Today’s Column by Charlotte, Watchdog of the Sierra
It was one of those ranch projects that seemed like a good idea at the time. Until things started to happen.
It was a cool, sunny day in spring, and my sidekick, Natasha-the-Slobberian-Husky, was slacking off/napping in the shed doorway. I should mention that she consistently sleeps in positions that defy dog anatomy. In this case, her lower body was in the actual shed with back legs all akimbo, while the rest of her was draped down over the steps with front legs stretched to the sky. I swear, she sleeps like a cross between the world’s most difficult yoga pose and Gumby, which then give birth in a gummy worm factory. It’s just that strange. Okay, that was pretty strange, but still.
This particular ranch project entailed unloading a ton or so of straw bales from the dump trailer to the location of the new straw bale building site. Simple enough. We’ve done this rodeo before. My Hooman, who normally writes this column, was at the business end of this deal, ready to control the dump trailer bed with the controller. The name I call his mom is “Supreme Leader” and everyone seems okay with that.
So, Supreme Leader is at the wheel of the truck so she can inch forward when the bales begin to s-l-o-w-l-y mosey out of the bed. My Hooman is at the trailer control. The dump bed goes up. Nothing budges. Up a bit more and nope, nada. Just one more lift and we get rewarded with a teeny schooch. And the Supreme Leader is yelling something like, “No nooo! Don’t do that! It’s gonna all…” at the same time that my Hooman toggles the control and, you guessed it, torques it up that last bit and before you know it, the bales mudslide out from here til Tuesday. My Hooman dances around to avoid the widening spill, waving his arms like he’s batting flies, like that’s going to do any good. Natasha startles awake and acts like it’s all for her enjoyment. I’m not kidding. She sits there with her mouth open in that joker grin of hers, thinking this was put on for her entertainment. Once the last bale teeters off its fulcrum to rest, the whole site resembles a multi-neighborhood yard sale on late Sunday afternoon.
It’s one of those things in life, if you spend any time at all with cats, you know that whenever disaster strikes, and after things have settled down, they like to mosey out of their sneaky cat hiding places to inspect and snifferize any and all items that have…er…relocated, so to speak. And so it is. The Evil Barn Cat Empire begins to inspect each and every upturned bale. Natasha looks up grinning as my Hooman continues a stream of expletives. Which Supreme Leader can’t hear because she’s laughing so hard.
So after the Great Straw Bale Disaster, everyone decides to take a break. We have lunch on the bales and create backrests from some of the others. My Hooman gets out his mandolin and so begins my favorite part of the day. When the music happens, I make sure to lay right across his feet in order to use my body to provide crucial acoustic resonance. Many of you wonder why your own pet partners do this and now I have just shared our secret knowledge. Now you know.
So my Hooman is playing, and singing, and of course the cats decide to pick the sunniest bales to do their cat things on. Either they tuck their strange boneless cat arms under themselves and stare at you in that meditative way, or they decide to perform all their personal hygiene right then and there and finish off by staring at you. I don’t claim to understand cat logic because they have none. As I was saying, my Hooman is playing and everyone is relaxed and there’s the sun and a light breeze and you can smell the early blossoms. Everything ends up so nice with the stationary hayride and the music and the lounge chair bales and even the sleeping cats. The Hoomans begin to sing as Natasha curls up at Supreme Leader’s feet…
