esrosedotblog

GOPHER IT

I told you before: we let Franklin decide which way to go on walks. I have figured that there are about ten possible general routes with hundreds of permutations and combinations along the way.

Out of all these options, we seem to end up at Gopher City more often than any other site. It is an afternoon-only option. The gophers appear to be at rest in the AM; it is Palm Springs after all; sleepin' in. We can travel any number of routes; but some part of the walk, at some time in the sequence of options, he will get us back to the gophers.

Full Disclosure: Let me stipulate that these are possibly ground squirrels (62 different species) and not gophers (65 possible species). There is a tail but not a very long one (squirrel). I have not gotten close enough to know if there is a cheek-pouch (gopher). I am certain that they are not prairie dogs--too small and this is not a prairie. I have chosen the gopher designation because it sounds better. Who wants to be squirrelly when you can gopher it.

Franklin starts to get excited a half block away. He thrums with energy and all the progress I have made on 'stay with me' goes down the mental drain: gophergophergopher. I can get him to slow down and creep in the hunter position; but that is the best compromise I can get out of it. We cross the street, headed for the huge section of desert where the gophers live. You can hear them talking to one another: "cheep cheep". They are probably telling one another that the Airedale is coming with his human on the other end of a rope.

We creep round the bushes that screen the street and there they are! Gophers running; gophers standing at their holes; gophers grazing on near invisible desert grass. Franklin goes into deep hunt mode: ass in the air and nose to the ground. I stand tall. He does not run. Neither do I. I go into an alpha wave/zen zone thing. Walk and breathe. Stay with the pooch. We have gotten as close as five feet to a real live gopher.

We never ever get closer and we never ever 'get' how the gopher can disappear so quickly. And, I do mean 'we', us, me included. I sort of see the flash into the ground but it is really magic when it happens. It is so different. Rabbits run as far as they can non-stop; distance is their 'answer'. Cats tease, spit and then go over a wall. Ravens (almost his size--the best prey of all) flutter and fly in a series of little teasing leaps. Quail skitter and chirp and run in as many directions as there are quail. Gophers disappear.

It is a mystery. We stand and look around. Almost always, as we look, another gopher rears its head out of a hole twenty or thirty feet away. You can see Franklin furrow his brow: "How do they do that"? Now, I know it is not the same gopher. Is it? No. It couldn't be. You mean there is only one?

And we are on to the next hunt; get up and do it again. Eventually, this exercise in futility loses its allure and we move on to the next project or go home for supper. But, for awhile, Gopher City is the balls.