If Only Beans Could Hit

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

You know, if Beans was a better hitter he could have had a phenomenal career as a shortstop. That dog can field. He's also multi-talented. If I hunted, he would have been a terrific hunting dog. First off, gunshots don't startle him, he's got a good nose, and he's tenacious.

Earlier this morning I tossed his ball de jour (he picks them) from the back porch. It was supposed to land down on the pad where the citrus trees are. Instead, it landed inside the Cape Honeysuckle, took a crazy bounce or three, and ended up under the stairs leading to the deck that once supported the kid's swings. Beans spent a few minutes nosing around until he found it, but there was no way that either one of us could reach it.

Now, there's seven other balls down there, but he wasn't having any of them. He wanted *that* ball. No others. He spent considerable thought and effort coming at it from all different angles, to no avail.

The dog thinks of me the same way little kids look at their daddies. He thinks I can do magic, so he's looking at me with that 'help me out, here' face. It's a long hike, but decided to humor him and went to fetch a drill with a screwdriver bit, figuring I'd remove a step or two to provide access to the ball. While I was working on it, the dog finally managed to wiggle underneath the stairs and get that dang ball. But, he had gotten hisself stuck in a peculiar position, which he eventually extricated himself from.

The ball was stuck under those steps to the left of the pic

He chased that ball until he lost it. Heh. Then he brought me another and chased that one until he was exhausted. He speaks pretty good English and when I asked him if he was ready to *go up*, he dropped the ball, walked over to the steps, nodded at the drill sitting there, and looked at me. The purpose was to remind me bring the drill up the hill to the garage. Good thing, too, because I was walking down the trail without it.

As Ever,