12/08/10 "OLD DOGS AND OLD MEN"

A SICKLY SUN TRIES TO SHINE THROUGH
LOWER CHEQUAMAEGON BAY IS FROZEN OVER
RED CLIFF CASINO CONSTRUCTION PROCEEDS APACE

Wednesday, 8:30 AM. 18 degrees, wind WSW, very light. The sky is overcast. as a sickly sun tries to shine through. It is snowing lightly; gentle, fluffy flakes. The barometer is up. I had a load of firewood delivered yesterday and managed to get it stacked in the shed before it got covered with snow.
Lucky is feeling better, I got him to eat some yogurt mixed with boiled (not fried) hamburger last night and I think his appetite will soon return. Daughter Greta, the English teacher and dog trainer, recommended that as a step above yogurt alone and I pass it on in case your pup gets deathly ill and won't eat. I am mending as well, although I never did stop eating, and in any case the yogurt and boiled hamburger recipe doesn’t appeal to me. It must be a dog thing.
Thinking of what I said the other day about old men and old dogs I tried to remember where I read the iconic line, "old dogs and old men smell bad.” Turns out it is from Robert Ruark’s “The Old Man and the Boy,” and a more exact reference is, “ ‘two things got no place in this world, an old dog and an old man. They serve no useful function and generally smell bad, too. ‘ "He suggested that one of these days he was just going to say to hell with it and lay right down and die.” (An awfully lot of southern quail dog training is depicted after this discourse, which then ends with the following): “the old man seemed not so near death as before, and I could detect a slight odor of the medicine he used to ward off chills…”
I haven’t quite descended to the “lay right down and die” level, but I have taken a shower. I have not progressed to the brandy bottle as yet.
Lower Chequamegon Bay has frozen over and the swans have left, but Joan spotted two on Pikes Bay, which will not freeze over for a long time yet.
Work proceeds apace on the new Red Cliff Casino site.