A New Mouser

You might think I have an easy life, but I beg to differ. Without me, where would this household be? I'm the one who greets everyone who comes near the house -- friend or foe. Who constantly stands guard over this property, regardless of the hour? Thats' right, me. (You might call it sleeping, but think of one time that I didn't wake up the instant someone put their little toe on our driveway. That's what I thought.) And who keeps people healthy, active, and in shape around here by constantly being ready (and insistent) to go outside for walks, rides, runs, or skis? Again, yours truly.

In short, I am the glue that holds this household together.

I'm sad to say that I can't say the same for the cats in this household. All they do is lay around and act lazy. Their sole contribution is to keep the local rodent population under control (such menial work, in my opinion). And, for awhile, I even questioned how well they were keeping up with that one simple task. Now Scout, of course, our 13-year-old mouser has a reputation to fall back on. You can't argue with 13 years of results. Not only is he efficient, he is generally in the habit of lining his victims next to his cat dish. Recently, however, Scout was banned from eating regular cat-food, in lieu of "old-cats" food (it's rather tasty -- I have tried it). But, because Waffle and I are very interested in Scout's new diet, he now eats in the bathroom. At his age, how humiliating! So, I think he may have gone on strike for awhile. And besides, where is he supposed to line up his kills now that he doesn't eat at the bottom of the basement steps? I think Scout actually enjoys mousing, so he recently got back at it. But he left the dead mouse behind the front room couch. He's still confused about what to do.

Waffle, on the other hand, has been a free-loader since the day he arrived. In, out, in, out. Meow, I want this. Purr, I want that. Never have I seen a bigger slacker. Kitten sleeps all day, then goes outside to party all night. Until my human Alison made a discovery a few days ago. Or should I say "discoveries": she found 4 dead mice in the backyard. Well, now, little kitten, maybe you have been making yourself useful!

Well, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one shouldering the load around here. But, make no mistake about it: I am the most important personality in this household -- two-legs or four. And that's not just my opinion; that's a fact.

Hurricane Hike

Mount Mansfield may be just 4393 feet high, but it acts like a much bigger mountain than that sometimes. As a dog who has skied from the summit, I feel I am an adequate judge. But never have I been up there on a day like last Saturday. It felt like a hurricane up there!

I first noticed the wind when we got out of the car. Everyone was gearing up for a nice autumn walk, but I was watching the treetops. They were going crazy! I, of course, didn't say anything, because I was just excited for a hike. And I think the whole group was excited: we had my usual humans, Ali and Mark, we had Doug McKain with his photographic trail-memory, Ruth Penfield who chronicled the journey on film (in fact, all photo credits on this post go to her), and Ryan McKain who was visiting for a little weekend hiking and fishing.

We went up the Laura Cowles trail because we thought it might be a little better sheltered than some of the other routes. Sheltered? Maybe. Dry? Uh...no. Water was pouring down that trail like a river! Again, it didn't bother me; I just slopped right through it and drank whenever I wanted. I found myself in somewhat of an ironic situation; I was carrying two small water bottles in my dog-backpack. Yet everywhere we went, water was seeping out of that mountain!

At the top, the wind was blowing 75 mph. The view was great, if your definition of "great view" is 15-feet of visibility with wispy grey fog flying past you. My ears and lips flapped in the wind, and everyone's jackets filled with air. They looked like a bunch of weight-lifters, their jackets were so poofed out!

Rather than descend the exposed Sunset Ridge Trail, we walked the Mt. Mansfield ridge to the Canyon North Extension to the Halfway House trail. The Halfway House was nice, but the Canyon Extension was slippery and kind of treacherous. I was a little nervous and at one point refused to climb over some slippery rocks -- even when someone offered me cookies. Hey, I like dog cookies, don't get me wrong. But not enough to die for. They're not steaks, you know.

Anyway, we got past the sketchy spots. I had a great time bounding around in the woods and hanging out with our group. One nice thing about the weather was that there were very few people hiking Saturday. To go up there on a day like that, you have to be seriously deranged... or you must must really like hiking.