Copper the Wonder Dog

Back when I was a young boy I often visited my Grandpa’s farm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  In the summertime I got to spend several weeks up North, and my very best pal was my Grandpa’s dog, Copper the Wonder Dog.

Copper was a mixture of breeds, but mainly a Pointer and part English setter.  Pointers are very athletic and graceful, and were bred to be bird hunting dogs.  When they spot their quarry, a pointer will will freeze and “point” at the game (like in the picture above), so the hunter will know where to look when the game is flushed.  Pointers can be mischievous, and they don’t think they are dogs.  They think they are people, and just part of the family.

Copper could run fast, and I mean really fast.  He liked to chase rabbits when we went out into the woods, and he would occasionally catch one (which was no small feat).  He liked to chase cars, but only certain cars that he didn’t like.  When he saw or heard a car he didn’t like coming down the road, Copper would race down the driveway, downhill, reaching full speed just as the car was passing the driveway.  The cars would always drive away down the road, so Copper probably figured he was responsible for scaring the bad cars away.

Sometimes I would get Copper to chase after me by suddenly running around the corner of the house out of sight.  Copper couldn’t resist and just had to chase me.  I would hide around the corner to surprise Copper, waiting for him to come racing around the corner at top speed, and then flip him over making him totally wipe out.  That generally prompted a spirited wrestling match, but Copper would always give up when I scratched his belly.

I liked to sleep in, but sometimes someone would let Copper into the house.  I would hear someone open the stairway door, and then the sound of claws scratching on the wood steps as Copper raced up the stairs.  Copper would leap into bed and land right on top of me, and if I wasn’t quick enough in pulling the covers over my head, I would get a cold, wet dog muzzle right in my ear.  There was just no going back to sleep after that.

One time some relatives brought their puppy named “King” over to my Grandpa’s house.  Copper didn’t like having another dog around competing for everyone’s attention, so he started showing off by racing around the house at top speed.  King was very short and couldn’t run very fast, but he chased after Copper as best as he could.  Every time that Copper passed King as they ran round and round the house, Copper purposely ran right over top that little dog, sending King tumbling end over end.  It was hilarious!

Copper liked to eat sweet corn on the cob.  Seriously!  It didn’t matter if it was raw in the field, or roasted during a cookout.  Copper would lay down, put his cob of corn between his paws, and gnaw the kernels right off the cob.  Copper would follow us out into the cornfield, and sometimes when the wind blew and rustled the corn just right, he would get scared and start whimpering.  It reminded him of a previous bad experience.

One night Copper charged out into the cornfield intending to run off some raccoons stealing corn.  Raccoons are mean and vicious fighters for their size, with a growl that sounds like pure evil  There was a gang of raccoons out there, & they gave Copper the worst thrashing he’d ever received.  Poor Copper never forgot, & occasionally the sound of the wind rustling the corn leaves scared him into thinking that gang of raccoons was coming back to get him.

Old Copper was just a great dog to have around when I was a boy on vacation up North.  We ran, we wrestled, we hiked in the woods, we hunted, we ate corn, and we chased cars (well, he chased cars).  We sat together on the porch steps, looking down the driveway, across the road, into the field beyond, and just watched the summer days go by.

(Picture of a Pointer from Wikimedia)

The Dog Days of Summer

It’s the Dog Days of Summer . . . lots of heat and humidity, not much rain, and hard to get motivated.  I’ve even slacked off a bit on the blog, but it’s time to get back to making regularly blog posts.

The garden is doing great; the tomatoes are really ripening up, in all colors, red, orange, and yellow.  The pole beans are in high gear, producing more beans than I can eat.  I’ve started drying some in my dehydrator, and have been saving them in a quart canning jar to keep them dry.  I’m thinking they might come in handy to mix with rice, or when making some soup this fall and winter.  I’ve been snacking on some baby carrots, & harvesting some baseball-sized sweet onions.  I’ve been using up my Zucchini’s by trying to perfect my Italian Zucchini Casserole recipe.

My Sandhill Crane family still visits my yard several times a day to snack on the dried whole kernel corn I’ve been putting out for them.  Sometimes they look a little put out when I’m late putting corn out in the morning.  When I go out into the backyard they will walk over to the other side of the yard and wait until I go back inside the house.  The two youngsters, who were little fuzz balls back in early May, are nearly the size of their parents now.  They all like to hang out in my backyard and sit down in the grass, with at least one adult standing and on patrol for danger.

I’ve been cutting down some overgrown lilac bushes and wild grapevines growing alongside my house, as well as some seedling trees encroaching into my lawn.  I pile up the brush on a plastic tarp, and then I can easily drag the tarp across the lawn into the tree line where I pile the brush out of view.  The really fun part won’t start until I begin digging up the roots.

It’s kind of hard to believe that August is halfway over; where did the Summer go?  On the other hand, I am really looking forward to the Fall.  Fall is absolutely my favorite time of the year.