Oh Deer!

Small town country living has it's advantages.  The half grocery store half hardware store has friendly employees and no wait at the check out counter.  The post office is so tiny, only one customer can fit in the lobby.  Everyone else just mingles and chats by the post office boxes and no one is a stranger.  

But when someone hits a deer on the back country roads, the cleanup crew consists of scavenger birds.  Abby was getting older and it was harder for her to hear but there was nothing wrong with her nose.  In the winter, she was roaming freely in the front yard.  It was night time and she usually stuck close to the house.  I went outside to get her and noticed she was intently gnawing on something.  It was a leg bone.  I was horrified and pulled her by the collar.  Too dark to tell if it was an animal leg or a human leg, we returned to the safety of the house.  Fresh on my mind was the discovery of the missing body of a man just one mile down the road.  The discovery happened because the property owner's dog carried back a piece of leg bone.  I may have an active imagination but this time my uneasiness was based on pure fact.

The next morning, I went outside to inspect the leg still laying on our front lawn.  There was a hoof attached to it.  This meant that Abby went across the street and slightly down the road to drag back her unexpected treat.  This also meant that her digestive system and the deer leg were going to have a battle in a couple of days and I was going to have a lot to clean up.

At the start of summer, we discovered a dead deer in the front part of our woods.  As the temperatures rose, the buzzards gathered.  At the end of the weekend, only a skeleton remained.  Many weeks later, the Englishman decided to let Abby out on a nighttime adventure.  When she returned, I knew that a bath was going to be the first chore the next day.  While I bathed her, multiple packages were delivered to the front door.  When I opened the door to bring the packages inside, I saw a deer leg on the front door.  Mortified of what the delivery driver thought of us, I asked my husband about the bone.  He told me it belonged to Abby.  She brought it back the night before after coating herself in "eau de dead deer".  I was not looking forward to the upcoming days of her grumbling tummy and my clean up duties.

As if on cue, Sunday night, after the Englishman left for a business trip, the fun began.  After a special diet for several days and many snarky comments made by me, I dearly hope the late night solo escapades were over for good.

Bunk Beds Are Evil

 As children at the cottage in Maine, my sister and I shared a room made extra special by bunk beds.  These old wooden and metal beds had a bouncy wire base that held the lumpy, thin mattresses.  I had the bottom and Liz had the top.  

Our bedtime was pretty early - it was still light outside but our parents probably needed a break.  I honed my singing skills but belting out all the songs that I knew.  When Liz whined, I added  rhythm by placing my feet on the bottom of her bunk and pushed up in a pulsing manner.  This was fantastic exercise.  

If she dangled her blanket over the edge and I could sense that she was asleep, I would assist her by pulling the blanket to the floor.  Her favorite stuffed animal was a brown dog called Henry.  If his arm was within reach, he would suddenly end up in my bed.  And then one fateful night, she fell asleep with her arm hanging over the edge.  I reached up and gave a gentle tug, but Liz tumbled out of her bed!  Reaching deep into my bag of acting skills, I pretended to be asleep while she howled and was fussed over by my parents.  She, rightfully, accused me of this act but this was dismissed as I was clearly asleep, only recently woken by her screams.

Many years later Liz and I were traveling through France and visiting friends in different regions.  When we arrived in Pierre-Latte and were shown to our room, I entered first and claimed the bottom bunk bed.  Liz still had trust issues with a bunk bed so she yanked her mattress from the top and set up a sleeping space on the floor.  A week later, when we arrived in Les Arcs, Liz entered our sleeping quarters first and triumphantly claimed the lower bunk before she discovered her mistake.  These were not traditional beds but more like a sleeping platform.  She could only do damage to her head as the taller sister when she entered and exited her bed.  

Some childhood memories run deep.  For me, the memories bring a sense of nostalgia and a bit of humor (okay...a lot of humor).  As for my sister, I'm pretty sure that she still believes that bunk beds are evil.

Cornered

We have a lot of dog art.  My mom has painted portraits of our original group of dogs.  My dad created a picture of Chase using a wood burning technique.  We’ve purchased art from galleries that feature dogs or contain dogs.  For the last few years I’ve whined and begged and stomped my foot at my mom who still has yet to produce a painting of our English Shepherd, Abby. 

When we moved last year to our new house, we discovered that we had a lot of pictures to hang.  Over the months, we began choosing walls and framing prints and worked our way through rooms and boxes of our pictures.  I carefully pulled the bubble wrap from a picture we purchased in the Lake District in 2012, called “Cornered” by Jeff Sudders.  I was drawn to it because of the spray painted marks on the sheep.  They were in a corner of the pasture, held captive by a black and white English Shepherd.  

I pointed out the "Abby Dog" to my husband and smiled at the thought of purchasing a painting with her in it before I ever loved her.