DOG DAYS

DOGS

It’s a good thing we love Rufus, our adopted beagle.  Very good, because he’s been costing us a small fortune.  He has already set a record as the most expensive dog we’ve ever had.  It’s kind of an erosive process.  It starts off with one obvious thing that needs specialist-type fixing (cataracts, in his case; he would bump into things, fix you with his clouded gaze), and before you know it, you’re off and running.  Treatments that carry warnings along the lines of  “in a few cases, there could be complications…” often don’t get my full attention.  Rufus, however, is in that small percentile of dogs in that category.  Removal of cataracts was not a straightforward issue.  Resulting eye issues, ongoing eye issues–including reactions to eye medication–led to more treatment. He’s now in recovery from both the latest specialty treatment (laser eye surgery) and his medications.  Our senior dog Harry, getting into the spirit of things, developed an eye problem last week–a minor one, happily–so he’s been getting eye drops as well.  We are developing close relationships with our vets.

DOG DAYS

View from the hammock

Like everywhere else in the Eastern half of the USA, we’ve had a few samples of the dog days of summer as well as the sweet days of spring.  Except for the fact that it was still mid-March when this happened, everyone found it hard to actually complain about the balmy weather.  The alternative, after all, is the rawness of mud season. 

It is weird, though, because everything seems to be happening at once and at full speed.  In March the grass began to green almost overnight, and then it started growing (are we going to have to mow the lawn in April?) and the weeds are sprouting as if it were summer.  Buds are opening.  The forsythia is in bloom.  Ducks have been visiting our pond in the mornings, a month earlier than last year.  The chorus of frogs in our pond is already creating a din.  Last year I commented on the frog sounds in mid-May.  Granted, they probably began chirping well before I wrote about it.  Still–mid-May? I picture creatures out there in a crazed rush to do what they have to do because spring already turned into summer and whatever happened to winter anyway?  Talk about living in fast forward!  Only two weeks ago we were skiing at Sugarbush in cold weather with good snow.  Maple sap was running then and we made syrup.  But the sap run was over shortly after it got going. We barely finished boiling a couple of barrels of sap when it got so warm the sap stopped running.  Maple season is officially over, and major producers say the season gave them 50% less than last year. 

The evaporating pan over a wood-fueled fire

Part of our sugaring crew (the next weekend we were fully staffed with Leah, Cliff and Olin)

DOGGED LAWMEN

Notes on our local law enforcers from the police blotter of our local paper:

“On March 6 at 4:24 AM responded to a call for help from a Chipman Hill resident who said her toilet was overflowing and her plumber was in the hospital.  When police arrived they found that the overflowing had stopped.”

“On March 6 at 5 PM responded to a caller who reported a barefoot man standing next to a white truck on Merchants Row, possibly parked in the handicap parking and with the truck radio playing loudly.  The man told the police officer that he was cooling his feet and would be leaving shortly.”

“On March 9 at 8:30 PM were called to a Middlebury home by a woman who said she heard footsteps downstairs and when she asked who was there, the footsteps stopped.  Officers went to the home and found it was the husband who had come home without telling his wife.”

(Of course there’s more going on than this; I’m not bothering to cite the more prosaic arrests for drugging, drinking or fighting or driving while drugging, drinking or fighting.)

Goodbye, old dog winter!
(Last bit of snow in the woods behind our house, just a few weeks ago.)