Deerdra

I've got to say it's a damn good thing I didn't already Ark out of here, because that would have left Davey with a lot of problems he isn't ready to handle at the moment.
For one, Deerdra, his dog is almost old enough to vote and has got such bad arthritis that, though she can walk, and even prance a bit in tracked snow when the old spirit moves her, she can hardly turn around or stand up to begin with; and she has to get up and go out many times a day and night.
It doesn't help much that she is always confused about whether she has just come in the door or just eaten, and that she feels she has to eat every time she thinks she just came in, and every time she eats again she has to go right out.
And when she goes out she doesn't remember that she is old and frail, so she blunders off into the snow, falls, and has to be rescued.

This is the dog which, when she was a two year old afraid of people and cars, was brought to Edgewood Place as a companion for Mama Dot, who was already ninety years old then...the dog which used to accompany Mama Dot on walks to the East Hill Cemetery, where more than once when the old lady fell in the snow, she ran to her and stood there feet splayed, to help the poor old lady up.
As long as Deerdra can stumble around, she deserves the same care.


That has become very demanding. When Deerdra goes to the door after Davey has gone to bed or shoved a dvd into his computer, he lets her out onto the porch and goes back to bed, but then she usually just stands at the top of the steps barking pitifully until I come to her, so I get little sleep, to say nothing about hibernation time, and have to haul myself out of the Ark carry her up and down the porch steps half a dozen times each night.


Her hearing is weak, as are her eyes, but her nose seems to as good as ever. I take her and the younger dog Taino down the orchard lanes to the end
of the property and then let them range in the hay meadow a bit, sniffing out the places where the deer have bedded and fed during the night.

After a brief snow melt recently, I was half way back to the Ark and noticed that Deerdra was not with us.
It took be a while to find her..... a quarter mile away off in a far corner of the hay meadow, feasting on a pile of fiberous manure the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.
There may be something in particular about that mystery poop which she craves for what ails her.
So when we get another thaw, or if I can find it today, I will bring some home. It could be really good shit....but it still is a big mystery to me what could have produced it. Even a moose would be too small, and the cattle range is on the other side of the woods.
Anyway, I am here as long as I am needed, but when and if it is necessary,
I will take Deerdra for the Long Walk. I won't be staying around here long after that myself.