8:15 a.m.

Don and Barney have walked off into a sunny, breezy spring morning, and I have only a short time to sit here and write, for soon I will be driving through it to pick Grandma up in our home town, and we’re off to Saskatoon for her eye checkup.

***

Last night I dreamed that after kissing Farmboy, I walked into a basement and when I came up in a few moments, he was in the kitchen with his sister in his arms and they were kissing passionately. Seeing that was like a kick in the stomach and I did not know what I’d do, except probably that I wouldn’t want to be with him anymore, and he said “Don’t you love me enough to give me another chance?”

***

After I got up, I stepped over to him as he stood at the kitchen counter, tugged on the waist of his slightly sagging blue jeans, put my arms around his bare chest, kissed his back and rested my cheek against it. He said “We lost another calf this morning” and proceeded to explain that he’d meant to get out there to check the heifers at 4 a.m. but hadn’t gone till 4:30, and if he’d been there when he planned to, he’d have saved the calf as it was being born. So he was disappointed in himself.

***

On ‘the hill’ there is a row of ramshackle grey granaries, with discarded stuff piled all around. I scanned one of these junk heaps for treasures, and came home with two rusty old cream pails to use for planters, and a small gas can.

11:40 a.m.

On the lake road on the way to the cabin, we passed L’s cousin doing highway repairs, and stopped to say hello.

I was sitting next to L in the truck, so his cousin said “What do you two think you’re doing, courting?”

“We heard there was a nude beach out here,” L said.

As we drove further, I mentioned that Chester had left me in the dust yesterday and returned to the yard before I could put him back on the leash. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” I said, “because he ignores me when I call him, and I can’t have him back in the yard killing the cats. The kids would never forgive me.”

“That’s right,” L said. “That’s why he got passed over at police-dog school; he doesn’t listen at all.”

“He just needs the right home,” I lamented, “where there are no cattle or cats.”

“Maybe you should start up a Home for Useless Dogs,” L said.