An Absorbing Morning

The foliage is starting to turn and the nights are definitely cooler.  I’ve been putting off a chore I hate – painting – but I could put it off no longer.  The trim on our house is now 6 years old, and looks scraggly and worn.  If I waited to paint until Fall I risked the air being too cold for the paint to dry properly, not to mention the possibility of rain.  It was now or never.

I spent a couple of hours scraping loose, peeling paint and smoothing the remainder.  My husband helped by putting our very tall and heavy ladder against the house. Carefully balancing the paint bucket in one hand and the brush in the other, I leaned against the ladder just so, praying that my balance would hold and I could get the job done without calling in an expert.

It went better and quicker than I thought it would.  A new coat of paint is an amazing thing:  the house looks new again.  What I didn’t realize is that my Standard Poodle, Truman, was concerned about my being so high off the ground on the ladder.  He was determined to not let me out of his sight, so he got as close to me as he could – – directly under the ladder.  I couldn’t see him and didn’t know he was there.

His cream-colored fur absorbed the dark bronze paint drips nicely, better than any drop cloth.  When I rounded a corner, he did too – – by cocking his head and leaning his neck against a freshly painted post.  Soon he resembled a pinto-colored horse.

Naturally I didn’t discover my dog’s new look until the paint had completely dried.  I spent the next twenty minutes with a scissors and electric clippers, cutting out huge chunks of hardened, dark bronze colored fur from his head, neck, ears and back.  Now he resembles a molting moose, and it isn’t pretty.