Windfall
Sometimes you have to take what you can get in this life. If you are an American, like me, you will probably take it in large, even bulk, quantities (Oh, CostCo! Mon amour! How great is mine love for thee, with thy ample 50 lb. bags of sugar, thy voluptuous barrels of velvety ketchup, thy shapely buckets of golden canola oil…more, more! I’m still not satisfied!) and hoard it in your basement or garage.
Apparently, even my dog has absorbed this received idea of American existence. Here’s the story.
Alex’s birthday started with his traditional greeting from Shelley,
Gettin’ up, birthday boy?
and progressed inexorably, in the way a birthday should, toward dinner at our favorite restaurant, Chez Henri. Eating at Chez Henri is a genuinely special occasion for us because we only venture through its inviting portals when we have been gifted with large sums of birthday cash.
To do so more frequently would surely lead to bankruptcy and ruin. But what a way to be ruined!
The food is excellent and so is the service.
Shelley meanwhile had been left in charge of home and yard security. Since we moved to the new house, Shelley’s affection for the new backyard has been plainly evident, not least because we have an apple tree that has been dropping its fruits all summer.
Windfall! I may never have mentioned this, but my dog loves fruits and vegetables, and much though I have attempted to toss out these apples (some of which aren’t in the best of condition by the time they hit the ground) in a timely fashion, she has nonetheless eaten several.
By “several” I mean about forty or fifty. Over the course of the summer, of course.
The tossing of the apples is a Sisyphean task. Toss out ten or twelve in dubious shape, find fifteen more on the ground when you come home. Roll that boulder up, watch it roll back down.
Watch your dog gnawing on a windfall apple. Again. Go slowly mad.
That said, she paces herself. I’ve never seen her eat more than half an apple at once. Lately however, having observed my futile yet dutiful attempts to dispose of the apples, she has taken to digging holes for the half-eaten ones and burying them in the yard.
Even a dog begins to see the inherent problems with this method pretty quickly.
Hey, I may have a shallow brain pan, but dirty, rotted apples are a no-go.
So we arrive home from Alex’s birthday dinner to find the living room in some disarray. Most notably, the corner piece of the sectional, which normally looks like this:
Looks instead like this:
Yes, that is what you see, tucked quite deeply into the very corner of the sofa cushions:
A windfall apple. I ask you now to contemplate the effort required to BURY an apple in a sofa when you don’t have an opposable thumb.
Hoarding behavior. Now where did she learn that?
In knitting news, the reconceived sleeve for Minnie is very nearly done:
Here’s how it looks fairly close.
Now attached to the sweater.
I am pleased with this progress. When I finish this sleeve, I shall face the grim business of frogging the other one.
Stay tuned…
September 7th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Oh, that’s too funny. Shelley is a smart dog!
September 7th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
That is so funny, thanks for sharing!
September 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
That is hilarious! And resourceful as well. Now if you found windfall apples in the fridge, I’d get a little worried.
Courage, ma soeur, with the frogging. A little liquid courage might be in order.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
The apple-in-sofa is also a nice testimony to all the things Shelley likes about the new house, coming, as it does, with apples and a sofa.
September 7th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
My guy Scrat eats the pears that keep falling.
Good luck with curbing that behavior. If nothing else Scrat now knows what Drop It! means even if he generally chooses to ignore the command.
Lol.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
How many other apples has she “put away” around the house? You may be following your nose to find out.
September 8th, 2007 at 8:34 am
just too funny. My Pug Manda used to take found objects and bury them in all the crevices she could find. Even under pillows in the bed. Thank goodness I did not have any fruit trees! Minnie is so pretty.
September 8th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
My favorite picture of my dearly-departed Yorkie is her with windfall crabapple in her mouth looking as happy as a dog can be.
I love the Sisyphus reference; only with you, my dear, can we get knitting with a classics chaser.
Minnie is looking lovely.
September 9th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Oh my goodness. That made me laugh out loud, which is always a good thing, but especially good right now!
September 9th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I once had a dog who would bury nearly everything tasty she was given unless she swallowed it before she had a chance to realize it. Once she got hold of a box of baking chocolate squares and buried most of them around the house. I only found the last of them when we moved.
Fast forward a few years – same dog, different house. This time it was a block of sweeter stuff, which she stuffed into several (relatively visible) corners of the house, staining the walls and the carpets.
I know that chocolate is supposed to be bad for dogs, but either she was the exception or she never actually ate any of it.
There are lots of other hoarding tales about Dori (rest her soul – she lived to be nearly 17!). There was a loaf of bread, one of the those sugar Easter eggs… I think she even buried a potato chip in the back yard once.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Clever Shelley!
September 17th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Woooooof
September 19th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Isn’t it so fun when dogs do that? My dog has this thing about pizza crusts…we normally have a blanket on the couch, and she’ll bury them in that. It’s really cute watching her do it (and she’s willing to do it right in front of us, too!)