Maverick 1999 - 2010

When Clay was about six or seven, and still using speech to communicate, he came in the kitchen door one afternoon and announced that our dog, Maverick, had treed “an old cat.”

My wife dutifully headed into the backyard to check on the situation and found Maverick, a yellow labrador retriever we had adopted at the age of 1 1/2, barking at the base of a maple tree. When she looked up to see whose “old cat” he had forced up the tree, she saw, instead, a raccoon the size of a small bear, hissing and spitting and making a strange moaning sound.

She wisely got Maverick and Clay back in the house until the angry raccoon came out of the tree and waddled its way off our lawn. Read the rest of this entry »

Sitting at our kitchen table a day after Clay surprised us by riding a horse during our trip to Water Stream Farm – bareback no less, the glow remained.

“Still feeling happy,” he typed on the keyboard he uses to communicate, when asked about his ride on Rocky.

“Would you like to write a story about it?” my wife asked.

“Sure.”

So, here is Clay’s first literary effort, written a sentence at a time, with breaks in between to wander through the house and into the backyard. (Hey, Hemingway wrote standing up, too.) Full disclosure: he did get a little assist with the “Once upon a time” part to get things rolling. Read the rest of this entry »

Clay loves the nature center near our house, so when we discovered one a couple towns over a few weeks back we figured it was worth a visit.

The first stop on the trail was a blind for bird watching.

My wife and I sat on chairs looking out through a wall-length picture window while Clay explored the room. Illustrations of birds ran above the glass. After a bit, the little guy joined us.

“What are your favorite birds?” my wife typed on the keyboard Clay uses to communicate. Read the rest of this entry »