The love of a......dog?

Went into town today for groceries and stuff. When I came out of TSC, there was a dog in the parking lot. I hadn't seen him before, but I was loading grain into the truck and he just trotted up and jumped into the back and sat. It was the darndest thing. I had to stop and talk to him, of course, and he was pretty friendly after the first sniffing. He was practically twining around me, the way Fly did when she was young. He was quite a bit bigger, though--fifty, fifty-five pounds? And he was black tri, where she was a lovely blue merle. He's like a shadow with moonlit edges.

I took him into TSC to ask Lilac and the other cashiers if they'd seen him before--say, someone bring him in for shots? Nope. So I took him home. Gonna print up some flyers and stuff, but in the meantime, here he stays. Besides, he's really good with sheep--Shawn stopped by to tell me they'd gotten out again, and that boy just took off like a rocket, had 'em all rounded up nice as you please by the time I'd gotten to the gate to open it. And took 'em in as soon as I had it open. He handles 'em really well, even the skittish ones. Oh, and Shawn, who stuck around to help me fiddle with the fence, says he and Summer are hoping/expecting. Boy, gonna be exciting round here come February......boy, I hope the ewes lamb out before then, or it's gonna be pretty stressful for them. Wait, this means Summer's gonna be trying to help with lambing while massively pregnant.....hooo boy. Not funny.

I'm calling the dog Shep. I had several other ideas, ranging from Kiba to Jip, but he didn't think much of 'em so I'm going with Shep. He deigns to answer to it, so whatever. I did threaten to call him Tomoe, but he looked at me like I had to be kidding, and, well, I was. I wouldn't want to be called Howl either, even in the English, which is at least bellowable. Although I suppose I would consider it more seriously if the association was Howl's Moving Castle, instead of Wolf's Rain. 

It's so nice to have company.

The love of a......dog?

Man, I'm tired.

Been awhile since I wrote anything, I guess. It's been pretty wearing. I'd forgotten how hard it is, having to do all the sheep-chasing oneself. I suppose it's good for me, for the body if not the soul, but I miss the help as much as I miss the company. After thrashing him, the kid's dad made him pay me, but while I suppose it contributes to the new-dog fund it's a tiny fraction of the money, time, and emotion invested in Fly.

.......Falling asleep......Wasn't there something I was going to write about? Besides exhaustion? And needing a new dog, if only to prevent total insanity?

The love of a......dog?

Bad day. Very, very bad day. 

Actually it was going all right, initially, until some of the sheep got loose a bit after lunch. Fly and I went out after them, of course. They got across the road before we caught up with them, but Fly went after them all right. She'd just gone back after a runaway when some idiot kid, driving his dad's new truck, comes barreling along at seventy miles an hour. Did he hit the bloody stupid sheep? Of course not. He hit my dog. To his credit (just) he did try to brake, and he kept braking even when he knew he'd hit her. Possibly he hadn't thought about the probability of being immediately decked by a screaming harpy. Hah. I left it to his dad. Fly was too messed up to survive--broken back the crowning touch. I took her to the vet's to make sure, and he put her down.

I am so tired.

I hate living alone.

The love of a......dog?

Long day......Trimmed some hooves today, on a couple of the older ewes. There was a short in the fence, so some of the older lambs got loose. Fly put 'em up handily, although they were pretty skittish. So nice to have a decent dog.

Stopped at the feed store to restock a few things. Lilac was manning the registers--it was a slow day, so we had a nice chat. Charles called after I got home, too. Violet's finally pregnant! Now if only they'd done this when I was free enough to come help out......feh. Oh, well. I knew I'd be stuck once I started running the place on my own, no matter how close Summer and Shawn are. And I am glad about prospective young relations.

The love of a.......dog? is a blog-form version of a story I wrote a few months ago, under the title Walk Up. I don't have a copy with me, so it'll be interesting seeing how close to the original story it stays. I'm also a little uncertain about the journal form; I consider my strength to be dialogue, and I haven't decided yet whether the character includes verbatim conversation in her relation of the day.

All in all, this is pretty experimental. I've been thinking about trying it for a long time, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

All dates, by the way, are thoroughly doctored. You're looking at the story timeline, not the posting timeline. This post was actually written Wednesday, July 22, 2009, the date of the blog's creation. I may get sloppy somewhere in fixing the date or time; please excuse my mistakes.