Lamenting Fry the Dog in Santa Fe

We had to put Fry The Dog down a few weeks ago. He had a big tumor on his shoulder, but we elected to not have it removed because the x-rays showed metastases in his lungs and abdomen. He did fine for a long while, but the tumor continued to grow and it hemorrhaged at the vet’s so we had it removed, and he continued to do well, until he didn’t, and then it was time. It’s been hard for us, and I don’t know how Maggie The Dog (they have the same middle name also!) feels.

So we are in Santa Fe for the first time since then, and just one-dogged. Maggie herself is getting older, and while she is fine with us on early morning hikes (such as the one to Diablo Canyon today) she gets wiped out for quite a while. Maggie stays near, while if Fry were off the leash he’d go off for a while. He’d come back eventually, but in his own time. Not always compatible with making plans – like driving home! We take a shorter walk in the evening and enjoy the late (it is summer!) and always beautiful sunsets. Yesterday it was a perfect evening, and we sat out on the deck and watching the sun set, and stayed for the post-sunset, as the sky gradually darkened. Cool enough, slight breeze, and no mosquitoes here. Of course, the sunset is terrific here every night, as is the sunrise (which wakes me up), but each one is also the one that is happening, and I feel inspired to take a picture.

It was a fine day, starting with the sunrise picture, and then about a 4 mile or more hike on some of the trails that surround us. Lazy afternoon, nap and workout, and then a good dinner with a good friend. Now that I don’t live in KC any more, I feel ok about ordering ribs in another town. At Harry’s Roadhouse they were actually excellent, great flavor and little fat (just enough for flavor). And then driving home to the desert as the sun is going down, the typical cottontails, and a couple of lean coyotes ambling by, and jackrabbits hopping across the prairie, so big it is somehow difficult to tell, other than by the speed, that it is jackrabbit or coyote. And, then there was the big pink racer, or red racer, or coachwhip, snake on the hike the other morning. I somehow was able to appreciate, as I saw it just off to my right, that it was red and not rattling so not venomous, and even better was moving off away from the trail. Still, when you see a 5 foot red snake right next to you, it can cause a sharp intake of breath…although they do kill rattlers.

Anyway, the sitting outside watching the light go was the best part of a good day.

Except for the pic of the red racer, which is stock, the rest are mine.

 Fry

 Maggie

Red Racer

 Diablo Canyon

Reflected Sunset

Sunrise

Sunset

Hiking and dogs near Santa Fe

Lovely hike this morning, repeating the one of 2 days ago but earlier, just after sunrise, had coffee and breakfast after the dawn (see pic). It still got too warm for long-sleeve T after a while (though nice in the shade coming down the western slope of the hill). About 3 miles along ridges and valleys and down hills, past where the village of Trenza may someday be. The desert is so green from all the rain, it is almost a different place. Yesterday morning the rain, which is sometimes morning and sometimes afternoon, was threatening and it was still very wet from the rain of the previous afternoon and evening, so we took two shorter walks of about a mile, still getting a little wet and muddy, the dogs needing to be toweled off before coming into the small house and lying on “their” couch. The rain is much needed for some relief from the long droughts, and has usually been only part of the day, leaving us time to hike.

But that mud, from the trail, was nothing like yesterday afternoon, at least not for Fry. Despite the foggy, overcast morning, it cleared up and about 3 we took off along the ridge, around it, and down to just above the Cowboy Shack, where we head left for home across the valley. Well, at least Maggie and I did. Maggie had been drinking from the little canvas dog water bowl each time we stopped and I took some water, but not Fry. He was too good for that! Or maybe he had something else in mind. When we got to that turn, Maggie and I drank and went left while Fry trotted off to the right. He knew where he was going, and I did too, but there was nothing I could do about it. Down a little bit to the right, just before the Cowboy Shack, is a windmill-fed water tank; for cattle in the old days, now mostly horses. And, in the past, for dogs when we went further than there was water in the pack. Fortunately, Maggie has never done that, but Fry remembered.

So Maggie and I headed off and figured Fry eventually would catch up, which he eventually did (although not before I wondered if he might not find us, silly me, and I’d have to drive down and see if he was waiting near the closest road). And covered in mud, over all his legs, butt, and belly (pic). The water tank often overflows with mud around it at all the access points, especially when it’s been raining, which it has. It was a nice walk back, but back at the house I had to hook up the hose (and get something

on my arm from the grass that caused it to itch, but seemed to wash off) and hose him down. And then rub him down from a bucket to get the places I missed or couldn’t get too. And then he had to sit out on the deck for a couple of hours (in the shade, with a water bowl, and he likes it anyway) getting mostly dry before being toweled off and let in. What are the odds he learned a lesson? I wouldn’t bet on it! He didn’t take any water when Maggie and I did on this morning’s shorter hike, but fortunately (for me) there was no water tank, and he loaded up when he got home. If it stays clear, we might go on a hike that takes us by a different water tank this afternoon, so we’ll see…

In any case, the desert around Santa Fe is always beautiful, and maybe more so from all the rain (although fewer sunsets). The town is great; have had several lunches with friends (or sometimes alone) at favorite venues. Enough time for reading, writing, naps, and just enjoying the views. Sigh. Terrific!

