Do you pick up wet and smelly hitchhikers?

9:00 tonight, it is wet and cold. We are through half of my mothers almost 6 hr. paper route. A commonly eventful weekly routine that has been going on for the last 24 yrs. I must admit that I do enjoy it far more than is considered normal by most anybody who has experienced it.
So on this back country road we glimpse 2 dark shadows coming our way through an open field. We pass by and then my mother has a thought, could it be we have had the good fortune of running into the latest talk of the town? The runaways with the price on their heads, a bounty of $2500 why that could buy a small economic used car with minimal rust, or even almost pay for my trucks fuel for an entire month! Wow, we are going back! So we do, and much to my surprise it is true. Two black labs looking lost and lonely, my next thoughts are what if they run? I quickly decide that anything worth that much hasn't a chance of escaping me. I don't have anything that important planned for tomorrow anyways! So my mother opens her door and calls "here doggy, doggy" as my adrenaline builds and muscles tense for the glorious chase. Very much to my surprise, they dive in over her and the youngest looking aromatic prodigals pooch takes up residence on my lap. I cant believe it! That was way too easy, (O.K. whats the catch huh, I ask my self.) We begin to go over what we can remember of the "Wanted Poster" we had just seen an hour ago posted on the gas stations wall. 2 black labs, "Dock", and "Wyatt", one with a red collar and the other with a blue, both tagged. So here is where our dreams begin to fade, lol. Wrong color collars and no tags, ut oh... Do you think that their real owners will miss them I ask, maybe they will put out an even bigger reward? Lol no I didn't say that, but we did decide that It wasn't worth the chance. Especially when two cars went slowly by, Probably wondering why their dogs were hijacking our car. So after much deep deliberation we decide to let them go with a warning, my mother opens her door once more and the longer haired wanderer steps back out into the rainy night. My new aquaintance has settled in and has other thoughts. " You have to go now." (no thats alright I was heading this way anyways.) "Come on now I am done with you, get out." (do you know how much I'm worth! Come on just take me home, you wont regret it, etc, etc...) So after much wrestling and clawing I manage to throw him in the back seat from which we opened the door and he begrudgently joins his much more sobber traveling companion. To be truthful, I did not want nor ever intend to accept the reward, but it did make a much more interesting story though didn't it.?! We were still a little bit concerned that we had re-lost somebodies dogs, so we hunted down the number on the posters and called the family of the "truly" lost labs to confirm that we had indeed made the correct decision. I feel relieved of that much, but I am sure that our 2 impersonaters are still just a little bit perturbed to be exile from the once dry car. The moral of this story, please don't pick up hitchhikers no matter how innocent and cold they may look. You just never know how hard you will have to work to get them back out again. Lol "IT BE TRUE I TELL YA!!"

Just a few minutes with a field

A few days ago I saw some things I thought were pretty interesting, all within the same field and within minutes of each other. First thing to catch my attention was the big flock of crows flying in the distance. Half of them looked the brightest shiny silver, just like reflecting mirrors, and the other half were run of the mill black. As they flew, they took turns changing colors, it was really cool to see how the sun did that. It was quite overcast too. I've never noticed their feathers reflect to that degree before. Kind of looked like little "ufo's" lol.

And then, a hawk came flying across the field sooo, sooo slowly, working a zig-zag pattern against the wind no more than 3 or 4 feet above the ground. I mean, I could of walked across that field faster. Finally it saw what it thought it wanted, and hit the ground coming up with a big rat, flew another 40 or 50 feet or so, and dropped it. Rather than going back, it just continued on it's low and slow "stalk" across the field and out of sight. Made me wonder if the rat bit the hawks feet, or if the hawk "just didn't feel like having rat again"?

Maybe a minute or two later, just down the field on the opposite side of me a coyote appeared and was curiously trotting towards the center. It was amazing to see how its coat blended in so perfectly, even though it wasn't an exact color match with it's background. A truck rolled by on the boardering road, and I saw the smoothest disappearing act of my life as the coyote ducked behind a very small clump of dead grass, and was as good as gone. Never to be seen by my eyes again, well... for that day at least.