magic

the evening field runs are always fun and sometimes they move you so deeply that the tears just well up and flood your soul. tonight sweetpea, and tug insisted on coming along. not that they cared where we going, only that i remained within their sight. once that farm gate opened, they came alive. really truly alive as they discovered our magic place,

tugs bounded thru those fields with his ears flapping in the wind. long after lexie, dexter, bill and phoebe and i had stopped to sit or lay in the wet grass, there was tug, running and running, joyfully flying like he was young and free. not bad for a sixteen year old partially blind and deaf poodle who was screaming in helpless hopelessness in the pound a mere 4 days ago.

and sweetpea...to see her ancient, tiny and totally broken little body, toddering thru the long green grass like she was a real dog. game to keep up and even forge ahead to find the next adventure just within her reach. pig poop, thick black mud to wade thru and even fall in up to her chin. and happiness just shining out of her blearly little eyes when we went back to do it one more time.

there was a brief moment of sadness and fear too. because even in magic places, sometimes scary things happen. the nieghbor kids across the road set off some fire crackers while we were sitting in the field. a mass of hearing, flying dogs, fled across the field heading for home thru the little gate. (the deaf ones didn't care.) at the head of the pack and truly the most terrified, was cole. just before he reached the gate, he stopped, turned around and ran right back to me. he climbed into my lap and hid his face under my arm and begged me to please take him home. so i did. i put them all away, and this time did a head count and realized we were still missing jazz and rocky. jazz was easy to find, she was rummaging in the manure pile, cold stone deaf and blind, oblivious to mid air explosions. but rocky, who can hear somethings, was no where in sight.

so once again, joe, phoebe, sweet pea, tug and i headed down to the bottom field to find rocky. he wasn't there. i decided to bring the ancient crippled ones back to the house before i started climbing thru the bush to find our frightened friend. and there was rocky curled up as small as he could get by the side yard gate with his face shoved deep in the gravel corner. i guess rocky was even more afraid of those firecrackers than cole, poor, poor frightened little man.

they are all back inside now, safe where they belong. the house is tracked full of mud.

i wonder how jolie is tonight and if she is scared while she learns the new ins and outs of her foster home. i bet she is thinking about running in our fields because this is where our true magic lies. good thing she missed the firecrackers tho. i think those would have really scared her too.