Chet's Fall

See those vines hanging down in the background? Mark that spot well.

We picked and slid our way down a red clay slope toward the cave, Liam and Jake well ahead of us and racing through the woods toward the main attraction. I stopped and stared at the sinkhole and cave below. Leaf-littered slopes gave way to mossy rock. The same water that had created the cave had undermined the cliff where we stood. The rock cliff to our right simply and abruptly dropped off into space. Liam and Jake were already down and exploring the cave when Phoebe, Dave, the dogs and I arrived. “Oh my God! If I’d known how dangerous this trail was, I’d never have let Liam go ahead!” I muttered. It was so steep and slick, and what tread was on my trail runners was so packed with clay, that I was skating, grabbing for a handhold anywhere I could find it. Thank God Liam and Jake had made it safely. The ease and the hubris of little boys.

Chet was off the trail to my right, as usual, nosing around in the leaves. I called him, and he turned to come back up; he was perilously close to the cliff’s lip. He looked at me, scrabbled, scrambled, twisted frantically, and was gone, simply dropped off into space. Silence, broken only by Phoebe’s helpless scream, the scream she gives when she stumbles on a copperhead, the scream she gave once when I pulled away from the curb while Liam was still climbing into the car. We all froze. A tremendous, sickening WHUMP sounded from the bottom of the sinkhole. I never, never want to hear that sound again. Dave was already in motion, his father's instinct sliding him down the trail as fast as he could go; Phoebe was still rooted, screaming, I was screaming Chet’s name over and over again.

And here he came, back up the trail, ears laid back, wide grin, everything working, everything intact. Smiling. A little embarrassed. To all appearances, fine. He stood at my feet, panting, as I ran my hands over his compact little body. We all had to touch him, this dog we had so nearly lost forever. If the kids look like they're seeing a ghost here, well, they are.

And then he was off to join his new best friends, staying away from the cliff edge this time.

We climbed down the rest of the way, knees weak, crying a little. When I saw how far he’d fallen, and onto what, I was numb with shock. 20 feet at least, through space, onto a pile of rotting logs and large branches. A few leaves to cushion the spot where he'd landed. He'd lost his foothold right by the cleft in the cliff, and landed just above where Dave's standing. On either side of where he’d landed, slabs of sandstone the size of tabletops. I could so easily have been picking up a limp ragdoll, but here he was, smiling at my feet.

Well, I knew he’d be hurting the next morning, and he is. He tries but has trouble jumping up onto the bed, and he lies curled up, forsaking his usual frogleg stretch. He's got no fever, no obvious bumps or tender spots, but I’m taking him to his wonderful veterinarian today, because I know that this dog has for all intents and purposes been hit by a car. We shall see.

Everything works, he stretches, he runs, he leapt for sticks and toys yesterday right afterward, and he ate a huge dinner, but this morning he threw up foam and is a bit listless. As, I suppose, he should be. Poor Chet. The Little Cat Dog has used another of his nine lives (the first went when he tried to round up cattle as a pup and got stepped on).

I called Dr. Lutz and she worked Chet in at 3 PM. Here, he waits, looks out the window, hopes again to see the bundle of black and white fur that looks like a cat or a skunk, but is really a Japanese Chin. He has to settle for an old yellow Lab.Dr. Lutz felt him all over, listened to his lungs, and shook her head. "You’re a lucky dog, Chet Baker." She said she thought that whatever he landed on must have cushioned his fall sufficiently to keep him from serious injury. From any injury at all. She also said his compact build was a big help; a bigger, rangier dog could easily have twisted in the fall, landed on a leg wrong and gotten all busted up. "He's pure muscle," she said, looking at him appreciatively.

He’s sleeping at my feet, heaving those deep, rattling sighs of dog contentment. He chased chipmunks, had a big dinner with meatloaf drippings on it, begged for a tiny bite of my low-carb ice cream bar just like he does every night, watched hamster TV, and leapt to greet Bill when he got home from work. He’s probably forgotten it happened; he may not remember it until he nears a cliff edge again. I look at him and marvel. How did he do it? How did he fall twenty feet off a sheer rock lip, land on logs and live to chase chipmunks and beg for ice cream today? I don’t know. I’m just thankful, thankful that I’m able to kiss and hug this precious little dog, thankful that I’m not looking for just the right spot to lay him to rest tonight. I guess he still has work to do.

As impossible as it is for me to imagine, this would have been my last photograph of Chet Baker. It makes my heart drop into my guts just to write that.

I know, deep in my heart, that I love this dog more than I should, more than any human being should love an animal, animals being the exquisite, heartbreakingly impermanent beings that they are. But there are times when he is everything to me, when he saves me, when I think I might wither up and blow away without his kisses and the warm popcorn scent of his feet. He wants to be with me all the time, and for that I am amazed and grateful.

