Barking Dog

We had trudged out to the truck Sunday morning to dig it free of the snow it had foundered to a halt in during Saturday’s mini-blizzard.  Never forget how much a vehicle can side step when losing traction on snow.  The wheels were resting within inches of a drop-off.  Once again, bailing out had paid off.

I took my abuse for being a dozy old fart and shoveled, muttering venom.  We both muttered and shoveled like quarry slaves.  The upper surfaces were frozen icy, and came free in ten or fifteen pound chunks to be heaved off downhill.  Square steel shovels only.  We had shed jackets and were sweating like field hands facing a literacy test.  It was plain, old timey, hard work that I can feel now in my hands, arms, legs and back.

We did it for hours, maybe five, when, though the truck was still nailed down, we finally agreed that we were done.  We began to slog back through and over the drifts to the house.  As we shambled along a dog began barking at us off down hill, maybe a few hundred yards off.  We slogged on, but our dog was listening, looking down hill.

We got home and Wife went in the house.  I went into my shop and burned one, sipping coffee out of a Yeti cup that was still blood warm.  The dog was barking outside, so I picked up the binoculars and walked out by where she sat, ears up, facing downhill.  The dog downhill barked again, and my dog responded and ran downhill some.  I scanned with the glass but saw not much.  I tried to look where she was looking.

Finally, a black Labrador popped up in the glass, and soon she was in our midst, wagging and polite, my dog with every hackle up, looking all punk-rock.  Wife checked out her collar and got her name and a phone number.  Paonia had strayed uphill, and soon her owner was headed our way.

We met him with his dog back where the truck was nailed.  A guy in his 20s or 30s, beard and Carhartts.  He was thankful to get his dog, "I was chopping wood and she was right there. Then, she wasn’t."

Yeah, dogs.  Who knows what a dog might do?  Back and forth, small talk, didn’t know this guy.  Meet the neighbor, etc., then he suggested he might help me dig out the truck, being neighborly and all.  Fact is, Me and Him we finished it out.  We did it to where Monday, Wife and I backed it back down the drive and out.  Freed at last from the Thanksgiving Snow.

Inconvenience will come.  It is written.  When it does though, other things occur that present an option that clears the path, assuming you haven’t pissed off everyone within five miles.

Riley.......2 Dec 2019