New Year With Puppy

How did it get to be the last day of 2008? I don't think we had Christmas yet, did we? Oh yeah, that's right. That happened while we were buried under two feet of snow up here, bermed in by the one snow plow that scraped the first 18 inches off Clatsop Road. And then I got The Puppy and of course all spare time vanished instantly as I kept track of my small whirlwind of exuberant Australian Shepherd. Actually, she -- Cricket -- who arrived Sunday evening, has spoiled me for puppies forever. She looked for the list of rules posted by the door, read them, said 'okay, sure' and that was that. Well, yeah, she still rockets around the house like that tasmanian devil out of the Bugs Bunny cartoons when she does the puppy equivalent of the two-year-old windup for a crash. And she has proved that Annie, my four year old Rottie, has a sterling temprament, considering that Cricket much prefers to swing from Annie's jowls than bite my ankels. I growl louder.

Cricket is from a very strong line of working Aussies, destined to work sheep, cattle, and ducks (actually she has already worked ducks a bit). She loves to retrieve, but I think that's written into the Aussie genetic code. And she's rottie color, of course. With white feet. Which aren't white very long, once we get out into the now-muddy pasture. My friend Trudy's bitch, Tick, had her just for me, of course.

So I'm too busy to notice that we've finished up a year...especially since I have two weeks worth of Long Ridge students, sent by Second Day Air, lost in one of what the UPS guy (who delivered THIS week's worth on time) told me is four huge semi trailers full of undeliverable stuff. Oh well, gonna be a long week, and when I come up for air, it'll be time to plant peas and hey, that means spring has started eh?

I hope so. Happy New Year!