Ok.  It’s hot now.  100’s.  My potted flowers in front of the house, which faces West by the way, have all but burnt to a crisp.  Only the petunias and geraniums are left and the geraniums don’t look healthy.  I’d water more faithfully but it’s always a hundred degrees or more out there.  And the air conditioning indoors feels so good.  The dogs are hot dogs.  They play like mad in the mornings and then sleep all day in the shade.  Belle moves like a slug in the heat.  She can’t bring herself to jump in the car anymore, but puts her front paws up and waits for me to drag the rest of her up by the scruff.  And she lays sprawled out with flies all over her in front of doors or under people’s chairs.  She’s a perfect Redneck dog.

BelleDog, a Redneck

This morning I walked out and got punched in the nose by a ghastly odor of rotting carcass.  I turned the corner to find Belle had dragged a dead heron into the yard and was finishing off the larger bits.   It took a few minutes for me to figure out how to dispose of it.  It couldn’t go in the trash – WHEW!  That was a smell that turned corners and curled hair!  I decided to start a fire in the burn barrel and burn it.  I got the fire started, raked the remains onto a large shovel and heaved it into the fire.  Then I went for a walk, rake and shovel in tow, to find the rest of the heron since a great blue had expired just up the road the previous week.  What I found, though, was that Belle had not even touched the great blue on the road.  She had found another – perhaps a night heron – and dragged it home from the back of the property.  At any rate, I scooped up the great blue (which didn’t smell at all compared to Belle’s find) and carried it back to to the burn barrel/funeral pyre.  One less rotting carcass for Belle to bring home.

Just another day in the life. . .