Snow, the dogs and memories

Well, it’s the first snow of the season, at least for me and the dogs. Kansas City had some snow over the holidays when were out of town (Pat is again out of town, missing this); we saw the remains of it on the north sides of buildings and walls. But this is fresh snow to wake up to; not too much, only an inch or two, but enough to carpet all the streets and sidewalks and bushes and grass, and to make it necessary to put on boots for our walk (for me, not the dogs). Also warm clothes, because it is also about 8 degrees, which we consider chilly in these parts. Temperatures have been up and down, a combination of climate change and the fact that KC sits smack in the middle of several weather systems; last weekend it was even colder (4 with a wind chill of -13 on Sunday) but it was dry; by Thursday we had a sunny 62! Last night we were outside on a clear 30 degree night, and I told Becky on the phone how that was quite pleasant – didn’t really even need gloves. Not this morning, though.

The snow was pretty virginal, and so Fry, Maggie and I were the first ones to walk in it out of our building and down the street, although a couple of folks had cleaned paths from their front yards to the curb. Almost no one shovels their sidewalks, but a couple of people with snowblowers like to get them out. The real problem walking dogs in snow is when there is a lot of it, and most people haven’t cleared their sidewalks so you walk in the street, but the plows have piled the snow up by the curbs making it difficult to get out of the way if cars come careening toward you, which happens too often. But not a problem today.

It was also Maggie’s first snow-walk with us, although at 5 years old I’m sure she has seen it; we just adopted her after Thanksgiving, to try to fill some of the hole left by Yonkel’s passing last spring. At first, and indeed second, glance she looks a lot like Fry, but in reality she is much stockier and stronger, a combination of golden Lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback, to Fry’s golden retriever and beagle. She has no ridge on her back, but is a fast powerful runner like that breed. She also pulls a lot walking, but the Halti collar helps. On the other hand, while she has been known to bolt from the car and run like a crazy dog for laps around the park, she is too bulky to get under the fences in the backyard, and is not driven by Fry’s beagle-like commitment to trying, so I can let her out to run in the yard, while keeping Fry on the retractable leash.

My friend Barry, the inveterate outdoorsman, says (probably quoting someone else) that there is no such thing as “too cold”, just “insufficient gear”. Maybe, but sufficient gear can be bulky and restrict movements a bit. Not quite like the little brother in “Christmas Story” or those depicted in cartoons who are so bundled up they cannot move, or wearing what the now-disgraced Bill Cosby called “idiot mittens”, connected by an elastic band that ran from one to another across your shoulders under your coat (so called because ostensibly if someone pulled one, the other smacked you in your face; I saw but never actually wore these!). But enough so you don’t move as easily, and frankly taking the gloves off to pick up after the dog can not only be cold, but occasionally messy.

This is, of course, why one of the woolen gloves I usually wear is sitting on a towel on the window sill drying slowly, after being washed out. I hope it dries before it freezes. Obviously, the best way to dry it is on the radiator, but
this requires having radiators, and only one house that I have lived in since being an adult had them, and it is not this one. Putting it on top of a forced-air vent would work if they were on the floor, but in this place they are all in the ceiling. From a physics point of view that makes sense for the AC (cold air descends) but less for heat. Having them on the floor can be inconvenient, as small things roll into them, I remember from the house where I had them, especially when there are small children, but there are also compensating advantages. I have very “warm” memories of finding my son Matt downstairs on cold Chicago morning, in his pajamas sitting on such a vent! (Somewhere there is a picture of this, but I can’t find it, so I’ll just use one of the two boys crawling around on the floor there.)

So there it is; we’re back in the house, it’s sunny outside, the dogs are basking in it on the couch, I have brushed the snow off the cars (nice part about very cold; easy to brush off),  I’ll eat breakfast, and maybe soon we’ll have a fire.

Ah. 

Fry dog: too smart for his own good!

So Pat just drove down to Santa Fe with the dog. It was going to be the dogs, and indeed started with the dogs, for oh, about 2 miles. To the gas station just west of the 18^th Street Trafficway on Steele Road. Then she opened the back and Fry jumped out and ran off. He likes to do that; he’s part beagle. He is an escape artist; just let him in the back yard and he’ll find just where there is enough space between fence and ground to wriggle out. That’s the advantage of the small head; even if Yonkel had the motivation or smarts, he wouldn’t make it. Fry is smart enough to know when he can’t get out; he is fine lying around on the couch all day if he is in the house; he doesn’t get anxious the way that Yonkel does. Which is not to say he doesn’t ever get antsy or walk around in circles; he does. And, of course, if tied up outside he barks at everything. He is, after all, part beagle. But, unlike Yonkel, he has never chewed through his leash. Or chewed up the fender and mudflap of my car.

