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Torrential rain, deep rumbling thunder, windshield wipers on high, cars ahead suddenly stopped. The dogs silent in their crates, enjoying the van's cool air blowing across them. Another weekend, another dog show, this time in Folsom, Louisiana. 

As I'm sure you all know, yard work, gardening and landscaping is good exercise and hard work. You're outside in the sun, flexing your muscles, bringing beauty to your little strip of the earth. What can go wrong?

There has only been one dog in my life that I believed had "heart." Yet what does that expression mean?

Last May I received a notice on Facebook that a business called Social Beadia was having its second annual bead retreat at the Beachmere Inn located in Ogunquit, Maine. I have many warm memories of my childhood where I grew up in the quiet town of Scarborough. I decided to sign up for the 2017 bead retreat so I could not only learn more about my hobby but visit where I used to live, play and, best of all, ride horses.

Life is never constant when one lives with animals. I have learned to go with the flow, to let them lead sometimes, to watch and interact with them as guides instead of always feeling like I am the higher power.

It's been a strange week, I'd have to say, a week of pain and contemplation, a time to sit and heal and wonder about the meaning of life. Even though I'm now in my senior years I'm still questioning the reason for being, the grand plan, how I fit into the world. Yet the answers still elude me.

You can tell a lot about a person or family by looking at their refrigerator. Is it totally devoid of any photographs, memorabilia or appointment cards? Or, like me, is every inch taken up with family, dog and vacation pictures, hurricane emergency information, appointment cards as well as two giant calendars, one for the current month and one for the next month?

As if the  mirror on the bathroom wall doesn't tell me often enough that I'm aging, there are occasional falls and trips and pains to drive home the fact that I'm not twenty­ two anymore.

Who is this mysterious being who shares my life? She is both affectionate and aloof, pushing her head under my hand to be touched one moment and twitching  her tail if I pet her later on. Does she feel frustrated that I am so slow to understand her?

My Dad's home office at one time was a scene out of one of the hoarding television shows. He added more and more stuff without ever cleaning or throwing out the useless software or books or typing ribbons or cameras, etc., that he brought to the room in the late 1970's.

A week after my trip to Auburn University's Small Animal Hospital with my Border Collie, Tommie, I was again on Interstate 65 heading north. This time my three dogs and I spent Valentine's day getting a diagnosis for Bodie and his continuing problem with blood flowing out of his urine. 

My blond dog, Bodie wasn't the only one of my Border Collies that needed to go to Auburn University's Small Animal Teaching hospital. My young black and white girl, Tommie, has struggled with an ongoing limp that needed a more definitive diagnosis than my local vet could give.

Words have escaped me for the last six months or so, my mind as empty as the bottom of a well after a summer of severe drought. So much has happened yet so little really, in the grand scheme of life. My Dad's death, the third pillar of our family of four, has hit me hard, even though we never were close.