

I am feeling a bit moody. I am not very good with transitions. And it is a transitional time of year, the hot and steamy summer suddenly giving way to a chilly world. Leaves are turning colors, birds are flocking. Geese are practicing their great aerial V's. My hiding place on the deck is not so sunny and cheerful as it was just a short time ago.

I think enduring transitions easily requires perspective. And that just isn't my strong suit. I am a here and now kind of dog. If I thought about it, I would know that sunny days follows gray days, just as gray days follow sunny ones. And that chasing a squirrel will be just as fun tomorrow as it was yesterday, even if I don't see one today at all. Or that if stealing crackers two weeks ago was bad then stealing them last week was bad too and so will stealing them next week. But I just don't think that way. My Person says I don't think much at all, most of the time.

And generally that is true. I just am.

But today I am thinking, mainly because the rain is keeping me from the active life. And this is what I think: I want it to be sunny now, and for a squirrel to run by. I want crackers to slip off the counter when I walk into the kitchen. And mostly I want us all to be forever young.

Doga

I try to stay current. Sometimes I am so current I am ahead of myself. And I am always curious how a country-dog-at-heart like me matches up against dogs in faster sorts of cities. Like in Hong Kong or Boca Raton, for example, life-in-the-fast-lane places.

Well, someone emailed my Person a link to a story (I don't really know what any of that means, I am just repeating what I heard her say) about the latest thing, called Doga. It is yoga classes for people and their dogs. And there are classes like that in Hong Kong and Boca Raton and maybe even in your town!

Excuse me while I snort.

Since when does a dog need a yoga class? I am demonstrating right now how dogs like me, athletic ones anyway, can wiggle and bend and stretch in all sorts of directions all at once! Now my Person attends a yoga class every few days and she sometimes performs her asanas at home. She even does one called Downward Facing Dog! Let me tell you, a dog in that pose is irresistibly cute. A person in that pose is both resistible and very awkward looking. And fairly red in the face.

I admit that dogs are naturally designed for something like yoga. The idea that we have to go to a class to learn this is ridiculous. People should just do as we dogs do instead. First, give up the whimsical notion of arms and grow four legs instead. Much better for speed and balance. Next, roll around on the ground and wiggle every part of your body. Don't chant or hum or breathe through one nostril. Instead, snort and sneeze while you are rolling. Then stand up and shake all those parts until you feel excellent all over. Then wag your tail and you are set.

All I can say to those dogs in Boca, with their yoga mats slung in the back of their Person's sports car, is I am sorry for them. And now I am going to roll in the grass a bit more. And I am not even going to use a mat!

Roadtrip

There are many ways to make a living. One is to have a Person to provide for you and take you on road trips to Wisconsin. Another is to be furry and smallish and like to swim and eat leaves and have an independent riparian life with no Person at all to talk to or put your meal in a dish or provide furniture and a porch for you.

I personally think it is a toss-up.

I did go on a road trip this weekend, to visit my human grandparents. On the way we stopped along the Fox River, what a nice name that is, and this odd fellow swam out of the river right in front of me and started eating cottonwood leaves! He is a muskrat. And he came closer and closer and he didn't care at all that someone as ferocious as I am was standing so close, held back by the slimmest of leashes. I will tell you what DID scare him. A huge sturgeon bumped into him from behind and the muskrat swam off and I jumped a bit too! I have never seen such a large fish.

We also saw two foxes that weren't rivers but were running jumping animals, a coyote and many sandhill cranes. But none of them got this close to me so maybe they all were shyer or slyer than the little muskrat.

All of this is what is great about road trips. No matter what you start out with as a plan, and that is probably just a destination, other interesting things appear along the way. And those interesting things you didn't plan give you something to think about when you are back at home, lying on your porch.