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Through my eyes

The Highland County Press - Staff Photo - Create Article
Christine Tailer

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

I watched as my person pulled a big box up from downstairs and sat it on the dining room table. I was curious. I had not seen this box before, so I popped up to put my front feet on the table's surface. I was hoping to get a peek inside and had no intention of eating anything, but my popping up was greeted with a stern "No!" I popped back down and sat by my person's feet.

She shook her head and looked down at me. She said this type of behavior was exactly why we couldn’t have a tree this year. Hmm ... we had lots of trees, all kinds of trees, everywhere all over the farm. I wondered what she could possibly mean. No trees? My person was really quite confusing at times. 

I followed her about the cabin, as I usually do. I watched as she reached into the big box and took out brightly colored things and hung them up, some here, others over there, basically just about everywhere. She draped them from the metal railings my other person had built. She hung them from the window frames, and from the top of the grandfather clock. She even hung some from the hall tree by the front door. She was singing as she did all this hanging of brightly colored things. She seemed quite happy.

Every now and then I would pop up to see if I could reach one of the things she had hung. Sadly, they were all out of pop-up reach. My person bent down to tousle my head. "Maybe next year, when you are older and not quite so puppyish, Then, we’ll be able to decorate an inside tree. Perhaps, if you’ve grown up into calm dog, we could even run a train or two around the tree."

Trains! I remembered them from the Antique Machinery Show this past summer. I was amazed by them and I know that I had been a really well-behaved dog the show. I simply sat by the side of the track and watched as the trains passed by and came around again and again. I could have watched forever. I was quite sure I could be a good puppy dog with an inside train.

I looked up at my person with my puppy dog eyes. I cocked my head to the side and put on my sweetest puppy dog expression. "Oh please, please, please", I thought up at her. She only smiled down at me, tousled my head once more, and continued to take brightly colored things out of the box and hang them about the cabin.

She continued to sing, and I continued to follow her. In time, she came to the bottom of the box. There were no more brightly colored things left to hang up about the cabin. She carried the box back downstairs and put it away. I followed her down and then back up the stairs again.

She sat on the couch. I jumped up beside her and lay down, my head in her lap. She ran her fingers along my ears. I sighed. She smiled. Life is good, even though the brightly colored things are just out of my pop-up reach.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in Ohio south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com. 

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