A warm night and other tails

It’s a quiet gawdawful-hot Saturday morning.  But last night, the winds lessened the heat if only for a few hours.  So we sat outside in the long chairs that we usually use at the Michigan cottage this time of year. 

And we closed our eyes and imagined we were there.

The hot, Kansas winds were replaced by shivery lakeside breezes; the rustle of trees turned to waves lapping ashore; the moon’s bright light, rippling across our swimming pool, now danced atop the lake’s crests.

Ahhh.  I could even smell the lake.

It worked for about a minute. 

“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.”

It sounded like a steam engine.

“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.”

I opened my eyes and looked to my right. 

Dog Riley, the Golden, had climbed up on a third lounge chair.  And there, stretched out, her tongue hanging down, her eyes wide, she panted, her sides moving in and out like an accordion.

Riley in cooler times.

I wanted her to yank in that tongue, close her own eyes and imagine the lake, her favorite.  But I knew that was impossible.  Dogs must pant when the temperature rises or they explode.  And we wouldn’t want that.

So, still stuck in Kansas, we watched the bats consume mosquitoes, slapped a few of our own, and counted our blessings that we had water at our feet, albeit chlorinated.

All of which reminds me … I owe the blog some animal updates before I move on to non-animal things.

Dog, bird and then chipmunk.

First, dog.  Our guest, the black dog, found its proper owner.  Or I should say, the owner found the dog thanks to our post on Craigslist.

Good dog Sammy

It took just the next day.  The dog’s name is Sammy.  She has a sister dog of the same sort and color.  Sammy lived just a few blocks from us, and was headed in the right direction when we grabbed him from busy Nall Avenue.  But who knows whether he would have made it.

Anyway, all is well.  Dog and distressed family were reunited. And I think I’m cured of my notion that three dogs are better than two.

Next, the bird.

We thought Sky’s time was up.  If you recall, Sky is the surviving bird of the finch couple Sky and Sister Sarah, named after the characters in the musical “Guys and Dolls.”

Sarah passed on just before Christmas last year.  It was very sad, in part because I feared Sky’s brashness and love of life would wither.  Experts say a finch often will die within a few weeks of a partner’s passing. 

Something he ate?

But it had been six months since Sarah’s death, and Sky had remained the same – a loudmouth, full of energy, bouncing from corner to corner in the cage like a Super Ball.

Until a couple of weeks ago.  Sky started exhibiting all the symptoms of Sarah’s demise … fluffed out feathers, sitting in one spot, not eating, rarely chirping – hardly a loudmouth.

So mentally, I was readying a burial spot next to Sarah near the northeast corner of the pool.  It was hard. The silence was the hardest. Sky’s chirping typically ricochets down the hallway into the house’s every corner.   

Well, I’m happy to say the old boy is just fine. After two days of funeral preparation, I found Sky back to his usual self.  If anything, he’s even more demanding.

I don’t know what happened.  We were doing some painting, so maybe it was the fumes.  Maybe he ate a bad seed and just needed some Pepto. Maybe he went on a mental vacation. I’ve done that.

Whatever the case, he’s back to normal.  It’s good to hear.

And the chipmunk.

Despite my best judgment, I saved him.

My nemesis was in quite a pickle.

It seems during the night a few weeks ago, he stumbled into our pool.  I thought chipmunks were smarter than that.  But I suspect, drunk with power, he assumed himself invincible and so let his guard down.

The water runs through it.

Whatever, he fell in.  And I found him in the skimmer box in the morning.  Alive, but soaked through like a well-worn sponge.  The skimmer box, if you don’t know, is where the pool water flows swiftly back to the pump.

Now, I faced two options: Let him drown or let him live.  A friend of mine uses a drowning bucket to rid him of such varmints.  Our pool’s return flow, like a giant vacuum, would do the same thing but faster, I figured.

But I couldn’t do it.  I decided he needed rescue.

It wasn’t easy.  I give him credit … he had fought the rapids of that small box pretty well, in part by jumping desperately to the ledge where the water funnels into the box.

I had tried to pull out the box’s skimmer basket with him aboard.  But he would leap to the ledge. 

So I grabbed a pole and, from the pool side, pushed him along the ledge into the basket, then yanked the basket up.  I almost separated head from tail because he reached back to the ledge at the last second. I tried again; same result.

I needed to move faster.  So, the third time, I pushed the pole and pulled the basket with one quick motion.  And he was free.  

He jumped from the basket and scurried into the bushes, leaving a wet trail behind.  

“Lesson learned, you bugger!” I shouted after him. 

I’ve not seen him since. I still haven’t bought my trap, but I assume he’s around. 

Meantime, the bricks continue to settle.  So it’s not like I removed a thorn from a beast’s foot – you know, now friends forever, the war is over. 

But I did the right thing.  I think he’ll realize that some day.  Victory starts with hearts and minds.