Sheila O'Riley

Peach Pies and the Princess

The best thing about having a passion is sharing it with others.  I especially enjoy sharing my love of gardening with neighborhood children. A few years ago, I had two rambunctious boys living next door. They were four and six years old at the time and full of questions and mischief. They would come over to visit with me or help me whenever they spotted me out in the gardens. One day, I was telling them about my peach tree and how it usually gave me lots of peaches around Labor Day. They exclaimed, “We love peaches! Can we have some?”

            Later, when I had peaches running out of my ears, I made two peach pies and gathered a box of peaches to take over to the boys and their family. I balanced the two pies on the box and headed from my backdoor across the yard to their backdoor.

            Unbeknownst to me, Princess was taking a nap by the backdoor around the corner of their house. Princess was the family dog. Now, don’t let the name fool you; Princess is certainly no princess. She more resembles Gentle Ben, the bear, sans the gentle. She was a huge, chocolate brown, rough-haired Chow Chow dog.

Chows can be territorial and this one did not like being awakened from her nap. She jumped up and growled ferociously, baring canine teeth that looked like foot-long daggers to me. And that row of daggers was a mile long! I froze in my tracks. When I recovered somewhat, I squeaked in the calmest voice I could muster, “It’s all right---it’s all right...” I was thinking, this is bad, very bad; there is nothing at all right about it!

I could see Princess, the grizzly, was on a leash, therefore, I kept cajoling and retreating backwards. To my dismay, she kept advancing and snarling. I could barely keep myself from turning tail and running, but something told me that would be a bad move. Then I realized her leash was tied to the clothesline and I was moving parallel to the clothesline! Change of strategy; I kept cuing and backed away perpendicular from the clothesline, all the while balancing the pies on the box.

When I thought I was out of reach of Princess’s canine daggers, I turned to flee. It felt like the back of my leg was struck with a bolt of electricity, but I did not look back until I made it to the stoop of my backdoor. There I put the box of peaches, with the two pies balanced on top, down, safe and sound. I don’t think I realized yet that the grizzly had bitten my leg.

I had a small gash on the inside of my knee and a bruise on the back of my knee, which later turned the size and color of a black raspberry pie. I told you Princess had a huge mouth! I wanted to go inside my house and lick my wounds, but I thought, no, I made these pies for the boys and I AM going to deliver them. I limped to the FRONT door of the neighbors’ house.

Lesson…

Don’t turn your back on a snarling dog.    

Or is it?   Let sleeping dogs lie.   –And I have the scar to prove it.       

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