He has a lot of work left to do.

Into Each Life...

To my readers: I try to keep this blog a happy place, a place you can go to get away from everyday life. As Chekhov said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."
But into each life some crisis must fall. I'll tell you now, it all works out OK in the end. But it wasn't any fun, no fun at all when it was happening. It's taken me awhile to arrive at the right spiritual place to post it, so these photos will look lush to you, now that the trees have given up all their leaves. Here it is.

I guess I should write about this now, since it woke me up at 2 AM and keeps replaying in my head.

Yesterday, my friend Dave called and suggested we take the dogs for a hike. He’s got a cattle dog named Cooper and a huge blue Weimeraner named Phoenix.

Though they’re nice, calm dogs, Chet has always acted like a jerk to them. Even the perfect dog has flaws, and Chet's Achilles' heel is his Napoleon complex. I hoped that if they were on neutral ground, things would go better. I want Chet to be able to interact with other dogs without being such a little putz, always posturing, hackles raised, trying to dominate a dog four times his weight and volume. Thing is, the little cuss gets away with it. His bluster usually works. Which would be fine, if he would ever stop blustering. No. He has to prove his superiority over and over. I find myself wishing sweet, timid Phoenix would open up a can of whup-ass once, so Chet will stop all the foolishness. I hate being on tenterhooks, always keeping an eye on my uppity little dog, hoping he doesn’t get himself in trouble with the others.

These thoughts and others in my head, we drove about 22 miles into the Ohio backcountry, and the autumn leaves were blazing, so beautiful, whirling up in a fairy sparkle wake behind Dave’s car as we followed.

One of my favorite barns, for its deep maroon patina.

The church at Dalzell.

The gaily-painted general store and canoe livery along Route 26.

Phoebe, an erstwhile Twilight fan, making a quizzical face as I force her to pose next to an evocative headstone. This one's for Zoey and Trixie.

Delicious country curves.

The hiking spot has a big sandstone cave, a sinkhole, really, and a natural bridge, and it sounded like something we all ought to experience. Note the back of Liam's pants. It was very steep, and there's little my kids love more than going down steep slopes on their butts. Ehh, that's why they call them playclothes.

As we passed the first covered bridge on our route, there was a Canada goose, just hit, lying in the road. It was such an odd, odd place for a Canada goose. Its neck was bent in a C, and it was gasping hard, and there were feathers everywhere, and I found myself thinking, “Oh, God, I hope it’s dying, because I don’t want to pick it up and deal with it; I don’t want to have to wring its neck, because that’s a really big bird and it would be hard to do.” These are the things that run through your head when you are compelled to help; when you can't look the other way. Hard to do, both physically and emotionally, to wring a neck like that. We turned in to have a look at the bridge and by the time we got out the goose’s neck was slumped and it was still. I thanked the gods of nature and death that I didn't have to intervene. I just wanted to go for a hike with my kids and my dog today. We drove on.

We parked at the trailhead and the dogs leapt out of the car and, as I’d barely dared hoped, became instant friends on this neutral ground. Chet tried a couple of times to muscle Phoenix and Cooper but there were too many interesting smells and too many miles to race, so he gave up presenting his not-that-impressive profile and brought up the rear as the bigger dogs galumphed up and down the trail.

His wide Boston terrier grin told me he was having fun.

Tomorrow: Chet's fall.

Bedtime for Bonsai

Here's what's involved in Bedtime for Bonsai. First, you knock them out of their pots.
Then, you wrap the trunks in foil to keep voles from girdling them over the winter.
You load them on the garden cart.
And wash and store their pots inside.
In another session, you've already dug out the bonsai pit, pulling out armloads of spearmint that you've used all summer for mojitos and fruit salads. Spearmint comes back.

The pit yawns like an open grave, which gets a little larger every year.

You tote the wrapped, potless trees down to the pit, which is under the deck, on the west side of the house.
You say a special good-bye to each tree as you layer them into the pit, heeling them in on their sides because they're too tall any more to stand up. You cover their roots with soil.
Chet Baker has kept you company this whole time, running the bunneh route and periodically checking to make sure your back isn't too sore, which it is.
He checks for chiptymunks.

Finally, you straighten up, for the only thing remaining is to water and wash the glass shower doors you'll use to cover them when the weather gets really cold.

And you notice the last rose of summer, blooming bravely against a deadened landscape
and you stop to inhale its fruity apple scent, and remember that that's what gardening and bonsais are all about: stopping to appreciate these wonderful things that we have made. If you just do the chores without sitting down to marvel, you won't have replenished your spirit with what you need to keep doing the chores.