HAVE GPS -- WILL GEOCACHE (AND DAY 4 BESS)

No crying Monday night. None at all. Little Bess apparently slept like a log, and the rest of us did, too. It was so great to get out to the farm and let her howl to her heart's content where she can't bother the neighbors.

 

Tuesday morning we packed up and drove back to town so that Mike can participate in the senior games and other activities. Mike suggested we leave early and geocache along the way. Local cachers have placed continuous hides on some of the area back roads, and we decided to try Angel Ridge, a gravel road off Highway 12 between Peck and Lenore. Neither one of us had been on that road before.

 

The caches were mostly straightforward – simply a matter of stopping, hopping out, logging the cache, and moving a quarter of a mile to the next cache. It’s not very challenging. Because a lot of the sites were infested with ticks and just the thought of them makes my skin crawl, I mostly stayed in the pick-up while Mike logged the caches. There was just one I think he wouldn't have found without me. 

Actually I looked forward to this side trip to Angel Ridge for another reason -- to gain better perspective on the neighboring Russell Ridge, where our farm is located. I wasn't disappointed. In the middle of this picture you can see Dworshak Dam and the reservoir. The ridge in the foreground is Russell Ridge. See how it's flat on top with steep drops to the canyons -- the Clearwater River on one side and Little Canyon on the other. The farm on that narrow end has spectacular views on both sides.


The picture right looks right up Little Canyon between Russell Ridge and Central Ridge.

And the view on the left shows Russell Ridge -- and along the top someplace is our property. Using the GPS, Mike determined that the farm was 6.5 miles distant (as the flicker flies). We could make out the hunting preserve in the canyon so could judge about where the farm lies.

 

This picture was taken from Angel Ridge Road above where it comes into Highway 12 just east of Lenore. This is the Clearwater river, of course, and you can see the old store now known as the Lenore Community Center in the center of this picture. 

We didn't get to town until nearly 2:00. Later in the afternoon we took Nellie for her routine walk. Mike brought little Bess along, expecting to return home with her when she got tired. Bess loves to tug on anything that dangles, and she latched onto the leash that Mike carried. She walked the whole way and back -- more than a mile -- with that leash in her mouth. We didn't carry her at all except to cross the intersection. Back at the house, she ate supper and then went to bed. We had another quiet night.

Today -- Day 5 -- Bess is seven weeks old. KW

DAYS 2-3: PLAYS WELL BY SELF

Bess seems to feel right at home here at the farm. She loves to run through the grass, her little short legs moving fast behind Mike’s shoes. She loves the woodshed where she entertains herself for hours. When she tires of play, she climbs into Nellie’s barrel for a nap or maybe just quiet time.

Mike took Bess for a walk around the pond this morning, then left for Dworshak Reservoir where there’s a new cache. He’ll pursue a few other caches in the area as well. Nellie watched until the dirt bike disappeared on Lower Plank’s Pitch.

Did I say I would stay with the dogs? No matter – I’d rather stay here. And I’d rather Mike get away for a few hours if that’s what he wants to do.

Both Nellie and Bess napped this morning. Then when Bess got up, we went for a walk around the pond. Nellie detoured into the barn with Bess following. Apparently Bess loves cool, dark, musty places. She refused to leave.

“Come on, Bess,” I called. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“Uh – no,” said Bess, politely but firmly. “I like it here.”

I picked her up and transferred her to the path and she followed my moving shoes quite nicely. Back at the house, she ate lunch and enjoyed a cool drink of water. 

Okay. What next? How about some gardening while everyone’s awake and moving? Nellie knows that drill. I filled watering cans and transferred Bess to the side yard. With a whimper she sat down and scratched her collar. I marked her location and then set to work cultivating the garden. I swear I didn’t look away for more than a minute, but when I looked back, she was gone. Gone!

“Here Bess, here Bess,” I called. Useless.

“Help me look for her,” I said to Nellie.

“Oh the little twer –er—pup is missing? Hmmmm. Too bad. I’ll check these hollyhocks. You run around the other side of the house. It's kinda fun to watch you panic.” Nellie would not be much help, but I’m not fooled. I have seen Nellie find lost dogs.

Okay – settle down, I told myself. Where should I look first? I know! The woodshed! And that’s where I found Bess -- curled up in Nellie’s barrel.

Bess cried a lot the last two nights. I feel sorry for Nellie who shares the woodshed – but not her barrel – with the pup. Bess yelped so loudly last night that when the coyotes set up their cacophony of yodels and barks nearby, I couldn’t help but think they had come for her. But there’s also a big doe with a fawn in the draw to the north. They survived, too. I saw them again this morning. KW

A TRIBUTE TO DADS

Today -- Fathers' Day -- I find myself thinking about my daddy. My daddy slipped away from my world in 1987. Doesn't seem possible that he's been gone 25 years. In his last years, he tried to master the operation of a VCR.That puts some perspective on the changes we've seen since he left.

