Walking Rocky

I took the car out this morning and determined that the "good long walk" I've been taking Rocky on nearly every morning is about 1.8 miles. I'd been hoping that it was closer to 3 miles. I'm going to have to see if I can walk it faster. I've been getting through it in a little less than an hour. I'm really slowing down by the time we get back. Rocky at least has been enjoying these walks, lots of interesting smells and all that. I often wonder what a dog's perception of the world is like. What sort of information is he getting with all those sniffs?

The other day we were walking by a corner house that usually has three good sized dogs in its yard. They all started barking at Rocky, of course. The fence was close enough to the street that I let Rocky go over and exchange sniffs through it. That made everyone happy. I'm pretty sure that most of the dogs that bark at us as we go by are really nice friendly dogs, that don't mean much by it. Greeting us, and letting us know that if we try to get into the house, we'll have to go by them.

Back at that corner house, after the dogs greeted each other through the fence, we kept walking. All of a sudden, though, one of the three dogs came running up to us. Came running up to me, actually. I didn't see how he got out of the yard. He was very friendly, and I rubbed his ears. I don't know what it was, but from the way his ears felt, I could tell that he really was still a puppy.

Now, of course, I had a problem. This friendly pup would probably follow us home if we kept going. I tried knocking on the front door a few times, but no one answered. I checked his collar tags, but there was no phone number on them. I did find out that his name was "Chase", though. That seemed appropriate. After dithering around there for a few more minutes, I walked down the other street, to see if the house had another door by that driveway. It did, and I knocked. After a moment someone opened the door, and stuck her head around the edge of it. I could only see the eyes and forehead. I explained that the dog had come out to greet us, and I was afraid that he'd follow us home. So she called the dog in, and shut the door.

I thought I'd try to avoid walking by that house for a while, to not give Chase any more temptation, but I forgot after a couple of days. However, every time we've gone by that house since, there haven't been any dogs in the yard. They must not be letting the dogs out until later. I did see a couple of girls heading out to the school bus one day when I was running late, though.

Psalm 1 Pome

I've decided to try to go through this year and "versify" Psalms, as a devotional exercise. My goal is to complete one psalm a week, but considering that it took me three weeks to get through Psalm 1, that may be pushing things somewhat. Or you could say that it only took me one hour, after I switched the tune I was trying to write to.

Based on Psalm 1
To the tune of "O Worship the King."

The man who loves God,
How blessed is he!
To follow God's path
Continuously
To stand in the judgment,
To sit in the throng
Which worships the Saviour
All the day long.

The man who loves God
Will grow like a tree,
With leaves that are green,
With fruit abundantly.
God's love flows like water,
Alive in a stream,
That waters the roots,
And keeps the leaves green.

Not so are the wicked,
They're like the dry leaves,
That blow in the wind,
That blow on the breeze
Their ways are forsaken,
Their pathways are dim.
For all roads shall perish
That lead not to Him.

Rainy Days and Mondays

It really rained last night. I woke up about 5:00 to hear the rain pounding on the roof, and knowing that it had been doing so for quite some time, even though I woke out of a weird dream. And the power was off. Jonathan said that the power had been off since at least 3:30, when he had woken up. We slept some more, and got up about 6:00. By then, the rain had tapered off a bit, though it was still coming down. It's rain like that that makes me worry about the house two doors down, where the cliff by the creek has been gradually creeping up on the house. I couldn't make Jonathan his usual oatmeal for breakfast, since the power was out, so I just settled for packing his lunch.

I took the dog out for his walk sometime after 6:30. I wore my watershoes, since I was hoping to go wading with him through the creek. But the water in the creek was far too high. We looked at it in a couple of places, and it was up a couple of feet and running fast. We went down the path where we usually go wading by the rocky beach, but there was no beach visible this morning. The fast-moving water was up over the end of the path, and there was no way I was going to go wading in it. Fortunately, Rocky agreed. He sniffed around a little at the waters' edge, then wandered by the creek-bed a little, but didn't complain at all when I had him walk back. It wasn't a waste wearing my watershoes, however. The grass in the park was rain-soaked, and so were my feet.

So I took Rocky for a good long walk around a couple of blocks. One of the drainage ditches a couple of blocks over was filled with water, not moving. So when Rocky saw that, he waded in, and laid down, like he loves doing. So he did get his fun water time.

Then, between there and home, we saw a KCP&L truck leaving the area. We had been seeing signs that at least on that street, the houses may have had power. So I was hopeful that the power had come back on. And, sure enough, so it had.

That's good, because I can't open the garage door without power, and I needed to get to Sam's Club to buy some dog-food for Rocky, since we were all out of it.

