Apples and Animals

    If coring apples didn’t do it, unhooking Gunner from the fence did.

    We have a bumper crop of apples again this year.  After lunch, I started processing the apples that Mom picked this morning.  I only got through nine cups worth of coring:  that’s three cups of sliced apples per quart-size plastic bag for the freezer.   

   My hands and arms ached after that effort, so I went on to a simple task:  opening the cage door between Tiva and Eiger’s cages, a quick chore I usually do mid-morning.  As I walked up to the cage, I noticed that Gunner was not running to greet me.  He was crouched down next to the perimeter fence, a sure sign he was stuck.

    And he was.  This time he had managed to hook the latch on his collar to the fence.  So there I was, trying to convince this untrained ninety-pound dog to stay down and still so I could unhook him from the fence.  He was so excited I was there that he became one perpetual wiggle, and he’s so strong that sitting on him doesn’t restrain him.  But, eventually, he cooperated just enough so I could work the latch. 

    It’s pitiful, I know, what little exertion it takes to make my arms feel like lead and my knuckles throb.  I’m going to sit back in my recliner and read a book so said muscles and joints are ready for the evening’s exertions:  making supper, driving to church, playing my flute and singing in choir practice, and driving the twenty miles back home.

   Music has a way of making everything better, so even if my hands and arms are still complaining by the time I get home, my spirit will be singing.  I’ll be refreshed and ready to deal with Gunner and the apples again tomorrow.