When Bill came home yesterday, I was brimming over with news. I didn't tell him everything though. And, I've got selfish reasons. I'll get to that later.
First, another stunning fall day got my juices going. I'm getting spoiled on these crisp mornings with cloudless blue skies followed by warm afternoons and seemingly split-second transitions into piercing cold, full-moon nights. It's gonna be tough when those unwelcome heavy cloud blankets drop in over the mountains and nestle in for long, gray visits. For now, though, these are very good days.
Harvey Lippert came at 8 with his hayhands and four tons of grass and alfalfa. I'd picked out a spot in the loafing shed for his crew to stack the bales and asked them to hold back ten grass bales for the barn where I've already stored nearly a ton of alfalfa. Harvey and I chatted while the young guys unloaded the hay. It's always good to see him (a former student and 4-H'er) and catch up on how the farming's going. We talked fences, neighbors and even Little Billie.
That's Harvey's Angus bull who came up for a visit in the field next to our loafing shed. Little Billie isn't so little any more. I'm guessing 1850 or 1900 pounds of coal black beefsteaks and roasts on the hoof. Little Billie was doing some deep-toned bull talk yesterday while standing across the fence. Then he ambled off to join his cows.
After Harvey left, I did some house cleaning, then changed my clothes and waited for Mother to come in her new SUV, which had a dashboard light warning that the oil was low. She knew she just had the car serviced a month ago, so she figured the light was lying. Not wanting to take a chance, she wanted me to follow her to Rokstad Ford where we met MAAAAARRRRRK Peterson at the service desk.
I haven't seen MAAAAAARRRRRK Peterson for quite some time, so, of course, I had to greet him as MAAAAAARRRRRK. He's a former student who could blush with the best of them, and while he was in school, we got into this MAAAAAAARRRRRK and MAAAARRRRRIAANNNE ritual. I'd bark MAAAAAAARRRRK. He'd turn purple and then growl back MAAAAAARRRRRIANNNNE. Don't ask me the motivation. It was just fun.
Anyway, MAAAAARRRRRK determined quickly that Mother's car had plenty of oil, so he summoned Shane, a Texas transplant from the shop, to reset the oil light so it would quit lying to my mother. We went on our way to her appointment. When that ended, I headed home and quickly changed into my "paintin' pants." They're kinda scary cuz I've painted a lot of red and white stuff while wearing them, and they're kinda big.
I grabbed a bucket of white farm paint and a brush and began painting a short stretch of board fence along our lane. After finishing one side of the section, I headed back to the house where a telephone message from Jim Watkins awaited me.
"Call me," he said, "I want to share the latest Alana news with you." Alana's another former student who hung around with Willie and his buddy Seth from grade six through their 1995 graduation. The trio seemed to find ways to conjure up a good argument with strangers from other high schools in some of their wanderings, and fortunate for them, they came home unscathed. They've remained a closeknit circle ever since. Alana's also a dear friend to me, and her dad was pleased to tell me she's getting married next September here in the Sandpoint area.
After the Alana announcement, I went back outside to paint, then came in to fix dinner. I heard the dogs barking outside. With no windows on our north side, that's only way I usually know that someone's come to visit. Opening the door to the garage, I saw my neighbor and classmate Gary Finney, flanked by dogs and carrying a white sack. Later, it seemed appropriate why the dogs would be so interested in what Gary had in that sack.
A Good Dog is a brand new book about a Border Collie named Orson who changed the author John Katz' life. John Katz writes about dogs. He's got lots of books under his belt, and this one definitely has me under a John Katz spell. My beer brat friend and Charlie Cat donor Rose Marie thought I ought to have the book, so she asked Gary to deliver it to the Lovestead.
Rose Marie told me the other day she'd picked up a book that she thought I ought to have, but wouldn't divulge its contents. She was so on the mark. Once I saw that Border Collie cover and thumbed through the chapters, mostly introduced by black and white Border Collie portraits, I was hooked.
That was the news I did NOT share with Bill when he came home. Instead, I hid the book in an upstairs bedroom with plans to tell him about it AFTER I've finished reading the stories. I've learned from past experiences that to have a good book around the house with my husband leads to a competition. He picks it up, starts reading, passes my bent-back page corner, and leaves me with no chance of sharing any of the tales I've just read. The journalist in me wants to read it first.
So, this time, and because I know that cover will melt his heart as much as it did mine, he's going to have to wait to hear about and read A Good Dog by John Katz.
When he does, and only then, will we offer Kiwi a chance to read it for herself. But then, the more I think about Katz' dog herding New Jersey school buses, the more I think it's best that we keep it on the banned book list for Lovestead Border Collies.
After all, I don't want her to get any ideas; Folgers coffee cans will have to continue satisfying her herding instincts. Otherwise, I'll have the school bus shop director and fellow Border Collie owner Gail Curless on my tail. And, that's not good.
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