Attempting 41 posts in 42 days: Post #1 - Good Dog

Desparate times call for desparate measures so, in order to try and jumpstart this blog, I will attempt 41 posts by August 7th - my 41st birthday. That's only 42 days away, and so works out to pretty much a post a day. Can I do it?

Gone are the once or twice a month updates that go on way too long. Instead, shorter but more frequent updates will hopefully fill in all the blanks of the last several months and give you a better idea of the day to day life here at Spenardo del Sur.

My dog, Della, disappeared a month ago. She was old - sixteen years. You may remember that I took Della in last summer after her previous owner passed away. I suspect she knew her number was up and walked off into the woods to die.

I've found no trace of her. I've searched the roadside, I've searched the woods and field. I've kept an eye on the vultures above to see if they'd lead me to her. If Della died out there, it wouldn't have taken long for Mother Nature to claim the body. Perhaps I'll discover a pile of bones with a collar this fall. Maybe a coyote carried her off whole.

She was a good dog. She was amazingly tolerant of cats and chickens - except when they pilfered her food. She once snapped at a chicken for sticking its beak in her dish. The chicken's entire head disappeared into Della's mouth but the bird was unharmed - merely coated in dog slobber.

Another time she tried to steal a slice of bread from a hen and wound up frightening the bird, causing a few feathers to fly and leaving the most superficial of scratches on the hen's leg. Della felt so bad she slinked under a cedar tree and stayed there for almost an hour until I coaxed her out with promises of ear scratching.

Last summer, she alerted me to a coyote in the yard, giving me the chance to scare it off with the rifle before it got too close to the chickens. She later went on to take credit for chasing off a passing blimp.

She never let me walk in the woods alone.

She was a damned good dog and I will miss her.