I thought I was doing my cockapoodle pup a favor recently when I took him out for a nice jaunt through the orchard. I had been working long hours lately and hadn’t given him nearly as many walks as I usually do.

Often, during the day when I’ve gone to work, I leave CP outside and he runs around with the guy who works on the farm, helping him check the trees, feed the hens, trim the weeds and generally do useful things that require him to zip from place to place on one of the golf carts from the U-pick operation.

CP has become so finely tuned to the sound of a golf cart now, in fact, that he bolts to the door, certain the cart scrunching over the gravel road means it’s playtime in CPWorld.

So, when I came home late that fateful evening, I jumped in the golf cart and made a quick tour of the orchard. It was a nice evening in late July and the sun was already fairly low in the sky, so I wasn’t particularly worried about the heat. Generally I figure if I, sun-sensitive soul that I am, can stand it, the dog’s OK.

That would be entirely wrong, as I now know. At first, CP galloped enthusiastically beside me. Then I became aware that I couldn’t hear his tags jingle anywhere near me.

Concerned, I headed back toward the house, and as I got close, I heard CP’s labored breathing and saw him gasping for breath with his tongue practically dragging the ground.

Instinct kicked in and I instantly reached for the garden hose, even as I noticed that the insides of his earflaps were bright red and his skin felt scorching. I hosed him down thoroughly and he began breathing a little easier, so I carried him into my house, put several inches of tepid water in the bathtub and just kept pouring the coolish water over him for what felt like half an hour.

I gave him a baby aspirin to help reduce his fever, patted him dry enough to take his rightful place at the foot of my bed, then called my vet, after hours and 30 miles away.

The doctor listened carefully, said it was certainly heat stress and that I had done the right things. It sounded as though the worst was over, and I should call back if his condition seemed to worsen during the night.

I felt so guilty, I told the vet. I thought I was doing the right thing, giving him a good run before bedtime.

“Goofy dog spirit,” Dr. Coles said ruefully. “Some of them will run themselves to death rather than stop having a good time with their people.”

Aww, ma-a-an. Now I really feel bad.

But now I know. Some dogs are more sensitive to heat than others: CP is one of those. Dogs with thick fur have a harder time of it than others: CP is also one of those. Dogs can’t sweat, so they use their tongues to cool down through evaporation. When the weather is too hot, or they exert themselves too much, their evaporation system is overwhelmed and it can get ugly very quickly. CP’s did.

Lucky dogs have people companions who will drop everything, grab the hose and cool them down, then learn their lesson and never, ever do anything that dumb again.

CP has one of those, too.

If anyone had wandered by this morning as I was making my daily rounds with Crazy Puppy, they might have thought I was a couple of spoons short of a table-setting.

There I stood with my face buried in a branch, inhaling deep breaths of the Russian olive tree as though it were a scent created especially for me. And in some ways, it might as well be.

I’m always the first to notice that the Russian olives have blossomed. Some people smell new-mown grass on the air, or the yuck from the Frito-Lay plant just down the road from our office. I’m programmed to recognize the first whiff of Russian olive--and to try to coax my acquaintances into my particular enthusiasm.

In an ongoing demonstration of the power of aromatherapy, Russian olive scent always boosts my spirits and makes me feel ready for anything. Although many people view this wispy, gray tree as nothing more than a very tall weed, for me it’s sensual ambrosia that takes me back to a specific time and place where I felt strong and free and ready.

For a couple of years when I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I joined a group of other bicyclists early on Sunday mornings throughout as much of the year as the weather permitted, to make a roughly 30-mile loop out to a wonderful café (which I think might have been called the Lone Wolf, but can’t remember right now). We’d ride like hell out, have a cup of coffee and the best breakfast burritos in the world (green chile, please, and lots of it), then meander back into town about the time the rest of the world was waking up.

Although some of the diehards rode throughout the winter, I generally laid out until the season started warming up. Then the Russian olives and I came out of hibernation at roughly the same time.

I never liked riding with a bunch of other people, so I usually arranged to find myself alone on the road. And there in one place I still can imagine with complete clarity, just as I crested a hill and was gulping for air, I was greeted by a wall of fragrance that I soon came to recognize as Russian olive. When I reached that spot, I knew I was more than halfway to the café and still riding strong. I felt so able and so happy to be out there in the air and early morning solitude. It was heavenly, even though the trees only blossomed for a few days. For as long as it blossomed, I made that route my daily ride.

