I know that it is officially still winter, but where I live in the very middle of the United States, it's over 70 degrees and sunny right now. This springtime like weather gets me to thinking of some of the things that I did with my friend Toby during this time of the year. We liked to get out of the house and do things during this time of year when it wasn't too cold and it wasn't too hot. Neither of us liked the really cold, and in the humidity of summer, we were both useless.
One thing that we loved to do on nice days in spring was to go for walks out in the orchard. We had a fairly good sized lot on the side of our house where we had fruit trees. At one time, we had about 10 apple trees, 5 cherry trees, 2 plum trees, 3 pear trees and an apricot tree. We also had grapes and strawberries. Next to the orchard we had a big garden for growing vegetables.
In the afternoons, we used to go for nice walks in the orchard. Neither of us liked to walk very fast, so we would have a leisurely stroll among the fruit trees. When they started to blossom, they were so beautiful.
We'd start to put the garden in in March. We'd plant spinach, lettuce, radishes, onions, carrots and peas as early crops. The green beans, corn and tomatoes had to wait until later in the year.
I would go out with Toby, and we would collect the vegetables from the garden in the spring. Like I said, we didn't go out much in the summer humidity. Neither of us could breathe well when it was really humid. For some reason, my asthma has always been worse in the hot and humid weather.
As soon as it was warmer weather in the spring, we would play our favorite game of hide and seek. I would hide somewhere, and them my Mom would let Toby out to see how long it took to find me. I would watch as he would put his nose to the ground and follow me right to where I was at.
One day, we were outside and I had Mom hold Toby behind the barn so he couldn't see where I was going to hide. I thought that I would play a trick on him and hide somewhere in the house.
Mom let him go, and Toby started to track me. He came right to the front door of the house. My Mom kept telling him that I wasn't in there, but he barked and barked to go in. She let him in, and he came right to where I was.
Toby was an excellent tracker. I believe that if I'd have entered him in some AKC tracking dog events that he would have been able to get at least his first level tracking dog title. I never sent his papers in when he came to live with me. I really didn't care about all of that. My parents had collies that they took to dog shows, but I never liked it all that much. Those collies weren't my dogs. Toby was my dog and mine alone.
One thing that neither of us liked during the spring was the storms that come to the Midwest. One day, I was working on my Bible College work when the tornado siren went off in the little town where I live.
We had a very small storm shelter out in the back yard, so I picked Toby up and we headed out there. My folks weren't home, so it was just Toby and me. We just got into the shelter when the wind started to blow terribly. Then the hail started. It just pounded down.
Toby was so fearless about everything. He always barked at the thunder. Finally, I decided that it was safe to come out. Thankfully, we only had some minor damage to a couple of trees. The tornado passed to the north and took out a barn and a shed about one mile away.
One other thing that we always did in the spring was have cookouts on the back patio. It was my job to cook everything on the grill. This is back in the days when I still ate meat. We had some great cookouts.
Toby was different in so many ways. He is the only dog that I've ever known who didn't like beef very much. When I cooked steaks out on the grill, I would always cook a little bit so that he could have some. But, he wasn't too interested in steak. He never wanted to eat any pot roast. Now, if I cooked chicken, that was a whole different story. I think that he could eat two or three chickens in little to no time.
Just one more thing I wanted to mention. I like to reminisce about my best friend. One year, my Mom bought an old sports car from one of the doctors she worked for. My Mom was the financial manager for a cardiology group that had about 25 doctors in it. Well, one of the doctors had an old 1979 Datsun 280 ZX that he wanted to get rid of. He let Mom buy it for next to nothing.
She let me drive that car. I would take Toby for rides in that car and we had the best time. It was super fast. I shouldn't say this as I post sermons and talk about religion here on the blog, but old Tobe and I did go quite fast in that car on the wide open road. I'd remove the T-tops, and we were off to the races with the wind whipping through the car. That car rusted to pieces. I did love that car. For about a two month period, I had to take Toby to the veterinarian in the town about 7 miles over from us three times a week. He was having a health problem and needed to be monitored. We always took the Datsun. I know that Toby loved that car too because that is the car he would immediately go to whenever we were going on a trip whether to the veterinarian or someplace else. I thought he always looked a little sad when we got into the car that was actually mine. I had an older Oldsmobile.
Well, I could write on and on. I get to missing Toby more than I usually do some days, and I feel better when I remember the days when we were together, and I was happy.
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