Mom and Dad get up before the grey light starts to show over by the mountains, eat breakfast, then put on my coat, load me up in the back of the pick-up truck (or up front) and head up to the far reaches of the farm.

By the time we eat breakfast, gather up all the wood gathering tools, put my coat on me, the sun is up and the frost is THICK on the grass.

You see we have to go early before the mud appears, or we would never make it up there and back.

Dad isn’t fond of being stuck and Mom is even more un-fonder since being stuck enough the four-wheel drive doesn’t work means a long walk back to the house to get the tractor and chain, then a very cold ride back to the stuck truck, and THEN Mom has to pull the pick up out, which she HATES to do.

So up we go, every day this week, then it’s back to the yard where Mom sorts and Dad cuts until today when they both announced: “This should hold us for a spell”!

Now….for me it is lots of fun.  I can ride up front or in the back, whatever I want.  I usually pick the back.  I have a coat on you see.

We drive through the cows and the Sandhill Cranes—I don’t bark or whine or howl at them I just watch.

Then Mom sits me out of the truck and I go exploring.  I go here and there and everywhere. I go where ever I want to go.

Then when I hear the chain saw stop or I hear Mom holler for me I head back to the truck and get loaded up again.

Back home

I usually go around smelling who or what has been visiting the farm while we were gone.

Then when Mom lets the hens out and heads back into the house,

I always go with her…nap time.

Mom works upstairs on her computer and I take a long nap.

Dad does Dad stuff, I don’t know what that is because, well, you see, I stay with Mom, always.

Boomer Beaglie Brown