How on Earth?

 

 

This seems like a simple photo of a plant in a pot, sitting in the yard.  Indeed, that’s what it is, on the surface.  But the question is, how did it get there?  I’m pretty sure I know the answer – the name begins with an S, he has a long nose, brown eyes that melt your heart and a heavy coat of sable and white.  In other words, Scout.  I guess the real question is not how it got in the middle of the yard, but how it survived the trip.

I have four pots that contain amaryllis plants.  Some are several years old and have survived to bloom again every spring.  I have been told they will live outside if you plant them after they bloom, but I’m not sure I believe it.  So, I keep collecting potted amaryllis plants and lugging them inside for the winter and outside for the summer.  They live on the front porch and I water them when I think of it.  Plants have to be tough to live with me.

They also have to survive the four-legged members of the household.  All the dogs enjoy digging, so anything planted in the yard is at risk.  They especially enjoy digging when I have been digging, sometimes while I am digging.  Scout has been known to un-plant newly planted flowers; in fact, that happened just the other day.  I think the zinnias he relocated are going to survive.

So it should not have been a big shock when I came out one morning to find this pot sitting in the middle of the yard.  The shock was that it was unharmed, intact and still in the pot with all the dirt still around it.  How on earth did he manage it?  And why?

It’s no surprise when Scout invents new things to do and figures out new ways of doing them.  Just the other day he discovered how to open the lid of the garbage can.  He had spent the afternoon bringing plastic bottles into the living room from the recycle can in the kitchen.  I knew he had a bottle; I could hear him playing with it.  What I didn’t realize for quite some time was that he was going back for a new bottle every few minutes.  I don’t know if he thought there was a better bottle in there or if he just wanted a wide selection.  By the time I noticed what he had done, he had five or six bottles on the rug and was trying to get Sophie to play keep away.

Unfortunately, he figured out the garbage can mechanism while I was not at home, so he was able to empty almost the whole thing, eating some things I threw away because I thought they might make the dogs sick if I fed them to them.  Apparently, I worried for nothing because he seemed none the worse for the snacks.  Scout has never read the books that list Things That Dogs Should Not Eat.  And he is convinced that trash cans are just big containers for thing dogs need to play with.  That particular trait certainly encourages one to keep the trash emptied frequently.

But back to the potted plant.  It was sitting on the very end of the porch, just behind the porch swing, in the middle of the group.  This is the high end of the porch, a little too high for even Scout to reach.  So, to get it off the porch, he had to carry or drag it all the way to the steps or the side ramp.  The spot where it ended up is about fifty feet from its home on the porch.  Quite a feat for someone without hands.  I just wish I could have seen him do it.  I don’t know why he chose the spot he picked to leave it and I don’t know why he didn’t dump the dirt out and shred both pot and plant. Sophie might know how he managed it, but she is not telling.  Scout is certainly not going to say anything.  I really need to get cameras installed. 

Come to think of it, now that I know that he can move heavy containers around, maybe I can train him to carry groceries inside the house.  It’s a long way from the truck to the door and I could certainly use the help.