He’s been slowing down some and doing a lot of panting, and my heart isn’t quite ready for the next round of labs that will tell me what I already know.

So I pick at his fur, releasing the massive white mats his coat lets go of this time of year, and he rests his big head on my knee while I tell him what a good boy he is.

He’s never far from me and the other day when I put him in the old pig pasture with my little horse who was craving some of the new green treats growing so tall, he sat by the gate and watched me walk away, then went exploring and grazing with Wishes.

I’m not sure why God saw me fit to grace me with such a perfect dog.

The baby girl graduates today, and somehow we all made it through another winter, and isn’t it wonderful when summer finally comes?

Sunshine and warmth, grass and flowers, and we put in some peonies finally after all these years of talking about it, and I feel the ice melting from my bones.

New, good jobs for the kids, fresh horizons on their life, smiles and joy as our house is a never-ending revolving door of them coming and going and stepping into all that is ahead.

I am proud.

I am happy.

A new season lies ahead and soon there will be a puppy in the mix, one who’ll relieve our old boy of his drive and instinct to protect us. Who’ll maybe make him feel young again. Who will eventually replace him.

So when the man up the road comes to do the dirt work with his excavator for the new little cabin going in for my mother, I know when I see my husband walk over and talk to him that he’s quietly asking if he wouldn’t t mind using his equipment to dig one more hole on the property; a big one there under that black spruce where his wife is going to want to lay her best companion to rest here in not too long.

I bought a Quaking Aspen and a Burr Oak I’ll plant there when the day comes because isn’t that just like my Woodrow? Quaking and mighty.

It’s so good when summer comes.

But even in the joy, it’s hard to know fall is just around the corner.