And the beat goes on

Heat. Lots of it. A dry, aggressive assault on the senses. When out in it, you get the feeling that things could spontaneously combust at any moment. At the time the picture was taken, my indoor reader registered 117° for the sending unit up under the eaves, shaded, on the bunk house behind the main house. The humidity is about 15% and has been as low as 7% so far this summer. This is weather more typical of the Atacama or Death Valley. I'm starting to wonder if we are the new Anasazi.

Hot & grumpy

Our heat wave continues. This afternoon my outdoor temp reader registered 116° and I consider that a trifle warm, even for Arizona where I used to live. Jack is always up for going out and running around but the others would just as soon stay inside and snuggle up to a fan. I'm trying to discourage Jack from doing too much wild dashing about, too. Even for a young, vigorous, healthy dog it's just too hot for that stuff.

I have to cross an open-range section of the buffalo ranch to get to the main two-track and this fellow was standing right on the edge of the road. I paused only for a moment and then moved on. These citizens are usually pretty docile but it just doesn't pay to make assumptions about something that weighs two-thousand pounds and might be feeling a trfile peeved about something or other. I like my own space and I also believe in the Golden Rule.

Mighty dry

It's about as dry as I can remember. No rain in a long time and none in sight. Critters are staying pretty close to the watering holes. Grass is poor and getting poorer.

Hot, too. With the exception of a few days early last week we have had about three weeks of 100°+ temps. Got up to 114° one day. The old joke about "110° in the shade!" "Well, stay outta the shade!" just ain't funny. Well, a little funny.

We need about a week of steady, soaking rain.

Emma's snake "thing"

I think I've posted before about Emma and snakes. That is, when they meet Emma terminates them with extreme prejudice.

Late last month I might have gotten some insight into what goes on in her mind. I was sitting on the front deck, enjoying a beautiful, mild late afternoon. The dogs were amusing themselves. Em was alone out front about 60 yards and seemed to be interested in something in the grass, circling it, going in, jumping back a little, but not really very excited about it. At first I thought it must be a snake, but then I was sure it was not because she was not diving in for the kill. A turtle? I keep binocs on the table next to my chair but couldn't see enough of it to tell what it was.

Emma got bored and left the scene, and I decided to walk out and see what it was. A mistake, as I should have put Em in the house. She saw me going out there and tagged along. Sure enough, it was a snake: a big bullsnake, maybe 4-1/2 feet long. When I got about ten feet from it Emma sprang into action, charged in, grabbed it, flung it about, and killed it pretty definitely dead, dead, dead. This despite me telling her to drop it and back off. Once committed she cannot be called off a snake. A bird, yes, but not a snake.

Then the penny dropped. She hadn't been all that interested in it before I appeared on the scene. She sprang on the thing when I approached it. My theory is that Em is protecting me, or the other dogs, from something dangerous. "If you're too dumb  to keep away from these things then I'm just gonna have to protect you from yourself by killing it!" she seems to be saying. Makes sense when all the evidence is in, I think.

Yesterday morning, from inside, I noticed Emma and Jack and Mags at the bottom of the steps up to the deck milling around and apparently mildly interested in something under the steps. I stepped out onto the deck and Em body-blocked Jack away and almost broke her silly neck getting her head under the second step and came out with another bullsnake, smaller this time. But just as dead by the time she had finished her business with it.

Been away

Been away for a while and when I came back I couldn't get into the blog to post anything. Weird. But I shifted from Safari to Firefox and managed to get in— at last for the time being. I'll be posting a few things in the next days and I apologize to regulars who may have checked in and discovered I was being a slacker!

Jack's looking good

I bought one of those Garmin dog-tracking units for Jack. It has a sending collar, which he wears, and a handheld GPS unit for me to keep track of him. There are two screens on the GPS related to the dogs programmed into the unit: one shows his compass bearing, distance, and attitude (running, sitting, on point, treeing, etc.); the other shows a map with his position and movement indicated. I've programmed the local landmarks into the map, like cedars, old shop, barn, salt house, storm shelter, autogate, and the corner limits of the compound. It gives him so much more outside, active time than I could give him if I had to go along with him. We've been doing this for a couple of months now and so far he has been very good about limits. Just the other day he did fourteen miles and was never more than seventy yards from the house. The exercise is doing him a lot of good, as can be seen.

That time of year...

Yes, that time of year again. Actually some early-breeding ranchers did their roundups and brandings in April and have been long finished. But the season is well under way now and will run into June. These are the social events of the season, sans ball gowns and tuxedos! After a hard morning of work, sometimes stretching into the afternoon, there will be a fine big meal followed by some card games and lots of conversation, some of it based on fact. The calves are quickly over the trauma and everyone else has a fine, tired-making time doing a hot, dangerous job.

They don't all make it

And when you consider the odds against them, it's almost a wonder any of them do. None of them would make it without the fierce, obsessive care of the mother bird. You can't watch a tiny female defending her fledgling against a snake twenty times her size without feeling some of the awe and wonder of it all.

Flower season

The season of the prairie flowers is beginning, probably my favorite time of the year. The so-called desolation of this near-desert is becoming colorful and fragrant with an abundance of beautiful gifts. If April is really "the cruelest month" as Eliot claims (it's not), then it leads to the many kindnesses of May.

Joggers

On our way to the vets the other day we ran into these citizens. We had already seen several flocks but these joggers were on the road rather than in the meadows. The Shorthairs were leaning out the back window and as I eased past them they gave a few"let-us-out!" barks and whines but that was about it. The first turkey Emma actually flushed, a few years ago, was a real experience for her. She just stood and stared as it flew off. I'm sure she thought it was the biggest pheasant she had ever seen.

Bob

This is Bob. He lives with a friend who owns a ranch store near me. (Fifty-five miles is "near.") Today I had to run an errand to a town beyond the store and stopped in to visit and swap lies.

Like all the Rotties I have known (that were not owned by psychopaths) he is a sweet, gentle giant. His favorite thing is to follow me around in the store sniffing at my jeans so he can learn all about my dogs at home. By the time I leave the place I am usually pretty wet below the knees. But he's a fine fellow and I do not begrudge him his little pleasures and I appreciate his friendship. He watches the world go by from his special perch outside the store.

Rotties get a bad reputation, and it's undeserved. It's a fact that some people own them that shouldn't. Because of the bad rep it becomes a self-perpetuating outrage: bad people want bad dogs. But without the bad people there would BE no bad dogs. My experience with Rottweilers (and it is extensive) is that they are gentle, loving, sweet-natured critters. They are also very, very intelligent.

I don't have a Rottie anymore. Whenever I visit Bob I think about that with a tinge of regret. But I already have three good friends that I am completely happy with.

Fog

Very thick fog this morning. I love it when the atmosphere closes in on you like this. Light becomes liquid silver, sound is muffled, and everything is either close, or invisible— no longer important. You feel as if you are in a room made especially for you and the rest of the world is excluded. You are at the center of a muted reality, with heightened perceptions. Fog is a poet.