Cobwebs

Gretchen did some complaining today, which is rare because she usually doesn’t complain. But this morning I heard some grumbling.

“Darn cobwebs!” she snarked. “Seems like everywhere I turn, I’m running into spider webs and cobwebs!”

She thinks she has it bad! She should try being a dog who walks through them all the time and I don’t even have any hands to wipe them from my face! Instead of joining in on her rant, I calmly tried to console her. “Yeah, I know. They seem exceptional abundant this year.”

“And persistent,” she added. “Seems like every morning I walk right into the same spider web at the gate. You’d think I’d learn!”

It’s true. The webs we’ve run into have been sturdy and plentiful and quickly repaired. I don’t mind them that much unless a spider drops out of them and onto my curls. That kind of creeps me out, but generally, the web itself, while irritating, doesn’t send me over the edge like it does Gretchen. Of course, those fine threads seem to really hang on her and hours after she’s walked through a web, she’s still pulling strands from her hair, off her glasses, and trying to fling them from her hands.

It doesn’t help that she can’t tell if it’s her gray hair stuck on the rim of her glasses or a spider’s web. I guess both are annoying. And I guess it doesn’t help that the sun was so bright today it glared out any evidence of cobwebs so we walked through a lot of them. And let me tell you, we did a lot of walking today!

First up was Monty. He was, as usual, happy to see us and particularly pleased that we came for a walk before it got really hot. “I just wilt in the heat!” he told me. I know how he feels.

Together we walked up to get Woobie and after our nice long walk up on the ridge and back down to our house, she hung out with us for awhile. Doubly nice was that the house was still cool and we didn’t have to hoof it out in the unusually warm weather.

Gretchen did though, and her she told me she sweated like a pig.

“I didn’t know pigs sweated?” I said.

“Oh yeah,” said Monty, “It’s amazing!”

“When have you seen a pig sweat?” asked Woobie.

“Uh…well…”

“I thought so,” Woobie smiled.

Meanwhile, Gretchen was out battling the heat and the cobwebs first on a walk with Oshi and Perrito…

…and then on a walk with Gemma and Zoe.

None of them seemed to notice the cobweb issue, though all of them noticed the climbing thermometer! It’s especially tough on Zoe with her black hair, though the two of didn’t seem to mind too much…

…especially when the squirrel raced up the tree right above Gretchen’s head!

Monty and I didn’t have to walk Woobie home either. Saber had the honors and he wasn’t pleased that the photo took place not in the cool shade, but right out in the hot open. Gretchen told him, “Sorry, Saber it’s just that I pass this cool ceramic mural all the time and I’ve always wanted to get a photo of some dogs here.”

“Yeah, but it’s hot!” moaned Saber.

“Just grin, Saber,” Woobie told him, “And we can be on our way.”

“Oh, okay! I can do that!”

Saber swung by our house to pick up Monty and me who were resting quite nicely in the cool breeze of the fan. “Come on, Monty,” I told him. “It’s our turn to walk Saber home.”

“Alrighty!” Monty sprung into action and got particularly happy when he realized that after Saber got dropped off, we’d get to play some fetch!

Not too much, though because it was hot hot hot out there so we’d fetch our balls and then just crash in the shade.

Usually that’s the end of our Wednesday’s activities, but today I got to go with Gretchen over to Paige’s house and pick her up for a visit and a walk! When I brought her home where Monty was waiting, boy was he every happy. He really likes Paige and followed her around until eventually, we all just rested in the shade of the backyard.

Monty went home after that (he was a little sad…he really likes her), but Gretchen said that three big dogs at the lake was just too much for her to handle after 10 miles of walking today!

So Monty went home, while Paige and I walked another 3 miles down to the lake and back with a brief stop to cool ourselves off in the water! No photos of that as Gretchen was in the lake with us and she didn’t want to get her camera wet!

But here we are resting on the bench above the lake and as you can see, I’m a bit wet while Paige looks very dry. She’s not, she just looks that way!

Paige came back to our house and we hung out. Well, actually Paige hung out and I did everything I could to engage her in a game of chase and wrestling. She wasn’t exactly sure what to do with me! Instead, she just hung out with Ann hoping that she would be saved from my craziness!

Eventually, we just rested in the shade and then Paige went back into the house and rested on the cool bamboo floors right where the office window blows in a really nice breeze. She’s one smart dog, that Paige!

On our way out the door to return Paige back to her Mom, Gretchen ran smack dab into another spider web. It was, in fact, the same spider web that set her off to complaining this morning. “Jeez,” she said a bit perturbed and then we both laughed. “Oh well, what can I do, Rubin?”

“Keep your mouth closed?” I winked at her. Even Paige laughed at that.

Until tomorrow,

Rubin