Today I was woofing because I heard a truck pull up, which is highly unusual. I was inside, the truck was outside yet I still heard it. I keep a good listen out. I know how important it is to keep a watch over everything that goes on here. Sometimes my people don't pay enough attention, so lucky I am on it 24/7. That's what you can count on a good dog like me to do.

Any who, this truck pulls up, I bark, Julia goes to the door and greets a man with a big box which he gives her and she carries it on into the house. I keep barking at the guy and he leaves. Job done. Julia's in the kitchen with a big knife opening the box. I go back under the table to lie down. Julia calls me, saying, "Look Snookie, it's for you". I come over for an inspection. I barely know what this means as no one has ever sent me a present, usually they just give them to me.

No way! B-man, that's what I call Bernie, has sent me, D-dog, That's what B-man calls me, not one but TWO boxes of my favorite little bones...you know the real mini mini ones?  A normal size bone if you were a rat. I LOVE those little bones so much. I've only had them once before this, when someone with a very little dog gave me a whole handful. I went crazy over their delicious taste. Julia says they taste the same as the bigger ones she gets for me but what does she know about dog bones? Seems best to ask a real dog about dog bones.

Any way B-man came through. I can tell he misses his good pal, D-dog. That's why he sent me the boxes of mini mini bones. Julia said he must have stopped at a Walmart, made the mules wait outside and went in to get them special for me. Then she said he had to stop at the post office and make the mules wait again while he went in and sent them to me. He paid money twice for his D- dog and that makes me proud.

Julia opened them and gave me six. I counted. She said I didn't want to eat them all at once because then the gift would be all gone. I think she forgot there is a second box. I could have one box now and one box later. Like I've seen people do with candy bars. I think B-man would have just spilled one box out for me on the floor. He's looser like that. But I know that Julia will dole them out for me until they are all gone.

Every time I eat my delicious mini mini bones I will think of B-man until they are all gone. Then maybe he will send me some more or be back so that we can drink milk together late at night while Julia is asleep. I put my head in B-mans lap and he strokes my head till I fall fast asleep. I love the B-man...he's a great pal for D-dog.

Life is hard. Nothing is guaranteed. Each day is a struggle and a challenge, harassed by crows, irritated by ticks, beat on by weather, scared by dogs. Mostly though, he is hungry and searching for food. Yet, still sometimes the joyful and silly leaps he does brings a smile to my face.
I think I've seen him lonely. I sense his want of companionship the way he stops and looks at me sometimes. He is only but a young kit born this year, I am guessing around the end of winter.I have felt for this little life while watching him coming and going, always alone.

Today I found him dead, a little heap on the lawn. I thought perhaps he was a pile of dried grass. It seems wrong that it was him. It seems unfair that he has died already. He was trying hard and doing his best at living. Now it's over for him.

I laid him in the woods. I will remember him. Someone should because he tried his best to live. It wasn't easy for him, so young and all alone. My tears fall and hit the page I write on. They honor him and the effort he made in vain. Why so soon? I am sorry for you little fox. Good bye.

P.S. I am not sure what killed him. I think he was bitten to death by something but at least I know it wasn't Snookie.

Snookie has an eye out constantly for the foxes. We have several dwelling in a den in a thin strip of woods just next to the house. I know this because one day recently while chasing after Snookie who was chasing after the fox, I stumbled upon it. After this realization that the foxes were actually trying to live just next door, I became aware why I was seeing them everyday.

Snookie enjoys watching for them out the window. He will preoccupy himself with this mission for hours. But what he really likes to do the most is run after them. I am not fond of this habit of his. All in all  besides for this we are fairly compatible housemates.

I've heard both, that I should have gone with B on his mule ramble West (click here MulesWest) or, that B should have stayed with Snookie and me on the farm. True we did just get married. We got married because we want to be together long term. B and I understand that we each have our own missions and responsibilities that must be tended to and that these may unfortunately not always allow us to be together in the same place. The following essay explains our current choices, his to go rambling westward with his mules Brick and Cracker and mine to stay behind with Snookie for this trip.

There have been some interesting comments regarding this post which was cross posted on my Saddle Under The Stars Blog as well as on Bernie's Riverearth.com website. I am reposting them here.

From The Rev Johannes Myors:

Bernie is probably not going to want to associate with me anymore but after reading your take on why Bernie set out on his current mule ride I can't see any reason for it. Doing something just to have something to do because he thinks he doesn't have much time on this earth seems kind of pointless and selfish. If he was raising money for a cause or raising awareness for a concern that is causing harm either to individuals, animals, or the earth, I could see some justification for it. His riding is just like the running that Forrest Gump did. No meaning. No purpose other than probably self-promoting his books and tv series. As I am doing my bicycle touring (over 270,000 miles so far), I have a cause and a purpose and that is to be the hands and feet of Christ and show people by example how we should be caring for each other. Another thing, going off right after getting married to you isn't showing real commitment. I am sharing that one as a minister.

