The Sentinel's Watch

In a previous article today I wrote about the two year War of the Blueberries.  It started several years ago when I told Papa I wanted blueberry bushes in my front yard so that in the morning I could just go out and pick them for my cereal.  Papa is my wonderful retainer and sometimes actually does my bidding...he went out and bought three bushes.  I was so pleased.  But then the birds of the field were Socialists, especially the red cardinals and they decided that in the Evans Republic everyone should share the wealth.  But like Stalin, what they really meant was that I do all the work of weeding, pruning and watering and they do all the eating.  This year I decided to declare War on all buggers that envied my blueberries and stealthily stole into my garden.  Did I not have soldiers at my beck and call.  Sophie immediately, being my most trusted soldier, volunteered to be the Sentinel on Watch.  Knowing how she tears heads off voles and field mice and tears moles apart and leaves them on the stone wall, I knew she would make a fine and worthy sentinel....no birds would get my blueberries...her ever watchful eyes would be steady on the enemies.  What a fine soldier she would be...another MacArthur or Patton...always on the job. 

This afternoon, after Gathering a bit, I went down the pond to do my exercises.  First I swim out to the raft in the middle of the pond doing the breast stroke and then back doing the side stroke...then I turn on some music and do some water aerobics.  Blueberries as well as exercise will starve away the free radicals wanting to take up residence in my body.

Coming up the hill, I thought I might check my trusty sentinel and to my surprise, this is what I found:

 




Some trusty sentinel...more like Brown after Hurricane Katrina.  I wonder if I should give Sophie a medal...or better yet send her to Washington to work for Bush.