Monday, April 16, 2012
Just call me Tom
4:06 PM | 
Posted by
Bruny Hudson |
By Hobo Hudson
As you know, I’ve been having an awful problem with something called “root knot,” and Dad and I have been working furiously to try to cure or at least curb the nematode infestation.
We’ve pulled all the plants that indicated an infestation and carefully dug up all the roots. We’ve dispersed a biological control agent, hauled and spread a layer of compost over the entire garden and then dragged bag after bag of rotted oak leaves from my pal Josie’s yard to our garden beds and scattered the leaves over the whole lot. After wetting everything down, there was nothing left to do except watch everything decay and wait for the moment to plant a spring crop.
To while away the time, I sniffed through Dad’s bookcase and pulled out a book to read. It was about a hooman boy named Tom Sawyer. I was rolling on the floor laughing when I read about the time he tricked his friends into painting his fence for him, and I thought there was no way he could have pulled a trick like that even on a six month old puppy as he had done on the hooman youngsters.
Anyway, my pal Max barked at me the next day that he and his dad were raking oak leaves and wondered if they could put them on my garden beds. He said it would save them the work of bagging the leaves up and dragging the bags to the curb for pickup.
His request sounded like a win-win situation to me. I would get free leaves and Max would get out of a lot of work. However, when I barked at Dad about my deal, Dad told me we needed to dig the old rotted leaves and compost into the top couple of inches of soil first. He said since he had done most of the work so far, he expected me to do the digging.
I stayed awake most of the night worrying about Dad’s instruction. Pictures of me digging into and shoving around mounds and mounds of soil swirled through my head. I felt exhausted merely thinking about all that work waiting for me in the morning, and then it hit me. I wondered if I could trick Charlene, my squirrel entertainer, into doing the work for me.
As soon as it began to get daylight, I jumped out of bed, grabbed a pawful of peanuts and hurried outside to the garden. I buried one peanut here and one peanut there all over the garden beds and then went back inside the house for my morning treats.
About the time Charlene usually appeared, I trotted back outside and, following Dad’s order, began slowly digging. Charlene saw me and scurried over, asking me what I was doing digging so early in the morning. Keeping my cool, I told her that Dad had planted peanuts without asking my permission, and I was going to dig them all up and throw them away. Charlene immediately volunteered to summon her crew of relatives and friends to do the work for me if she could have the peanuts. I quickly agreed, provided she dug up every inch of the garden. She accepted the stipulation.
Turning away from me, Charlene gave out a series of shrieks, and a bunch or squirrels came sprinting from all directions and stood in formation in front of Charlene. She told them to start digging for peanuts. I sat back and watched. Just about the time the squirrels were ready to give up the hunt, one would squeal, “I found one. I found one,” and the rest of the crew would start digging with renewed vigor.
Yep. That Tom Sawyer was one smart cookie.
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