When we got up this morning, we looked out the window and saw some dots popping up int he march and we couldn’t figure out what they are. We got closer and saw they were the heads of some geese who used our pasture as a motel for the night, fading into the tall grass and resting for the night.
At first light, their heads all came out, there was a lot of honking. Then they were gone. It is nice, thought, to see that out of the window.
This morning, the donkeys were out in the marsh, standing deep in meadow grass. This tells me that the regular grass is beginning to thin and lose its nutritional value, this happens, of course, at the end of every summer. The donkeys never go out into the marsh when there is rich green grass available.
We will be giving them hay in a couple of weeks.
The sun returned to us today and Fate made the best of it, tearing around the sheep. She got hot and vanished far out into the wet and soggy marsh. We heard her splashing around out there but couldn’t find her. Then, her head popped out, she was cooling off and covered in mud and gook.
Of all the dogs I’ve lived with in the country there were only two that I am certain could survive in the wild by themselves, as most dogs once did: Frieda and Fate. Both understood nature, knew where to find food and water, knew how to take shelter, had the speed to escape predators and also catch some prey.
Both were foragers like bears, always on the looking for nuts and berries. Fate can hear a mouse from 50 years away, and so could Frieda. Fate has extraordinary instincts. Frieda and Fate both knew how to dig holes, hide food, burrow in for warmth or shade.
Fate knows how to stay cool and when to pause and breathe. This morning, running like a fiend around the sheep in their open pasture, we lost sight of Fate.
I looked around, and I saw she was four out in the wet and marshy swamp, just lying in the mud and water getting cool. Fate knows how to take care of herself, and she knows how to use nature to survive. In a minute, the was running again.
Fate was engaged in her conscientious racing around the sheep in the pasture today, it was hot and humid. Suddenly, she vanished, and I looked around and discovered she had retreated deep into the marshy wet part of the pasture where brushhogger Ted Emerson gets stuck every year.
Turns out there was some water there from the rains this week and Fate plopped down in a cool, wet mess, then got up and resumed her mad circling around the sheep. They did not seem to notice. Fate believes the universe is her personal territory, she respects no boundaries.
