Grandma and Grandpa announced that they were going to town to “Wally World” and I decided to take that opportunity to brush their dog, Jake, since he’s starting to resemble a giant ball of fluff with two little eyes.
“Want to see the way I do it?” Grandpa asked.
Since I know how to brush a dog I really didn’t care to see a demonstration but sometimes Grandpa has new tricks so I said, “Sure.”
We went to the back porch and he proceeded to pick at Jake’s fur so that the part that was shedding just came right out. Then he stuck the hair he had removed on my shirt. I thanked him and got to work with the actual comb. Within ten minutes I was bored with the task and realized it would take at least an hour. Since the sun was burning on my face and the breeze was perfect, I decided I’d rather spend an hour lurking through the wilderness and figured I could brush Jake later. There’s a creek close to my grandpa’s farm, with hills and caves and all sorts of cool stuff and I spent a great deal of my childhood tromping all over acres and acres of brush land. I also spent a great deal of my teenage years sneaking off to the same places to smoke cigarettes and drink beer and skinny dip with my friends. But today, I decided I would take my son to some of the calmer parts of the creek and show him some of my favorite spots. Since the creek is a pretty good way from the farm, I took Jake with me and decided Taylor Swift would enjoy exploring.
We went to the back porch and he proceeded to pick at Jake’s fur so that the part that was shedding just came right out. Then he stuck the hair he had removed on my shirt. I thanked him and got to work with the actual comb. Within ten minutes I was bored with the task and realized it would take at least an hour. Since the sun was burning on my face and the breeze was perfect, I decided I’d rather spend an hour lurking through the wilderness and figured I could brush Jake later. There’s a creek close to my grandpa’s farm, with hills and caves and all sorts of cool stuff and I spent a great deal of my childhood tromping all over acres and acres of brush land. I also spent a great deal of my teenage years sneaking off to the same places to smoke cigarettes and drink beer and skinny dip with my friends. But today, I decided I would take my son to some of the calmer parts of the creek and show him some of my favorite spots. Since the creek is a pretty good way from the farm, I took Jake with me and decided Taylor Swift would enjoy exploring.
We left the farm and started down the dirt road that leads to the creek. Jake always stays off to the side of us or directly in front of us and most of the time if I stop he won’t go another step until I start moving again. Caleb didn’t like that he wasn’t right with us and I explained that that was Jake’s way of protecting us and Jake was just keeping an eye on what was around us. Taylor Swift stopped literally every five minutes with stickers in her paws. I hadn’t considered that her feet weren’t tough like Jakes yet. I ended up just carrying her the majority of the time. We left the dirt road down a path I knew wouldn’t have too many thorny trees, yucca plants, cacti, and patches of stickers. Caleb and I climbed a big hill that’s right above the creek and as we looked at rolling hills and the creek and endless land, Caleb said, “Mommy, this is where God lives.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I just do,” he said.
We made our way down the hill to the creek. I showed him lily pads and found him a bird nest. I showed him plants that rattle and a tree with branches you can swing on. We played for about an hour by the creek and I told Caleb to stay put while I climbed to the top of a mound of rocks to see if I could find Jake. I climbed to the top and whistled for him. A few minutes later he came out from another part of the trees and I told him to stay close. I was climbing down from the rocks back into the ravine and noticed my son and Taylor were trying to make their way over to me.
“Wait!” I hollered as I made my way down the rocky hill. There were sticker patches and thorns and I didn’t want Caleb roaming without me or Jake right there since he would probably try to hug a snake or rabid armadillo or something. I scrambled down and misjudged how steep the hill was and one minute I was on my feet and the next I was sliding down on my back. Not only did my decent put thousands of thorns in my shirt, when I stopped sliding down, I rolled over onto my stomach right into a sticker patch. I stood up awkwardly and heard Caleb yelling. I figured he was yelling because my graceful decent from the hill scared him but I soon found he and Taylor were both stuck in their own sticker patch. He was standing there with stickers stuck to his superhero costume and Taylor was whining. With my arms spread I waddled over to him and realized I wouldn’t be able to rescue them with stickers all in my shirt. The slightest movement made the stickers poke me and tear my skin and after trying to brush them off only to get them caught deeper, I decided the only thing to do was take my shirt off. I took it off carefully and threw it on the ground and rescued my son and pup. Taylor Swifts paws were bleeding and Caleb had literally hundreds of stickers all over his pant legs. I sat down in the dirt, not the sticker patch, in jeans and a bra, and got to work getting the stickers off of him. Then I got to work on my own shirt but there were so many little thorns from when I rolled over tumbleweeds and apparently even a cactus, that it was hopeless without tweezers. So I picked up my dog, grabbed my son’s hand, and started walking home. In my bra. I was hoping with my whole heart that my grandparents would not be home yet and thirty minutes later, when I arrived at the farm, saw that they were home. I covered my front, rushed in the front door, and said, “Don’t ask,” when they both looked up at me. Grandma went back to her puzzle book without a word and Grandpa went back to his computer without a word. They’re used to me. I was relieved some cowboy or oil people didn’t come across the crazy lady without a shirt on, lurking through random brush land holding a puppy and a little boy in a superhero costume. I think some would find a site like that odd.
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