Now, years later, I can walk outside my office these late-spring afternoons and be overcome by the same wall of aroma. I return to my office after my errands and say, “The Russian olives are blooming. Did you smell them?” only to be met by polite, somewhat mystified expressions. Either my co-workers don’t know from Russian olives or that scent just isn’t something on their aromatic radar.

I forget from year to year that there also is a lone Russian olive on the bank of the lower pond out on the farm where I live. Yesterday when CP and I were walking toward the hen house with some awesome strawberry and radish scraps for the chickens, the aroma stopped me in my tracks. I buried my face in the slender, dusty-green leaves and slurped down scent.

Instantly, I was back on that hill, feeling strong, feeling up to the challenge—and ready for that breakfast burrito with lots of green.

I wish I could bottle that aroma. It would be my signature scent.

Work on the high tunnel greenhouse continued today, after several delays due to wind. Trying to wrangle large sheets of plastic in the spring winds of Kansas isn't anyone's idea of fun.

I still wonder how aforementioned plastic is going to hold up to aforementioned wind, but other farmers in our neighborhood have these very same structures and swear by them, so we shall see.

Next: planting heirloom tomatoes! Followed eventually by eating and canning heirloom tomatoes. Yesss!

And in this photo, you'll see a certain little blonde dog busily helping the Fieldstone crew by running circles around them as they wrestled plastic. He also helped the geese get in the water by chasing them to water's edge and the cat get in the barn by charging her as she emerged to stretch in the sunshine. CP is a very helpful dog.

Photos by Nancy Krause.

This could also be subtitled, "From the Why-I'm-Late-for-Work" file. Some days, it's the light that makes me do it.

This morning, for instance, I went outside for a quick dash around the orchard to give the critters their morning outing and after we'd gone a few steps I turned around to flag down old Bob Dog, who tends to meander away because he's so blind. I looked around and the sky just took my breath away.

So even though I was in a hurry, I dashed back in my house, grabbed my camera and did a little shutterbugging before shuttling the boys back in the house and heading for the office. You can see more of my photos from that morning right here.

I sometimes think of moving back in town, just to keep the commuting miles to a minimum. Then I stop to look around.

As Constant Reader has already seen in earlier blogs, I relatively recently adopted a completely adorable cocker/poodle mix from the local humane shelter. He stole my heart the minute I laid eyes on him and is still absolutely the object of my affection. He’s gained several pounds (from a nearly starved dog to a little round chunk, actually) and has easily settled in with my elderly dog and my adolescent cat. He is joyful, energetic and adoring, the happiest of happy dogs.

I, however, am not the happiest of happy dog wranglers. He doesn’t have the very best manners and insists on jumping up on visitors. Since the farm I live on has a U-pick operation and, therefore, lots of visitors, CP needs to learn to keep his paws to himself.

But the worst thing he does is get to my front door, get just about ready to come in the house, then look at me with complete joy and mischief in his eyes and gallop away. He wants to play, thanks. He doesn’t quite agree with the go-inside-now plan. To my enormous chagrin, this behavior most often happens when I am dressed and ready to drive into town to my job. So I am faced with two options: Chase him down or just let him stay outside all day and hope my neighbors will take pity on me and toss him in the house if they can lasso him once he’s worn himself out. Either way, I end up late for work.

So what I would love to know from our wonderful readers – so many of whom are dyed-in-the-wool dog people – is what I can do to break this bad behavior and get him to come when I call? The not-jumping-up-on-people thing would earn bonus points.

Help!!!!

I look forward to the weekend because I get to play. Not that we don't have plenty of fun at our actual weekday, paying gig – putting out GRIT and our other magazines – and I am eternally grateful for work I love that pays the bills. But weekend play is different. For one thing, I get to play music – at a couple of jam sessions that have been going on for years, and also in practice with my band, which has also been going on for years.

But my best weekend time is getting to play with my Little Guys, which these days include Bob Dog (above), Cutie-Patootie (CP, below) and the Ace of Kittens. I never intentionally set out to have an all-male pet herd, but right now, I'm surrounded by boy-ohs.

It's a bit annoying that they don't have the distinction "weekend" and insist that 5:30 a.m. is still a great time to get me out of the sack. I'm often able to bribe them with an early morning feeding and get an extra hour or so of shut-eye, but basically, with the boys, the day starts early.

