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Maggie’s Learned the Reward of Smoozing

September 25, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket then giving Fido only two of them.” Edward Jesse

Travels With Maggie

This is the look I get when Maggie wants something and expects me to know what it is. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Maggie, my black cocker spaniel traveling companion, wormed her way into the heart of my friend, Sherry, when we visited her in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, last week. So much so that Sherry turned up at my RV with treats for her.

Now we’re not talking your usually doggie bone, we’re talking a whole cheeseburger without any condiments one day, and a sausage and egg breakfast sandwich the next day. Admittedly she asked first if Maggie was allowed people food.

Now if you’ve ever read the ingredients in most dog food, which I carefully began doing after the dog-food fiasco a few years back that killed people’s pets, you’ll understand why I replied:

“Yes.”

I think this is Maggie's way of saying "Let's rest a bit before going on." -- Photo taken by Pat Bean at Clyde Holliday State Park in Southern Oregon.

In fact, Maggie always gets the last bite of anything I eat. It was the way Maggie, whom I rescued from an abusive first year of her life, and I bonded, As long as it isn’t junk food, I figure real food is as good or even better for her as dog food.

I didn’t know, however, that my answer would reap Maggie such a generous reward, although I must admit Maggie was on especially good behavior with Sherry, her teenage son and their cats.

Maggie, who is more cat-like than dog-like, has never had a problem with felines, just other dogs, which all of my children have. It’s not that she’s mean beyond growling a bit at the bigger ones, but just that she likes to mark her territory to let them know she considers herself the alpha dog.

And that means that although she will cross her legs all day to keep from peeing in our RV home, she’s not as considerate when she’s in another dog’s territory, even if that territory is indoors.

Maggie with her pet, me, at Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho

It was like going back to the days when my children were always doing something to embarrass me.

The reason I decided to tell you a bit about my spoiled dog this morning is that I think Sherry got Maggie thinking that cozying up to people might have its rewards. So she smoozed her way into the heart of my RV neighbor here at the Bordertown RV Park just outside Reno, where I spent the past two days. .

This morning the neighbor came over with two pieces of left-over chicken from her dinner last night.

“Can Maggie have some chicken,” she asked.

“Yes.”

She then patiently stood there and picked the meat off the bone and fed it to her.

Afterward, Maggie grinned up at me. I swear she did.

Posted in Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fall

September 24, 2011 by Pat Bean

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” George Eliot

Travels With Maggie

 

Fall high up in the Combres Pass in Southern Colorado. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Maggie and I are just outside Reno today, where I’m catching up on laundry and house-cleaning chores before I get back on the road tomorrow. Maggie’s spent the morning smoozing with our next door neighbors here at the RV Park.

It’s still summer here, with huge sunflowers lining the roads and wild grasses tall and browning from the long hot summer. But, just as mother used to say it was 6 o’clock somewhere when she wanted an early afternoon beer, it is fall somewhere.

Two landscapes that pop immediately out of my memory banks when I think of autumn are the one I saw last year in Colorado and the 2006 autumn that caught me in Maine. I still thrill remembering the orange, lemon and strawberry colored cocktails that the landscape served up.

Fall is truly my favorite season. And in that I find myself not alone.

Ode to Autumn

Maggie and I spent five days beneath this tree at the Paul Bunyon Campground in Bangor, Maine, in the early fall of 2006. Each day the leaves turned more scarlet. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
–John Keats

Posted in Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Highway 395 and Soul Words

September 23, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. – Don Williams.

 

The yellow winding road warning sign was no joke. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

For two days now, I’ve been traveling south on Highway 395 in Oregon. It’s an awesome road, full of twisty turns, steep canyons, grazing cattle, grassy meadows and flowing water.

I began my journey in Pendleton, where cowboys and Indians still roam, and on the first day I made it to the beautiful Clyde Holliday Park just outside John Day, where quail and deer still play. The second day found me in Lakeview, south of Lake Albert and just north of the California border..

The town of John Day is named for the John Day River, which was named for a Virginian who accompanied the Astor Expedition that followed the footsteps made by the earlier Lewis and Clark Expedition. Clyde Holliday is a successful logging entrepreneur in the area.

 

The roadsides occasionally hinted of autumn ahead. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The first day on the road took me through Battle Mountain State Park, and gave me a history lesson about the Bannock War. The park is the site of the last major fight the Bannock Indians fought against the encroachment of white settlers.

The highway north of John Day, while steep and winding, was mostly broad and open. The canyon south of John Day was steeper and narrower and often lined with trees. Except for an occasional logging truck, I was usually the only vehicle on the road.

