Sedona wasn't really a dog who had much interest in letting us near her. She was vigilant, keeping an eye on the goats and slinking around with the grace of a little fox. I never got a good portrait of her, the get down in the dirt, look a dog in the eye kind. It takes a certain kind of dog to make that kind of portrait. Sedona was too elusive. 

Emmylou is just the opposite, and I missed her for that and plenty of other reasons. When I came home from 5 days at farm camp, it was with a digging fork and four-tined hoe for the mini-farm and a stuffed bunny for Emmy. At dinner, she came and put her head in my lap and wagged her tail, looking up at me.    

The day after I got home was heaven, waking up on my own land, with what felt like a day stolen from work. In the afternoon, Tom came home and we took a long walk in the tall grass at the duck fields, Tom and I picking our way through the mud, using the tiny islands of grass to make our way through the marshy landscape there, Emmy just trotting along through it all, legs and belly dark with mud. It was too late in the afternoon for sunburn, but bright the whole way, small green frogs hopping out of the grass leaves and everywhere the calls of birds I don't yet know by sound.