A Man and his Dog in Autumn and Winter

One day we were quietly walking around the grounds together, admiring the horses and sheep in balmy, autumn weather, and the next we’re hunkered down watching the heavy snow spread its burden across the land.
by Charlie Leck

Sunday morning thoughts!
Friday was a lovely day here. Certainly it was novemberish and one needed a sweater and a hat for one’s daily walk, but the crispness was refreshing and clean feeling. My dog, Jasper, and I walked all around the farm, happily examining all the good work the boys had done in readying

the place for the coming winter. Farm machinery and the wagons and trailers, so heavily used in the summer, were cleaned up and parked neatly away. The roads around the farmyard were crisp and smooth, the fences repaired and strong looking, and the acres of lawn trimmed and pretty much cleared of all the leaves that had fallen. The lambs frolicked over the grass, stirred by the briskness of the day and the horses whinnied and kicked up their hind legs at shadows and imaginings. The barn cats and kittens scurried away from Jasper as he approached and found protection from him in the caves they had built in the giant stacks of hay.

Happily, we gave the old place an A+ for winter readiness and we were pleased.

Then on Sunday morning we awoke to snow covering the land and pouring down on us more like rain. It was a heavy, heavy snow that was too much for many of the trees. Small branches and limbs cracked loudly and either hung grotesquely from the big trees or crashed to the ground with sounds that echoed throughout the woods.

A fine red cedar bent so far under the weight of the wet snow that its tip touched the ground. Finally it snapped and the top half of it crashed down, revealing spectacular veins of deep, rich red flowing against the blondness of the wood beneath its bark. The handsome, fallen tree completely blocked the road that was our outlet to the world away from our farm. An old basswood gave up one of its giant lower limbs to the weight of the snow-rain mixture and the extremity crashed down on our driveway, leaving no way around it.

Five or six inches of the fresh, white cover built up on the sidewalks around our house and on the long driveway out to the town road. Trying to move it was ridiculously silly. I relied on the weather man who was telling us that the temperatures would warm and the snow would melt. With that as motivation, I cleared only shovel-wide paths from the house to the garage and only a single, narrow lane up and down the hills on our driveway. Normally, my small plow can clear and groom the driveways easily, but it struggled on this morning against the massive weight of the moist snow. It was cold, white rain that fell and my hat, gloves and coat soaked it up and weighted me down. I had to take regular breaks just to dry off and find fresh outerwear in order to take up the work again.

I encouraged Jasper, a black lab, to join me in the thick snow. He refused, making only a quick trip to his favorite, nearby spots to relieve himself, and then begged to be allowed back into the asylum of the warm, dry house.

“Some dog,” I complained to my wife, “you’ve spoiled him with all your petting and that silly, heated bed you got him.”

“Same way I spoiled you, I guess,” she retorted, wondering why I wasn’t outside moving snow.

“The weatherman says it will be warm enough today to melt it all quickly. No sense trying to move it now. It’ll kill me or break my back.”

She was dressed in real farmwear and serious boots and gloves. She was going to fire up a tractor with a front-end-loader and move broken tree limbs aside and open up both our driveway and the road. I wanted to take a photograph of her, fully wrapped and hidden from recognition, but she shook her fist at me and warned me against such foolishness. She went off and I found my third set of clothing for the day and prepared to join her. I invited the dog to come along, but he snuggled down in his heated bed and covered his eyes with his paws so that I couldn't stare at him with disdain.

I walked down the driveway. I heard the tractor up ahead, pushing the fallen giant limb of the basswood tree off to the side. By the time I reached the spot, the dear woman I so admire had already moved off to the fallen red cedar tree up on the road. I trudged on through the wet snow and went to join her and one of our neighbors who had stopped to help.

Ah, Minnesota! Why is it I love you so? I looked out over the rolling, white land and I knew. This place is special and it is reserved for those willing to interact with Mother Nature in a sort of intimate, thorough way.

"Bring it on, girl! Bring it on!"

_________________________

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Jasper

How a dog can change your life
and what’s wrong with ignoring the needs of the U.S. auto industry!
By Charlie Leck

A reader posted a comment on one of my recent blogs, telling me she also has a dog named Jasper.

Odd? I think so, because it’s an odd name. I don’t ever remember hearing of another dog with that name. Now I learn that an old and good friend has a Jasper also. [Molly, we’ll have to have them meet up some day!]

I certainly hope her Jasper is as wonderful as mine. She writes that her dog doesn’t have strong loyalties and that the grass on the other side of the fence (literally) always looks greener to him. When she lets Jasper out, he immediately goes over to the neighbor’s house, eats the cat food and finds a comfortable bed on which he can rest.

