Santa Came Early!

The kids and I got home from school around lunchtime on Monday (they had half-days all week), and I was getting groceries out of the car. I was walking up the stairs into the house and heard a dog crying -- and we don't have a dog. I assumed that I was imagining things, so I kept about my business. But then I heard it again, so I went out on our deck to check it out.

And there was a puppy!

The kids were immediately thrilled that we had a new puppy, but I tried to explain to them that the pup didn't actually belong to us. The kids weren't having any of that. Bubba kept telling me "Mommy, he can be our friend!!!" Sassy wanted to give him a name right away -- although she wanted to give him a girl's name; she refuses to accept that he is, in fact, a boy.

The Farmer went around and knocked on some doors to see if anyone had lost a puppy. So far we have not found his owners, and people had seen him wandering around for several days before he ended up at our house. I have a hard time figuring out how he got to our house because we don't live very close to anyone; the closest houses are some trailers several hundred yards away -- we seriously live in the middle of a watermelon field right now.

So, unless someone shows up and claims him, the puppy is now ours -- and his name is Duke!