She Interprets "Good Enough" to Mean "Put It Down"

August 15, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today, and when I get home it’s about 7 pm, a long work day, with travel time calculated in, about an 11-hour day.  When I get home, Moi’s not around either.  She’s told me that she has to work about 8 hours today, so I have to assume that she’s done none of the evening chores that she usually does: feed Mway, throw feed to the chickens, take the garbage down. Of course, I’m already mentally prepared to take Mway for a walk.

State of the Path:  It’s been raining all day today, so I’m expecting to get wet.  When I look at the lawn, I’m shocked at how high the grass is, although I have to tell myself that this is relative to the many bare spots in the yard and to what it’s been the last few weeks.  Out on the path, Mway turns right to head immediately to the clearing; I realize that this is all the farther I’d have to go to satisfy her needs, just to the clearing to fetch stick – indeed I’m sure Mway would be satisfied just to go to the back yard to fetch stick – but I decide that since I’m already wet (and whacking at goldenrod with the “pro-quality” stick) I might as well go all the way down to the creek to check it out after the rain.  I move quickly, though, and don’t really notice much except how wet I’m getting.  Past the swale, through the “chokeberries,” and just before the Russian olive, I see a hummingbird.  I’ve seen hummingbirds this year out the kitchen window sipping at the trumpet vine, but this is the first one I’ve seen on a walk.  I don’t know what kind it is: I’m happy enough to say I see a hummingbird.

State of the Creek:  Mway ventures into the creek bed where she’s been doing so lately; I can’t tell when she steps if she’s splashing water or causing rocks to clack together.  But as I walk farther along the creek I soon realize that, despite the rain today, the creek still is far from being a continuous stream.  The pools are higher, that’s all.  At the narrows the vinyl siding is about a foot from the edge of the water.

The Fetch:   By the time I get to the clearing, my pant legs are soaked up to the pockets.  I toss the stick, and when Mway brings it back, she holds the stick in her mouth and back steps.  I interpret this to mean that she only wants to fetch the stick once, so I tell her “Good.  Good enough.”  But then she interprets my words to mean “Put it down,” and she drops the stick.  We play “Put it down” more times than I care to; several times I say “Good.  Good enough,” but she keeps on interpreting this as “Put it down.”  Finally, I just turn around and start heading back to the house, and Mway follows.  I go into the house to feed her, but then I have to go back outside, and though I’m anxious to get out of my wet clothes and take a shower (too cold today to go into the pool), I still have to take the garbage down and check for eggs.  I take the garbage down, but when I go to check for eggs, the chickens, all except for one hen still roaming the yard, are all inside the coop for the evening.  So I don’t bother them, and head back indoors, wondering if I should put my clothes in the dryer, hang them up in the laundry room, or just toss them down at the end of my bed as I usually do.