And once I've had coffee, their noses take us all for a walk. They HAVE to get out and smell the world, in vivid detail, and for some reason, it all goes better with me walking along beside them. I sometimes throw them out the front door and growl, like a character from Dickens, "PLAY, dammit," but they just circle the door hopefully until I start putting on my outside shoes and getting my jacket. Then we're off and running.

This morning the weather was chilly but delightful, and they coaxed me into a walk around the entire perimeter of the place, which worked out to about 40 minutes at a good clip. When we got back, I gave them rawhide chews, which CP is much more interested in having me throw than in him actually chewing. So we played toss and find for several minutes. Then the cat decided that he needed to jump in the middle of things and he and CP went at it for a while, tearing around the house in hot pursuit of each other. I sat beside Bob Dog, who is very elderly and can neither see nor hear very well. Everything comes as a surprise to him these days, and a bullet-train encounter with a cat and a 30 lb. cockerdoodle is just no fun for anyone. So I took the opportunity to sit and brush him and deflect the worst of the rambunctiousness, and we had a nice visit while they went at it.

I ended up spending nearly two hours playing with the boys, including making their food for the week. I suppose some people might think all this is time wasted. But on several occasions during our morning romp, they made me laugh out loud, and during the whole time, I didn't think about bailouts or bombardments or investments gone bad. And that's very, very good.

On my way to work Friday, I found another sweet dog by the side of the road (a few weeks ago, it was a little schnauzer mix who who ended up in a "forever home" with two of my good friends at work). This week's find didn't have such a happy ending: Someone had just put this dog (an older yellow Lab) out, apparently because she was too ill or expensive or too much of a hassle to take care of anymore. My vet said there really wasn't much that could be done for her, so we mutually agreed that euthanizing her was the only humane choice.

I wonder this morning as I remember her sweet, confused face looking up at me from that ditch, if she ever brought anyone even a fraction of the pleasure and sweetness my guys bring me on a daily basis. And I wonder how someone could repay such sweetness with such harshness.  I sure hope life is kinder to whoever left her there than they were to her.

And I am even more grateful than usual for my sweet, exuberant buddies, who always get my body moving and my heart going again.

One of the reasons I was eager to move back to the farm is that I know from experience the opportunities for daily wonder that abound out here. Not that they don’t abound in town but, living in the city, I’m not as tempted to walk out the front door and pay close attention to what I see. Part of my sacred pledge to the life force of this world is that I will notice, and I find that easier when nature is so close at hand.

Here on the farm, wonder is only a walk away – and sometimes not a far walk at that. This morning, for instance, I took the dogs and went to pick some blackberries for breakfast, with a quick cruise over to the peach trees just in case. The peaches were ripe and the berries perfect – even CP, my new pup, agrees.

He’s taken to eating a few berries (green, not ripe, thank you) off the lower branches while I’m picking. Last week, I heard something crunching down the row from me and was afraid to look because I just knew the dogs had been hunting and some little creature had bitten the dust. Instead, I laughed out loud when I saw CP’s head sticking out from under the blackberry bush, merrily chomping on unripe blackberries. He had no idea dogs just don’t do such things.

We walked back to my place and as I looked down I spied this beautiful moth, displayed as if pinned in an exhibition. I thought he was dead, but discovered otherwise when I reached down to pick him up. I don’t believe he was long for this world because he barely moved – but it was enough to startle me into dropping him (or her. I don’t know how to determine the sex of moths – and am not hugely motivated to discover the secret).

I ran back in the house to grab my cell phone and take a photo (which still sounds nonsensical to me, even though I do it routinely these days) and was thrilled that the moth was still in place, having the good taste to die beautifully right where I could get a good shot of it.

I wasn’t so lucky for my second wonder of the day. I just couldn’t get the phone/camera out in time, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

As I drove down the road that runs beside the farm, I saw ahead what were obviously a mother bird and her babies, crossing the road. Looking more closely, I recognized the feathered-football outlines that identified the bird as a guinea hen and her half-grown offspring. Bringing up the rear was not the daddy guinea, as I first imagined, but a wild turkey hen, shepherding the straggler keets and urging them to keep up, keep up.

They were minding right smartly, providing a tender tableau of mom and her BFF – a best friend forever, even if from a slightly different species – marching the kids off to relieve the field of a few of its grasshoppers.

I wonder if her accent was funny to them.