Letter To A Grandchild

Dear Angel(yne)

It was really nice to hear from both you and Mommy about that lovely surprise that Allison treated you with on Sunday. Imagine, waking up, looking out the window and seeing baskets full of chocolate, along with stuffed bears. Sounds more like a nice dream than a waking-up experience to me. Lucky you!

We had a very nice Sunday too, although we had lots of work to do. Zayde decided he would empty one of our composters to spread the compost over the gardens. Which he did manage to do. He was able to get four wheelbarrows-full, and spread two of them on the gardens in the front and the remaining two on the side gardens and the gardens in the back. And believe me, they reek!

You don’t know what the word “reek” means? Guess. How about stinky? Well, what is pure stinky-smelly to us, appears to be more like delicious-let-me-at-it! to Button and Riley. They sniff this stuff and go into pure rapture of discovery – yummy! Let me at it! Is that disgusting or what?

Next thing you know, we’ll have to take them over to the veterinarian to have their stomach pumped out. Gah! What this means is that as long as the compost smells like that we’ll have to accompany them outside to make certain they don’t gobble the stuff up! What fun.

What did the big chimney say to the little chimney? Answer: You’re too young to smoke!

That was a nice, neat little pencil cartoon you did in that last letter that I just received. And to which I’m responding. Zayde opened it and read it out loud to me while I was doing some baking. Then I read it afterward, when I was sitting down to read the newspapers, relaxing. We both enjoyed your letter. And guess what? I’m laughing! So there!

Now you know, after going to work with your mother that not only does she do a lot of work related to thinking and planning and working alongside other people, but her work also involves a lot of getting about and walking around, so both her brain and her body are getting a good work-out. Right?

I’ve got to give you some advice: next time you try to write the word “dum” you should remember that it sounds just the way you spelled it, but you left out the silent letter which forms the correct spelling of the word. It is not DUM, but rather the correct spelling is: DUMB. Got it?

Having said which, I shall now relate a story about a dumb little doggy. All right, maybe she’s not dumb, it’s quite possible and I’m entirely willing to concede that it’s her owners that deserve the description. Here’s the story: Three days ago Zayde emptied one of our composters. The one that we’re no longer putting kitchen waste in, because we wanted to give the composter the opportunity to work it’s magic and turn all that kitchen waste consisting of grapefruit rinds, corn cobs, avocado skins and pits, lettuce, red pepper cores, cantaloupe rinds, and all the other stuff we toss into it – into nice decomposed compost. Well, Zayde took all that newly-produced compost (I shouldn’t say “newly-produced” exactly, because it takes a year to get compost out of all the kitchen waste) and filled up four wheelbarrows-full of it, and then went around to all the gardens, front and back of the house, sprinkling it liberally over the garden beds. That’s important when you want to enrich the soil, because of all the nutrients the decomposed waste contains. The garden uses it all to produce strong and healthy plants. Which is just what we want. Your mother could tell you all about that.

Well, guess what? Good compost isn’t supposed to smell. But guess what? Our finished compost always does. It literally reeks. Which means it smells awfully bad. Stinky, really stinky. But, just like the aged dog poop in the ravine that Button thinks it’s fun to roll it and Jordy loves to gobble up (Stevie too, I think) it smells tantalizingly good to dogs. Every chance Button gets now she heads straight for the garden beds, the sneaky little poop-head! She tries to gobble up as much of that muck as she can, before we can call her away.

Riley did a little bit of it too, but he soon lost interest, sensible little dog that he is (even if he is kind of stupid). But Button is a different story. She’s determined, despite that she knows it makes us angry with her, to get as much of that decomposed foodstuff into her belly as she can. Ugh! No kidding!

Furthermore, as happens every spring, we’ve got to keep a sharp eye on her when we’re walking through the ravine. Why, you might ask? Your mother knows why. When all the snow and ice melts it uncovers nasty stuff which is sitting on the forest floor happily deteriorating. We can’t really smell the stuff, whatever it is (often decomposing poop) but the dogs can and they love it. They make a beeline right for it, and then happily roll in it, or eat it. Button, it seems, has got over the eating part, and just enjoys rolling in it.

There’s a certain spot on the trail which we discovered much to our dismay, that it just one of those spots. Two days ago we forgot to watch her and then realized she had rolled in something fairly disgusting. All the detritus had to be brushed out of her hair when we got home, and then we had to scrub her with soapy water. Instead of remembering and trying to head her off on our Wednesday walk in the ravine, darned if it didn’t happen again.

So she got a good scolding, and no treat. It just so happens that the miserable spot she loves to roll in is located very close to where we always stop to give them treats, halfway through the walk. Two days in a row she has been denied her treat, the sneaky little devil. On Thursday we’ll take greater care.

We’re thinking of wrapping them both up and giving them as gifts to unsuspecting cat, er dog lovers.

Ta-ta for now! And Cheerio!