check out this picture of watson – see all those spots on him. those are tiny, prickly, annoying burrs and our field is lousy with them from july to i can’t remember when (hopefully august, but it could be september or october or, good golly please not november). what this means is that each time the dogs that frequent said field (namely phineus, simon, watson, fletcher & indi) go outside and come back in they have a new batch of burrs. for some of them, specifically phineus & simon, the burrs actually act like dippity-do and allow for some amazing hair-don’ts. petting them is like petting 80-grit sandpaper (it might actually be more like 60-grit). fortunately for them, these guys are somehow self-cleaning, which means whatever burrs they come in with are generally gone by the time they go out again. this is fabulous because it means they can put on a whole new burr suit each and every time they go out. the burrs seem to be using the dogs only as a conduit to reach their nirvana – nirvana in this case apparently being our furniture and on a slightly smaller scale my clothes. once those burrs cross the threshold they are here, they’ve made it. i sit down on the couch and wonder what is sticking me in the thigh or the back or the butt and oh, what’s this, oh now i remember, the burrs, while watson is pretty burr-free for the moment. he’s the harriet tubman of the foliage community providing safe passage to all things organic and prickly.