Farewell to Annie

Our beloved Annie died on Friday. She was a big yellow dog of undetermined age and breed. She came to live with us quite by accident when Dennis dropped by to visit a friend whose companion rides her bike to work via the Kansas River levee. A starving dog had followed her home several miles along the levee to their country home. They already had two large dogs, and asked Dennis if he needed a dog. As it happened we had lost our beloved Gus to cancer a year or so before, and Dennis readily agreed to bring the starving dog home with him.

I will never forget my surprise when Dennis came leading her into my sewing room. She was so thin her I could see every rib. Moreover, her nipples were quite large, indicating that she had recently given birth to pups. She was so pitiful, so sweet, that my heart instantly responded. Of course we would give this dog a home! It was my privilege to name her and I chose “Sweet Annie.”

When Dennis took her for examination and inoculations, the vet estimated that she was two years old. Annie was with us for nine years. She was tolerant of children, protective of us, and a sworn enemy of squirrels, although she never managed to catch one. She was terrified by thunder and came to us for protection when a storm swept through. She was a good traveler and accompanied us on many trips around the county – Colorado, Mississippi, Texas, and, most recently, to Arizona, where she made friends with Zucca, an Airedale much younger than Annie.

One the trip home Annie had a hard time getting into the car. She had arthritis in her hips. Once we were home in Kansas, Annie never regained her vitality. Although she greeted each morning with a barked warning to any possible intruders, she spend most of her time lying on her bed, waiting for Dennis to come home. For Annie, Dennis was the alpha dog, and when he arrived in the evening, she came to life and greeted him with great enthusiasm. She unfailingly slept by his bedside, even on the next-to-last night of her life, laboriously climbing the stairs to be near him.

Recently Annie lost her appetite for dog food, but still loved anything we offered her from our table. The last few days she failed to show up for the evening meal. On the advice of Bob, Dennis’s brother who is a vet, I cooked hamburger and brown rice for her. Then, even though the weather was cool, she began to constantly pant. On Friday, while Dennis was away from home, Annie came into the room where I was working and lay down beside me. After I petted her she walked to the door where she always waited for Dennis, lay down, and died. When Dennis came home he buried her in the pasture where she had spend many happy hours.

Annie was my friend, but I could never convince her to tell me the story of her previous life. Even so, I know that she must have suffered loss, rejection, fear, and pain. I am thankful to have shared our home with her and given her love and nourishment.

The house seems empty without her quiet presence, and I still sometimes think I hear her toenails clicking on the hardwood floors. It’s consoling to imagine Annie is in dog heaven with Kazak, her old buddy, futilely chasing squirrels.

(See “The Almost Perfect Dog,” Nov. 13, 2012)

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer

Internet Withdrawal

Last Wednesday night a tremendous thunderstorm came through. A brilliant flash of light followed by a booming thunderclap woke me from a deep sleep. Rain poured down and I quickly fell back into the arms of Morpheus.

The next morning we found we had lost Internet access, as well as land line phone service, both supplied by a tower broadcasting to a receiver on our roof. Apparently the lightning bolt that woke me also fried our receiver. Now, six days later, the repairmen have not succeeded in getting our service restored.

Living without Internet* access for six days has opened our eyes to our dependence on the web for all kinds of information: news from every level from local to international, messages from family and friends, and information about every subject. We haven’t had television for a couple of years, and we don’t subscribe to newpapers delivered to our door, so the radio has been our sole source of news.

By the end of our first day without connection we had unearthed our dusty dictionaries,

Roget’s Thesaurus, and my cookbooks, such as my mother’s well-worn Betty Crocker from 1956.

This Internet disruption has come at a critical time. My main goal for the coming months is to get rid of many, many things that clutter our house. I’m especially interested in paring down our library. (Books, and plenty of them, dominate every room of our house except the bathrooms.) Now I know better than to even consider disposing of reference books.

When the Internet collapses, as someday it could, we will still be able to find some of the information we need to conduct our lives. In the meantime, we will be able to enjoy the miracle of worldwide Internet connection, because the technician just came in to tell me our connectivity is restored.  Now I’m off to post this and then catch up on The New York Times crossword puzzles.

*The name “Internet,” created in the 1970s, means a computer network connecting two or more smaller networks. Boy, has it grown in the ensuing decades! Millions, if not billions, of networks are now connected.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer

Valuables

Decades ago Dennis invited a colleague for lunch at our place in the country, the place we call Paradise. Entering the house, the fellow, a collector of Navajo rugs and other costly art, looked around and declared, “You don’t have anything valuable here.”

Over the ensuing years Dennis and I have enjoyed that remark and taken some twisted pride in it. Our treasured possessions wouldn’t sell for a nickel at auction, but we don’t care.

Who would pay for a basket full of birds’ nests?

Who would care to purchase a basket of shells collected on the Galveston beach before oil spills and hurricanes destroyed most of its life forms?

Who would want to own two skeletonized baby snakes that Oz found dead in our basement? (Before the mites in my old glass-front bookcase ate all their flesh, they clearly were a baby ring neck and a baby copperhead.)

Now that I have realized that we have too much stuff, I’ve been looking at everything in our house with a critical eye. Of what use or value are birds’ nests and seashells? Of what use are snake skeletons, one broken?

These precious objects and their many companions are a history of our 40-plus years in this beautiful place. They commemorate the years gone by. They are the milestones of our rural lives together.

I love and therefore value every relic. They are valuable to me and I can’t throw them out. Oh, I know they have to return to the earth sometime, but please, not just yet.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer

Return to Paradise

Returning to Paradise after five months in Tucson we were greeted by flowers galore. The forsythia and narcissus were blooming, and the ornamental crabapple tree was glorious.

In the memorial my favorite tulip was in its prime.

Elm tree must have had a banner year bloom because the deck was littered with elm twigs that snapped off from the weight of seeds.

The chickens were right where we left them in the care of our friend Laurie. Lila, the lavender orpington, has grown from a pullet into a hefty hen. 

Al of this was lovely and welcoming, but when I walked into the house my first thought was, “Why do we have all this stuff?” After living quite happily in a two-room casita in Tucson I suddenly realized that having an eight-room house only encourages the accumulation of unnecessary things.

I’m going to tackle the job of downsizing just as soon as I catch up on preparing our tax return, seeing the dentist, audiologist, rheumatologist, and optometrist, and getting a good haircut. The risk, of course, is that I will become accustomed once again to having too much stuff and just ignore it all. That has happened before. Amidst the routine of everyday living it's all too easy to lose sight of worthwhile goals.

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer

Farewell to Paradise

We’re in Tucson now, recovering from a big wedding celebration and settling into our little casita. Looking back at Paradise, our home of 39 years, the things I’m missing already are my friends, the chickens (in Laurie’s good care for the winter), and all the good food in our big freezer (especially our home-grown tomatoes). I know that I’ll miss seeing the evening light falling across Chicken Creek valley’s beautiful sycamore trees, their bare white arms illuminated by the last rays of sunlight.

At the same time I’m looking forward to living in the Sonoran desert, learning the names and natures of desert plants, meeting new people, enjoying winter warmth, living in proximity to a much younger generation, and watching the pomegranates outside our kitchen window slowly ripening.

This is my last post on Chicken Creek Journal until next spring. Now it’s time to take up posting on tucsonoffandon.blogspot.com.

Au revoir.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer