It seems I have acquired a reputation.

I have been handing out dog treats for three months. Every day, I take the same trail and every day, I meet many of the same customers. Dogs have an amazing memory when it comes to getting a treat -- particularly from a stranger.

One dog is not allowed treats. “No treats!” his owner says.

Before I knew her better, I suggested, “Maybe he’d like a treat?”

“Wouldn’t we all?!” she said. That lady sounded like she could really use a treat.

But she is the only one. There is an English family that walks their Bernese mountain dog, appropriately named Bernie, most days. Bernie always gets a treat. He does not even stop to greet me. He does a drive-by, taking the treat from my hand, then hurrying on to his important dog appointments.

There are two runner dogs, Fergus and Luna, who I see twice a day because their owner runs roughly the same route I walk in the opposite direction. I decided two treats every day was a bit much, so I only give them a treat on the second leg. Then, one day, they took a different route home. When I saw Fergus the next day it was pretty obvious he knew he’d been cheated out of a treat the day before.

Usually, the last dogs I see are two border collies, Ray and Cruiser. But yesterday, there was a big change. There were no longer two border collies -- there were three. And the third was a puppy.

“A puppy!” I more or less squealed.

The border collies’ owner, Ruthanne, was out with them.

“She’s not ours!” Ruthanne told me. The puppy, another border collie, was their daughter’s. The daughter was training to be a physical therapist and had a six-week rotation where her accommodations would not permit dogs.

So, the puppy, whose name was Scout, was staying with Ruthanne. Scout was only nine weeks old, which means she was nothing more than a black and white puffball of cuteness. Scout had been through a lot in the last 24 hours. She was scared of the new surroundings, scared of the new dogs, scared of the new people. At the moment, she was scared of me, offering her half a treat.

I waited.

“Come on, Scout,” Ruthanne coaxed. Scout got close to my hand and then scampered away. We spent more than five minutes this way, while Ruthanne held Ray and Cruiser and I sat on my haunches with the treat extended.

Finally, Scout took the treat. She looked surprised.

“Now, that was worth it, wasn’t it, Scout?”

I don’t see the border collies every day, so I thought it would be a lot to hope for to see them again today. But when I came through the woods, there were Ray and Cruiser. They ran up to me and sat looking at me, with that intensity peculiar to border collies.

Then Scout saw me. She came running, on her little fluffy legs. She scrambled through the woods until she got to the two dogs, sitting at attention. She stood on her tiny back legs and squeezed herself between the two dogs, who did not budge until she was wedged in the middle. I’m not sure when I have ever seen anything so adorable.

“Scout! You have to sit!” Ruthanne told her.

I gave a treat to Ray, I gave a treat to Scout, I gave a treat to Cruiser.

“Well, she’s only nine weeks old,” I reminded Ruthanne. “The rules don’t kick in until she’s 10 weeks old.”

Somehow, I’m pretty sure Scout will have it down before then.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

I was headed out for my daily hike. There was thunder in the distance.

“It’s getting lighter,” my husband, Peter, said. “I don’t think we’re going to get any rain.”

The air smelled like a storm to me, but what do I know? If my dog, Milo, were still alive, I would have asked him. Milo would huddle in the corner of the kitchen when a thunderstorm approached.

“There’s no storm on the radar,” Peter would tell him. Milo didn’t care what the radar said. We called him “Doppler Dog,” because if Milo was in the corner, bad weather was never far behind. But Milo is no longer with us and I was headed out on a hike.

“Do you think I need a hat?” I asked. If the sun came out, I’d want a hat.

“I don’t think you’ll need it,” Peter assured me.

It might be worth noting that both Peter and I grew up on the plains of the Midwest where you can see a storm coming from miles away and the weather is predicted accurately to within the quarter of an hour. We live in the mountains now and things are different.

I left the house without a hat and it started to rain before I’d even made it to the trail. That might have been a good time to turn around. I didn’t.

I go on my hike almost every day. I hike in the snow and the drizzle and the cold.