My response:

Hi Hans,
Thanks for writing.
I find your comment limiting and sad. Bernie as you well now is a very kind and thoughtful man. He has always an ear to listen to people in need and make them feel better, including you as I know first hand.
Your mission maybe a worthy one but so is his. He's got his own calling and reasons for traveling and perhaps it's not the Lord. He is an inspiration to many, many people and teaches through example and writing how to really cherish life. Bernie may promote his work sometimes but that is only because he wants to share his experiences with others. It's not to make money.
He teaches a love and joy in living which brings smiles to all kinds of people, young, old, poor, troubled, happy, sad. He stops and visits with people, hears their troubles and their stories and lets them pat his mules. Many people are made more whole by getting to touch and pat an animal. You would not believe the joy he has already brought to so many out on this current ramble.
Bernie picks people up from their daily grind and lets them see that there is all kinds of possibility in a day.
Your comment is so narrow minded. It does not even understand the worth of a smile, the touch of fur, the knowledge of courage or the value of kindness. Of all the people who should understand the importance of acceptance and open mindedness, I am shocked that you can't see beyond a very narrow spectrum of conventionality.

From The Rev Johannes Myors in response to Bernie's riverearth post riverearth.com/news/where-is-home :

You put out the question where is your home. Your home is with your wife physically now beside her. I could have responded to your email privately but since you set this blog up with a comment section it had become a public forum. How to respond back pretty well kept me from sleeping last night. If what I am going to write here destroys our friendship, so be it. I’ve made my decision and I am going to live by it. There are no way that I will ever take these words back. As a ordained minister for nearly 21 years, I have the moral and spiritual obligation to use anything as a teaching tool to help (guide) you and others who might read this at a later time.
When you took those wedding vows, you made a commitment to each other (a binding contract both morally and spiritually) as other people watched and GOD as witness that you became one flesh to be separated by nothing (no person or thought or desire) until death. Your personal wants and desires should have become second place under the Love and Compassion that you should have for Julia. Julia should have become your first priority. Your gallivanting days of riding off into the sunset on your mule(s) by yourself should have been over. Period. No question about that. No way to get around it.

The very second that your lead mule took it’s first step off of your property you broke that commitment (contract) to be beside Julia until death. In fact the very second that the thought came into your mind that you needed to go out on the another adventure (possibly by yourself), you broke that contract. All you did was go through the motions (just empty words with no meaning or conviction behind them) because you were slightly convicted that you had to make your living together legal in the eyes of the law instead of just shacking up together. There possibly was never any true love between the two of you.

Talking on the cellphone is somewhat okay but what would ever happen if there was a serious emergency? How fast could you get back home if Julia got seriously injured or had a medical emergency that could possibly kill her? How fast could you get back home if there was something wrong on your homestead like a fire?

In GOD’s eyes, you are no better than somebody who is having a sexual relationship with another woman while being married. You are a virtual adulterer. You have become married to adventure and your traveling around. You could even say that you are having an adulterous affair with your mules.

Julia should be at your side wherever you go. The marriage vows she took are the same as yours. Let nothing come between the two of you until death. The second that Julia made the decision to stay home and take care of her dog, she broke her vows. She put her dog over you. She might as well be considered as being an adulterer too.

After reading Julia’s blog, there is an unwavering fact that her dog is extremely old and seriously ill. Any vet would tell you that after examining it, the decision should have been made to painlessly put the dog to sleep. Why should anybody allow any creature to suffer from pain and living with it’s body destroying itself? That is animal cruelty. Julia should be considering the quality of the dog’s life instead of the quantity of time that she would have it be with her.

— Rev Johannes Myors · Friday May 3, 2019 · #


My response:

What an uncompassionate and strange minister the Rev Johannes Myors is. I am glad he is not my minister.

Bernie and I do truly love one another and nothing has or will come between us. If you love someone you support them in their endeavors and dreams.

To put down a currently healthy and happy dog that I adore is insanity. Snookie is healthy right now and in no pain. My vet and I will have his back and when he needs to be put out of his suffering he will be. Currently and happily, that time is not too near.
This Rev would be better off turning his critical, unloving eyes inward for he knows not compassion nor true love.

Slowly it will come to me what to say. Sometimes the words are elusive but the pictures speak for themselves. I love this dog. I gave him this bone today and then just sat and watched him enjoying it.