Fragments From Floyd

The Japanese beetles have arrived several weeks early this year. Usually their numbers rise after the blackberries are past ripe; this year, they suck the juice out of a few drupelets on each berry, making them still edible, but not so enjoyable to just pop in your mouth.

Of course, you should never, ever just pop a blackberry in your mouth, or you might be spitting all the way back to the house: tiny stinkbugs may lurk on that juicy bite, and you'll be sorry. I know I was. Blahhk!

So we have our beetles and our stinkbugs to contend with. But then, to fill our buckets, we have to contend with a fruit-eating dog that finds the biggest, juiciest berries that hang in the shade of the lowest branches, just at Tsuga-eye-level. He pulls them off deftly with his meat-eating teeth, avoiding the thorns, and moves just ahead of us, anticipating where we will be moving next along the sunny edge of the pasture.

Weird dog. His favorite treat that he gets when he's not eating berries and we really want to bribe him is a quarter of a small cabbage that we buy just for this purpose. He just loves it! He's a Floyd dog for certain: earthy, fruitivorous and vegan, and living off the fat of the land.