10 June 2008
What’s that Oscar? There’s a dog stuck in the well house?
Posted by Brian under: Farmin'; The Red House .
I don’t think I told you yet how a cat adopted us. His name is Oscar and it turns out that he is a she. We heard a cat crying one evening when it wasn’t a hundred degrees and we had a window open. Val looked out on the front porch, and there was a cat looking for a family. We didn’t have any cat food, so Val fed him a half of a hot dog. The next afternoon the cat was back, and we gave him a whole hot dog. After that he decided that this place was pretty good, and that he would stick around for a while. We named him Oscar Mayer Painter and scheduled him for a vet appointment. It was there that we found out he was a she, and gave her some shots so she won’t get rabies or fleas. The vet also said a bunch of other stuff that we just passed off as non-sense; Make her an indoor cat so that she won’t get Cat AIDS or Cat Leukemia, and feed her only this special food that you get from two places in all of Spartanburg County. I’ll ask Angela what her opinion is on those things, but the cat seems to like the Meow Mix that was on sale at Pets Mart. She seems like she must have belonged to someone before she found us because she’s pretty affectionate, and likes to be around people. She helps me in the garden by chasing grasshoppers away, and watches over the porch while we are at work. We thought she might be a boy because it took her forever to figure out how to use the cat door that is on the screen door, but now she can get on the porch and off the porch at her leisure. 
But enough about the cat, let’s fast forward to this afternoon. I went out to pick some squash for the squash casserole that I was making for dinner, and also to pick some of the zucchini that had grown beyond a normal size and were approaching the size of a small watermelon. When I passed by the well house, there was a small dog there barking at me, and I could hear another dog barking, but I couldn’t see it. I thought that it might be in the old dog house that is beside the well house. The dog I could see seemed to want to chase me away, so I left them alone, and went about my business. This evening I went back outside to see if the dogs were still around, and see if the dog in the dog house was injured or something. I looked in the dog house, but couldn’t see anything. While Val went to get a flashlight, the dog started barking. Turns out the dog wasn’t in the dog house, but had jumped into the well house and was now stuck. You have to see our well house to really understand how this could happen. The well hasn’t been used in at least the last thirty years, and half of the roof has fallen off of it. The pumps are gone, and all that’s left are some leaves, part of a swing, an old Dr. Pepper bottle, and I think a broken shovel. I looked into the house from where the roof is missing, and sure enough there inside was a Jack Russell terrier looking back up at me. I figured that I could lift the dog out, but I didn’t know if it was scared and apt to bite if I reached in for it. So instead I pulled off the plywood that was covering the door to the pump house. After removing some nails that had been in there for at least as long as the well house had been there, and a little bit of coaxing to the dog that it could make it out, it jumped out. Its friend that had been there earlier in the day was long gone, and I wondered for a minute if the dog could find its way home on its own. After a little bit of sniffing around, it started off towards what I can only assume was home for it. 
Tragedy averted for today, there will not be a dead dog in the well house stinking up things. I guess this was a sign to me that I need to replace the roof on the well house so that no more random animals get stuck in there. Just another day up here at the Red House; where strange things are always happening. By the way the squash casserole was excellent.
One Comment so far...
Val Says:
11 June 2008 at 11:57 am.
I have to agree on the squash casserole, it was de-lish. I’m looking forward to going home tonight and eating some more. That reminds me, I better start looking up zucchinni recipes since we have a ton of those to eat also.