Critters

Alrighty, then! Left a little early just in case. Cruising 19. Each trip up and back reveals something I hadn't seen before. Structures, ponds, more horses, more cattle, and as I crest a hill, a pack of dogs. Strange. Everybody has a dog, it seems, but the only packs I've seen have been Cindy's little posse. Three of them crossing the road, one behind the other. Oh, here comes a fourth one. Starting to slow down. Good thing, the dumb thing crossed and then changed its mind. Turned around and went back to where it started out. And they weren't dogs but deer. By now, I've slowed to two miles an hour--it might change its mind again. Abby may be dirty and have dings but I do NOT want to collide with a deer.

Now I'm trying to make up for lost time. Doing pretty good until...traffic (which is virtually nonexistent on this road) slows to a crawl. What now? HUGE farm machine is doing all of 15 mph. Think they call it a combine. How would I know? All I know is that it takes up both lanes of the highway and moves at a snail's pace, bobbing and weaving all over the place. Now if the road had shoulders, we could go around, but it has ditches, some shallow, some very deep, on either side. Nothing to do but crawl along behind. Finally, the driver takes pity on us and pulls to the side in an area large enough for him to move over and give us a hair's breadth of space to go around. Really trying to make up time, now. But you know what they say--time and tide wait for no one.

These machines must have been the prototype for the machines in "Star Wars." Here's a cotton picker. They definitely need machines because the cotton plants don't even come up to my knees. And most of the fields still aren't ready--is there such a thing as a bad crop of cotton? Once the plants are mowed down, they are compressed into bales.


I digress. Back to the critters. A gentleman is telling the story of how he and his daughter rescued this dog. She hit it, called animal control, and watched as they dragged it off onto the side of the road. She calls her father who goes and picks it up and takes it to the vet for treatment. When he called to check on it, he was told that it had serious internal injuries and needed to be put to sleep. "Your dog...it is a coyote." Good grief!

Maybe I should just move to Brownsville, around the corner from the store, within walking distance. Lawd, lawd. I'm dreading any kind of bad weather.

Be blessed.