Here in Australia it is summer and the temperatures at Cobbitty, where I live southwest of Sydney, are regularly in the triple digits! Last Saturday was a real “scorcher” with 120 degrees; it was in the 90s at 8-30am and 105 at 10-30am! So how do Liquorice and Keaton handle the heat? Well, they spend their days inside laying on cold tiles and pay homage to the God of Air Conditioning!
My little darlings were to be washed yesterday, however I decided against that as I felt the weather too cold for that task. As you freeze, gazing out upon snow covered landscapes with icicles lengthening, you may be pondering just what temperature did this Australian consider too cold for Liquorice and Keaton’s bath. Well yesterday was relatively “cold” here, only in the 70s, with almost no breeze. And after runs of 100-plus days then the 70s do seem “cold”!
Today they were washed though with a temperature in the low 80s and cloudy skies I nearly put that task off once more! But they were washed, toweled and walked dry. As we wander I stop every 300 yards or thereabouts to brush their coats with a slicker allowing the air into their wet coats and separate the strands of hair that the moisture “holds” together. On hotter bath days I walk holding a large umbrella over Liquorice’s black coat! Neighbors driving past allow that Liquorice and Keaton’s Dad is a few shingles short of a roof when it comes to indulging his “kids”. I no longer speculate on the musings of strangers visiting our secluded area.
Daytime walks are usually interesting for example today some Alpacas in an adjacent paddock “clucked” and “screeched”, sounding like demented seagulls, as I brushed Liquorice and Keaton on the roadside. Further along by the corner tip-trucks with trailers have been dumping “fill” in a paddock. As yet I again brushed the pups a truck was grinding its way across the paddock. Keaton watched its progress but kept looking to his left and then back again. It took a while for me to realize he was acknowledging the truck’s echo bouncing off two brick walls angled off either side of a gateway across the next road. No sooner had that truck and trailer left than three more arrived, “nose to tail”, turning right around the corner and immediately left into the driveway, literally “snaking” their way in, much to the delight of Liquorice and Keaton. And adding to my delight was the fact that the breeze blew the resulting clouds of dust away from our position.
But I digress.
Getting back to the frozen landscapes of North America; images of folks chipping frozen poops from equally frozen ground, hopefully with their mouths closed, is almost incomprehensible to me. Liquorice and Keaton do their neat little piles as Newfoundlands do. Twenty-four hours later, after having been baked under the hot Australian sun and blasted by drying winds, my little darlings’ “dilberries” are transformed into desiccated lumps so weightless that they could almost be blown away if not for the grass, rendered dead and dying by our unforgiving drought.
Winter in Oz for Liquorice and Keaton means only an occasional frost as our ridge is just above the frostline. Therefore my little darlings never know the glorious joys of snow and ice that their North American cousins enjoy. Not for them delights such as Gracie’s drool strands being frozen to Mary’s car or Mamut’s breaking the ice on Louise’s fishpond for a refreshing swim among any of the finny denizens that remain. No strolls along the “arctic” streets of Chicago as relished by Sharon and her Bailey. And no clusters of grape-like ice-balls as adorn the “feathers” of Naomi’s Maggie Anne after her romps in the snow. All I can offer Liquorice and Keaton by way of snow is “frost” scraped from the inside of the freezer. And that, their ancient instincts tell them, is NOT snow. However like their neighbors, Liquorice and Keaton also indulge their Dad.
Arthur Witten
Liquorice – You mean it’s hot outside?
Keaton – Can we be washed again tomorrow?