Rural Ramblings: Anyone looking for a puppy?

Pip and Bruce Paton. Photo / Supplied

Bruce spent the afternoon fishing with his father and brother-in-law, then raced home in time to get ready to go out to a friend's barbecue, just down the road. Just before leaving he tore out to light one of his woodpiles. "It's going to rain tomorrow," he shouted in explanation as he rushed off.

I sighed impatiently, knowing we were going to be late again as he still needed to shower and change out of his fish-scented clothes. Fire lit, Bruce washed and brushed, we headed down the driveway. I glanced across to the paddock where a large fire blazed merrily in the twilight.

We'd been at the barbecue for about five minutes when Bruce's phone rang — it was the vet, so he answered it. The vet informed him that several fire engines were heading up our drive. Oh dear. Bruce has behaved so well, we haven't had a visit from the fire service for at least a couple of years.

He headed home to face the music and I rang our 15-year-old, Jack, still at home. "What?" he said, "No, I haven't seen any fire engines." I told him to go and look out the window.

He did and conveyed his shock so thoroughly that my ears rang with a series of four letter words as he took in the scene outside. Someone driving past thought Bruce's bonfire was a housefire and acted accordingly — and good on them, one day it could be (the day he set the barbecue on fire it very nearly was).

One of the firefighters suggested, quite mildly, that he should perhaps light his fires earlier in the day or ring up and advise the Fire Service pre-blaze. Even funnier, though not to Bruce, his mother rang the next day and mentioned a story in the paper about the fire. She was wondering if we knew who it was. Well, yes, we did.

Bruce went missing the other night. The phone rang in the small hours, 3am I think. He talked to the person briefly, but I couldn't work out what the emergency was, and he got up and left without explanation.

I lay and worried but around 40 minutes later saw vehicle headlights coming up the drive so thought it must be him. But he didn't come back to bed and I wondered what on earth was happening out there. I must have fallen asleep (can't have been that worried) and he was there in the morning.

Someone had rung to tell him there was a cow out on the road towards One Tree Point. Cows aren't ideal objects for drivers to come across, so he thought he should get it out of harm's way, regardless of who it belonged to. He drove up and down the road several times but could see no sign of any stray cow so came home again, and happily remembered there was an IPL cricket match starting around 3am that he could watch. He says it was to wind down, but I'm not convinced.

Gee, her tits are getting big, Jack mused out loud as he patted our farm dog Pip last week. After explaining at some length that we don't call canine mammary glands "tits", they're usually called "teats", I paused my lecture to inspect the objects in question. They were undoubtedly looking larger than normal, and her normally lithe and slender middle sported a distinct bulge.

Oh no, we chorused, remembering she'd been on heat just a few weeks ago. She has one admirer, an elderly dog who lives nearby, who escapes as often as he can to sit by her kennel, looking slightly bewildered as to why he's there. Milo and Jack (the farm dog — it's confusing having both a dog and a son called Jack) both cavorted with her that week, but they're both neutered.

Or so we thought. It turns out Jack (the dog) is in fact intact, so we're pretty sure we've found the dad-to-be. So, puppies. Anyone keen? We'll keep one because they're both good dogs. Maybe we'll call it Angus after our other son, just to keep the confusion going.