Bull by Bull

• Every morning I treat myself to two pages of Charlie Mackesy’s “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.” So simple. So true.

• Having spent all of her five years in a cage, my rescue dog, Bingo, has a definite opinion about her bedding now that she has bedding. Even if I add a new blanket to her digs, she pulls it out and drags it away, making sure she gets down to the plaid flannel sheets off the downstairs bedroom bed.

• It appears the fence du jour around here is “clean fill dirt wanted.” The berms formed by this clean fill dirt apparently work for privacy, but weeds always seem to find their way up and out. I, myself, still marvel over my old X=X=X=X=X fences that Vernon and I built back in the late 1980s.

• I was lucky enough to vicariously enjoy the graduations of some friends’ kids this spring. Such an exciting time in life. Perfectly said: Jim’s words celebrating Ceili and her generation’s graduation, wishing them, “a spirit of cheerful persistence in the face of adversity.”

• Our cribbage club gathered a while back for a sack lunch followed by an afternoon of fifteen-twos. I got out my old, rusted Hopalong Cassidy lunch box and packed it with a PB&J sandwich, chips, and two cookies. No room for fruit. Turns out a couple of people coveted my PB&J sandwich and traded me for half of their ham, turkey & cheese, and roast beef sandwiches. Everybody won.

• My kitchen faucet has dripped for years, only in the winter. Nobody in their right mind would put up with it. Ever the miser, I don’t let any of said water get away. If somebody’s coming over I use a lovely blue pitcher of Mom’s to catch the drips. If it’s just me and Bingo, I use either a milk jug or an old, battered, metal bucket. No matter the catcher, all the water goes out to my critters.

• I finally did it; I used balin’ wire on my 31-year-old Bronco the other day. Granted it was only to secure the front license plate but it feels like a slippery slope, somehow. Talking baling wire, I recently found a cache in Sally’s old barn; a real find in this day and age of baling twine.

• Funny thing how life works. My physicians directive to preclude putting me on a ventilator, should I get a bad case of anything, including COVID, which, in turn, could save someone else’s life if there’s another shortage of ventilators; a perfect ending.