Month: November 2022

Gratitude and Beer (and Jed)

The story below came up on my Facebook feed this morning. It made me think of all the things that I’m grateful for over the past ten years. The list is long, so in the interest of not being overly maudlin, I’m truncating it here:

  • Vanessa
  • Our children and grandchildren
  • The farm
  • The dogs (Jed has long since passed, but we still have Bobo and The Others)
  • The fact that Elon Musk did not buy Facebook
Jed – You had the softest ears I’ve ever rubbed.

From FB: November 18, 2012

So, this morning we are making beer, Rae-Ray’s In-Town Big Blonde, Batch #2. About the time most people are starting church, I’m standing at the kitchen sink, thinking about how much I like making beer on Sunday morning. On the stove, we have two and a half gallons of wort boiling, and the sweet smell of malt and the bitterness of hops are filling the house, and Vanessa is standing next to me cutting up veggies for tonight’s dinner, and Jed-the-red-tick coonhound is standing behind me, hoping for some morsel to fall his way. I’m thinking how great a ritual Sunday morning beer making is for a slightly OCD agnostic. All is right with the world.

I am also filling a five-gallon carboy (that big glass bottle) with hot water and sterilizer, and the bubbles are getting closer and closer to the top, where I have stuck the sprayer nozzle. Unbeknownst to me, the sprayer nozzle, which fits perfectly on the lip of the carboy, has created a seal, so the pressure from the suds is building as it fills with hot water and soap. When it’s nearly full, I take the nozzle out and suddenly there is an explosion. A major explosion.

Boom!

Vanessa had left her rings in a small cup on the window sill above the sink. The cup goes flying, rings scatter. I have no idea what just happened, and I’m thinking: water main break, gas explosion, boiling wort, terrorists, massive dog fart. I have no idea, but I turn around and Vanessa has somehow teleported herself into the next room, from which she is looking at me slack-jawed, and Jed has disappeared completely. I know now that if there ever is a real emergency, I’m on my own.

So, I check everything, starting with myself. All my parts are still there, intact and functioning, so far as I can tell. The carboy has not exploded, the stove is not on fire, the cabinet under the sink is not filling with water, and there’s not a terrorist in lurking outside.

Jordan saunters out of her room as only a fourteen-year-old can and asks, “Hey, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

I collect Vanessa’s rings, which are scattered over the counter and in the sink trap, and check on Jed, who is lying on the couch in the den, having forgotten the entire event. I am grateful for everything I have. I am especially grateful that it was Jed behind me, and not Bobo, who is still young enough to pee when he’s startled. That would have been a real mess, flying wedding rings and dog piss all over the kitchen.

Gratitude is such a gift.

Amen

Cheers

We still miss you.

A Routine Morning

Every morning around sunrise, I take the dogs out for a walk. By the time the sky starts to lighten, I’m generally into my second cup of coffee and I’ve read Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letter from an American,” checked the weather, read a couple of articles on NPR and the New York Times, and started the daily Wordle.

By this point, Vanessa has read me a few excerpts from The Daily Beast, possibly the Washington Post (to which she recently subscribed), and Twitter. I don’t have a Twitter account. And I don’t like to talk much in the morning, but I don’t mind listening. And she only reads me the juicy parts. I kind of like it.

Though I don’t always show it.

If it’s a lucky day, I’m done with Wordle by the time the sky outside our east-facing bedroom window starts showing off its rosy fingers of dawn (Sorry Homer–the blind one, not Simpson). If it’s not a lucky day, I may have to set Wordle aside and come back to it again. And sometimes again. And occasionally, even, again.

About this time, the dogs start getting restless. Little Lord Mittford, who sleeps at the foot of our bed, unless he can manage to slither up between us in the middle of the night, starts looking around the room and stretching. Cooper (a.k.a. Thumper) either comes into the bedroom, tail wagging ninety beats a minute (thump, thump, thump, thump), or he crawls out from under the bed, tail wagging ninety beats a minute. And Bobo, who sleeps in any part of the house he wants, starts darting in and out of the bedroom. If he licks my hand, he needs to pee.

So, Vanessa and I get up, dress, and she helps me hustle the dogs out the door.

Morning from the top of the driveway.

The dogs do their morning business on nearby bushes and shrubs while I finish buttoning up my jacket, organizing my socks inside my muck boots, and generally readying myself for our morning trip down the hill. I always check to make sure I have at least one leash draped over my shoulders. I’ll need it for the trip back up the hill.

Morning from the bottom of the driveway.

Somewhere between the top of the hill and the bottom of the hill, Mike joins us. Mike sleeps outside, where he likes to spend the night barking. We originally got Mike as a livestock guard dog, which means he should be sleeping in the back of the property with the sheep and goats. But Mike sees his own role as much larger than that. He sees himself as Guardian of the Realm. Midnight barking right under our bedroom window aside, we can’t complain. We’ve never lost a sheep or goat to coyotes.

Morning from the pond.

By the time we get to the bottom of the hill by the pond (about 300 yards from the house), Bobo, Mitt, and Cooper are in a near frenzy, running around, sniffing out deer scat or mole rats or the lingering scent of passing mammals while Mike and I stand on the driveway, looking on, waiting for the excitement to come to an end. Mike has only one basic question for any creature that ventures onto the property: Are you a coyote? If the answer is yes, he will heap the Wrath of Mike upon you. If the answer is no, then help yourself. Take whatever trinkets you want.

A couple of years ago, the neighbors built a house just over the crest of the hill across the road. The roof always makes me think of a ship coming over the horizon. A pirate ship.

Every morning, I am surprised by how quickly the light changes. It’s like, one moment I’m looking one way into mostly shadows and darkness, and then I turn around and someone turned the lights on. The sky has gone from cobalt to pool blue, and the deep rosy fingers of dawn have faded to pastel.

The Turning Point

This is when I need the leash. Bobo is pretty directional when we’re going down the hill. I’m not so confident about him going back up. He used to want to eat the neighbor’s dog–a sweet lab mix named Molly–and he would try to get across the fence and do just that on a regular basis. But that was years ago, and Bobo is now older. In fact, he has surpassed me in dog-year equivalence. And Molly died a couple years ago (not, thank-god, because of anything Bobo did).

But old habits remain, so at the bottom of the hill, I leash him up, and we head back up to the house.

Cooper (left) and Bobo
Mike
Back up the Hill

A few minutes later, we are climbing the hill. There is an occasional foray to the dock, but there are no mole rats on the dock, so the dogs soon lose interest in that real estate, and besides, they know where the treats are waiting.

The sky lightens.

A few minutes later, and we are back. The dogs have run. They’ve dug for mole rats, sniffed for passing mammals, and rolled in whose-so-ever droppings they wanted to roll in. I have either solved Wordle, or I’m waiting for the answer to bubble up from somewhere in the shadows of my consciousness, or Wordle has kicked my butt, and I am grateful just to be in living in a place where I get to watch the day start afresh every day. Morning after morning.

Have a good day.