Liquorice came for a long and slow trek this afternoon, well, she may have been less than two hundred yards from home at the furthest point, but she thought it a long way. She handled it well and will sleep, and dream happily tonight.
We went over to our old nursery and down through the little orchard where she sampled again the scents left by rabbits, wood ducks, the neighbor’s dogs, foxes, blue tongue lizards and other assorted fauna. Liquorice found them extremely interesting though I doubt she knew just what made them. Having catalogued the array of scents for future reference we proceeded to the old fallen tree trunk, the branches long since used for firewood, only the trunk remains and as it’s Yellow Box I’m not looking forward to splitting it. Liquorice did two circuits around the trunk and was then ready to cross the paddock to “Her Dam”. That is where she had her first swim the other day, which she thought was heavenly, until she needed my assistance to move all the extra weight of that wet coat up a steep and slippery bank! As we left the tree trunk our neighbor’s dogs let fly with a torrent of canine abuse! It is accepted that the other little dam in that corner, near the neighbor’s house, is their territory, but they have been claiming further up the slope to our home since our “girls” passed on. At least they do when they think I am not looking. For now though I bellowed at them to go home. Liquorice was impressed! She sat back looking at me with admiration. More with the volume her human was capable of than the fact that the trespassers had scampered home to their side of the fence, from where they continued their verbal assault. Liquorice gave two barks back but then realized she did not know what she should do next! So we sat and watched until they tired of barking and we then continued on our way. Liquorice made no attempt to go swimming as we passed the dam so I turned and went up the slope, across the driveway and to the cow paddock. I lifted my now not so little girl over the single wire electric fence we have to keep our last three cows in, Melanie, Annie and young Dixie. How pleased I was that I was only circling around our house, if I had to carry Liquorice any distance back home my beautiful little black ball of fluff might become an ungainly solid and heavy lump <vbg>. I then took her up the steep part of the hill along from the house. Not really steep but steepish, you would very much rather walk down than up. Walking up she took her time smelling meadow cakes, and sampling same as I later found out. <vbg> We stopped at the top of the hill and I sat with her for a few minutes, I to take in the view and cuddle my puppy, she to lick my face thus sharing her new delight with newly “laid” meadow cakes. Dixie, a young heifer, came over to investigate our new Newf so friendly Liquorice went to say “G’day”. They had often stared at each other from their respective “paddocks”. Dixie held her head low and stretched her neck out to better analyze Liquorice who her head as high as she could as this big “dog” approached. They were about ten feet from each other when Liquorice could contain her excitement no more. She jumped for joy in the air and bounded toward Dixie, who bounded back just as far, causing each other some alarm. So they did not get to meet properly. Maybe next time. We next went down the other side of the hill, which is a little steeper too. As we proceeded I noticed that Liquorice was having problems. As she took each step forward, down the slope, she put her front foot down where she thought the ground ought to be, had it been level, nearly falling forward with each step when the ground was not there! She was one very perplexed puppy. After a dozen or more steps she worked it out so I sat and gave her a congratulatory cuddle. <vbg> She received it standing side on to me and after a moment Liquorice sat down. She is used to near level surfaces so she learned about the Law of Gravity as, in very slow motion, she rolled from sitting to laying to rolling right over with her legs now pointing down the slope! <vbg> She looked back at me wondering why I brought her to this weird land and what next would happen to her. She had not long to wait to find out. I walked ahead, Liquorice preferring at first to stay put, but then she came after me slowly. Then a little quicker, a bit faster, fast, then too fast. Her little legs failed to keep up with her body and she came to rest on her chin where I stood, only a few yards from where she started. After that she was quite OK. She noticed me pick up the odd stone that is in the paddock and put them in a hollow or at the base of a tree so as the mower will not hit them when I give the paddock a trim. Liquorice picked one up and lay down, carefully, and tried to chew the rock, left it there, and understood why I was not keeping them either. Next we went down to an old, nearly burnt-out stump near another waterhole, at the base of the hill, when she saw and remembered the little grove of Paperbarks that I used to carried her to long, long ago when she was just a little baby – nearly a month ago! She absolutely enjoyed herself there, going around the Paperbarks and the wild Olives. The cows camp there of a daytime when the weather is hot so Liquorice got to refill on fresh meadow cake while I picked up a few sticks etc. We had a rest and a talk. The conversation was one sided but she listened well, <g> Then it was back up the slope to home and a well-deserved drink for both of us, though not from the same bowl.
Arthur Witten
Liquorice