A BAD DOG TRIES, BUT FAILS, TO BE GOOD

Autumn Leaves

IT'S COOL AND OVERCAST IN BIRDLAND. In short, a perfect Autumn day. The Hackberry trees in our yard shed brown leaves that gather in the driveway, and soon I will rake them up for the deep litter bedding in the chicken coop. So far, not much color in our yard or in the woods beyond the fields—just the green is not so brilliantly emerald as it was in summer. I did see a sugar maple in town yesterday that had half turned a bright pink-orange. That is, one side of the tree had turned, the other side was still green.

Cullen, the good dog.

I sit on the porch to enjoy the breeze, bundled up as I am. The cat just came out from under the ornamental quince to join me. Ursula barks from the line on the other side of the house. She, the bad dog, is on probation, but I will let her off in a minute. She is sneaky, that one. She knows she is not to go into the chicken coop and steal food, so she waits patiently on the walk up to the kitchen door until we go inside. We watch from a window—sometimes the window in the kitchen door, sometimes over the kitchen sink. She watches the window until we go away. She even waits there a minute more, steadily gazing at the window.

I am but an innocent dog.

When she thinks she is in the clear, she v-e-r-y c-a-s-u-a-l-l-y moseys toward the coop. She takes a circuitous route, behind the garage. But sometimes we are still watching from the window with our coffee, and when I see her come around the other side to go into the door of the coop, I will knock loudly on the window. Then she will run back to her station on the cobblestone walkway and scrutinize again the kitchen door. "Who me?" she asks with her innocent gaze? "I was just, you know, visiting with my little feathered friends."

This morning, though, the knock did not call her back because I had just put out a pile of compost for the chickens to scratch and gather. Is there anything tastier than orange peels, apple cores, egg shells and coffee grounds? All that deliciousness is just too much for a bad dog trying to be good. I had to run out yelling, "No, No No!" And still she gobbled as fast as she could. What could I do but catch her (easy to do when she stands with her head down, gorging as fast as she can) and put her on the line for a while.

She is getting used to the line. Cullen doesn't mind it, and we put him there after his meals for a while, so he doesn't run off following the deer and come back full of prickles and cockleburs. He takes it in stride and lies in the driveway watching for whatever comes around the corner and down the hill. But Ursula used to fret quite a lot. So mournful was her cry that we would not leave her on the line too long. So anxious was she that we could not leave her unattended or she would tangle herself in the bushes. But now she takes it in stride. Her barking this morning is just because Jim has come out in his white truck to check the soybeans. Are they dry enough to harvest? We both watch him, I from the porch, Ursula from the driveway. He walks down the grass waterway a bit and over to the beans and bends over them, feeling, I suppose for dryness. Then he hops back in his truck and drives away. Will he be back today with the combine? Will the rain that seems to be gathering in the low clouds to the west hold off? (And will I gamble, and hang my laundry out anyway despite the lack of sunshine and warmth? Probably. It should be done with the wash cycle by now.)

Ursula has settled back down, and I can see her in my mind’s eye, lifting her nose to the breeze, letting the wind lift her black fur a little. I'll go in a minute and let her loose from the line, but for now I'm going to sit here just a little longer, looking off into the bronzed fields and enjoy the morning.

Sit in Beauty; Lie in Peace; Blessed Be

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. If you’re missing your weekly dose of Birdland Letters in the News Gazette, you can still read them every week in the Piatt County Journal Republican and at www.letterfrombirdland.blogspot.com. Consider subscribing to support your small-town newspaper. You can follow Birdland on Instagram and Twitter @BirdlandLetters. Mary can be reached at letterfrombirdland@gmail.com or via snail mail care of this newspaper.