The Evils of Tessa

We have a dog. A very evil dog. Her name is Tessa but we call her Tessie. She is a yellow lab mix and weighs around forty pounds- a beautiful short hair pale yellow dog with black eye liner.

She was eight months old when we adopted her and in the beginning we thought she was the sweetest of all dogs. We have now learned the truth. As she began to learn about mastering exploration and how to navigate the desert mountain landscape where we live, we could see that she had intellectual abilities far beyond simply sniffing out carrion and eating it, although we were very quick to learn that food was an exceptionally powerful motivation for her.

Before she came to live with us, our other less mischievous dogs were quite satisfied to search the hills and valleys for animal treasures they could bring home. And for awhile, it seemed, Tessie was also content with these prizes, but she needed more of a challenge, it seemed..

Our nearest neighbor in the valley below is approximately a half mile away, and there are two restaurants at the highway intersection three quarters of a mile away. In the summertime there are occasionally hikers who sometimes camp on the Federal land nearby.

None of this has quite explained where Tessie, one fine summer day, got the unopened loaf of bread she brought home, nor the stick of butter she carried home a few weeks later. None of these places has quite explained where Tessie got the half pound of cottage cheese, the packet of burnt toast, the partially eaten hot dog in a bun, the opened medium sized bag of potato chips, the prepackaged sliced beef with mashed potatoes and gravy lunch, the partially eaten cheese and cracker snack packet or the shrimp salad in a sealed Tupperware bowl, the half pound of very moldy cheese or the large partially eaten sweet peach.

A Fly In The Night

Here we are again, three weeks after the monsoon rains and thunder storms and we are in the thick of fly season. And they are everywhere, especially if you have any kind of animals- dogs, cats, horses, llamas, alpacas, livestock, etc.

At our house we have dogs, cats and llamas. The llamas like most to hang around the house, though they have acreage upon which to roam. They hang out near the house- don't even venture down the hillsides where the sweet and tender bark and plant shoots are. Nope, they wait for their daily dose of 'four way' grains in a plastic dish and their staple- hay.

This concentration of animals creates a picnic ground for the flies. And those little flying creatures explore every animal that appears on the landscape. When I am outside working I have to remember to keep each bare skinned limb moving lest the flies find my flesh worth exploring. Once they land they often find that a sample bite is justified to see if I have begun to rot yet. There is some comfort in knowing I am not the only animal they want to survey. They do the same to the faces of the llamas and the dogs especially around their eyes and mouths.

A Breakfast Guest

It was slightly gloomy for a desert summer day. I was returning from my morning shopping and was carrying the bags of apples and oranges I had bought.

When I approached the deck stairs I could see this guy, this roadrunner, on the railing. He seemed a rather presumptuous bird. I hadn’t seen him before but there he was, sitting on the deck railing looking all puffed and proud as if he owned the place.

He watched me ascend as if I were the intruder, then without so much as an introduction, he began to tell me all about his adventures from the previous afternoon.  I guessed he was a bit lonely from the way he spoke, as if we were friends.  I expected him to fly off when I reached the front door, since we were only a couple of feet apart, but he stayed put.