Attribution: Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis have returned from their attempt to travel to the North Pole, after getting only as far as Wisconsin Rapids and Marshfield where they were hosted by Phyllis’s family members, four dogs and several cats.
Two small boys—Maverick and Holden, set a furious pace during a present-opening scene, and a black lab named Kenai proclaimed his pack dominance before settling down to chew the squeaker out of another dog’s Christmas toy.
All across the flat lowland of central Wisconsin there are signs everywhere of how a determined populace has turned sandy glacial seabed into endless fields of food for man and beast.
But that low elevation has stalled things over vast areas and the result is sprawling swampland where only the creatures hold sway, and the only traffic sounds are the beating of wild wings and the howling of coyotes.
The existence of such untampered-with areas comes as a constant reminder that the keeper and his ilk are about as essential in the grand scheme as grains of sand. The keeper takes that as a personal gift to be unwrapped on a daily basis.
It was a great Christmas. Thanks to Alexis and Jared and the rest of Phyllis’s generous family members, and the dogs, of course.
Photo by Bill Stokes