Heavy Weather

It's been a wet week, and the forecast is for rain, more rain, storms and thunderstorms every single day (even the partly sunny ones) until at least the middle of July.  The following week is Art Fair week in Ann Arbor, so more rain is virtually guaranteed.  In short, it's wet.  And that means ... mosquitoes.  Which in turn means I can't set foot outside my house, since the little buggers looooove me.  Pip is protected from heartworm, but he can still suffer the agony of the itch.  So we try to time our daily constitutional to miss the worst of the buggy activity, but there seems to be no time of day or night that they're not out in force.  So much for summer.

So we sit in the house and watch the rain, and today I watched a trio of bunnies cavorting in my neighbor's back yard.  When I moved here 20 years ago there were lots of bunnies -- many of them living under my deck -- but over time they disappeared.  Now they're coming back.  And I think they're living under my lawn this time around.  It's awfully spongy, and I'm anticipating major subsidence eventually, but somehow I can't find it in me to be upset about it.  My subdivision was built on their turf, and we need to find a way to coexist.  Anyway, Pip managed to miss the whole thing, and I know he would have enjoyed it immensely.

Pip, by the way, is my 4-year-old sheltie boy.  His registered name is Wyndmyst Ifanwy Hobbit-Forming and his call name is Pippin (but I mostly call him Pip) after Peregrine Took.  I knew from the start that he had to have a Hobbit name, and he rapidly showed himself to be very much like Pippin as portrayed by Billy Boyd in the LOTR movies, so he mostly named himself.  Besides, there are other connotations to the word "pip" that fit oh-so-perfectly.  For instance, if I say "he's a real pip!" most people will have a pretty good idea of what I mean.

OK, so I'm new at this, but here's a picture of the little guy.  I think the picture illustrates what I've said above, but it also shows how handsome he is, and how adorable.  He is also highly unusual for a sheltie in that he doesn't bark.  When he thinks there's a need, he'll bark, but not excessively, and otherwise, he's quiet.  After 40-plus years with shelties, I'm having trouble adjusting to the silence -- they're a barky breed, and I usually have more than one.  If things go according to schedule, I'll probably adopt another sheltie by the end of next year, and we'll return to a noisier ambiance chez Owens.  Meanwhile, I plan to enjoy the current peace and quiet.

The other thing Pip doesn't do is shed.  That would be a plus for just about anyone else who lives with shelties, but for me it's anything but.  I'm a spinner, and I specialize in dog hair.  Especially sheltie.  Shelties are a double-coated breed and they shed like crazy.  How ironic that my own dog doesn't!

Not that I lack fiber to spin: I have bags and baskets full of sheltie hair waiting to be made into yarn and then fashioned into items for sale for sheltie rescue.  (I'm ignoring all the bins of wool and silk and cotton and other fibers that I'm, well, ignoring.)  The most recent is the roving made from my sweet Lexi, who died three months ago.  So I've plenty to keep me busy until Pip finally decides to put out.