A Bunch of Stuff About Nature Followed by an Anecdote About a Dog

(This is an old one, written when we first moved to Ojai—no kid yet, but the proud parents of two labradoodles.)

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Our neighborhood isn’t perfect. Pretty much, but not quite.

We live on Summer Street, at the bottom of a big hill. The hill never stops going up, actually, because it's part of a mountain.

If the morning is cool enough, and it usually is, I can walk from my house—straight up the hill and onto a service road. The service road is cut into the side of the mountain. From up there you can see the whole long valley laid out below: the orchards, and the town with its red-tiled roofs, and grassy meadows with horses in 'em.

From the service road you can cut onto a trail that ends up in the wilderness. The trail goes along a creek, past rocks and pepper trees and huge agaves, smooth and blue. Sometimes I touch them, and if there’s no one near, I say “hello, you.”

The best thing about being up there is how wild it feels. It's not quite the backcountry but leads to it. I’ve seen rabbits and deer and snakes and cougars and coyotes and bobcats and bears. And it smells incredible—the scent of black sage and purple sage and white sage and California sage and ceanothus and buckwheat in the sun.

To the west, if you go up high enough, you can see the ocean and the islands in it. And to the east there are mountain ranges—the ones you're in and other ones behind it, and more behind those, and more. Seeing them makes me feel hopeful and surprised—by how much nature there is that hasn't been destroyed by man.

Just past the end of the service road is a corral with two donkeys. They’re friendly and always come over to talk to me, even when I have my dogs. I don’t really know what to say to them but am happy that they want to chat, so I just say “Hi Donkey,” over and over until it’s time to go.

Walking home the rest of the way takes me down through the far end of town, where I start to encounter other people. It’s kind of an odd mix out there; I see a lot of farm workers, and old hippies, and young models, out for a run, and actors—who have moved here, like so many others, like me, to get away from it all, but still be within driving distance of it. There are musicians and writers too, walking around the orchards, taking a break from—or maybe getting inspiration for—their work. I see them and sometimes I see “regular folk”, who have big American flags on their houses or Trump signs on their lawns. This makes me mad until I talk to them and then they’re usually very nice, which makes me even madder. But it’s a good mix—the orchards and the donkeys and the farm workers and the models and the actors and the regular folk. I’ll take it.

So that's all pretty great. Our house is great too. It’s a dilapidated old bunk house surrounded by oak trees, and what could be better than that? I like to say that the house and its location could only be better if the Mediterranean were down the street.

But all this perfection has its price, or something like that, and ours is the blasted hound dog around the corner. This poor sap starts howling—a low, mournful bay, around eight every morning—and doesn't stop until six, Mon-Fri. It's awful to hear. I turn on the fan full blast all day just to drown out the noise so I can think. But I can’t think because I’m too busy worrying …what could be making the dog so sad?

The other day I flipped. The howling. I tried to write. I couldn't think. It went on, hours of it. God fucking damn it! I yelled.

Then—“James!”

“Yeah?”

“Want to go on a walk with me? I am going to locate that dog and find out what the hell is going on.”

“Sure.”

“Alright! Let's go.”

And out we set.

A couple of blocks down the road we found the source. Not a hound. A young Border Collie, outside in its yard, fenced.

We peered at it for a while.

Next door a man—tall, grey haired, was working in his yard. The dog, who had paused when he saw us, started to howl again.

“Ralph, No!” The man said. The dog kept howling.

“Excuse me,” said James.

The man came down the drive to us. He looked nice. He was missing an eye.

“We were just wondering about that dog,” said James.

“You and the whole neighborhood!” Said the man. “That's Ralph. I'm Rex. Ralph gets separation anxiety when his owner Rob is at work. Rob is an ophthalmologist.”

I looked at the place where his eye used to be, and looked away again.

“Would you guys like to come back on my patio here and have a beer?” Said Rex. “I just bought a 12 pack of Corona.”

“That's my favorite kind of 12 pack!” Said James.

We sat on the patio and drank our beers and talked with Rex for a while. Ralph howled. I frowned.

“Would you like to meet him?” Said Rex. “He's a nice dog, just gets lonely.”

He went across the driveway to the yard next door and opened the gate. Ralph, happier, still a little anxious, came over to greet us.

“There's a lady around the corner comes sometimes when the howling gets too much for her, takes him on a walk,” said Rex. “And the guy across the street there brings him bones every couple of days. But he just keeps howling. I don't think he gets enough exercise.”

“I wonder if he wouldn't feel more secure inside,” I said. Rex shrugged.

“You could walk him anytime you want,” he said, “just take the leash off the hook there.”

“I think I will,” I said. “I'll bring him over. We have a big yard, and my dogs could probably use a friend.”

We thanked Rex for the beer and got up to leave. I patted Ralph. Might as well start now, I thought. I put on his leash. The afternoon sun was at an angle. Little wisps of clouds across the sky, just starting to glow pink. A breeze, the scent of eucalyptus and dead grass. Ralph tugged on his chain, happy now. I smiled at James …let's go! And the three of us walked home.

Ralph has come over almost every day since then—as soon as I can’t take the howling anymore I go and get him. We put him outside in the yard with our dogs and they run around and play, while we stand and watch discreetly through the window—the delighted parents, thrilled that our guys have a friend.

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