The Greatest Companion of All Time -- Buster

Buster died just shy of his 16th birthday.  He had been in decline, and was being treated for pneumonia.  I was optimistic that he would recover; instead, he collapsed and died while visiting our vet.  I rushed the long drive from work to Freeville -- but he was gone. Thank God that our vet, Dr. Gry Wildenstein, had a grief room.  I cradled his still warm body, kissed each soft ear and sobbed for a long, long time.

My whole family agreed that Buster was an amazing, calm, contented, completely selfish dog -- but always in the most loving way.   He was never troubled by any of the other creatures of the earth.  He just always expected their worship.  He was always simply -- Buster.  


If he wanted a bone, he would quietly, calmly wait until the other dog left it and then collect it.  Until, one by one, all the bones were under him in despotic ownership.  He never would give kisses, but alway accepted them (see below).  If a person only gets one special heart dog in their life, he was and is forever mine.    

Miss Avalon

This is our Miss Avalon, our special needs girl adopted by us after many years of fostering and driving animals for FBRN.  Avalon has a her three bottom vertebrae fused, leaving her incontinent.   She is an older girl who we felt needed a family crazy enough to deal with her poos and crankiness.   A bossy wench who, despite her limp, gets her way.  The kitties will not play with her.  She has the happiest face I have ever seen.  

I used to believe that I could do farm work. . .

 

After all, I was born to bale hay and milk cows.  Then I went to the Dextre farm in  Vicos outside Huaraz.  The land ownership is somewhat communal and thus is divided up not so much by location as by type of land, so I walk uphill to "git some taters", cross the creek and climb to another elevation to get some firewood (usually eucalyptus), or go round the bend (in this photo) to get some wheat.  

I had not seen scythes and sickles since the well rusted ones of my early childhood when my parents moved to and emptied out the back rooms of my paternal grandfathers' farmhouse, untouched since the 1950s.  

I thought I remembered how to do this.  Boy, was I wrong!  It takes tremendous skill to swing that thing at the proper angle, cut the sheaves of wheat in one smooth movement,  avoiding removing a hand in the process. 

Mama Dextre Washing Clothes the Old Fashioned Way

This creek is fed by the swiftly shrinking glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca above the village of Vicos in Ancash, Peru.  The Mountain Institute, Andes Branch, graciously allowed me to live with the Dextre family, where I met the ultimate challenge to my potato-loving Irish genes. . . more potatoes in more varieties than anywhere else in the world. 


And yes, we washed and drank out of this creek ;)