Our neighborhood Icon...

Small communities.

Some folks complain about living in one.
Yes, everyone seems to know everyone else's business.

Two days ago I was coming home from a night shift and it was about 8:30 in the morning.
On our little gravel road, there were two trucks and two cars stopped. One truck had its 4 way flashers going.

There were old neighbors and current neighbors standing in the road.
When I pulled up, I put my car in park and stopped. The road was somewhat blocked and besides...we never get this kind of crowd on our gravel road. I had to see what was going on.

Our neighborhood icon, Gabe, who is the Great Pyrenees dog pictured above, had been on his morning walk~~and quit. He gave up. His back legs wouldn't help him go any further.

Gabe has been on our ridge ever since I moved here in '96. He has always walked with his masters each morning. On the mornings his 'masters' stayed home, Gabe walked on the side of the road...well, sometimes down the middle...but you could count on Gabe every day like clock work.

Gabe is quite aged now, as you may have guessed.

But Gabe belongs to us all on the ridge in a way. All of us have stopped for him in the road, we've all pet him, or fed him when his masters were gone off the farm. Gabe knows all of us~~silly as it seems, I always felt he was looking out for us also. [he was named Gabriele after the Angel]

It wasn't until I counted everyone that had stopped to help out offering to pick up Gabe and take him home, that I realized how important this animal was to our small community.

I called his 'mom' today and she said Gabe is doing okay. But he probably won't be doing many more walks and his health is beginning to fail.

I really cannot imagine driving down our gravel road and not seeing him.

Here is to you, Gabe.