Forks of the John Day River followed me both days. As I drove yesterday I composed a poem in my head. I seldom write poetry, but when I do, I call it soul words, which is my way of excusing my murder of poetic forms.

I hope you will, too.

Time Well Spent

Take me up to the mountain top

Up where the eagle and red-tailed hawk soar

Let me look out on a panoramic vista

Of meadows filled with golden grasses,

And clumps of frosty sagebrush

And patches of yellow wild blossoms

And here and there a tinge of red

That speaks of summer’s end.

Let me delight watching conifer leaves twinkle in the wind

And be amazed at how the stalky evergreens

March their way in jumbled rows up rocky cliffs

Let me linger a bit here on the high reach

Breathing in the fresh sky-scrubbed air

Scented with pungent sage and pine needles

Then let me slowly travel down canyon

Accompanied by the tinkling laughter of water

As it joyfully bubbles over riverbed rocks

Heeding the unwavering  call of gravity

Thankfully my life has seen such days as this

Unfettered by the world’s chaotic-ness

And doubly thankful again this precious day

That I’ve added yet another few peaceful hours 

To my piggy bank of memories.

– Pat Bean

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Pond Reflections

September 22, 2011 by Pat Bean

The pond at the end of the nature trail at Clyde Holliday State Park in Oregon. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing – just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond … “ – Ralph Marston

Travels With Maggie

One of the blogs I follow is “Life in the Bogs,” in which the author, Robin, frequently includes daily pictures of one particular pond. Every shot – influenced by the day’s sun or mist, shadows or light, and of course the seasons – is different.

Cattails add their special texture to the scene. -- Photo by Pat Bean

When I read her blog, I feel as if I’m also walking the trail that takes her to the pond and the neighboring “bog.” If you’re a nature lover, like me, I suggest you check it out at http://bogsofohio.wordpress.com

Meanwhile, I thought I would share the pond I discovered this afternoon at Clyde Holliday State Park on the John Day River in Oregon. I hadn’t planned to stop here, but the park looked too inviting to pass up.

After getting settled in, Maggie and I went to explore its nature trail, which ended at the pond. We surprised some California quail – a mom and dad and at least half a dozen half-grown chicks – on the way out, and two mule deer on the way back.

It was a beautiful hike, about a mile in length, that we both enjoyed.

Posted in Nature | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

High Flight

September 20, 2011 by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

I am in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, where I have an extremely busy day ahead of me in preparation for getting on the road tomorrow. So I’m simply going to share my very favorite poem in the whole universe with you.  Have a great day!

My earth-bound legs can only dream of soaring free in a sky like this that one day overlooked Canyonlands National Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean

High Flight

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And Danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence, Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air …

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And while with silent lifting mind I have trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Booze Split the Town; Frogs United It

September 19, 2011 by Pat Bean

 

The frog and the snail, one of the more elegant of the carved wooden frogs that are scattered around Milton-Freewater. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” Mao Tse-Tung

Travels With Maggie

“So how does a town get a moniker like Milton-Freewater,” I asked my friend, Sherry, who was graciously showing me about this Northern Oregon town that has about 6,500 residents.

“Well, it began,” she said – and now I paraphrase – when the goody-two-shoes in town wanted Milton, which was established in the late 1860s, to become a dry town..

Being a Texan, she didn’t have to explain “dry.” The Lone Star State is checker-boarded with wet and dry towns. We’re talking booze here, not water.

 

This fine old frog with the cats once stood in front of a hardware store that was also an animal shelter. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Sherry continued: The party-goers didn’t like that and so they moved out and created their own town just next door to the north. They originally named it Walla Walla, but they changed it to Freewater when town officials decided to offer free water as a means of attracting more residents.

And so the two cities, the best of rivals, existed for many years.

In the early 1950s, however, the costly economics of infrastructure to maintain two cities was recognized. The vote to join the towns was a hot one, and the issue passed by a margin of only 50 votes. And the two ends of town continue to maintain separate images, Sherry related. .

She said the locals have long had another name for their beloved city – Muddy Frogwater.

There’s even an an annual week-long festival called Muddy Frogwater Days, which celebrated its 31st anniversary just last month. One of the activities, Sherry said, was a frog race.

And this lovely frog, which stands in front of Curves, is proudly showing off all the weight she lost. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Like in Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County?”

“Yeah!”

My traveling canine companion, Maggie and I are sorry we missed it

“How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!”

