Wednesday, April 09, 2014

The case of the multiplying hooves

I'm not sure what it says about the nature of our household, but if you'd been listening in last weekend you might have heard me asking, in a tone of concern, "Are those hooves multiplying?"

Cow hooves started appearing in our yard about a week ago, first one and then another until there were at least four, which ought to be a sufficiency for any hound. Hopeful is a retriever, and lately she's been doing her retrieving at the site where our neighbors burned the remains from the slaughter of cattle. I don't know what she sees in charred hooves but she must love them because she's very protective. 

Hopeful's dedication to chomping on the hooves distracted her enough to allow my husband to gather up a big bucket of other bones, the remains of carcasses the dog hauled home over the winter. This morning he packed the bones into a bucket and stashed them in the trunk of my car so I could pass them on to a colleague whose big dogs love bones. I popped open the trunk and the first thing I saw was part of a deer's jaw with the teeth and some fur still attached--not something one expects to encounter in the parking lot of an academic institution.

I wonder what people thought when they saw my colleague walking across campus carrying a bucket of random bones, some looking as if they were walking through the woods fairly recently. At least they're out of my car (and my yard and my life), which leaves plenty of room for the next outbreak of multiplying hooves.    

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