Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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It’s a wet and windy afternoon in early November. I’m sprawled out on the sofa, and between my legs is a small blonde dog, flat on her back, legs up, ball in mouth, sound asleep. It occurs to me that this sort of blissed-out relaxation is one of the many things that dogs do differently than cats. Cats like to stretch, yawn, spread out, and chill, but at all times, they look poised, elegant, even regal. Dogs, on the other hand, look like they’ve just come home from an especially good kegge...
As every dog owner knows, we can learn as much or more from our fur brothers and sisters as they learn from us. It’s often noted how some of us actually come to physically resemble our dogs. But there are other ways in which dog and owner can mirror each other. As Cookie reached a birthday milestone this summer – turning 10 in human years, which brought her right up against retirement age in dog years – it became clear to us that she is entering the same stage of life that we are in. She’s...
Over many decades I’ve been the proud parent of many cats but just one dog. And though cats are big-time nappers (who do you think invented the cat nap?) I don’t ever recall wondering if they ever dreamed, or what they might dream about. Sleeping with the dog has brought those questions front and center. Front and center is where Cookie likes to be after sliding, gliding, squirming, and sneaking her way into the prime spot in bed, pressed up on both sides against the Big Dogs (me and Mrs. G)....
One of my favorite comics features a genial mutt named Satchel. A recurring theme involves his housemate and nemesis, an arrogant siamese cat named Bucky, who encourages Satchel to eat (or at least swallow) anything conveniently at hand, from roadkill to small electronic appliances. The joke is that Satchel, and by extension all dogs, will give it a try, whatever the consequences. As is often the case with Cookie, her dietary choices are much more sophisticated than that. There are only a few...
There is one thing that gets Cookie-otherwise, the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)-repeatedly into big trouble. We call it the Walkabout. The word has fallen into general usage but initially referred to a ritual journey by Aboriginal Australians. During these solo pilgrimages, the individual would head off into the Outback, often as a rite of passage into adulthood. The Walkabout was a break from the modern world and a spiritual practice as well, forging connections to traditional lands and...
As chronicled in Chapter 16, August 27th was Cookie's tenth birthday-the Big One - O. Which translates, more or less, to age 64 in human terms. So if 60 is the new 40, that's not all that bad. It seemed important enough to require some sort of special celebration, and despite the limitations of gatherings in the time of Covid, we were able to gather a few close friends and their humans together on a sunny summer afternoon in our garden. These pictures tell the story....
In about a week, on August 27th, Cookie will turn ten years old. I remember when I celebrated my tenth birthday, my main gift request – the thing I wanted most in the world—was a baseball glove. I got my wish, but that didn’t seem quite right for Cookie, who doesn’t need a glove to catch a ball. She’s a natural-born center fielder. A birthday doesn’t really mean much to a dog, but that is true of many humans as well, which has never stopped me from attaching special importance to birthdays,...
Working from home has become so common, so ingrained in such a short time that it has already earned its own acronym – WFH. The Urban Dictionary defines WFH as “a concept where the employee can do their job outside of the office.” It goes on to enthuse that “WFH offers the flexibility to achieve company goals while supporting a healthy work/life balance, cutting down on commuting time and costs, as well as fostering a comfortable work environment.” As a long time WFH’er myself, I can attest...
Next Stop – Hollywood Mrs. G and I have long believed that Cookie has that something extra that sets all celebrities apart from the rest of us. The “It Factor”—personality, pizzazz, and the natural ability to light up a room simply by entering it. It’s talent and good looks, a warm and welcoming demeanor, and knowing intuitively that when the spotlight hits you, it’s showtime! Cookie passes all these tests with flying colors. And yet... stardom has evaded her. Every day you see dogs in tv comme...
Although Mr. B will always be Number One among all of Cookie’s (surprisingly numerous) possessions, there is another favorite pastime, not involving the ball, which is tug-of-war. Our discovery of this was a late-breaking development. For many years Cookie showed zero interest in playing with anything other than Mr. B. Other types of balls were tried, to no avail. Small soft frisbees were tried – size appropriate – and Cookie, who can run, leap, twist and catch the ball on the fly, refus...
Take me out to the ballgame In Chronicles #2 and #3 I introduced you to Mr. B, Cookie's lifelong companion, ward and wing man. And I may have mentioned that Mr. B generally hits the sack earlier than the rest of us, the 'sack' being an empty slot in the kitchen spice drawer. Cookie is quite fond of this routine, and though we sometimes forget to put Mr. B to bed right after dinner, she will leave him on the kitchen floor, just below the drawer, as a gentle reminder. And that is where she will...
