Bedlam Farm Journal, July 3, 2007
                      In memory of Orson, a good dog

   When the ancient Romans puzzled over what caused the hottest days of summer, some of their great minds decided to blame Sirius, the Dog Star.  It’s the brightest star in the sky, and every morning from July 3 to August ll, it rises along with the sun. The Romans called these the days of great heat; they saw the Dog Days as a kind of conspiracy between the sun and the stars.
      For years, I’d heard people refer to the Dog Days without knowing any of this.  Almost everyone I asked  believed the term simply referred to the height of summer, when even dogs had no energy for anything except lounging around.  That’s what I thought too. Then on a sweltering July day two years ago, living on the farm with my dogs and other animals,  I figured I ought to look up their true history.
      Now, I give the Romans their due.  Yet I still see the Dog Days as a state of mind, an interlude, a slow, lazy time of year and a respite from a world whose pace approaches frenzy most of the time.
  My animals don’t seem to care, really, if it’s hot or cold, as long as they get fed. When the sun blasts down and the days get sticky and the bugs descend, farm animals don’t complain or compulsively flip to The Weather Channel. They simply stay in the shade, move less, hunker down.
      For me, the Dog Days are a time to ride up the  mountainside before dawn, on a four-wheeler with my dogs, to see Sirius rise with the sun. I first took Orson, the dog that led me to this farm. He is gone, buried at the top of the pasture. Now, it means taking Rose, my border collie out to herd the sheep in the coolness of dusk.
        The Dog Days might mean communing with my four donkeys.  I come out to see them each morning bringing carrots, apples or oat cookies.  They reciprocate by resting their fuzzy heads on my shoulder, offering solace for the woes and complexities of life.
      Before the sun gets too strong, I might also clamber up to the higher pasture with my border collie Izzy to see Elvis, my affable, 2,400 pound Brown Swiss steer. Elvis loves to come say hello and drool on me, and he also likes the stale doughnuts I bring along.  I’ve grown fond of this affectionate behemoth, who is the size of a small mobile home. He is a true contemplative.  And when he licks your face, you realize that you’ve been kissed as never before.
      During the Dog Days, I love to take my yellow Labrador Pearl  to the creek at the bottom of the pasture for a swim. Then we sit on the front porch of my farmhouse, pondering life.  In the best tradition of this glorious breed, Pearl keeps an eye out for revolting things to eat, and then vomit up later, preferably on the living room carpet.
      Dog Days here on my farm can even involve cats. I  have two barn cats, Mother and Minnie, who wage relentless war on mice and rats, but will always take time out from their lethal rampages to hop into my arms for a scratch or a bit of tuna.
      For me, the advent of the Dog Days brings a change in season and tempo.  It’s an ancient response to heat, humidity and long days. Here on my farm, the Dog Days remind me that it’s important sometimes to slow down, to mark the passage of the year and the journeys of the soul that we humans tend to forget, but that animals never do.