The innocence of the well-kept dog.
I’m lucky – to live on the land I love. I’m lucky because today on my walk I saw a fox. What wasn’t so lucky was that the reason I saw the fox was because my dog chased it away from its nap. What was lucky is my dog, Cho, yes the one who ate the salmon and disrupts so many wonderful things, didn’t get him. In fact the fox ran across the field while Cho was sniffing behind the barn where the fox had been resting up for his early evening stroll down to my neighbor’s chickens.
And that was lucky for the fox and me because as I watched the fox run across the corn/rye field I noticed he was slower than Cho. That would have been awful, but I think our erstwhile Cho was looking for our feral cat Momacita (mother of our previously feral kittens) and that was a lucky thing. She outsmarts him every time and is faster than he is. Lucky her.
I’m lucky to have a neighbor whose organic chickens give wonderful eggs. And did you know how the color of an egg is determined? I didn’t – it’s the color of the chicken’s ear. A bit easier to find than her teeth. So my neighbor at Dashing Star Farm has many wonderfully eared chickens and the best and most beautiful eggs ever.
Lynn at Dashing Star Farm and I have different views of the fox. She has sheep which the fox loves almost as much as the chickens. She also has a very elegant electric fence so the fox will go elsewhere. In this case fences do make good neighbors because I know she would see that the fox eats no more and it would not be pretty. As it is, we are all lucky.
The fox has our field and all the famers’ fields for all the possible hunting that he and the lucky coyotes who live here can handle. We all live in harmony except when Cho gets out and goes on a tear – but he is so beautiful when he runs and he loves it so much and we’re all lucky when he runs back and forth, leaping the tall bushes and stays in our sight.
Today, in case you hadn’t noticed is a day for counting blessings. Every day is such a day, but today is a veritable rant. A good thing to do pretty much any time. Too often I let myself gnaw away at my worry bones. They don’t clean me up or soothe me the way they can soothe my dogs – but I don’t think theirs are worry bones, I think they are the real deal. Just like the dogs, the real deal. And the fox, and the chickens, and the sheep and the coyote and the cats – we are all the real deal in our own way and I learn from all who do not use thinking as a “tool.”
We are all perfect as we are, but we can always use a little help. So says Thich Nhat Hanh and every meditation teacher I have studied with.
Cho in sheep's clothing
just a little sly