“There is no bad weather,” a naturalist in Alaska once told me, “only inappropriate clothing choices.” I like that.

So, when it started to rain, I wished I had my hat. But the weather was warm and, as Peter pointed out, it was getting lighter up ahead. Unfortunately, that’s not where the weather was coming from.

By the time I got to the trail, the rain was steady but it wasn’t cold. I started walking faster.

It was just as the trail goes into a ravine that the sky opened up. A sheet of rain fell and, in moments, I was as wet as it was possible to get. I was now going at a brisk trot.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes later that the sky crackled with lightning. I have never had thunder crash so close overhead in my life. My hair would have stood on end if it hadn’t been plastered to my head. The lightning and thunder were simultaneous, so I figured I had walked smack-dab into the middle of a summer storm.

The rain was now coming down in buckets and the entire trail had become a swiftly flowing stream. I needed my hiking poles to hop along the newly formed riverbank -- jumping from one rock to another, my boots filled with water, my eyes stinging from the rain -- and all I could think was, “Oh my gosh, it’s good to be alive!”

By the time I was headed home, the rain started to slow. It came to a stop about a half-mile from home. I noticed the puddles getting smaller until the ground was nearly dry.

Peter was surprised when I got home. “You sure hiked fast today!” He had no idea what had been happening just a couple of miles away. At our house, it had hardly rained.

I got in a hot bath and, as I washed the mud off my legs, I knew I would never have gone on that hike if I’d known how bad it would get.

And I was so glad I hadn’t missed it.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

I noticed my wrists were sticking to my desk.

This was a gradual awareness. I spend almost all day at my desk and I don’t know precisely when it started, but I finally looked down because my wrists were undeniably sticky. I had used the wrist rest in front of my keyboard for ... well, forever, and I’d noticed there were a few rips in the fabric. This had apparently progressed, completely unnoticed, until the wrist rest had started to ooze some awful sticky substance, which was now stuck to my arm.

“How did this happen?” I asked myself.

I have a friend whose father was a hoarder. She described the process whereby the house slowly filled with his stuff. He would conquer one room and then, almost imperceptibly, move into the next room until one day, the family found they could no longer use the kitchen range because it was piled high with stuff.

“How does this happen?” I asked her.

I remember a trip across the country when my husband, Peter, and I came upon a mobile home, sitting by itself, completely covered in a faded blue tarp. I assumed the home was abandoned until I saw there was a light on. The light was kind of hard to see because all the windows were covered with the blue tarp.

“How do you get to the point where you are living under a blue tarp?” I asked Peter.

“Gradually,” he said. I think this is probably true.

I’m guessing there might have been a way to fix that roof that would have allowed the occupants to see out the windows. But they probably thought this would work for a little while. Then one day turned into two, two days turned into months and, after a while, they got used to it. Who needs curtains when all your windows are covered with a blue tarp?

I am spending more time in my house than ever before and it has caused me to notice things.

One morning I was waiting for my coffee to warm up and I got to looking at the poster we have hanging in the kitchen. The poster predates our marriage. I remember how I liked it when I first saw it -- a cheerful print of peppers in shades of red and green with the names of the peppers underneath. I took a good look at that poster for the first time in ages and realized there were no longer red and green peppers on it. All the peppers had faded to various shades of pale pink and baby blue. Furthermore, the frame had come unglued and there was a giant gap where there shouldn’t be. The whole thing looked dreadful, and it had been hanging there in plain sight for who knows how long without me noticing.

“Peter! The pepper poster looks awful!” Peter took a look at it.

“You’re right,” he agreed.

“How did this happen?”

I am replacing the pepper poster with a new poster of peppers. They are brightly colored and hopefully will stay that way for a few years.

In the meantime, I am looking around the house as if seeing a newly discovered land, trying to see what I no longer notice. (Why is there a box of cookies tucked behind my printer? Why are there peat pots stacked on the washing machine?) It is a revelation, looking at my house anew.

And it’s probably a good exercise. I’d like to do whatever I can to keep from waking up one morning and looking out on a blue tarp.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION