CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DOG

No, to the dog. Oh, wait, that’s not a conversation.

I talk more to the dog more than I ever did.  I tell him what I’m doing, or where I’m going.  As if he had an opinion.  He stares right back at me and says, “Hmm.”

How many people tell their dog “I’ll be back soon” when they leave?  Sometimes in the past I would say that and sometimes I wouldn’t.  Now I always do.  Of course, a while ago there were lots of times when I’d be going out, but Ken would be staying at home, so I didn’t think Skyler would notice much of a difference.  Now I look at him, expecting him to know exactly what I’m saying.  Get it, Skyler?  I’m not leaving you.  I’ll return.  Don’t worry.  He could be thinking, “Go, I don’t care.  Just remember to leave me something. Like peanut butter in a chewie, okay?”  Or is he thinking, this is it.  It’s final.  She’s going forever.  She’ll forget me.  

“How are you doing?” is a question I’m asked a lot since last October. The answer is almost always “Pretty good, actually,” or “Good, thanks.”  I don’t know how else to answer.  It’s accurate enough, I suppose, except maybe at certain moments.  Moments are hard to predict.  They might happen when I hear a piece of music, or I want to share something I read or thought or felt, and I want to share it now, not later.  Or I uncover something, like a card, a picture, a note, and I want to talk to it.  Skyler listens.  Sort of.

Skyler, on Raven Ridge, last year

Imagine yourself deserted for some unknown reason in Antarctica.  There is not a human being in sight anywhere and you are stunningly and frighteningly alone.  From afar you see a large group of what look like humans, men, mostly, and nicely dressed.  They are standing in conversational clumps, as if at an outdoor cocktail party.  Saved!  Saved!  But as your distance closes, you realize with a shock, an intake of breath, they are penguins, only penguins, and they will not understand you, and they cannot help you. 

That was then, two years ago or so, Ken and Skyler.

Well, it’s actually not like that.  I’m over-dramatizing.  Skyler is more companion than a penguin (a penguin, for goodness' sake!) could ever be.  Skyler just lacks those big brown sympathetic eyes, the mournful eyes of a Labrador, say.  His eyes are light-colored and sharp, and they sometimes look right past you.  Should I take that personally?  

Skyler seems more dependent these days.  He was probably destined to be that way.  Ever since he was a puppy he’s been easily frightened.  Even the photo of him taken with his sister Daisy when they were both barely ten weeks old shows a puppy with a downturned mouth lending him a worried look.  He's not frightened by sudden loud noises like fireworks that used to terrify Harry, our late Westie.  Skyler doesn’t even mind the sound of gunfire (deer season, target practice–all liable to be heard here) or any other loud noises.  He's a sucker for human love.  What scares him is other dogs.  When he’s on a leash and another dog approaches, no matter the size (Skyler is 38 pounds’ worth of dog) you might find him shivering and growling almost simultaneously.  He was always like that. Oddly, left to his own devices at our local dog kennel he apparently manages to adapt.  Dogs are strange.  He may be stranger than most.

Looking outdoors for what?  A squirrel?  With those cool-looking eyes.

It’s hard to take Skyler for walks right now.  Everything is so soggy it’s a challenge to walk on anything but pavement.  I took him for a walk on the old road behind our house a few weeks ago when I thought it was spring (mud season had begun, so I figured it had to be spring), but that was followed by our best snow storm yet which was followed by melt and then snow and so on.  Weather, playing around with the seasons.  

Yet the signs of change are all here.  Sugaring has all been done, in my sugar house at least.  Here and there maple sugar boils are still underway.  (A wooden shack with wood stacked outside plus steam coming out of the chimney equals an active sugaring operation.) The first red-winged blackbirds appeared weeks ago, surviving two snow storms, hail and rain in between. Pairs of ducks have appeared on the pond, visiting in the early morning and gone by eleven as before.  I’ve seen deer (of course everyone does, but for some reason I seem to always miss them), turkeys and ravens dot the fields, plus the occasional red fox.  There’s a dead porcupine at one corner of the meadow.  I wish I knew what happened to it.  The bird feeder awaits the first flock of bright golden finches.  Last spring thirty or more were like ornaments on branches of the bush near the feeder. 

Having a glass with Skyler just a short time ago when the sun was warm, the snow still fresh.

Skyler spends more time out of doors when it’s warmer.  He's such a wimp.  He doesn’t like rain (or water, particularly) but snow is okay, I guess.  It didn’t bother him when it was up to his chest since he’s got long legs and can easily sprint across great piles of it.  He enjoyed sticking his nose down deep into the snow to smell the mouse tracks down below.

Nothing to brag about, but I was surprised to see these open up suddenly when the sun came out.

Not quite so sweet a spring thing:  putting the driveway back on the driveway.  A guy who lives several miles down the road plowed the driveway this season.   He managed to scrape up half the gravel and toss it on the grass along with the snow.  Picking it up has been the first, and I hope only, miserable chore of the season.  I’ve picked up endless numbers of pieces of stone every day for a couple of days now.  When I close my eyes at night I see pieces of gravel.  Gravel.  Grrrravel.  Growl.

Lawn, waiting to be reclaimed from driveway.