Farm Fresh Blog

When's the last time you went through your junk closet?  Don't lie to me!  I know you have one! All sane people have one. If you don't, then your life is waaaay too organized and you probably don't read this blog anyway because the sheer unorganized, wackiness of bouncing between barn flies at home and maggots at work would drive you nuts. (but I digress . . .)

I'm one of those cruel, completely insane, people who puts my pets in Halloween costumes and photographs them. (As I explained to my Border Collie yesterday, it's a small price to pay for room, board, and lifetime health care.) While rummaging through the closet in my office to look for costumes purchases ten years ago, I stumbled upon this:

It was packed on a shelf, behind old riding boots that I can't wear anymore. One would have thought that like the board game Jumanji, I would have heard drums, but instead, I heard a heart beat.  I'm not sure if it was mine, or his . . .  but as soon as I saw it, I scaled over pieces of old dog crates, wrapping paper, and Christmas ornaments to reach it.

A moment before I cracked the rusty seal, I started to cry.  I knew what was in that can . . . and I thought I'd lost it. The lid groaned as I popped it open.  And there it was . . . there he was.

And I stood there and sobbed.  I cried and I cried and I cried.  Poor Ranger the Blue Heeler rushed into the room to save me from whatever evil had sprung forth from the closet.  But as I sat in the floor sobbing, I hugged Ranger and assured him that these were Happy Tears.  (a concept completely beyond Ranger's scope)

In 2002 I lost my Soul Dog. I was in district court when I got the call.  He was down and couldn't get up, but he held on until I got home.  We put him in the back of my 4Runner and I climbed in with him. He was barely conscious, but he laid his great head on my chest, and as my tears soaked through my shirt, I swear that I felt it . . . I felt him . . . soaking into, slipping into, my soul.

And I was okay with that.  I missed him horribly.  I still do.  He wasn't a perfect dog, but he was my Soul Dog. For years when I brushed him, I saved the hair.  SOME DAY I was going to get that hair to someone who could spin it into yarn and make a scarf for me so that I could wear my Soul Dog.  I saved his hair for years.  Then I bought his littermate, and I saved her hair too.  Over time, and tervs, the stashes of hair became a bother.  I'm not sure when, over the 12 years, I stopped keeping the hair, but I did.  I even started throwing hair away. Then I lost him, and by that time, I couldn't find my stashes of his hair.

I mourned that dog like no other, and still do. He didn't just touch my soul, he became a part of my soul. And that's why I found myself sitting on the office floor, holding a rusty tin of dog hair, and sobbing.

I am determined now that Some Day has arrived. The dog and the hair have stood the test of time.  God gave me a special gift in that dog. Now it's time to pull that lost tin of hair out of the closet and spin it into yarn. I know that several of you deal with wool sheep.  Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who can spin Belgian Tervuren hair? There's a lot of it; it's clean; and it's precious, so very, very precious.