Spring has erupted. We got through the ugly post-winter phase and, with all the rain, things are shooting out of the ground––plants long forgotten have resurfaced to delight. It is now catch up and clean up before everything is just lost in the bright green of new growth.
I don’t know if I have a picture of this but it is embedded in my mind, an image that I hope to carry with me to my, well, you know. It is both comforting and reassuring. But first I have to tell you that years ago when we first built our house it was surrounded by not much, just rock and clay and some grass. I ventured to plant some sunflowers and allium, two things that had some wow appeal for an immediate hit of size and colour. I remember my parents visiting the new place and I remember I was doing some poking around in the new garden, I think my mom had brought a bleeding heart for me to plant. Anyway, she just sat the in the shade of the house on that warm spring day watching me dig away at what can be very stubborn ground. (The homes and farms below the escarpment got all the good soil after it washed off of our land. That’s the joke we all tell each other. Down there they have giant deciduous trees and up here we’ve got lots of juniper. I won’t berate the trees, since we do have a good relationship. And we do have a lovely meadow. Down the hill they grow things and plow the soil––up here I use a pick axe.
But the land has relented and we now have a garden of perennials, ornamental trees and even vegetables, and a pond too, but now I am boasting. Two ponds.) She took a couple of pictures because that’s what she has always done, and just sat quietly. Was she wondering why I moved to a house in the country after most of a lifetime in cities, or simply looking at her boy who had become a man doing unexpected things, once again.
Anyway, more background to the image in my mind: when we first brought Hugo into our home, I made a deal that we’d get at least two outings a day and at least forty-five minutes long each time. That was something Cesar Milan had recommended and I thought it was a good guideline. The outings consisted of a walk on the road, a kooky game of frisbee and a walk out in the back meadow under a big sky. Now these were the ‘at-least’ outings––our other weekly outings consisted of long beach walks, dune walks, dune with frisbee, beach with frisbee, lake with floaty toy thing, and of course a long walk down the escarpment into the forest of massive trees and along a lane between the farmers’ rich fields.
Now, as our mobility changes and we adapt to a new reality that can’t include wild frisbee or long walks, he has taught me that the most important thing is the time we spend together regardless of the activity. If it means lying on the cool grass in the late afternoon or being hoisted on my lap in the dead of winter out in the yard, so be it. We still are owed our time in each other’s company. This is something he brought to my attention. In fact, he adapted to the new reality perhaps better than I did, initially. My level of awareness just wasn’t there.
Now we have a jogger, one of those three-wheel things you can push, or pull with a bike, large and sporty for a 60lb poodle, so we can retrace some of our favorite routes, find those familiar smells, stop and sit, or help him out for a sniff around. We have our more mobile days, where we walk to the road or walk part way to our lookout, and our days when piloting the jogger (him) is in itself a very fun activity.
I was going to mention gardening, but like my garden, I am meandering from thoughts of my mother to talking about my time together with my best buddy. Having said all this, for years he has sat in the shade on the hot spring and summer afternoons while I have dug, pulled, hammered and nailed, planted, sworn and celebrated in the hot sun of the garden. He’s kind of like my mom on that day. Silent. Still. In all of this I can tell you over the years I look up every few minutes to see his dark profile and to see that he is watching me. I give a small wave. “You okay?” I call. It has been this way for years, it has not changed. The other day I fixed up an old overgrown bed, wheeling many barrows of earth around from the driveway to the new bed, dumping and back again for more earth all under his watchful eye, sometimes he would doze and I’d look for his dark shadow of a form on the deck. Then he’d be back to watching––that unmistakable top knot, the silhouette, the ears, the nose, the eyes. The stillness. The wisdom, I believe. A world of fresh scents and information going up his nose. And there is something about it that says we are doing it together. He is the foreman. He has his mat or blanket to lie on while the sun’s shadow creeps around the house, casting its light closer to him by late afternoon, as I stumble my way through new plantings, swat flies, stub my toe, trip, curse and regularly look up for his reassuring stare.
This weekend, below the escarpment there is an annual tomato seedling sale which we will drive down to. Literally hundreds of varieties. It used to be a stop on our weekend walk. But today we’ll drive and he will wear a little harness I bought him. I call it his ‘Astro Boy’ outfit. It’s very cool and its practical use is to help lift him if he needs a hand, but he always seems to walk better with it on, regardless. I think he likes it.
This year I’ve got my own seedlings coming along but it is a tradition to go down, see the neighbours, chat, visit the other vendors set up there selling local produce and goods. He’ll have a sniff, and probably be accepting a lot of pats, and a certain amount of attention upon which he thrives.
And this afternoon, I’ll be back at it, stapling chicken wire to the frame I’ve built around the new bed and then pulling out last year’s dead growth while he sits patiently and wisely, watching from the shadows.
That is one photogenic poodle! Thanks for the reminder about the seedlings/ plant sale this weekend.