My Jasper has been wonderful for me and it was very bright of us to get him. He exercises me daily, something that I had gotten out of doing. My first walks with him were of about a quarter mile or so. Now it’s no problem to walk with him for 3 or 4 miles. The weather is having some impact on our exercise. Neither of us likes these very frigid conditions and he’s had it with the great outdoors after 5 minutes or so.

Last weekend the weather turned balmy, so we were able to take him over to the dog park for a couple of hours. I got a nice long walk in and I immediately realized how much I miss those strolls.

This wonderful guy has literally changed my life. For the last couple of years I’ve spent nearly every day at home by myself, reading or writing. Both my muscles and spirit had begun to atrophy. That’s not good. Now I have a responsibility to him. He needs his exercise and I don’t have options about that. We pick the warmest part of the day and head for the trails and spend an hour or so wandering together. I chat with him all along the way. He’s not a great conversationalist, but he gives every impression that he is a good listener.

When I sit at this desk, writing, he likes to lie right at my feet and sometimes directly on top of them. That keeps my toes warm. His snoring is gentle and rhythmic and doesn’t bother me.

Today’s Star-Tribune (the newspaper of the Twin Cities) has a good column by our former U.S. Senator, Mark Dayton, about how to fix Minnesota. He criticizes our Governor’s “no new taxes” pledge. If ever there’s a time to raise taxes, especially on the upper-income citizens, it is now. Tough times, like these, call for those of us who can afford it to make sacrifices and contributions to the general good of the entire population. That’s always been part of the American spirit and it’s wrong not to tap into that character now.

Jasper is in complete agreement with me on this matter. Instead, we are both afraid that our state legislative bodies with curl up in a tight fetal position and, to the detriment of us all, do nothing.

Lorie Sturdevant’s column about the U.S. Senate election recount process here in Minnesota was certainly worth reading. Jasper and I hope this incredibly close race teaches people that it is crucial to exercise your constitutional right to vote. I am astounded when I meet people who don’t vote.

Jasper also agrees with Rick Taft’s letter in this morning’s local paper.

“Those senators who want to guard the taxpayers against the auto industry never batted an eye when sending this country into perpetual debt bondage to make war against a country that never did anything to us. What a bunch.” [RICK TAFT, WOODBURY]

I agree with Taft. We’ve only dropped a cool 3 trillion dollars in Iraq alone. That’s not a misprint – trillion – 3 of them to pursue an absolutely stupid and unnecessary war. However, we can’t pump 15 billion into the auto industry. Japan has a long history of subsidizing its auto industry, to help it compete against us. It would, I think, have disastrous affects if we allow the U.S. auto industry to go under.

I’m not a William Kristol fan, but I read him regularly to try to retain some balance in my thinking. Kristol’s column of today (15 December 2008) has an interesting take on Congressional assistance for the auto industry. It might be worth your time to read Kristol’s opinion on this matter.

“Now there are other ways to explain the disparate treatment of G.M. and Citigroup. Finance is different from manufacturing, and banks from auto companies. It may be that the case for a huge bank bailout was strong, and that the case for a more modest auto package is not. Still, it seems to me true that the financial big shots haven’t been treated nearly as roughly in Congress or in the media as the auto executives, who have done nothing remotely as irresponsible as their Wall Street counterparts.” [William Kristol]

Well, the warmest portion of the day is approaching, so I’m going to take Jasper out for about a 45 minute walk.

Come on back tomorrow!

Ectopia

Here’s a hint for Christmas!
by Charlie Leck

Sometimes stories are just too wonderful! No?

Sometimes they also seem highly unlikely – something you wouldn’t find believable if it were the plot of a novel – but then you find out said story is actually true and happened precisely the way I am now going to tell it. Wow!.

Such is the case with the story of the book, Ectopia, which, because he couldn’t find a publisher, was first privately produced by its author in the early 1970s. It became a bit of a cult novel and sold nearly a half-million copies. The dust jacket contained a blurb from Ralph Nader. Its author, Ernest Callenbach, seemed something of a dizzy dreamer.

What I find so wonderful here – get this straight – is the story about the book and not so much the story in the book.

The book’s story is about the secession of the Northwestern United States from the Union – Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

What really caught people’s attention were a whole bunch of real goofy ideas – recycling receptacles everywhere (including on trains), a national sustainable economy, hanging ferns and small plants on the public transportation vehicles, and, funnier than everything else – a woman president of this new nation in the northwest.