— Emily Dickinson  

Posted in Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Faces

September 18, 2011 by Pat Bean

“I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Olmec head, HemisFair Park, San Antonio, Texas. It's a really big face. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The discovery of the Olmec Heads, like this one that was put on display at the 1968 HemisFair held in San Antonio, which I was privileged to attend, provided archaeologist with many mysteries to solve. It was finally decided that the heads  were created by the  mother culture of the Mayans. it’s a face from the past.

“A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments »

A Too Early Phone Call

September 16, 2011 by Pat Bean

“Morning is when the wick is lit. A flame ignited, the day delighted with heat and light, we start the fight for something more than before.” Jeb Dickerson 

One of the two northern flickers that visited me just as the sun was coming up this morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

My morning began at 5 a.m. with a phone call when I was still deep asleep, By the time I stumbled out of bed and figured out where my phone was – in the cab beneath my RV’s upper bunk – it had stopped ringing.

After crawling back into bed and snuggling back beneath the covers because it was quite a chilly morning here in Pendleton, Oregon, where I’m parked in the farmyard of a friend’s mother, I hit the redial button.

It was my daughter-in-law, Cindi, in Texas who rang to tell me the books I had ordered from Amazon had arrived. They included Susan Albert’s “Bleeding Heart,” the next in the China Bayles’ books I’m reading and one that hadn’t been available on Kindle.

A much better look at a northern flicker, this one a male. -- Photo by Joanne Kamo

I said, perhaps a bit snippy: “It’s o-dark-hundred here. I’m in the Pacific time zone and two hours earlier than where you are.”

“Oh,” she responded. But then of course we chatted for a while. I couldn’t be too angry because she’s my traveling guardian angel and has handled all my mail for the past seven years. .

After we hung up, I tried to go back to sleep, but unlike my dog, Maggie, who never even lifted her head at the phone call, sleep had vanished for the day. So I got up, fixed coffee and sat down in front of my computer, alternating between answering e-mails and watching the day arrive out my window.

I was rewarded with a pair of northern flickers messing around a tree near my RV. I tried to get a picture, but it was dark and my photo turned out poorly. I thought you might want to see it anyway, but I added a photo taken by Joanne Kamo  http://www.pbase.com/jitams to give you a better look.

Meanwhile, I did enjoy watching the pair of large woodpeckers – that’s the family to which northern flickers belong. They stayed around for quite a while poking around the tree, and sticking their heads into a couple of holes it contained. If Cindi hadn’t called I would have missed them all together.

Life’s like that. It throws you a curve ball, then apologizes with a slow pitch you can’t miss.

Posted in Birds, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture

September 15, 2011 by Pat Bean

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go’” —  Maya Angelou

Collage of cowgirls hanging in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

I was looking through my photos for a picture to illustrate texture and came across this. Certainly the textures found in the lives of these strong women qualify. I find it awesome to just think about the softness of their hearts, the hardness of the steel  fueling their gumption, the kindness of their hands on a child’s feverish face, the hot rash of passion in their lives and the rough calluses of their ranch worn hands. And it’s all beautiful.

 

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

A Bawdy Poem or an Irish Town?

September 14, 2011 by Pat Bean

“A flea and a fly in a flue

Were caught, so what could they do

Said the fly, “Let us flee.”

“Let us fly,” said the flea.

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.” – Unknown

 

The large quail at the entrance to the Carmella Winery in Southern Idaho made me giggle. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Roadside sites, like a giant wooden California quail at the entrance to the Carmella Winery adjacent to Three Island State Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho, make me giggle.

But it was a snicker that erupted from my lips when I saw the name of the Catholic Church in Glenns Ferry.  I really didn’t mean to be so irreverent, but I simply couldn’t help it.

“The Lady of Limerick Catholic Church” read the sign. .

Now a limerick is a kind of five-line poem that is usually a bit bawdy. Or,poetically explained:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

In space that is quite economical,

But the good ones I’ve seen

So seldom are clean,

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

 

The Lady of Limerick, to whom I issue an apology for my irreverence

Of course there was another explanation. The Lady of Limerick refers to a statue of the Virgin Mary located in the city of Limerick in Ireland. I now know that because I did a bit of research out of curiosity. It still seems a bit odd to me, however, that anyone knowing what most people think of when the word limerick is mentioned would still name a church that.

But to check if my sense of humor was askew, I told a friend that I had passed a church called “The Lady of Limerick.” She didn’t snicker, but she laughed so hard she almost choked.

At least I have company in my irreverence.

Posted in Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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