Ok, I only worked a couple hours again because the sheltie grooming project didn't show up after I had finished everything else.  A black and white cat with globular green eyes and a purple heart tag with "Gus" printed on it hanging out in a newspaper pile... that name shall forever remind me of reading The River Why.    I got to looking at my journal entries still saved on the computer.  "Write a letter to Gus" was one task assigned. "Today I saw a young bovine, black as black can be save for a perfect ivory white "y" scrawled across its forehead. I gave no thought to the inner workings of that cow’s brain. It isn’t like the cow was asking, pleading why its slaughtered carcass was eventually going to end up on someone’s chinaware dinner plate in the form of ground taco meat or steak; no, I am quite sure that marking was purely genetics at work and in no way a sign of a cow’s self expression. Livestock, like beta fish, are oblivious animals. That’s not even mentioning the obvious obliviousness of trillions of water molecules bubbling down the course of a gorge."  

I met Vie the german shepherd at one of mom's jobs today. That is a rad dog. When it takes off running it sounds like a deer.

Tim saw two cougars at Routson in the afternoon.

We all went to Routson after dinner and found that the beaver pond is no longer inhabited. The dam is leaking, the pond now two stream channels, the lodge long overgrown with reeds, and no fresh orange cone-ended sticks to indicate recent activity. I did however see a rodent (mountain beaver or water vole perhaps) and it dove into the water. Rather strange. It rustled through some sedges and then plopped into the water, super fast. Didn't even see the surface rings it was that quick.

House/petsitting job call finally. An OSU grad student with an American eskimo dog and a cat. Should be easy, 6 days. "Must be nice to get away from your parents."