With the days getting shorter and Clementine the Dumb but Pretty Hound-dog unable to grasp the concept of Daylight Savings Time, she’s been bugging me for the end-of-day walk earlier and earlier. Today it happened to fit in with some afternoon apathy about work, so we did the rare 4:00 walk. It was a good afternoon for it. We’ve had a wonderful Indian summer — without which it seems nearly impossible to say goodbye to autumn. But now the sky is getting more overcast. Birds aren’t singing anymore, and the crickets don’t chirp at night (although by Paul Harvey’s folklore, that should mean it’s 40 degrees out, right?). I felt like altering the scenery from our usual walk, so I took Clem up a different street. And then the Afternoon Barkfest Lollapolooza started. Our first contestant was a terrier who was on lookout, as terriers always are. He turned out only to be the Early Warning Device for a large brownish-mass of dog and several auxillary dogs. As Clementine passed by, they set up a barbershop quartet, with the terrier getting in four clarion notes for every one cannon blast of the mass.

This alerted a matching pair of light and dark labradors, side-by-side in chain link enclosures, and they immediately weighed in with an almost identical baritone bark only slightly off tempo from each other, like an irregular heart beat. For some reason, the light lab decided that the dark lab was really the bigger threat and turned to direct all future exclamations to him, with him returning the favor. They looked like a pair of bookends turned toward each other.

We rounded the corner of the short street and entered the homestretch only to encounter the Mutt and Jeff team — big black mutt and lhaso apso. Both had ample warning of our approach from the 21-gun salute around the corner, and they lost no time in setting up their own protective barrier of sound, managing between the two of them to make a nearly continuous noise that hiccuped high and low. In this part of the pageant, the visual is more impressive, I think, because the lhasa apso gets so incensed that the force of the bark seems to lift it off the ground. The mutt-basso carries further, but it’s not half as interested, and its tail is usually wagging, spoiling the effect.

And then — yes, it’s the crowning achievement. A Brittany spaniel across the street whose bark has such a high and cutting edge to it that it actually makes Clementine whip around as if it’s the first one she’s heard all day. I don’t know what it is that’s so particularly piercing about that one, but it has the effect of setting all the contenders — terrier, mass, others, yin/yang labs, Mutt and Jeff — back into full cry. It’s like the last incredible fusillade of fireworks before it’s time to go home.

Eventually though, they fade. The Brittany with the descant lasts the longest, but finally when it has neither sight nor smell of Clementine — that impertinent strumpet! — it wuffs a last time and trots away.

That was fun, guys. We’ll do it again tomorrow.

Clementine the coonhound and I had a bad night’s sleep. That is, I had the bad night and she was forced to share it by virtue of our occasional sleeping-in-the-bed dispensation. Consequently, she’s a little stranger than usual this morning.

All the same, I was surprised not to see her when I exited the bathroom after morning ablutions and a little courageous tub-scrubbing (note to husband: be impressed). She usually occupies the good chair throughout shower-time and manages to pose as The Perfect Dog in time for my entrance. The coonhound for the coonhound calendars; the Gloria Swanson of canines. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Purina.”

But she wasn’t there. Nope, she was off in the office, prancing around and making big friends. I didn’t even have to look hard to know what the object of her affection was. It was going to be a cricket.

I haven’t figured out too many things about living in Missouri farm country (other than the difference between Holsteins and Herefords), but I’ve figured out that nature is going to go mad and overproduce one or two creatures every season, mostly six-legged ones. In spring, we had ants. In fall, it’ll be Box Elder bugs. This summer, we had black crickets on the menu. As the featured special, they made sure to show up wherever possible. I’ve learned to shake out the morning paper before I bring it into the house to get rid of a couple looking for an opportunity to spoon.

And now some misbegotten cricket had wandered into hound’s way. And she was doing the Big Dance of Greeting, leading the cricket to remember it had left the water on at home. But no! When the Big Dance of Greeting doesn’t produce good results, the sport of “Are You Tasty?” is never far behind.

They are never tasty. I’ve solemnly informed Clementine many times that if she were this finicky of an eater in the wild, she would be SO dead. But for now, Clem’s alive and the cricket is dead. I could’ve tried to intervene in the proceedings, but I arrived on the scene too late, and CPR is out of the question with my eyesight. So just another victim of her mad canine affection, then.

This has nothing to do with Orthodoxy, of course. Just a vital update on things.