Weather Reports from Other Species

We’re recuperating from last week’s clinic in Wyoming. I heard more smoke moved in the next day, so the timing was good. We wouldn’t have worked the horses if the smoke had been worse. The smoke followed me home. Some years it’s been more dense, but with daily air quality warnings, this is bad enough. A constant haze that turned the sun red at dawn and dusk. The rest of the day, the feeling of fingerprints on your glasses. Then the other things you didn’t notice right away. My eyelids got itchy. I had a congested nose and a horse throat, which means I’m calling that nasty hacking noise a nicker.

Mister is lying flat by the backdoor, looking like a deflated Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade balloon. He ignores any chatter from me. I have to step over him, and he doesn’t follow me into the backyard. It’s just too hot. Jolene says she is an all-weather harbinger of joy. Mister is too cranky to roll his eyes.

While cooking dinner, something I hate twice as much in the summer, I pulled the meat thermometer out of the drawer and opened it. It immediately read 89.5 degrees. If I were a chicken, I’d be half-cooked.

Houses of this generation didn’t have air conditioners, but when I moved here, a fan did the trick. Now it’s a summer tradition that the sky fills with smoke from horizon to horizon. Stalled weather patterns trap pollution. I always look forward to the fall, but with a little more desperation each year. Hoping for moisture of any kind as I watch the pond turn into a mud puddle. When did summer get so scary?

But there is good news! Edgar Rice Burro, who is conservative about such things, has finally finished shedding out from last winter. It’s a sure sign that fall is on the way. The dog days of summer (early July through mid-August) are almost over. I hear that school started this week, and it’s made me nostalgic for the August that used to be. The long days of riding in cutoffs. It was potato salad season, and we nurtured baby-oil tans. Even with a summer job, you had so much time that you eventually missed school. So many changes within the span of a lifetime, but I remember August. And wonder again if life didn’t take a downward turn once we stopped having summers off.

At home, the ducks continue to be distant. I worry I’ve lost their hearts and minds. Oh, they’ll eat peas from my hand, but if I come in to change the water, they quack up a storm and run into their house, which doesn’t have air conditioning either. They have a pool now but are too shy to swim in front of me. One of the blue ducks, who is Mona Lisa beautiful, wouldn’t even come out of the duck house. Nothing happened while we were gone. They are eight weeks old now, fully feathered, and ducks of the world. No longer innocent quackers. Seen in this way, fear is a sign of maturity. I’ll keep trying to wear them down. The blue beauty will have a pea now, if I toss it just right.

The ducks got me thinking. Maybe the miracle is our initial, temporary innocence in this complicated world. Don’t we all develop more elaborate survival instincts as we grow up? Survival frenzy begins early for prey animals like ducks and sheep. A bit more complex and confusing for young horses. Jolene says she can’t stay a puppy forever. Right now, she is at a semi-unreliable adolescent stage. She’s full grown but not mature. In some ways, she needs more affirmation from me than ever. Sometimes filled with courage and sometimes shy. And sometimes she surprises me.

Jolene went to the vet this week. The last couple of visits were harder for her. Nothing happened. Her spay healed well. She goes to a groomer every month for her toenails. It’s more of a luxury for me than for her, but she doesn’t mind. Maybe the vet’s office has a smell she doesn’t like. The why doesn’t matter as much as our response.

This visit, Jolene was dead set against being handled. The vet, who has been with me for my last ten dogs, didn’t call a tech to hold Jolene. Instead, she sat on the floor and fed her an entire jar of baby food, one bite at a time. Then, a single serving of peanut butter, slowly, and intermingled with a handful of treats. More than what Jolene had for breakfast. The vet called her very smart a few times. Such a better description of the situation. It took thirty minutes to give Jolene a rabies shot, but my vet won’t fight with dogs in the same way I refuse to fight with horses. Somewhere in the middle of the half-hour, Jolene got the shot. She doesn’t know when.

What a relief to take the time. Wonderful that my vet cares as much about her future as I do. It’s still a fragile learning time for Jolene, and on this day, we got it right. It’s almost enough to make up for the heat. At home, Mister hadn’t moved. And I wonder if he’s at his peak of good behavior. He seems older and more things worry him now. Or is that me? Sometimes it’s hard to tell us apart.

As for herding, it seems getting sheep was just the start. It took me weeks to get the fences where they needed to be and the gates secure. I had to learn how to separate the herd into two groups of three. Not as easy as it sounds. Even now, I know just enough to know that I don’t know what I don’t know.

Then there’s the language. We all learned “that’ll do” from the movie Babe. But herding has different words for right and left. It’s not the first time in my life I’ve thought about getting right-left tattoos. For all of my astute perceptive qualities, I still don’t know my right from my left. My go by from my away. We have a couple of trials coming up, and I asked the instructor what level we should be in. With the bluntness of a saint, she said Jolene was ready for the next level, but I wasn’t. Great to have a dollop of clarity. It’s the least confused I’ve been since Eddie and the ladies arrived.

So, Jolene and I go out in the afternoon and bring the sheep in. Sometimes Jolene barks at the sheep with bravado and makes them trot on ahead. Some days the ewes are scary and Jolene wants to leave the pen. If the group separates, she speeds to return the stray. Jolene knew to do that from the start. Other days she is shy and stays closer than my shadow. But if you see Jolene sitting with a big smile on her face surrounded by sheep poop, know she is working. She doesn’t snack on the job. Jolene puffs her chest out because sheep take her seriously. Mister says it’s obviously a character flaw in the sheep. Jolene ignores railbirds. She has a job.

We are building a habit. It’s a better word than training. We aren’t perfect, but we know herding is a confidence game. We’ll figure it out, breathing and going slow. I know these are the good old days happening right now. So why hurry? The retired horses look on, giving an occasional lick and chew. They’ve seen it before.