I was sitting at supper with my parents one evening -- I guess it was about the time I was finishing high school -- when my dad said, "Say, Kathy, you should put away your Little Golden Books."

I expected my mother to object. The things from my childhood -- toys and books -- were shared with the grandchildren, and I thought she would want that to continue. Instead, she said, "Yes, Kathy, you should do that."

At the time, it seemed silly to me. The books were well-used and the stories outgrown. Still, I packed a number of them away.

I think my parents saw then what I see now -- that those little books were a reflection of life as it was in my childhood (the '50s) and in some cases even before. The subjects reinforced the values of that time. Many of the books were already outdated, and we were sitting on the edge of big social and cultural changes.Everything would change -- even the book industry.

Here's a book from my collection that is an illustrated attempt to explain to a young child what daddies do all day. Daddies leave the house in the morning and come back at night. The book assumes, perhaps correctly, that the child has no concept of what his/her dad is doing during those hours away from home. Well, I'm not writing a thesis on family life in the '50s. It's just that, as I read through this little book the other day, I realized that it would be mostly meaningless to my grandchildren whose mothers and fathers both work outside the home.

Frankly, I'm not sure how meaningful it was to me now that I think about it. My dad didn't leave the house in the morning. He gave piano lessons in his studio, which was a converted bedroom on the back of our house, and I knew what that was all about. I remember looking at this book when I was a very little girl and knowing that my daddy was an exception. The daddy that looked most like my daddy was a salesman, but I couldn't imagine my daddy behind the counter at a store.


And then my daddy would change out of his dress shirt and tie, put on gray work pants and a chambray shirt and head to the farm, but he didn't look like the farmer daddy either. He grew excellent corn-on-the-cob but as a gardener, not as a farmer. I was pretty sure the book didn't do a good job of depicting a farmer daddy. When my daddy farmed, he did it on a tractor and came back from the field with a dust-covered face.Now that was what real farming was about! That's what my real daddy did. It didn't have to be explained to me.

Happy Fathers' Day to daddies everywhere, old and young. KW

SHE'S HERE . . .

It was dark when the big white pick-up pulled into the meeting place. A man and two little boys got out. The man brought out a small pet crate and opened it, and four 6-week-old German Shorthair pups spilled out onto the wet grass – three males and one female. We knew little Bess right away by the distinctive round spot on her back.

Meet Bess, one of a litter of eight (six males, two females) born April 29, 2013, in Tri-Cities, WA. She and Nellie have the same grandfather, Butchie, and are therefore cousins. And her great-grandfather, Mr. Perkins, was our Nobie’s father.

Last year Mike put in for a female with this same breeder. However, the litter had only one female, and she was spoken for. We were offered our pick of the males, but “we” weren’t interested. The males are larger, more aggressive, more apt to run – and the list of cons goes on – headed by dumber / do stupid things. So, again this year, we put in for a female with the understanding that the breeder would keep one female of his choice, provided there were any. (This breeder theorizes that the older the mother dog, the more apt she is to bear males.)

I was home – and Mike wasn’t -- when the breeder called on April 30. “Tell Mike this is his lucky day,” he said.

 

“If this is Mike’s lucky day, then there must be just two females,” I replied.

“That’s right,” he said. And then he told me that six males and one female were delivered, and they thought it was over. However, at midnight his wife followed her intuition, got out of bed and went to check the litter. The mama dog had given birth to another female, which meant that we could have the one the breeder didn’t choose.

So, the litter was born in Tri-Cities – an easy drive 130 miles west of us – and then the breeder took a new job in Winnemucca, NV, and moved his family, including the dogs, of course. Winnemucca is about a day’s drive from us, and so we were relieved when the breeder said he would deliver her along with other dogs to this region. And that’s why we were waiting for him last night.

While we watched Friday night, little Bess cavorted with her brothers, ran with her socializers (the little boys), and then seemed to tire of it all, shivering in the wet grass. I picked her up and she relaxed in my arms. When I moved to set her down, I thought she was clinging to me. Mike and the breeder settled the business and we left the group of onlookers. Mike and I were tired and anxious to get on with the night’s routine. We still had to introduce Bess to Nellie, and everybody knows that new puppies can cry with a voice many times their size.

Nellie greeted Bess with some enthusiasm, but then she looked me in the eye with her ears lifted in a question mark. “Yes, Bess is here to stay,” I said. “You have to help take care of her.”  

“And show her everything you know,” added Mike.

We offered Bess food and water and were encouraged when she immediately ate and drank. Nellie gave a low growl when Bess attempted to eat from her dish – and that’s good, too.

And then it was bedtime. Mike had secured the pen so that Bess couldn’t slip out and provided a separate kennel for her. We aren’t quite sure what the sleeping arrangements were, but we think both dogs slept in the dogloo. No one cried. The night was peaceful – except for the horses who escaped from the corral across the street.

Oh – and unlike other puppies, this one is really cute. (LOL) KW