Gardening And Dogs

The broccoli and onion seed has sprouted, and soon, I need to fix the pull start on the rototiller. It's a bit tricky. but essentially I need to wind and re-attach a big recoil spring to the engine. I found a how-to video on YouTube, so with a bit of luck, my farm machinery will be good to go. Years ago, I saw a family farm documentary on PBS, and the poor guy was really struggling to keep his farm functional. He had to repair equipment in the middle of the night, and everything depended on it. My gardening is fun, and I play at farming, but the real thing is so difficult.

There was another documentary about a border collie that quickly learned words and had a huge vocabulary. She could bring any one of hundreds of different toys when asked. My dogs have a similar talent, and I name things that we encounter, and they really understand. Today, after the walk I told them I saw a cat, and wow, did they react. I can give them advance warning when we're going somewhere, and they know the word for goats and trains and children. I can't even count all the words that they understand. but it's dozens.

I finished a Japanese novel "The Thief", about a pickpocket that's forced to work for a psychopathic crime boss. I was taken by how universal the story was, the people and events were not patently Japanese. I'm reading spy novels now, and started a good one about American spies operating in the Former USSR.