and then there is Harry

I wonder if Shelly, my daughter, had any idea what she was doing when she suggested I name Harry after Harry Houdini...I wonder.

When Harry and his partner Bess first came to the ranch the end of April this year, I fell in love, in love and out of love a million times. I was going to name them yin and yang, after all, one yellow female, and a black male...how fitting. Well, that didn't quite work, then I suggested to my daughter that I may call them Bonnie and Clyde, as the pups were a rowdy twosome and always in trouble. Oh no, Shelly said, you will be sorry. They will act the part.

So why then did she suggest Harry and Bess? After the Trumans, I asked. No, she replied, after the Houdinis...Harry and his wife Bess, who helped him get out of so so much through the years.

We had to build them a kennel like Fort Knox. That was the only way we could keep them in, and even then they got away from us...usually on a walk. I am sure the neighbors dreaded those early morning phone calls, telling them the pups were on the loose again. Ethel Sanders, my delightful 96 year old neighbor, spotted them one day running back and forth between her ranch house and the pond. She called, and I came and grabbed them up and hauled them home again. Louise, Rob and Sharon and Jeff all had their time in catching the little devils.

Finally, on their latest escapade which took them to the top of Cottonwood Canyon, and a few more feet and they would have gone over the top to points unknown, some hunters found them exhausted with blistered feet, and brought them home. I never could figure out how they always ended up back at the ranch. They crawled out of the camper that night the dirtiest two dogs on the planet, and too tired to do much of anything but sleep.

Then one day Tommy and his wife came out from Tucson, fell in love with Bess and I let her go home with them...and that left me Harry. Harry that can jump over fences that would shock most people, can clear the half door between my office and my home, and has become such a momma's boy that he can't bear to be separated...at the moment I wake up with little black hairs stuck to my cheeks from where he has cuddled up so close during the night. My bed has been turned into a dog's bed, between him and Dharma. No wonder I am not married, there isn't any room for a guy in this bed...unless, of course, I give the dogs my bed and I move to another bedroom.

So I have to admit a week in a hotel room is a lot to ask of any dog, of me even, but here we are, and yesterday I left Harry in the car while I was looking around a property, with his leash attached to my gearshift so that he couldn't get out, and when I returned he wasn't in the car. He had jumped thru a 5" opening in the window, the leash still attached to the gearshift and up and out thru the small crack in the window, and he was on the outside looking in. I was mortified. This dog weighs in at about 75 lbs. It was a wonder he didn't hang himself. Today I left Dharma and Jessie in the hotel room much to their delight, as I can't even get Dharma to go near the car anymore without tugging and pulling on her...anyway, I took Harry with me and we spent the day checking out more houses and just doing our thing. He was perfect. Then I brought him back to the room to be with the others, and I went down the street to get me something hot to eat. I was gone 30 minutes and when I walked back into my room Harry was gone, Dharma and Jessie were visibly upset. I had left the window open in the room, which was hid behind a curtain. 5", we measured it. And it had a lock on it so it couldn't open any more than that.

I was so angry with him. How dare he do this after all the hell we had been through since his arrival in April...and now that I just found a house, and mind you, not exactly the type of house I would like to live in, but perfect for the dogs, the horses and the burro. And then he goes off and does something stupid like this. Damn I was angry. I went outside and walked around the building, then, off in a distance at the other end of the parking lot, I saw him. I yelled his name, and he came running like I have never seen. The cutest thing you ever saw, and the anger dissipated and once again I was happy that I had chosen the house I had chosen. I think we should have named him Winston, and maybe he would have behaved more like a gentleman.

a friend wrote:

I read your blog today and was given to think of those cows. Did you pause to wonder what their thoughts were as they watched you? I wonder sometimes as animals watch us if they wonder why we are so helter-skelter all the time when we could just relax, smell the roses, feel the breeze, watch the sun's beauty as it rises and sets, after all we are all awaiting the same fate....be it a slaughter house, chasing a car down the street (like a dog or Secret Service Agent) or a serial killer showing up at the door.....just something to think about when you catch those wonderful furry friends looking at you with their head cocked sideways.

the old, the new and where the hell did I get all of this stuff

It was in New Mexico where I saw the old and the new struggling to survive. Actually there seemed to be room for both out there on the open rangelands, and I wondered if they would be able to survive side by side. I pulled off onto the dusty shoulder. The dogs, of which I had always referred to as the girls, and now with Harry in the mix, I don't know what to call them anymore, but anyway the dogs got excited when I stopped, so I snapped on each of their leads and we got out. Harry, in all of his excitement and not-quite-two-year-oldness, stepped in my cup of hot tea.

Across the little two lane country road were two windmills. One from another century spinning in the wind and pumping as fast as it could. It was old and dilapidated, but it was doing its job and what a job it has...bringing water from deep in the earth up to the parched surface to water the livestock. The water tank below it was filled to the brim with that liquid gold. Water in a land baked and brittle, after several years of drought and no summer monsoons. The cows were gathered around...the choice was easy...there was no question. They had to walk a long way for a blade of green grass, but the water held them close to the tank. Not far away was a 'new' windmill, larger than life, with its shiny blades reaching to the heavens...this one gathering the wind and turning it into electricity. It, too, has a job, a big one...that of harnessing the wind's power and giving the earth and the people on it a better and more lasting source of power.

We walked and I watched the windmills, my thoughts soaring with the huge silver blades, then coming back to the cows and watching them as they stayed in their 'comfort' zone. Get Up! I wanted to scream... you are missing life. Water is not your only life blood...you must graze and explore. You are just going to lay there and then go to slaughter. Good lord - don't you want to live? But they just laid there in a lump, basking in their knowledge that for now they had water. That was a sure thing. That was me at Sunglow. Sunglow was my comfort zone. The only one I had ever experienced...but I know about stepping out and living the experience. And it is time for me to do that again. I missed the experiences of not knowing...and of doing and of being. I changed at Sunglow. Everything about me changed. I lost my zest for life.

For me, I needed that break. I needed to stop long enough to find my strengths and my passions. I think 10 years overdid it a little, but you get the picture. But I found for me - comfort creates stagnation and with that came all of this stuff. I sometimes wonder if I bought all this 'stuff' trying to stuff my feelings like I do with foods. When I started packing, I was appalled - how in the hell did I ever buy this much stuff?

We are who we are. Some are meant to stay in one place, others are meant to move....
During my younger years while I was raising my children, I moved a LOT. Once I suggested to my mom that she must have been messing around with a gypsy when she got pregnant with me, but through the years I discovered she was the gypsy. So for me, I was meant to move, so while I wait for my 'stuff' to arrive via semi truck, I have to start thinking about why I have so much, and what to do about it, and how to lighten my physical and mental load.