Picnic at Grampa's

It's just not a meal at the Kendall's without awesome food, home-grown beef, and some kind of kerfuffle involving an animal. Sometimes it's a cow, or a coyote (getting shot during dinner whilst prowling the cattle for an unattended calf), or a mule, or a dog.

Given that the cattle are gone, our choices were limited.

The Southern Kendalls - that is, Uncle David & Auntie Marion (Arizona) plus Cousin Rebecca (California) were in town, and most of us locals showed up. Auntie Olwyn & Uncle Monte brought a cooler full of yumminess, and my newly pregnant cousin Lindsay (and Juan) made munchies (and tasted them while at it - after all, they are eating for two) to tide us over. Auntie Laura was buzzing the kitchen with David & Marion shucking corn, when Grampa came busting in, badly needing a bucket of water for Chester.

This was new. Nobody worries about Chester. In fact, we all are often very busy getting him to go away. Chester is the Chesapeake Chocolate Lab Grampa adopted a few years ago, and he's a bundle of energy and is more than a little OCD about his "stick". A stick to Chester is anything he can coerce someone to toss for him more than once - so he can go get it, again & again. Today it was a partially rotted log. Last time I visited, it was a huge rubber shingle Grampa had dropped from his roofing project. Another time it was a broken bicycle tire.

Suddenly everyone was on the porch, bent over....Chester. The silly pooch had convinced the two visiting kids - second cousins, I guess, being progeny of Donnamom's Cousin Paul - to throw and throw and throw his "stick" for him for probably more than an hour. In summer. Nobody was keeping track because, well, the kids were busy and Chester wasn't bugging anyone. So, Chester stopped, finally, when he passed out, collapsing near the porch.

Poor Grampa. He was worried. And everyone worries when Grampa worries.

So we got cold packs and buckets of water and more water, and poured them on Chester, and coaxed him back to the land of the living.

And when that dratted dog could barely prop himself up again, on his two very wobbly front legs (ignoring the fact that his back end was not moving from the "passed out" position), the first thing he did was lean over to wrap his mouth around his stick...and promptly fell on his face.

Ever practical, Rebecca finally had the sense to hide his stick.

And then Shaun & Kristy showed up...with a puppy. Who proceeded to find Chester's stick, steal it, and make Chester follow him around.

So we decided to eat dinner.