SUBJECT: VARIOUS

Bess wants to chase targets

"I'm waiting out here."

You won’t believe this, but it appears I don’t really have anything to say right now. Oh! My mind is full of visions of sugar plums – the fabric kind – but I don’t seem to sew as much as I’d like. It’s hard to get into it if sewing is a hobby that you sandwich into everyday life. Even though I want to sew, there’s always something that seems to stand in the way. It’s mostly a mental block, I think. Some people suggest little tricks:

·       Sew for 10 minutes every day. I’m not fooled by that. If you sew for 10 minutes, you’ll likely sew for 20 minutes – or maybe two hours. So, sewing for 10 minutes IS a good suggestion.

·       “Read the directions before you quit,” my mother used to say, “and know your next step. It makes it much easier to pick it up again.” She worked much more quickly than I – and was less distracted.

Monday (Aug. 21), son Clint joined us to watch the solar eclipse from the farm yard. Directly it was over, we left for town. Over the last three days, we’ve run errands, bought supplies, kept appointments, met with friends, etc. Today Mike entered his Barracuda in the Rogers’ Motors Show and Shine.

A couple of weeks ago, Mike began to cut the stand of burned trees where the road comes into our lane at the farm. We had thought those trees belonged to our neighbor to the north, but when neighbor Pete came to see what we were doing, he offered the opinion that they were our trees anyway. So, we dug out all our farm maps and concluded that if they didn’t belong to the Jack Dobson homestead (my grandfather), then they did belong to the June Dobson homestead, also part of our farm. Having established this, we decided to cut more wood. 

So, we’ll go back to the farm tomorrow in the old Silverado and take down more of those trees. I’ll be glad to have them gone and to see some sort of renewal there. Helping with the work is not my thing, but I’ll do it.

September is right around the corner, and with September the hunting seasons begin to open – Idaho dove season, Washington dove season; Washington “old man” pheasant season (yes, I know people who qualify); regular pheasant seasons (Washington and Idaho); chukar seasons – well, you get the picture. Mike and his hunting buddy, Ken, hunt in both states, and Ken makes a chart of when the seasons open and close.

Mike and Ken have been hunting together for 20 years. Last year Mike’s Achilles’ tendon became inflamed early in the season which forced him to slow down. It was a heavy winter anyway, so they couldn’t get out much anyway. But this year, Ken’s dog Pepper is to have surgery on her leg which means she can’t hunt for six months – if ever again. We’re trying to think of viable solutions for this problem. (Bird-hunting is problematic if the hunter doesn’t have a dog.) KW

BESS AND THE MARVELOUS MAGICAL CONTRAPTION

A morning walk in the north field

Before practice: "Hey! I'm waiting out here."

After practice: "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

After lunch: "I'm waiting here. Don't you want to shoot?"

At 3:45: "Ah, come on! It's so much fun!

SHE DID IT AGAIN!

Bess doesn't mind that the pillow cover is in the washing machine.

Mike went on a bike ride the other day, so I said I’d walk the dogs. Everything was fine – just fine – until near the turn-around spot, I noticed Bess gazing thoughtfully down the road in the direction we had come. Slow learner that I am, I continued up the road, and when I turned around, Nellie was with me but Bess was nowhere to be seen.

“Bess,” I called hopefully. “Bess?” My first thought was that she was hunting in the gulley, but it was awfully quiet – too quiet. Nellie and I kept moving.

Finally, it dawned on me that the “gazing” was all about looking for Mike, her favorite person. And when she didn’t see him, she decided to go home.

So, Nellie and I picked up our speed, and when I got closer to the county shop, I noticed a teen-ager from our neighborhood playing with Bess, holding her until I could get there. (His dad is an outfitter, so he’s experienced with dogs.) I thanked him and we came on home.

Thursday was a warm afternoon, so Mike bathed both dogs. Here’s a picture of Bess stretched out on the pillow while I wash the cover. 

One by one the bird seasons are opening, and little Bess is enthusiastically THERE! Today, the Washington "old man" pheasant season opened. I know a couple of hunters who qualify as "old men." KW

THE COLORS OF SUMMER -- OR, LITTLE LOST BESS

It’s inevitable, you know -- losing the pup. Does anything strike terror to our hearts like a missing puppy? Okay – it's not as bad as losing a kid. However, I no longer have a kid I need to worry about – at least not in that way. But I do have a young but independent pup.

Mike left at 7:30 Thursday morning (July 18), riding off into the sunrise on his dirt bike for another wonderful wilderness adventure. The cache he placed two years ago at Indian Post Office Lake was reported missing, and he wanted to tend to it. I stayed behind with a map of his route – and two dogs.

Nellie knows that when Mike leaves, he doesn’t necessarily come right back. Our habit has been to take a distracting walk and then settle down to wait. So I picked up the camera, my cell phone (in case I fall and can’t get up), and called to the two dogs. We headed off down the lane, little Bess running at Nellie’s side.

At this time of year the bright colors of spring turn a strange shade of dull. The vibrant, fluorescent yellow of the rapeseed fields fades to common yellow. The green of wheat and barley slowly dries to something nondescript until the rich amber sets in. The garbanzo beans give us plenty of green but it lacks the dramatic effects of grain slowly ripening in the hot sun. Colors are further muted by the smoky haze caused by regional wildfires.

