Far be it from me to make light of climate change and global warming, but they were a convenient excuse for a work stoppage today at dreamranch.
I am building a new viewing platform — aka picnic table –for Cooper and offer photographic evidence at left that progress is being made. So, there, you Cooper lovers: He soon will have his new perch.
Here he is is on the old one, which I had to consign to the fireplace because it had become structurally unsound. I know I could not be sued by a rescued “Aussie X,” as the animal shelter called him, but my conscience couldn’t bear any injury to my longtime pal, who in the photo at top is watching me work … or rest … as the case may be.
It only reached 60-something today, but it felt like 80 and it never rains anymore, you know. Hot, dusty and dry in April seems to be the new world order. I haven’t seen a wildflower yet this spring.
It really was the desire to protect Cooper that led to the whole picnic table routine, which allows him to look out over the snake-proof adobe wall surrounding his yard. I never got around to cutting and screening windows in the wall.
Even with the table-top view, he’s always demanded that we take lie-down breaks on morning and evening walks so he can scan the hills for lost sheep or pesky coyotes, or think out lines of doggerel, whatever he does.
So, it’s not like he’s a shut-in. And soon, when I get back to work on that pile of red cedar, he again will be monarch of all he surveys, night and day.
dream ranch 