Welcome to My World

Every time I go out running, and that is every morning

I wish I could bring you along. But you are usually sleeping, or at least not in the mood to stretch yourself out and then get very sweaty. 

You would think I'd tire of this road, running it every day, but the fact is that watching it change its clothes and its soundtrack each day fascinates me endlessly.

There are always surprises. Sometimes it's the deep violet blue of the morning's first chicory.

 

Sometimes it's pink chicory. I know of five plants on this curve that are pink. I don't know how common that is, but it feels singular to me.

 

There's one intergrade that is a bewitching periwinkle bluepink.

Sometimes it's an eastern tailed blue mimicking a flying bit of chicory. I love ETBL's. They are a most friendly and confiding butterbug. You can see the tail on his left hind wing.

Sometimes it's a hayfield, suddenly cut, with meadowlarks circling overhead not knowing what in the world they should do. (They wound up leaving the next day, but that's OK, because I had seen their babies fledge weeks earlier). If there's one thing meadowlarks know about, it's haying.

 Sometimes it's an unexpected curve in a treeline that reminds me of England.

 Or black-eyed Susans against a misty tree scrim.

And always at my side Chet Baker, sweet companion of the morning and my life. In him I have a dogmometer. I can tell how hot it is by whether he's in front of me, beside me or yards behind. Over about 82 degrees and I'm liable to have to wait for the boy. Under 80 and he waits for me.

 We always stop and think at the cemetery. We breathe and sweat and are glad to be alive and not having a red cedar and pizen ivy growing up through our rib cages.

Chet Baker and the Mystery Box

Years ago, my friend Shila gifted me with a mysterious box which, when turned upside down and then righted again, makes a delightful pinging sound at random intervals. The mechanism is a sticky ceiling, a bunch of BB’s, and three miniature brass cymbals. When you turn it upside down, the BB’s stick on the ceiling, then release randomly, pinging on the cymbals as they fall.  I really like it.

So one day I turned it over and left it there on the floor where it attracted the immediate attention of Chet Baker, who was sure there were hoodoos or perhaps very small animals inside playing the cymbals. 

Because dogs trust their noses more than any other sense, Chet tried to smell whomever might be making music in the Mystery Box.

His trusty nose providing no information whatsoever (metal has very little smell), Chet listened and looked.

 

He sniffed and sniffed again. Nope, no clues. But the musical pinging kept occurring, randomly. If it had been a regular sound he'd have found it easier to ignore. 

 

 

Our muffled snickers notwithstanding, Chet kept at the mystery, as a bulldog will. He doesn't give up easily. Just ask the chiptymunks he corners under a big flowerpot near the Bird Spa. 

He's good for a couple of hours of waiting. He's like an Eskimo waiting for the harp seal to come up for  a breath of air.

 

My favorite photo of him listening. He looks like Ferdinand the Bull, sniffing flowers.

 

 

Finally he'd heard enough. With a thoughtful look, he turned on his heel and was done with the Mystery Box.

Chet Baker, Attention-Seeker

As I watch Mether garden I think about how to divert her. She is very focused when she is gardening.

All she seems to think about is where to bury this plant, and where to bury that plant. To a certain extent I understand that; it is like when I have a bikkit I need to bury and I trot around the house  and yard looking for just the right place to put it. Mether does that, too.

 Phoebe tries to help. She points out bunnehs I can chase. There are a lot of them and my work is never done.

But usually I hang around watching Mether work. Suddenly it comes to me! One way to get a gardener's attention is to mess with their stuff! Sometimes I drag her buckets around.

But other times I get right up in her face. So when Mether comes up the sidewalk dragging a heavy bag of potting soil I spring into action!

I grab the bag and shake it! Potting soil flies everywhere!

That works. She laughs and dares me to do it again.  So I do! I shake the bag and growl and tear it! I spill the soil! She cannot pot plants if she has no soil! Ha ha ha ha ha!