I was pondering all this as I walked along. I thought of Chris exercising every morning and enjoying the benefits, and I walked all the harder up the steep pitches. (Puff, puff, pant.) At the top, I doubled back into the neighbor’s property for some different views of the land. It makes the walk more interesting – and I think it makes the pictures more interesting, too. Just a few feet higher or lower, to the left or right, makes an old subject new. The dogs were right there at the drive playing around some stacked hay bales. Then I was aware of “them” as “they” explored the edge of the field. I swear I was absorbed in taking pictures for just a minute and the two of them were together, but when I turned around to leave, only Nellie was there. No Bess.

“Here Bess,” I called. Useless. She still responds to “Bess” with a look that says, “Who? Me?” I listened for rustling grass. Nothing. Nellie was more or less disinterested in my plight. I thought she knew something she wasn’t saying and I couldn’t blame her. She was enjoying these moments of freedom without that pesky Bess, but she stayed with me.

We made a tour of the neighbor’s shop area, just in case, and then I tried to think like Bess. Bess doesn’t really like these walks, I reasoned. And though she’s independent, she’s not ventured much beyond familiar territory. While I could envision her tumbling through the scrub brush and running into the trees on the other side of the gully and then lying down to take a nap under a distant pine, that scenario really was unlikely. But if she got tired and thirsty, chances were she would just go home. So, I decided that Nellie and I should do that, too – go home and start from there. It’s been a long time since I walked up the lane that fast! 

 

I didn’t see her at first and my heart sank. But there she was – curled up in the dogloo on the porch, looking back at me with sleepy eyes. KW

ME AND LITTLE BESS

Saturday (July 13) I was up early. Little Bess was ready and willing when I opened her kennel. It was a big day for us. We were going to the farm by ourselves. Mike, Jack, and Nellie left the day before to backpack at Harrison Lake with Hallie and Nick and their friend Ellen.

I was sure that Nellie was enjoying her backpacking event without the interference of pesky Bess. And I found that I was enjoying the opportunity to become acquainted with Bess without those canine rivalry issues. (Dogs are such strange people!)

We arrived at the farm about 8:00. As we approached the lane, we passed our neighbor walking his dog, a big Shorthair male called “Tick.”

“We had plans for this weekend but they fell through – so I got to come here,” said the neighbor with a smile that lit up his whole face. My sentiments exactly.

It was a big day for Bess and me. I meant to make the day trip count. I carried with me things we haven’t had room to take – a framed picture and yard ornaments and such. I also took the laundry and changed the guest bed in readiness for the next guests. In the end, I hung four big loads on the clothesline. And took it down. And folded it – some to stay at the farmhouse and a large basket for town.

And I picked raspberries. My dream of a viable raspberry patch has finally been realized. I estimate that I picked at least two quarts – and I probably picked at least two quarts last week. And I tell you what -- I’m jealous of every berry – that is, I really don’t want to share even one with Bess. Too late – she can squeeze under the fence and she loves raspberries. But, after all -- she wasn’t picking from the top. What few berries she was able to reach were payment enough for her company, I suppose.

Mike thought it would be easier to keep little Bess on the farm, and I think he was right. She’s easy to spot in the open yard. She loves to curl up with Mike’s grilling mitt in the wood box at the kitchen door. She won’t be doing that forever.

I also picked sugar snap peas. My small planting in the big tire yielded big results. I planted densely, fertilized with 10-10-10 slow release, and packed horse manure under the rim of the tire. Peas like it cool, but despite the heat, the sugar snaps are producing wonderfully. I also picked another variety of shell peas, also doing well but not as prolific.

I didn’t take my laptop, but I did take my iPad. And I finished reading a book I had downloaded a few days before. You’ll laugh when I tell you it was Daddy Long-Legs (1912) by Jean Webster. I have a vague memory that Chris mentioned reading it many years ago – many, many years ago -- like 50 years ago.  I loved it for its old ideas on life and womanhood.

And – I took my project box filled with American Girl patterns and fabric and treated myself to a couple of hours of cutting out clothes for Emerson’s doll. I knew I was being silly because I really couldn’t hope to finish all that by the time Jack leaves on Monday, but I was having a thoroughly good time. The doll clothes are our gift to Emmy for her fifth birthday, which happened July 6. Jack will deliver them. “Tracking by Jack.”

The rhubarb we planted this spring isn’t looking so good, but my old plant looks great under the regimen of fertilizer and manure. AND – two of the plants we set out near the pond and which I thought were lost, are growing beautifully.

We were ready for the return trip to town at 5:30 when I noticed a few ripe pie cherries on my little tree, so I took the time to pick, pit, and freeze them. That additional half cup made a pint of cherries off the tree this year. I’ll make a little tart when Hallie and Nick are here later in the month. Hallie says I should fertilize the tree. Maybe I will.

The thimbleberries on the grade will be ripe soon. That thimbleberry jam that Hallie and Nick made last year was wonderfully wonderful, but I don’t know if I want to take it on by myself. Hmmmmm . . . KW