I’m reasonably sure the new Pope was chosen with less effort and ceremony…

…than Tobie puts into choosing the exactly right spot for his morning poop.

It usually goes on for several minutes, requiring multiple locale changes and a lot of minute terrain examination, and is the principal reason for the long morning walkie. Sometimes he seems to vaporlock entirely, standing completely still and staring into space until I call him back to reality. 🙂 It’s possibly the most intellectually active part of his entire day.

This morning – after the morning poop, thankfully, or it would have derailed the entire endeavor – we went past Ian’s Cave to get a bottle of ice from his freezer, and in Ian’s front yard there was … a cow! A cow! This was very exciting, very rare to be in such close proximity to one, and unlike his predecessor Tobie had no idea how to respond. He jinked and barked, considered the possibility of charging the cow but then apparently thought better of it and put me between himself and the interloper. Tobie has met other larger animals, in the form of horses, and although they weren’t at all hostile they were quite large and Tobie never got comfortable with being too close.

The cow, of course, just stood there, intelligent as your average log. I’m pretty sure the Angus mix cattle the local ranchers use for breeding beef have had the brains bred right out of them, same as with laying hens. Breed bulls can be dangerous to approach on foot but an old cow is just inert. Through weary experience I did know what to do – I hollered and waved my arms to get through the cow’s thick skull that an outside entity required it to perform an action, and when it was slow to discern the nature of the required action I drew and fired a shot into the ground.

This is actually the most common use for a sidearm around here, and the reason I always keep it loaded with a cheap practice round in the spout, because it’s just going to be used as a noisemaker. No point spending expensive “super ‘splody” ammo on the situation. The cow did sluggishly arrive at the conclusion that I wished it to vacate the premises, but the shot had the unintended knock-on effect of starting a minor-league stampede among a group of previously unnoticed and much more excitable bull calves that had been playing down in the wash. Seeing that, the cow decided to join the others and quickened its pace. At no time did it ever seem to think there was anything about the sudden appearance of a strange man and large dog that should be considered concerning: It’s been around men and large dogs all its life, and all they ever do is boss it around and maybe occasionally stick a needle in its butt, so what’s the big deal? Geez, settle down. Everybody chill. Have a mouthful of dry grass and relax.

That is literally the most exciting thing that has happened around here all week: It’s just been another of those weeks. The weather continues to moderate: Yesterday it was almost somewhat kinda hot, today is starting out a lot cooler. I really am working on installing the new yard hydrant: I gathered buckets of gravel and this morning I dug the hole…

…which probably needs to go a bit deeper to accommodate the gravel but is basically done. I watched several videos on ways to install the hydrant, and they mostly agree that there’s no sense making a big production of it: the only thing I don’t have that I need is a couple of pipe clamps to firmly attach the hydrant pipe to the T-post I’ll knock into the hole next to the pipe before I add the gravel. Of course that PVC pipe will be cut off quite a lot deeper than it currently is: I know I already have the fitting I need to attach the hydrant pipe to the PVC. Apparently the only common mistake that causes hydrant failure is letting the drain valve be covered with gravel and/or dirt, which will eventually cause the drain to clog and fail. I’ll prevent that by cutting a hole in an old plastic bucket and putting it upside-down over the pipe between the gravel and the dirt to give the drain an air space.

So the only really hard part – digging the hole and gathering the gravel – is pretty much already done.