Relative Something

He did it to me again. That’s two days in a row. Asher took off when I wasn’t looking and disappeared beyond the range (I’m assuming) of my ability to persuade him with the electronic collar. They should have a setting where the collar automatically starts vibrating when your pet gets a certain distance away from the controller.

For some reason, on Sunday, I grabbed the mailbox off its base when plowing the driveway, and I left it in the shop garage. There would be no mail delivery, so I took it off with a plan to replace it after the township plow cleared the road.

As Asher and I headed out for a walk yesterday morning, I took him to the shop garage to get the mailbox. The garage door button is inside the shop, and I stepped inside to close it. When I came out, Asher was nowhere in sight. I thought he had gotten trapped inside the garage when I lowered the door, so I opened it back up.

Nope. He was gone. I grabbed the mailbox and started hustling my way down the driveway when my phone rang. It was our closest neighbor, Eileen, who lives on the other side of 650th St, reporting that Asher was at her place. At least that was closer than a mile down the road, and this time my forced march to retrieve him was all on plowed surfaces. Still, that’s more walking under stress than I wanted to be doing.

On his second walk of the day, Asher was confined to a leash. When we got to the end of the driveway, I discovered the plow had come by a second time and filled the end of the driveway, and also knocked the mailbox into the ditch as it passed. So much for my bright idea the day before.

Under protests from Asher, I tied his leash to the hay shed to give him a grand vista to enjoy while I went to get the Grizzly to clean up the end of the driveway. Unfortunately, the ATV wouldn’t start. I guessed I might have flooded it using the choke to entice it to fire, so I left it to sit and did some shoveling by hand.

First order of business was to clear a path out of the back of the barn so I could dump manure. The mess around the overhang was about to get out of control, and the wheelbarrow was already full because I didn’t have that pathway cleared to dump it.

That should have been enough time for the flooded cylinders to clear, but I still couldn’t get it to fire. That left me carrying a shovel to the end of the driveway to heave scoops of the mess by hand until I had enough of an opening for Cyndie’s car to fit through.

I ended the day exhausted and muscle-sore. And tired of the dog. But a solution to my dog concerns arrived last night when Cyndie successfully returned from Florida. She had tennis shoes on when she walked in the door, and it looked so funny to me.

She will be back in winter boots today!

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