Now – in 2008 – the book is being assigned as required reading in many college environment classes. Thought of as fantasy in the 70s, it is thought of as highly possible today.

At the time he wrote it, the book was rejected by every publisher in front of which Callenbach could get it. “The environment kick was over,” they told him. After he sold over 2,500 privately published copies, Bantam decided to publish it and the first printing sold out. So did the next.

Scott Timber, in the NY Times, explains the essential character of the book…

“Set at what seems to be the turn of the 21st century, and told through the columns and diaries of a reporter from the fictional New York Times-Post, the novel is not especially literary. Its characters are flat; its prose — well, call it utilitarian. And the plot, in which the narrator drops his skepticism and settles into Ecotopian life, thanks in part to a love interest, lacks sophistication. And yet the book has managed to find its place in the here and now.”

What makes Ectopia so sensational today? Well, it seems to have predicted Portland – creative public transport, slow growth, local foods, organics, and neighborhood restaurants that prepare with local, fresh foods only.

Problems? There are plenty of them. Black people withdraw into their own Soul City. I can see the effect of the Black Power Movement on thinking like that. It was written during the birth of that movement.

Some women’s groups don’t like it either. Sometimes I want to tell them to get a sense of humor.


Callenbach says he wouldn’t write the book the same way today, under terribly different social conditions.

Yet, this is a dream story, this story about the book. Today it is being read in college classrooms all over the nation and not just up there in the drizzly Northwest. People are inquiring about it in bookstores all across our country – the real nation, that is, -- in all 50 states.

Santa, I want a copy for Christmas!

POSTED SUNDAY 14 DECEMBER 2008 (7:53 A.M.)

Fred the Fruitcake


I hate to say it, but we may have to do something about one of my readers!
by Charlie Leck

I guess I’m seeking advice from some of my readers about another of my readers. I don’t know what to do about him anymore. I think, early on, I gave him too much encouragement to respond to my blogs with comments.

He’s been particularly taken by my blogs about my dog, Jasper, but here’s what’s going on now that has me worried about the stability of this reader.

He claims that my dog, Jasper, is sending him emails. Can you imagine? And, that the dog also catches replies to his email and takes them off-line before I can see them. He claims my dog is a very good reader and has an extended vocabulary. Granted, my dog is very smart. As I told you the other day, he has his M.A. in dog obedience. The woman of the house, against my objections, is pushing him toward a PhD.

This reader in Denver is claiming that my dog is complaining about the academic and scholastic pressure! Jasper also is telling my friend that he is Jewish and is not happy about being in a gentile home, especially when the Christmas tree went up a couple of weeks ago. He also tells me that my dog is complaining about the food, that there is really nothing to “nosh” on and that in a good Jewish home there would be food out for him all the time.

The reader is threatening to have the dog knapped and taken away to his own home in Denver.

The fellow has really gone round the bend. He’s talking about the “dogland security agency” showing up at my door and putting “a black bag over your head and abduct Jasper and take him to the land of happy dogs… where he’ll learn what good living is all about.”

When I first started communicating with this fellow, he seemed innocent and sound enough and completely rational. Now, he’s gone round the bend and I think I must lodge some complaints about him with the proper authorities.

I guess all of this is one of the hazards of the blogosphere.

Mousetraps on the Sofa

I wonder what Barry will use in the White House?
by Charlie Leck

Jasper, the Black Labrador who came to live with us this past September, is basically a wonderful dog. Mother has been taking him to obedience school and he passed quickly through the first three levels and found himself proudly at the top of the class in level four – a post graduate level where a dog may earn the M.A. of obedience training. Only a PhD lurks out there beyond him yet – the designation of “companion dog.”

So, indeed, mother is to be congratulated for her commitment to regular attendance at these complicated training seminars.

A friend I chat with regularly at the dog park mentioned that “she will be ever so much brighter and disciplined for the experience.”

“No, no,” I reminded my friend, “Jasper is male – a he!”

“Indeed, I know,” said my friend, “I’m talking about your wife.”

I want to be careful with my wording in this blog because I understand it is important not to allow a student, who is rising through the levels so quickly, to develop any sort of sense of inferiority. Therefore, if you encounter him, don’t bring this topic up with Jasper.

This is a dog who has mastered “sit down, stand up, shake my hand!... lie down, roll over, fetch this ball!” That’s all masterful stuff. He even knows the difference between “stay there” and “wait there,” which I yet do not.

