Road Work (September, 2011)

August was a quiet month in our neighborhood. Lots of people seemed to be away on vacation. Pat let us spend more time than usual relaxing in the yard and on the back deck, where she and Henry spent their afternoons reading.

Then one morning, Pat warned us that it was the Labour Day Weekend. But we didn't know why we should care about that.

We got our answer early on Tuesday morning, when lots of men and noisy machines arrived right in front of our house, and Pat refused to let any of us go out there, not even Summer!

But today is Saturday, and no men have come to turn on the machines, so Pat said that if we would wear our collars, we could all go outdoors together to check out the situation.

The last time men with big machines came to our street -- back in December -- they cut down the forest across the street from us.  Then they spent months building a new house there.

But this time, there seem to be many more machines. The machines are parked all up and down the street.

The men have left piles of curious objects on almost every lawn.

In our own front yard, there is a pile of long black tubes:

Also in our yard, the men have dumped a huge mountain of dirt! On top of the dirt they stuck a huge concrete thingy, which even Pat is unable to identify.

As Toots looked on, Natasha volunteered to undertake a thorough exploration of the dirt-mountain:

After Nasha reported that the dirt-mountain seemed stable, we went right to work putting our paw-prints all over the side that faces the street:

That was fun!

But Pat complains that we are tracking in too much mud, both from the dirt-mountain, and from the street, which is being all torn up by the heavy machines.

Furthermore, we are certain that as soon as the men come back on Monday and start up the machines, Pat will again imprison us.
 
Oh how we hope that the men will soon finish whatever it is they are doing so that our lives can get back to normal!