She says I am a Very Naughty Terrier and I need a Big Spanking! Those are just the words I was hoping to hear!

They send me into a Full Google Run!

and when I am done running and she is done laughing she goes right back to gardening. Obsessed.

 I am underwhelmed, but I stay close by for the next opportunity to distract her. Which leads me to my second ploy: telling her I need to be checked for ticks. Then she will run her hands over me, which I adore.

When I have been checked for ticks, I deploy my third tactic:  looking disgruntled, but at the same time sweetly kissable. I stand between her and what she is trying to do.

That one always works, because I always look sweetly kissable, no matter how disgruntled I am. 

But notice she is still carrying a plant.

All photos in this post by my sister Phoebe Linnea Thompson. 

Chet Baker's Lament

A Boston terrier needs someone to play with. Boys like my brother Liam are good for this. They understand. They usually have balls with them.

The play should be active and raucous and rough. Liam bounces my tennis ball hard on the concrete and I leap after it!

and I snatch it away from him if I can. I catch a lot of sweet air when I leap. 

Boston terriers need to play a lot. I have just interrupted the writing of this post to bring my ropus to Mether. She tugs and we growl at each other ferociously and she kisses me on the nose when she pulls me in, which breaks the mood a little bit. I like it when she tries to grab my front paws. I growl very loud then! I sound like a wookie from Star Wars!

Mether has this greenhouse out back she calls the Garden Pod. And this is where the problem starts. She gets all antsy and has to empty it out when the sun gets warm enough to bake in. I like to bake on the sidewalk or the deck in the sun. I believe that is why they call me Chet Baker.

So she gets obsessed with gardening in early May and it goes right through the whole month.

Everywhere she goes she carries a plant.

The back of her car is lined with plastic seed sacks, the kind I love to shake! and it is usually full of plants. Just when I think she is winding down she goes and gets some more plants.

Plants, plants, plants...margeurite

and peach verbena

and cuphea in hanging baskets for the hummingbirds (another thing she is obsessed with)

and fancy geraniums like Frank Headley (ditto, obsessed)

which she grows herself all winter in the Pod which has a nice heater I can stand by while she dithers and clips and repots plants

plants, plants, plants, plants, all of them she grows all winter long

and then she must decide where they all will go--in baskets and planters, because these are the kind of plants that are candy to bunnehs, bunnehs I chase! Bunnehs I think about all the time!

but I am not obsessed about bunnehs the way she is about her plants.

What I am obsessed about is getting enough attention from Mether. I have sat waiting for attention for so long I have worn the hair off the tip of my little screw-tail. Phoebe says it looks like a tick now and is gross. She says I need a tail hair extension. Mether thinks the naked tip of my tail is cute, which is why I love Mether so much.

In the next post I will share my secrets for getting attention.

Most photos in this post by Phoebe Linnea Thompson. Thank you, Sister, for helping me tell my story.

Remembering the Oak

I counted the cut end--103 rings. Humbling, awe-inspiring. The red oak was here in 1908, four years before my Dad was born.

And now, because there are cameras on the bus, and dogs are not allowed to board, Chet uses her lower trunk as a place to watch and make sure the Caped One gets off to school all right.

Yes, there he is, waving to his mom and doggeh.

See you tonight, little brother.

And in the churned-up soil beneath her rotten roots, I found a Liberty head dime, dated 1903, minted in Pittsburgh, with all its scarring worth only about $1.80, but like the red oak, priceless to me.

I'm left alone with the old coin, a tree's carcass and the memories.

This is how I will remember her, guardian of our driveway, stately landmark of our ridge road. I'll remember her shading a bluebird box, sheltering families of birds, lizards, insects, mammals, and four humans, often as not wearing a hawk in her hair.

I'll remember how she made an ordinary spot into a destination, a meeting place

How she made it all feel like home. One tree, deeply appreciated for the 19 years we had with her. Our time together was far too short, but with ones so dearly loved, it's always that way.