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| MID-LEFT SIDE, HORIZONTAL ASH AND ECHO |
A Bit of Magic
A year ago I played the scratch-off crossword card pictured here and was gifted with my two eldest granddaughters' names, Ash and Echo. Magical! Check out the photo. What are the odds? Was this a comforting message from the girls' deceased grandfather?
A Canine Miracle
We live on a wooded acreage in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. Three years ago, we agreed to pet-sit our son's kids' tiny dog, Steve, while his family went to Iowa for Christmas. Steve weighs five pounds soaking wet and has poor eyesight. He had never been a problem when we took care of him in the past.
This time the little guy managed to run away and disappear before we could catch up to him. It was the dead of winter, and the coyotes had recently killed a small dog a quarter mile down the road in her own back yard. We searched for him frantically all day without luck. That night it poured and the temperature dipped into the thirties. We couldn't imagine what he was going through.
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| STEVE |
I spent the next day posting signs the length of our road and all over the small town nearby, calling Animal Control and all local shelters, and posting his picture and info on local Facebook Groups. Steve was chipped and had a collar with his phone number on it and he was wearing a red sweater I hoped would make him get noticed.
The third day I drove down our road, knocking on doors to hand out flyers. I learned he had been spotted by several different people running westward down the road the afternoon he ran away. They said he seemed to know where he was going and he wouldn't let them get near him. That didn't surprise me. He was always afraid of strangers.
Over the next ten days, we prayed for a miracle and continued to post signs and knock on doors, getting occasional leads. One man reported seeing him in the light of a large Christmas display on his way home from work at three o'clock in the morning! People were wonderful about watching for him, but he eluded everyone that spotted him. Then the reports of Steve sightings stopped. We lost hope. An ice storm was predicted for Day 14. The night before, we agreed there was no way he was still alive. We'd done our best, but it was time we all accepted Steve was gone forever.
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| STEVE THE WONDER DOG |
Early the next morning we were watching the ice storm forecast on the weather channel when my son called. A farmer had caught Steve and called the number on his collar.
His little red sweater was long gone. Steve had traveled five miles in two weeks and managed not to get eaten by an owl, bobcat or other predator. He was skin and bones, dirty and matted, but Steve the Wonder Dog would be okay.
Three years later, he's still going strong!