Yet, the lowly, black mutt cannot learn to stay off the friggin’ furniture! He thinks every upholstered chair and every sofa in the house is his personal domain.

As I began decorating the Christmas Tree on Sunday, mother came home from the hardware store with a bundle in her hands and a wide smile spread across her face.

“Mouse traps,” she beamed, “these will do the trick.”

She began “setting” mouse traps (complete with artificial cheese that smells like little, skinny strips of yellow plastic) on all the furniture in the living room – 3 on each sofa and one on each of the comfy chairs, including upon the one I call “Archie Bunker’s chair,” and upon which no “meathead son-in-law” is allowed to sit, but upon which Jasper takes great pride in sprawling.

“Now we’ll see how quickly he can learn,” said the gloating woman of the house.

The dog watched her doing her evil work. He tilted his head from one side to the other each time she drew a trap back into its firing position and then gingerly placed them upon each inviting cushion in the big room. Now, granted he’s a smart dog, but it didn’t really take a PhD to figure out what this geek of dog training and obedience lessons was up to.

In the 48 hours since, no black dog has approached any of the furniture in the living room; however, he’s been content to curl up on any of the several beds we have scattered about. He’s also found a nice, cushy chair in my study about which the trap-meister forgot. He’s curled up there now, snoring lightly as I conclude this blog posting.

Oh yes, in this 48 hour period, neither has any human being approached our cushy furniture. I even brought a straight-backed chair in from the dining room in order to watch the Vikings play the Lions on Sunday afternoon.

“For Pete’s sake,” my wife scowled at me and gingerly picked up the trap from Archie Bunker’s chair.

“All you have to do is pick the trap up like this,” she said, holding the trap out for me to see. A wide, derisive smile was just starting to spread across her face as the trap fired off and jumped in her light grasp. She shrieked as the trap flew through the air and landed squarely in the middle of the Christmas Tree.

So, there will be a new dog at the White House. Now that’s a lot of sofas and chairs! They’ll be teaching Prime Ministers of distant, foreign lands how to move tiny mouse traps before they invite them to sit down to talk about world peace.

Calm Before the Storm

Bringing home Jasper!
by Charlie Leck

This afternoon, Anne and I will pick up Jasper (two year old black Labrador) and bring him to his new home. Neither of us slept very well last night and this morning we both confessed to extreme excitement and anticipation. We admitted also to feeling foolish about acting like 10 year olds, but that’s just the way it happens to be.

I am realizing that I have a quite different life ahead of me than the one I’ve so enjoyed the last couple of years. I turned 68 yesterday, and one of the privileges of being this old is the enjoyment of lots of private and quiet time. Since our last old dog wandered off to the stars, I’ ve pretty much been able to use my time just any way I wanted to. Nature’s urge to rush to the bathroom is the only demanding moments I have any more. If I felt like sitting down with a book and reading for 3 hours straight, I did it. If I wanted to watch an afternoon baseball game on TV, I did it. Or, I might choose to go hit golf balls or practice my putting. More relative to you, my readers, I had plenty of time to post my near-daily blogs.

Of course, I mustn’t forget to also admit to the freedom to take an hour nap in the afternoon if I chose to, which I did almost every day. There’s something deliriously wonderful about retirement, except, on the other hand, it also reminds one of the ever decreasing distance to the stars.

Perhaps a cyclone is coming; yet, perhaps not. It won’t be like having a puppy, now will it? I’ve given myself some good verbal tongue lashings about this coming event. The dog will require and deserves plenty of attention. One reason I’m getting it is to motivate myself to get out and do more walking. So, I’m planning on two or three thoroughly enjoyable walks down the driveway each day – the driveway being a quarter-of-a-mile long, and up and down rolling hills, out to the city street. That will be a half-mile right there. If I then turn and climb the little hillock toward the highway, I’ll push the round trip to more than a mile. Two or three times a day? That will be good for me. There are also trails we keep cut through the woods and fields for the fox hunters and I’m betting a lab would enjoy walks like those.

My point is, this critter’s main chore, to earn his keep around here, will be to get me up out of this chair at my desk and launch me out into the world again. In return he’ll get more than room and board. We want him to find this a pleasant and loving home. We want him to have fun and get plenty of the exercise he needs. We’re committed to giving him plenty of scratching, petting, pampering and playing.

Yesterday I picked up what advertises itself, on its extravagant packaging, to be the world’s best dog toy. Being a gullable sap, I asked myself, “Why not the best?” Now, we’ll wait and see.

Tomorrow, as you probably guessed, you may expect some photographs of the new member of the family.