Momma Dog dragged the lawn mower up the back hill to mow our paths today and since Nemo thinks he can’t trust any machine, he follows along behind her all the time she mows.   He feels the same way about the sweeper, except he barks and tries to bite the sweeper.  What is the problem with that dog and machines?  Maybe it’s because sometimes Momma Dog chases him around the living room with the sweeper.  Personally, I prefer to watch the action from the sofa, and only jump in if the sweeper seems to be winning.

So I was on my own this morning.  I had a good bark at the neighbor dogs, then checked out the woods.  I didn’t go too far though, I’m exhausted from watching South Carolina and UCLA in the College World Series last night.   Eleven full innings!  Way to go Gamecocks!

“Great dog Nemo, I’m going to have to stop running in unmowed fields.  Momma Dog got four ticks off of me!”

“She got two off of me.”

“It’s almost July, I thought some bird would have probably eaten all of them by now.”

“Oh look Huck, there’s another one on your ear and here comes the Blue Jay down to eat it!”

“Aaaagggghhhh!”

“heh, heh, heh!”

“Let’s face it Huck, we’re getting older.”

“What you talking about Bubba?  You’re only four and I don’t have any idea how old I am, but we can still send a rabbit into roadrunner gear!”

“I’m napping more now and watching a lot more tv.”

“It’s just your personal choice Nemo, personal choice.  You can still do everything you could do last year.  You tear just as much toilet paper off the roll when our people are gone, you hog as much of the bed…”

“Oh yeah, I noticed Momma Dog carrying YOU up the hill this morning.”

“Only because I didn’t want to go in the first place.  Everything was wet and icky up there.  YOU only get wet to the knees, I get wet all over, even in my ears.  Every single plant is taller now than I am, let alone the Bluejays trying to poop mulberries on me.  I’m tired of rain, rain, rain.!”

“My, my.  Getting a little tired and grouchy are we tadpole?”

This morning before it got too hot we went to a forgotten country cemetary.  We park our car at the end by the road, and then we have a long farm lane to race down before we get to the fence.  It’s only June but the corn on both sides of the path is over three feet high.    Huck disappeared into one of the cornrows and we had to wait for him to find his way out.  He said he wasn’t lost, he was tracking a fox.

We have had so many days of rain, I’m beginning to grow gills.  I actually like walking in the rain, but Huck thinks he’s made of sugar and Momma Dog has to carry him to get him to go with us.  Once started on the hill however, he roars by us like a freight train.  He looks like a rat leaving a sinking ship when his fur gets wet and sticks to him.  Strawberries are finished, but the sour cherries are ready, maybe we’ll have pie!

“Whee haw!  It’s Friday, Huck!”

“Friday doesn’t mean anything to us Nemo, our days are pretty much the same.  Eat, sleep, climb the hill, play with Momma Dog, no cows to study, no cows to ride.”

“Stop with the cows already.  You have never ridden a cow.”

“I was going to this summer.  I was going to ask one if I could ride it and if it would take me over to the lake so I could hunt for frogs.  Where did the cows go anyway?”

“A a a a h….momma dog could we have chicken dogfood tonight?”

“Huck why won’t you go up the hill with us?  Are you still moping about Carla selling all her cows?”

“Why did she have to sell all of them, why couldn’t she have left us one to study?”

“I don’t want to study a cow.  I don’t want to ride a cow.  One cow alone would have bawled it’s head off.  Come on, there’s other things up on the hill to study.”

“Like what?”

“Like Monarch butterflies.  They’re eating the milkweed blossoms right now.  How to they know to go south in the fall?  How do they find milkweed?  Besides we can roll in the clover and eat a mulberry or two.”

“Let me get my notebook.”

Whoopie!  We are carrying hgh tails today, we caught a mouse!  Huck smelled him under VOG”s dresser and alerted the entire house.  When we moved the dresser he ran across the room, over Momma Dog’s stack of books, which we properly pawed all over, then into the closet where Huck grabbed him.  Momma Dog would have let him out, but he ran the wrong way and there is no stopping a stone cold terrier on the hunt.  Huck took him outside where we both smelled him, but I decided I didn’t want him in my mouth!  No telling where he had been.

It’s been hard living with Huck since.  He keeps wanting to call Graham Croc and tell him he’s next.  He saw something on television about a croc smashing a watermelon into pieces no bigger than your claw, and he wants us to toss him a chunk so he can measure his chomp!  I’m going to toss him a piece of peanut buttered bread and shut him up.  Oh no, now he’s humming, “if you see me coming, better step aside”…… from Tennessee Ernie Ford   Affectionately, Nemo

“Yuck!  Watch out Nemo, some deer threw up on our log!”

“That’s not throw up, I don’t think deer throw up, it’s a fungi or something.”

“Is it poisonous?”

“I don’t know, we’ll check it tomorrow and see if there’s anything dead around it.”

“Krikey!”

“In the good ole summertime, in the good ole summertime”, I love rolling on my back in the long grass, and kicking my back legs in the air!  Look how long I am and how high I can kick Huck.”

“Very impressive, but wouldn’t it be better if you were rolling in something stinky?  Let’s go find the cows, there’s always something stinky around them.”

“You do not have to be stinky to enjoy life Huck.”

“You don’t have to put strawberries on ice cream either, but you have to admit it adds panache.”

“Panache?”