Bree has gone home

For the past three weeks it has been our pleasure to host Bree, the Sheltie, while Rog and Carolyn went for a hike in Wales. Rog has had a keen interest in the legend of King Arthur for many years, to the extent that he has translated ancient poems and sonnets from Olde English and Gaelic in order to have a better understanding of the legend and the places and times of King Arthur. This trip to Wales was to find and verify a few more of the storied battle sites. He's now confident that he has visited ten of the twelve major battlefield sites where King Arthur fought. (Some scholars believe that King Arthur exists only in legend, but they haven't talked to Roger yet).

Bree is essentially a farm dog. Her best friend is a cat. Her responsibility is a flock of sheep. So, smart though she is, she had a few things to learn about town life. For instance, city park squirrels are too fast to catch, cars are nothing to fool with, and there are a lot of dogs in town! Most of the dogs were first detected by the secret (to humans) postings at strategic posts, poles and bushes. Then, when she was lucky, we would run across one of the "posters" also out on a walk. They would start with the nose touch, then the full body sniff, and finally a snarl or simple dismissal or some playful romping and silliness. Over the course of the three weeks, at five walks per day, she met a good number of her fellow canines.

The thing that I noticed as the days went by is that she became more and more interested in the postings, and did more and more posting herself. During the first few days she would simply "dump", then continue the walk. By the last week she had several favorite scenting sites and saved enough to leave a message at each one. Our old dog Max was a great canine communicator. He used to take so long constructing his message that I theorized that dogs must have several valves along their urinary tract, and could consciously mix and measure just the right concoction to deliver the exact message desired. Who knows?

Bree accompanied us to Viroqua the first weekend she was here, but there's not much more for a dog to do in Viroqua than in Lanesboro. The second trip she took with us was a doggy doozy though. We went to see Matt and Kelly and James and Noelle and Logan! Bree and Logan were instant buddies and spent 3 whole days exploring the farm, sniffing out the trails of rabbits and raccoons and moles, and there were two kitties just for variety. What a good time! Just about like home!

And now Bree has gone home, happily, and we'll miss her.

Somebody else might have called her Sweetheart...

...but I call her "Jaffer". Our byline might need some explanation.

When we lived on France Avenue our next door neighbors included Brett Bielke, a cute 3 year old who couldn't pronounce "Jennifer" correctly. It came out "Jaffer". I wanted to be cute too so I picked up on that, and I guess I call her "Jaffer" unconsciously now.

"Guy" is another, older, story. When my Dad was born, his father, Alfred Lee Riddle, wanted to name him "Guy" but his mother, Thora (who invented lefse), wanted to name him Ernest Vernon. Lee was a short Englishman and Thora a tall Norwegian, so Thora prevailed and the baby was registered and baptized as Ernest Vernon. My Grandpa had a stubborn streak though and insisted on calling Ernest "Guy" until Ernest was well into his school years. I told Jennifer this story when we were getting acquainted and she started calling me "Guy". I guess tall Norwegians can have their way.

Status Reports

That's what this reminds me of - - the weekly status report. As usual, it's tough to get started, but you know you have to because there's a deadline. In my prior life a status report was turned into a customer invoice, and a customer invoice was prerequisite to my paycheck. The main reason that I hated doing it was that the weekly status often had to be "fluffed up" a little bit to make it seem more important than it really was, or the customer might realize that they could do without me, which would upset my agent or employer. Anyway.....

This week was almost totally devoted to bicycling. We averaged a little over 20 miles a day (no fluff!) Tuesday thru Saturday. Tuesday I rode 22 miles (round trip to Preston) and was exhausted by the time I got home. Saturday Jennifer and I rode the same route and we felt pretty good by the time we got home. Our goal for this year is a round trip to Harmony, which will be about 48 miles, and we think we'll be ready when we get a nice day after Tuesday of next week. Legs aren't the problem this year. The limiting factor is my right arm. The leaning forward, or "dropped", position puts pressure on hands and arms, and I'm not quite there yet.

We've had lots of time to bicycle because we're not devoting any time to unpacking and organizing "the little house". Why would we if we're going to move again in 6 weeks? We can see that the current owners of 508 Fillmore are here this weekend, but they're not spending any time outside so we assume they're packing. It's a little awkward. My natural inclination is to go over there and introduce myself, but then there is always the possibility of screwing up the deal with too much talk, so we hide from them and they're probably hiding from us too. It's a small matter. We'll never see each other again except for a few minutes at the closing, so we're not losing friends or even much of a possibility to make new friends.

Jennifer's digital camera is temporarily missing, presumed to be safely packed in one of 10,000 cartons, but who knows? When we find it I hope we can include some interesting pictures on this blog like you guys do. Jennifer has gone to the cities today to see her favorite artist Charlotte Laxen at the arboretum, so I'm going to ride over to Whalen for lunch and top it off with apple pie alamode!