Friday, June 3, 2011

Manna from Heaven- A Beagle's Tasty Adventure

The beagle who lives with me has a gargantuan appetite that I thwart daily. When I go to work, I must barricade the under sink cabinet, or come home to find coffee grounds and avocado pits and butter wrappers and shrimp shells dragged around my apartment. How much blame the Shih Tzu shares for this I do not know.

I came home last week to find 5 pounds of sunflower seeds on the living room floor. I did not know sunflower seeds were a laxative. I do now, and I keep them in a beagle proof box.

Every now and then the dogs are welcome to an aerial snack such as a fat house fly. But in the past three weeks the Great God Pan has heard the prayers of hungry dogs in Middle Tennessee. He rains down crispy snacks out of the humid air onto sidewalks and grass. At least for a few more weeks. To my beagle, the 13 year cicadas are caviar. They are living ,buzzing, truffle-ish morsels free for the taking. Never has my beagle been more enthusiastic about his bathroom breaks. He even loses focus on what I want him to do, seduced by the dying buzz of the goggle-eyed red-eyed swarm.

All this plenty! Just for him! He does not know that the feast will end. Being a dog ,he will not live to see another hatch in 13 years. I may not live to see it either. So I let him enjoy the moment. These halcyon days when food falls from heaven. It is a Jubilee-

1 comment:

Out on the prairie said...

MMMM cicadas. I had a cat that liked to eat them. They are more to the south from me.