Senior Tax Day at the Library

It appears to be Senior Tax Day at the library today. They've taken up most of the tables, and I hear people talking about taxes, both Missouri and Federal.

Unfortunately, they took my usual spot, so I'm having to sit at a table that's much left comfortable. The one I'm usually at is really a booth seat, like at a fast foot place. Neither the seats nor the table are fastened down, so I can move them to a comfortable distance apart, and the booth seat hits my back at just the right spot to be comfortable. Most of the other seats at tables aren't quite as comfortable. And they have some really comfortable chairs with an attached desk-board on one side, but it's not at a comfortable level for typing. Sometime I'll sit there if I just want to write on paper.

I'm having more difficulty working on my story this morning because the noise, though not really all that much louder, is much more purposeful than usual. I got a couple hundred words in, though, so I'll consider it a win. (After I wrote this, I found a table on the other side of the library that was much quieter. Still not as comfortable as my normal table, but I was able to write a couple hundred more words and finish the scene.)

I've tried writing at Panera at times before. I have the same problem that only some of the seats really hit my back in the right spot, though there the chairs are more comfortable than the booths. And there's a McDonald's near by that also has comfortable booths, and is even pretty quiet (probably because the noisy kids are all in the play area instead of the restaurant proper).

***

A few years back, my folks gave both Jonathan and I initialed attache bags, suitable for carrying files, with slots for pens and cards, etc. Jonathan's gotten quite a bit of use with his over the years, but I've not had much reason for using mine. But it's just the right size for slipping in my Neo and a journal, and even my Nook, if I feel like it, so I dug it out and have been using it for lugging my stuff to the library these last couple of days. It works pretty well, though I think I'm going to see if I can sew a division into one of the sides, to keep the Nook and journal from bumping into each other.

Spring Snow, and Non-Escaping Dog

Funny, last week, it was so warm we had all the windows open and were wearing shorts. Now, as soon as the weekend came, it turned cold, and even snowed. It snowed all afternoon yesterday, and didn't stop until sometime late last night. Of course, for most of the afternoon, it didn't stick at all, just turned everything wet and yucky. Overnight, it did start to stick though. Just enough to cover the grass and the tree-branches. Not enough to actually stick to the roads or driveways. The snow was still there when we got up, and when I took the dog out, but it didn't stay around much longer. Pretty much as soon as the sun hit it, it was gone. Fortunately.

I'm from Michigan, so I'm used to having nice weather, then snow again the first week of spring. But even there, we didn't usually get shorts weather before hand.

I think it's now been several months since the dog escaped. Which means that we've gotten considerably better at keeping ahold of him, rather than that he's reformed at all. I can tell that he's still longing to race around the park all day, chasing squirrels and cats and whatever else he'd find, and coming home filthy, soaked, and tired. Then, of course, he'd have to go through the horrors of a bath (why does he like playing in the water so much and hate baths?), and spend the next day or two barely able to move with his sore muscles. Of course, delayed consequences don't discourage him much at all. Even that bad cut on his foot last spring, and the six weeks wearing the cone of shame and hardly being let out of the house didn't discourage him, either. That was hard work keeping him cooped up like that. The first week or so was easy, since he didn't feel like moving, but after that he felt better, and was back to his bouncy self, and couldn't understand why we weren't taking him for any walks other than right around the house, and just long enough to do his business.

Tree comes down

A couple weeks back we noticed that there was a downed tree on one of the empty lots down the hill from us. I don't think it was dead, just falling over, and still partially connected to its roots. The tree was being completely supported by the streetlight electric wire (not the main power lines, they go behind the houses). The streetlight wire was really being stretched, and you could see the strain that was being put on the streetlight poles, especially the near one. So I called it into the city, figuring it was a no-brainer. The tree was on city property (We think. It appears to be connected to the park, and no one could possibly build a house on it anyway), and was endangering city property (the streetlight), and when (not if, but when) the wire decided to break, it would also almost completely block the road.

The answer I got back from the city (via email) was that they weren't going to do anything about it, since they didn't have enough money for routine maintenance/tree clearing. I wrote back that this wasn't routine maintenance, like a downed branch, or ivy growing on the wire, which we see at other places, this was emergency maintenance, a whole tree down. I got exactly the same reply back.

So, we waited a couple weeks, watching the tree continue to sink further down, and more strain being put on poles. The streetlight pole was being pulled out of true, we figured 5-10 degree bent in it.

Finally, Jonathan called it in again a couple of days ago. They didn't take any of his personal info, which was weird, because they asked for mine, so he didn't get any reply back. But yesterday morning there was a tree-truck there, and a couple of workers chopping down the tree. They left it there, with a big pile of brush, but at least it no longer is putting that strain on the wire. We all heaved a big sigh of relief at that.