Reilly smells like mangoes mixed with loamy soil. A dry, piney soil. She smells like soil because she rooted around after a chipmunk that ran across the trail today- her long black nose is dusted with the lighter soil from under the pine stump she was digging under. I love this smell. She smells like mangoes because it took three shampooings to get the stink out of her last night after she ground her whole back and haunches in a large pile (is there any other kind?) of bear poop on a late walk with our neighbor dogs, Bella and Crixis. She made such an impression on puppy Crixis that on our return pass of that stretch of path, he partook of the same paintjob himself.
So Raye & I triple scrubbed Rei in the downstairs tub till she smelled better, and frankly I think the lighter stripes of her brindling glow now. She sparkles. Since she’s so clean now, I decided that I’d leash walk her up Ridge Road for today’s walk, but once I got over there the north side of the Catamount Trail called too loudly and I unclipped “Bear Pie” and let her walk freely with me. I wanted to explore farther up than I had before and now that Raye was in school again and Sage had the day off from excursions, it was just us: the ideal exploration team.
We flushed a grouse and noted- but did not roll in- old horse poop and deer tracks. The river is very low. One side of the trail is a patch of young white pines about an inch thick each. We crossed a little wood bridge that provides a nice outlook over a grassy wetland: the kind that has open water a bit further out than you think you can reliably find anything to step on to get to. The kind with those grey flooded out snag trees in it. We stood quietly and looked for a little bit then moved along.
Reilly in the cool, clear brook.
I had wondered where anybody in a jeep could be going on this trail- I sometimes saw tire tracks and the trail has two well worn ruts. Bear Pie and I went far enough along to spot a low roof, so I leashed her up and we climbed the little hill to see better. It was a deer camp, a little house with a shed and an outhouse and sign over the door that said “Buckballs Camp” complete with hand drawn illustrations in case you missed the reference to “balls” in the text. The roof has a good drift of pine needles going, but the beam you hang the deer from to drain and cool looks well-lashed. The ol shootin keg is on its stump, a little disturbingly directly across the trail from the camp house. There’s a vinyl lawn chair that someone had set on fire and all evidence indicates that at Buckballs Camp, Genneseein’ is Believin’, still.
We proceeded on trail between the camp and the shootin’ keg, but soon began to see a couple houses through the trees, which is no fun and means there is a real road nearby, so rather than power through those, we turned back into the forest and retraced. back past deer camp, the bridge and into the piney forest. With a loud clacking of sliding slate, Bear Pie scrambled down a steep bank for a drink at the river, and when I asked her how on earth she was going to climb back up that bank, she just *did*. She shoved her nose into a hole under a stump and took deep snoutfuls of scent, dug, scented, then tore up a big mouthful of roots and soil. I like to watch her work, so I didnt call her off- plus a trainer once told me to never call a dog to COME unless you;d bet $20 she will, and on the hunt, she’d be like my daughter- “Just a minute!!” When she stood up and looked around, I knew she was at a point to decide whats next, so I called her along and we finished the walk.
Sage greeted us at the door and smelled Rei’s soily nose. He had the day off to keep his stress bucket low. He has been doing a very good job lately and I want to keep it that way. I knew he’d have balked on the trail well before deer camp, so I don’t ask more of him than he can reasonably achieve, and he’s cool with that.
