Carol and I were in Vermont for the weekend, and brought Ricky along. We were hoping, of course, to see some prime foliage, but in truth, the colors were kind of dull, and lots of the trees were naked. “You just missed it. Peaked middle of the week,” the locals kept telling us.
Thirty-three years we’ve owned our house in VT, and every year we’ve just missed “peak foliage” by a week . . . or even a few days. Amazing. Obviously, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a joke the crusty old Vermonters get a big yuck out of at the expense of us flatlanders. “Chester, I just told that writer feller from Connecticut that we had the best colors in years last Tuesday. Don’t that beat all? And I haven’t seen one single red leaf or
one single orange leaf this whole damn season!”
But you know what? Even if we had been there for peak foliage, my little beagle would have missed it. Because the whole weekend — as usual — he had his nose to the ground.
Reminds me of when we’re home in Westport. The one thing that drives him absolutely bonkers is when he spots a gaggle (flock? muster? herd?) of wild turkey. His ears go up, he gives a low, menacing growl, and he’s like, make my day. But more often than not,
he never sees them. We’re walking down our driveway, and there are the turkey — bigger than life in the side yard, in plain sight! — and Ricky’s busy sniffing a disintegrating, soggy, week-old quarter-pounder-with-cheese wrapper from B.K.! Or he’ll miss a dozen deer — enough to pull a sleigh-and-a-half — because he’s evaluating some tantalizing squirrel poop. Ah, if only he’d lift his head once in awhile.
I also sometimes wonder about his famous hound family tracking abilities when it comes to hearing. If I’m up in my study and he’s downstairs and I call him, I’ll hear the skittering of little paws on the floors of every single room in the lower level of the house — but never does it occur to him that I might be upstairs . . .
Good thing for him the only thing he really needs to track is his bowl of food.
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