“Woof!”

EJ arrived home yesterday at about 3:30 pm. I’m glad that he can go hunting every year, but I sure do miss him when he’s gone! I had intended to make homemade pizza for him, but I didn’t have any tomato paste so I made chili instead. It’s a good dish to make because I can warm it up whenever he gets home.

EJ took Hannah Joy and me out to the truck to see his deer. Hannah was very excited about them. I pulled her back into the house, and EJ drove the truck around to the side door of the garage, pulled the deer inside, and hung them from the rafters. I helped him with the doe. He fasted the rope to her and pulled the deer up, while I held the other end of the rope taunt so the deer didn’t slide back down while he pulled again. I tried not to look at the deer that was inches from my face. Venison is tasty, but I don’t like to see dead things looking at me. EJ fixed up a pulley to pull up the buck so I didn’t have to help him. He got one of the deer skinned today before he went to work.

Hannah Joy kept dragging me outside to the truck in hopes of getting another glimpse at the deer. She sniffed all around the truck. She didn’t know the deer weren’t still inside.

Shortly after he arrived home yesterday, I said EJ, “We were supposed to get some snow but, as you can see, we didn’t get any.” He replied, “Do you want to know where the snow is? It’s about 3 miles east of here.” Sometimes that happens. Sometimes the snow just misses us and sometimes we are in the center of the bulls-eye for the heaviest snow. Throughout today we got flurries, but there’s only a light dusting on the ground. EJ read that we could get about 4 inches of snow. We shall see.

This morning Hannah and I had a conversation. When it was just barely beginning to get a little light outside, just enough to make out the faint outlines of trees, Hannah Joy suddenly leaped up and, alertly looking out the window, said, “Woof!”

I asked, “What do you see?”
She said, “Woof!”
“Do you see the neighbor’s car coming down their driveway?” In the winter when the trees are bare, we can often see the headlines of the neighbor’s car as he drives from the top to the bottom of his hill. Hannah always barks at them.
Hannah replied, “Woof!”
“Or do you see deer?”
“Woof!”
“Do you see a cougar?”
“Woof!
“Do you see a bobcat?”
“Woof!”
“You know, I think you are not telling me the truth.”
She gave me a Look, and silently lay back down next to me on the couch. The conversation was over.

Hannah Joy is licking her incision so I put my Lord of the Rings t-shirt back on her. It didn’t stay on very well because she has ripped it to tatters. EJ said I could put one of his old white t-shirts on her, which I did, but she’s already ripped a large hole in it. Human t-shirts are not a good fit for dogs. I put her harness on her to keep the shirt on her, but I’m not sure how well that will work out. I told Hannah Joy that if she doesn’t stop licking her incision, the veterinarian is going to scold us both.

Speaking of which….the veterinarian called this afternoon. She said the report came back from the lab and the mass is a benign tumor. Whew! We will need to keep an eye on Hannah in case more she gets more tumors, but so far, so good.

This afternoon a pileated woodpecker came to eat the suet I put out this morning. Pileated woodpeckers are the largest of all woodpeckers–about the size of a crow. I think they are beautiful and interesting.