Anyway, there have been a number of episodes where Fry has gotten away and not come back for a long time. Several years back, I chased him up and down our street, and all the little dead end side streets. For an hour. Then I gave up as I was late for work. That afternoon I came back and he was in the building; someone had let him in. And there was the time at the lake, with Adam, where it was about a half-hour of chasing him around. And a few other times. So, at the gas station, there he is, wandering around, looking at Pat, and running away having a gay old time, playing.

And then, after an hour, Pat and Yonkel left. For Santa Fe. Goodbye, Fry, tagged and chipped hopefully someone will find you and call. I was stuck at work so it was several hours later and dark when I got home, half expecting to find him there – it is only a couple of miles. But no. So I drive to the gas station. And there, in the dark, lurking around the pumps, is the Fry dog.

I stop the car, and get out. He looks up and recognizes it, and comes back around the back. He is unsure of himself, if he is in trouble. I invite him in, and drive back home. He drinks a bunch of water, and I feed him dinner and he sleeps a while on the couch; we go for a short walk later. He is chastened, a little, maybe, for a while. Perhaps. In any case, he is out of a trip to New Mexico, and playing around in the desert for a week; I am flying and he is going to go stay with friends (if he is lucky) or a kennel.

But that is several days away. Now he is with me, wondering where Yonkel is. Pat goes away sometimes, but Yonkel and he are always together. Pat assures me, from Santa Fe, that Yonkel has no such stress; he is fine without Fry. So, today we drove down to the lake. And he recognizes it, and is happy, and is waiting not too peacefully for our walk. And so we walk.

Along the road that we always walk, down the west side of the lake from the little road to our house to the public dock. I let him off the leash, despite the new and (to me) ominous signs about every hundred feet on right on the other side of the road that said “WIHA. Walk in Hunting Area only. Shotguns and Bows only. No Fireams Deer Hunting”. Somehow, I was not reassured, but I didn’t hear any shooting or zings of arrows. I guess it is ok to hunt deer with bows, which is a good thing; for birds you need a shotgun, and I don’t think you’re going to hunt rabbits with a bow, unless you’re Catnip Everlast from the “Hunger Games”; even Robin Hood stuck pretty much to deer!

But I let him off the leash anyway, and he seemed to walk closer to me than usual. At least for a while. He didn’t really disappear from sight, not for very long, for the walk down to the dock. We did have a little issue as we passed the house at the next road, where there is a big dog that is protective, barks a lot, and has been even known to come out to chase and attack our dogs. He was there, and alerted by a new dog, a smaller dog, probably a cocker spaniel, whose job, it appeared, was to bark and alert the bigger dog. So out they came, and I am warning them back while urging Fry to move quickly on. And Fry needs to stop and pee on the tree right on their lawn. He must feel safe when I’m there, but they were still threatening and I kept warning them back and urging him on, and he felt he needed to stop and pee again. And now the lady of the house is out calling her dogs back, and I’m still warning them off and urging Fry on, so now he decides, of course, to make one more stop at the edge of their property to pee once more.

A smart dog, but not one with very mature judgment. Oh, well. Maybe he’ll enjoy being gone from us all for a week. It looks like he is going to have the opportunity to hang with some other dogs on a lot of land, and maybe even be tested on another beagle characteristic, hunting (or at least finding birds that have been planted).

This morning we went on another walk, following the beautiful sunrise. (OK, following by an hour and a half; I had to wake up, dress, make and drink coffee, eat breakfast – all those irrititating dog-walk-delaying things people do! Cooler, and a lovely walk; I really like it down here. Of course, Fry left less than halfway to the dam, and I worried as I continued to watch the WIHA signs and even heard a shot. I was wearing my RED jacket! He joined me again just before the same house; no dogs out today so he was even bolder, marking on the ground by their sign and thoroughly exploring (and I imagine marking more) their yard; I was on my way home. There is, in any case, a ritualistic nature to our walks; he will not leave our area to go up the hill unless I accompany him (which I only do a couple of times a day, despite his persistent hints, running a ways up the hill and looking back), but once on the road, he is on his own, and comes back on his own.

Now he is lying on the futon in the sun, and I am having another cuppa. J

Lake Fort Scott diary: Boating, bumps and dogs

Yonkel is good at rustling. He can also make noise, or jump up on the bed, or, already on the bed, sit up suddenly. He can jump off the bed, wander around, loudly lap water, and in particular scratch himself assiduously, seriously jingling his dog tags. At the lake house, there are also the beaded curtains to the bedroom that he can make noise going back and forth through, although Fry, not a rustler, does this as well. Sometimes he does not do any of these distinctive actions, but just paces around, breathing, not randomly but right there by your bed. It is purposeful. He wants you to get up.