Nostradamus was a 16th-century mystic whose predictions of the then-distant future are still quoted in some quarters. His detractors, on the other hand, say that his predictions are so vague they can be interpreted in any way you choose. Cookie’s fortune-telling skills are quite the opposite. They are timely, specific, and generally spot-on. Which is why I like to think of her as Nostradamus. Her nose, when applied in this fashion, is irrefutable. Her methodology is best observed when she is i...
In my daily work as a wine reviewer, I pay particularly close attention to the scents of a wine and the finish of the wine. The better the heads and tails, front and back if you will, the better the wine. And I’ve noticed that there’s an analogy in the dog world. The nose of the dog, and the tail of the dog, gather and relay essential information about the mind of the dog. We’ll look at the tail in a future chronicle. The nose, for most dogs (and I feel really bad for short-nosed pups like...
(On The Road Part Four) Dawn came awfully early the day after Mr. B went tumbling down the ravine adjacent to our motel room. And I was kidding about rounding up crampons, carabiners and quickdraws for the rescue mission. My actual “gear” consisted of a worn out pair of tennis shoes. Not so much as a rope to tie off of our deck and hold on to. Cookie herself took an immediate interest in the task, but was securely prohibited from participating by Mrs. G, who kindly reminded me that she’d spott...
(On The Road Part Three) We all travel for many different reasons, but one defining feature for any type of travel, whether for business, pleasure or pure adventure, is that it breaks you out of your day-to-day routines. If you work at home, and your family basically consists of your spouse and a dog, as ours does, then travel will throw a monkey wrench into just about everything. One big reason for Cookie’s initial displeasure upon embarking (pun intended) on her first big road trip was this t...
(On The Road Part Two) Having hunkered down in our peaceful Nye Beach cabin after an exhausting first day on the road, we awoke to a bright winter sunrise and the sound of waves crashing on the shore below. The beach, which had been cloaked in darkness when we arrived, now beckoned irresistibly. We'd already decided to spend an extra night here, so a wide open play day awaited. As soon as we gazed out the living room windows at the unbroken expanse of ocean, sky and sand that spread out from...
(On The Road Part One) Mrs. G and I would be the first to admit that we are not RV people. But we do like long road trips. Just during the six year long process of moving out of a 2,400 square foot home in Seattle and into our 1,000 square foot Waitsburg cottage, we made literally hundreds of trips back and forth. That is when we perfected the fine art of packing our SUV with vast amounts of stuff. This all happened in the pre-Cookie days. If Cookie got to cast a vote on road trip...
"Music soothes the savage beast" is a common expression with an uncommon history. It's a misquote from The Mourning Bride, a poem by William Congreve written in 1697, which opens "Musick hath charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." I know little or nothing about savage breasts, but I have quite a lot of experience playing guitar for a wide variety of savage beasts, mostly cats. The right sort of music actually does seem to be soothing for them, although cats...
Chapter Three – Mr. B N'est Pas Une Boule! Mr. B is the name we gave to Cookie's ball in a failed effort to keep her from going ballistic every time we said the word ball. But more importantly, we've come to discover that the name represents something much more significant than any one particular object. In fact it's a transferable title, like Your Majesty. It is only given to one ball at a time, but once that ball has been lost or destroyed, the next one is now Mr. B, and Cookie seems not to m...
I've concluded that there are really just two types of dogs - those who like playing with balls, and those who do not. From the first day we spent together, me tossing and Cookie chasing a ball across an empty infield in a deserted park, it was clear that she was a ball dog. Up until then my only ball dog experience was with a big-boned mutt that lived a couple doors up from our home on Palm Avenue in West Seattle. The short and narrow street sloped downhill from there, ending in a small park...
The first book I ever read cover to cover was Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne, and now, many decades later, it remains the best book I ever read. I mention this because the special relationship between Christopher Robin, and Edward Bear, aka Winnie the Pooh, is very much like the relationship I enjoy with my dog Cookie. Like Pooh, who adored honey, Cookie has a nose for good food, especially bacon, but also whatever happens to be cooking at the moment in the kitchen. And much like Pooh, Cookie...
I found the following "World Today" article listed on eBay, and I thought it was especially remarkable because Karen and I have talked about how interesting it would be if someone created a line of Waitsburgdesignated wheat products. Much as the best wines are often bottled under the specific name of the vineyard, we envision a similar use for this area's excellent wheat. A made-and-grown-in- Waitsburg concept for flour from different types of local wheat, for example. So when I saw this story,...
