"Little Bear," My Favorite Kid...

Yesterday, Mom’s grandson, “Little Bear,” as she calls him, came over and spent most of the day after church. She hasn’t seen him except for a few hours at Christmas because he has such a HUGE extended family and everyone loves seeing the little guy (he’s 5) when he gets to come to town for a visit (His family moved a couple of months ago when his dad got a job a couple of hours drive away).

That is one kid I really like! For his age, he is so quiet and kind around us dogs. He loves to just sit down for awhile and have us do our tricks and then gives us the jerky treats that Mom cuts into little pieces for him. His parents and my Mom have done a really good job of teaching him how to behave around us. Mom just loves having him come over too.

They did all kinds of things she’s been saving up to do with him, like looking closely at the tarantula Dott’s Master found a week or so ago that had died, and picking some of the tomatoes that he had helped Mom plant several months ago.

We went out and got to run around while he gathered wood in his little wagon, which he loves to do. Then he helped his Papa (Dad) start a fire in the woodstove we use to warm the house. 

We all went out, when it got dark and looked at the stars… there was a HUGE one out (actually, Mom said it was the planet, Jupiter) and she told “Bear” about the big star that they saw when Jesus was born. We all listened to the coyotes singing, but after a few minutes of that, “Bear” got nervous, so we went in… Mom wouldn’t let us bark at them anyway, so what was the use of staying out there? I hate those old coyotes. There is one that lives on the hill to the west of us about 150 yards away (about a town block) and we see her coming across our side pasture sometimes and warn her not come to close… She just looks at us… MAKES ME SOOOOO MAD!!!! I bark so hard sometimes that I’m bouncing!!! Wish Mom would let me at her… My kids, and Auntie Sadie feel the same way… I’ll bet we could handle her if Mom would let us, but she is careful not to let us out around dusk when that nasty critter might be around.

That pasture coyote even has the nerve to invite some of her friends over at times, and they all sit around by the circle pen out back (about 100 ft. from the back fence) and sing… at least until Dad goes out and shoots off a round over their heads into the hill behind them (there is nothing but BLM land—all rolling hills-- for miles back behind our little hill)… They don’t like guns and will leave pretty fast, so we can all go back to bed… For some reason Dad doesn’t like it when we do our job, and have a fit at them in the middle of the night… especially when he has to get up between 4 and 5 in the morning to go to work.