Why is not certain, but my hope at 6 in the morning (first I thought it was 5) was that he just to be let out; at the lake this is a relatively easy matter. I recognized it was six because the sun was coming up, beautiful red sky on the eastern shore, and so looked at the clock. I considered washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting on a suit and going out in the kayak to enjoy the first light. I decided to try to go back to sleep.

Not terribly successful. It couldn’t have been 15 minutes, no real sleep, when the door was scratched and Yonkel needed to come back in. OK, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on a suit ready to go out. But not in the kayak; how could I leave the dogs? Fry was still outside, and Yonkel would want to come. OK, I could take the rowboat, and attach the electric trolling motor that is in the shed, using the marine batteries that faithfully stay charging in the bedroom closet for just such an event. I knew getting ready would take a while, but I could bring my dogs.

Well, of course, the rowboat had been moved over to the other side of the put-in, as it had been lying on the concrete and rocks right below the tree that had burned down last week and was now a stump. (That’s another story.) The boat was lying on top of the sailboat hull, and first I had to turn it over. Not a light boat, all steel, but heck, that’s probably why it didn’t burn. And haul it down the concrete put-in to the water. Let’s just say was not easy; it is easier to pull from the front, but this was not an option.

I had carried the battery down to the water already, so just had to go back to the house for the crawling-insect spray, get the motor and oars and life vest from the shed, attach the motor and the battery, get the dogs in the boat, and go off into the fast-lightening but still definitely misty morning. I got the spray and sprayed the boat. In the shed, the oars were near the door (Jimmy and the kids must have used them). I note, with some satisfaction that my work had been worth it, that the kayak is kind of buried and would involve some work to pull out. I put on my life vest (too tight; found it had been adjusted for a kid and fixed it), found the motor in the corner, lifted it, put it down on my sandaled foot (not too hard). Grabbed the oars in one hand, and the motor in the other and stepped down from the shed onto the little two-step to the ground.

Only got to the first before I found myself on my back, in some pain having banged it on the lower step and my head on the doorway as I had gone down fast, slipping on the wet, slanted wood step. Darn! I did this last year! I should remember to be careful  when stepping out of the shed. Onto a wet step. And especially when the bottoms of my Tevas are covered with mud from walking around moving the boat on the wet dirt. (This latter I noticed later.)

Luckily, I am not too hurt. Could have been but am not. Maybe the life vest cushioned my fall (right). Get up, get the oars and motor and take them down to the rowboat. Its stern has moved a little further out, and it is rocking more (someone had gone by, even this early, with a power boat. You may be planning to fish using your electric trolling motor, but you need that 95hp gas motor to get you the half mile from the dock to the fishing spot fast!). I put the oars in the locks, grab the motor, and carefully (I am capable of learning) make my way to the stern and fasten the electric motor. I carefully make my way back, and retrieve the battery, and bring it back to the stern so I can attach it to the motor.

I could have attached it, but chose not to. This is because it would have been useless, as I now note 1 inch segment of the power cord which is not there (only the red half). Good old pack rats! Add this to the list of sail sheets, foam rubber pads, power motor pull cords, and pieces of the orange extension cord that are no longer usable.

Well, too much done to abandon ship. I have the oars. I call the dogs. No response. I call again. Finally Yonkel shows up; Fry is nowhere to be seen. I invite Yonkel into the boat. He evinces no interest. I coax him. No. I push off, to show him I am serious, then float back to pick him up. He sits there, smiling. I call him again. He gets up and comes to within two feet of the boat. No closer. The heck with it. I go off rowing by myself.

Not too far; rowing backwards means you can’t see where you are going, rowing forwards is slow. And the tholes are attached to the oars too far down, so the ends of the oars hit me in the (lifevest-protected!) chest as I come to the middle. But still pretty; I go into the mist-covered cove nearby, and see what must be a weasel of some kinds scampering around on one of the docks. First I thought it was a squirrel, but it is a little too long and lean and what would a squirrel be doing down on the dock and the rocks next to it anyway? I had forgotten the binoculars (probably would have been around my neck and damaged in the fall, anyway) and by the time I am close enough to further identify him using a book (weasel? Stoat? Ferret? Too small for an otter…) he is hidden in the rocks.

I startle the Great Blue Heron who lives in the cove and he flies off majestically. When I head back, probably out for less than a half-hour, Yonkel is happily waiting. I put away motor and battery and pull the boat up and go in to make coffee. Yonkel comes in, Fry (who has reappeared) stays outside. Next time, back to the kayak.

Note: I have it on good authority that it was a mink!
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