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Bless The Beasts
Last night while my wife and I were relaxing, I watched the spotted twins romp. The ever-sleeping Dixee paid them no heed, continuing to slumber in her little bed by my wife’s chair, undisturbed in her deafness and warm in her sweater. It’s never a sure bet as to which dog will start the donnybrook. When Jinx does it, he usually sits above Bluebelle and growls at her, a rising wail that concludes with three or four sharp barks. While he’s barking at his sister, he’s looking around at us to see if we’re watching. Then he moves to Bluebelle and starts gnawing on a leg or snapping at her…
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Second Sunday in Advent
We attended a Christmas party last night, the only one to which we’ll show up this year, except for the upcoming annual gathering with eldest son and his clan, to which will be added a son in late January. The party wasn’t excruciating, and we were well fed. We don’t eat a lot of beef these days because of the high cost, but I made up for it last night. Extremely tender beef tenderloin, a nice herbed chicken, green beans, lumpy mashed potatoes (and that is NOT a complaint), salad, and rolls, and started off with chicken salad, crab rangoon, pimento cheese, and several other finger foods and croo dee…
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Something That Will Not Rest
I have been a foolish, greedy, and ignorant man; Yet I have had my time beneath the sun and stars; I have known the returning strength and sweetness of the seasons, Blossom on the branch and the ripening of fruit, The deep rest of the grass, the salt of the sea, The frozen ecstasy of mountains. The earth is nobler than the world we have built upon it; The earth is long-suffering, solid, fruitful; The world is still shifting, dark, half-evil. But what have I done that I should have a better world, Even though there is in me something that will not rest Until it sees Paradise…? Johnson in…
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All Hallow’s Eve Eve
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. ~ Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Since childhood, I have enjoyed Mr. Poe’s stories and poems, and that opening line from Usher is so evocative of a certain type of day in the fall, and today, here in these mountains, we have just such a…
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Wantin’ To Go To Texas
I incurred the displeasure of the dogs today by plunking a small straw cowboy hat on their heads and taking photos of them. But I do believe — ah, here is mystery! — that they warmed to the experience, and that they were spurred (if I may be allowed a small pun) to cast their thoughts to Tejas, and to dream of being cattle dogs, and of chousing longhorns across a bluebonnet-draped field, and to rout the javelinas in the thicket, and to never again be really cold, and to learn to tell the difference between rattlesnakes and blacksnakes. Clothes make the man, they say, and hats make the dog,…
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‘Tis October
The hurricane/tropical storm took an eastward cank as it approached the eastern states and so most of the rain missed us. We had some on Friday evening, then overnight that night pretty hard, but yesterday it only sprinkled a time or two, and today is dry but blissfully cloudy. Friday night, Mrs. Orr was driving home and texted me, “Look at the rainbow.” I went outside and looked west, but saw only a golden sky, lit from behind the rain clouds. When I turned back to the house, there it was, a double rainbow in the northeast of our little world, and my heart sang within me as I stood…
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September Morn
Today is, as near as we have been able to figure, Jinx and Bluebelle’s third birthday. When I walked out of the bedroom this morning the spotted twins were waiting for me. I sat down and they jumped all over me, greeting me. And JInx, predictably, scratched me with one of his ragged claws in his exuberance. I was grateful that he got me in the beard-covered area of my chin; the swipe drew blood. But it was okay. It’s the heeler twins’ birthday, but they are gifts to us. So Happy Birthday, you wild, rambunctious rumpus-makers. We’re so glad you’re here with us. ~ S.K. Orr
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Almost Dog Days
The heat of August seems to be steady and unmoderated all over the United States. I’ve talked to people from all over the country lately, and I can’t recall a single exception to the “It’s very hot, and even worse, it’s very humid” remark when I ask about the weather in someone’s locale. Mrs. Orr was talking to the kids and grandkids in Texas last night, and I spoke briefly to Numbah One Grandson. I asked him, “Is it hot there?” And he replied, with eyes cast up at the ceiling fan, propellering above his head, “Oh, it’s real hot.” This from a Texan. ‘Nuff said. Yesterday was a two-shower…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Firth of Jelly
Early this morning, Bluebelle went to the patio door, huffing and rumbling. I didn’t look outside to see what might be causing her displeasure, but instead let the dogs out into the backyard. Then I returned to the patio door and looked out through the blinds. A young buck was feeding with quiet deliberation among the young grapevines and tiger lilies between the trees lining the driveway. I managed to get a couple of photos of him, marveling at his movements, delicate and powerful, and also shaking my head at Bluebelle’s ability to hear this silent creature at least thirty yards from the front door, with Americana music playing in…
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The Value of Moments
This morning, this gray and dripping morning, I walked in a neighbor’s corn field, thick-grown with silage for his cows. Except for the soft sighing in the tops of the trees in my woods behind me, the silence was deep and cyclical, like a tide, like a black spot in space between two stars. I stood in the chest-high corn plants and listened, and heard nothing but breeze, and I listened again, and inexplicably, a song came into my head, a song I have neither heard nor thought of in years. I walked on through the corn and then at the perimeter found some bear scat. A calf watched me…