Take Me Out

The baseball season, or more accurately, the post-season, is barreling along to its climactic conclusion. Grace was swept up in the frenzy of it last evening. She found an abandoned baseball in the weeds, lay down in the grass and proceeded to gnaw the skin right off of it in about twelve minutes. Then she buried the skin by a tree at the VFW, and on we went. On the way home, she picked up the skint carcass and brought it home. The Great American Pastime lives in the heart of that hound.

Memory

You all will remember the post from a year and a half ago, in which Grace dragged me over to her friend Mocha's house to play. That was an early indicator of her amazing memory. During our many hundreds of walks together, she has shown me dozens of times that her memory is far superior to mine.

• We are walking along North Street when suddenly and urgently she indicates that she wants to cross to the other side. I look for the usual reasons - dog, cat, squirrel, human  - and see nothing. We cross over safely, and I am reminded that the last time we were here, there was bread thrown out into the yard for the birds. It is there again, and I drag her away. She leads me down an alley and runs up onto the porch of a house where the resident gave her a treat once. She digs up a bone she buried months ago. And the opossum tail. << shudder>>

My favorite example happened a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning. On Sunday mornings, my priority is to get the business done and get home, so I can shower and dress for church. This Sunday she took us a whole different way from the usual - not to the park, the VFW or even Mocha's house. West on Chestnut Street, south across Elizabeth Park and Orthopaedic Associates, and straight to Burns Avenue. We never go this way. As we began walking south on Burns I saw what she remembered. The night before, on our late walk, we came down Burns from the other end and passed a party in a driveway, complete with a whole roasted pig. It was all I could do to keep her out of the driveway, especially since a couple of the revelers wanted to pet her and make the usual fuss over her. She knew from the time we stepped out the door, that she wanted to return to the scene and check for scraps. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had already dashed up the driveway and snagged a chunk of pig. 

I wish my memory was half as good as hers.

An Epic Tail

One morning back in December, during a circuit through Shadybrook Park, west on North Street and back home across the footbridge, we were both inclined to avoid the twitching near-dead opossum about ten feet off the path approaching the footbridge on the far side of the ravine. We cross that bridge fairly often, so the ensuing months saw the carcass covered with snow, uncovered by thaws and rains and covered again many times. Each round saw more and more decay, and it was harder and harder to keep Grace from inspecting the remains. Eventually, it disappeared, having been dispersed by various forces. I forgot about it.

A couple of months ago, we were walking the same circuit. On this end of the bridge Grace suddenly pulled off into the weeds and pulled out a stick. This was usual behavior, but the stick was not a usual stick. It was curved, and tapered on one end. I tried to look at it, but this sparked a game of keep-away, and I was trying to speed us home, so the efficient thing to do was to let her trot proudly home with it. When she tried to bring it in the house, however, game over. I pried her jaws open and retrieved a well-seasoned opossum tail. I flung it into the back yard, and we got on with our day. I looked for it later, but did not find it. I forgot about it.

Then came yesterday, Sunday afternoon. Carmen was walking Grace through the back yard. Grace pulled off into the bushes and pulled out a strange curved stick that tapered on one end. Carmen pried Grace's jaws open and grabbed the"stick "What the hell is this?" she asked. "Oh," I said, "It's a tail from a 'possom that died last December." Of course. Duh.
It now resides in the landfill, at least until the next time it rears its ugly head - or tail.

Nothin' But

Yesterday we were walking in Shadybrook Park on a fairly routine path, when Grace suddenly pulled me up a weed - covered hillside. I was perplexed at first, but then she poked that busy nose of hers into a hole in the ground. Three fist-sized rabbits came running out. I tried to hold her back, but she was able to chase one down and grab it. I pried her jaws open and dragged her away from it.

She ain't nothin' but a hound dog, but she finally caught a rabbit.

Walking With Snow

I have heard it said that arctic natives have a large number of words for snow, each describing a particular kind of snow. Until this year, I had little idea of how many nuances of snow there were.

We are still on the fifth round of snow, which began in early January. An inch one day was covered by another inch a few days later, covered by four more, then four more.Rain turned ten inches of dry, fluffy snow to six inches of wet snow over two inches of slush. The rain turned to snow, dumping another five inches of dry fluffy on top of that. A warm spell melted the top layer of that, then a deep freeze created a crust that was very thin in some places and able to support the weight of a bassador in other places.

Tuesday morning we woke up to a horrendous storm that dumped another eight inches of dry fluffy snow on top of crust of varying thicknesses on top of six inches of dry snow on top of six inches of crusty snow, on top of two inches of ice. Thursday and Friday it rained. Now we have pretty much every kind except dry and fluffy.

Every time Grace leaps into the white stuff beside the sidewalk, she lands in something different.

I wonder how many words she has for snow.

What The Heck Is That?

Five months have gone by since my most recent post. At long last, something captured my imagination. Before I go into that, however, I'll bring you up to date. Since the middle of October, it has been snowing, off and on. There have been perhaps a grand total of ten days during which there has not been snow covering the ground. This makes Grace very happy. At this time there are about eighteen inches of snow on the ground, accumulating steadily for a month or more. Below zero temperatures have been commonplace. Nobody can remember a winter as brutal as this one.

Anyway, Grace and I were out walking this morning, and we chanced upon a mother and her toddler daughter going to the bus stop. The little girl was dressed in a pink snowsuit, giving her a shape sort of like the Michelin Man. Beneath her hood she had a warm hat with an animal face on her forehead. Usually, when we encounter humans on our walks, Grace gets all happy and her tail wags so vigorously that her whole body wags with it. This time, she had a very different vibe going. She went into a little dance, advancing toward her, growling, then retreating as if nervous. I soon figured out that Grace did not recognize the little pink shape as a human. She continued to dance and growl as I dragged her away. She wouldn't take her eyes off the strange pink creature until it hid behind her mother and Grace couldn't see it any more. Out of sight, out of mind. I understand that phrase much better now.