Summary: Living with Luz, a Siberian husky who insists on several walks a day, has turned Sasha Paulsen into a close observer of her Napa Valley neighborhood. Their daily rounds bring encounters with neighbors, goats, chickens, rabbits, birds and, one morning, an escaped tortoise headed toward a busy road. When a second tortoise turns up farther down the street, even Luz enters into the rescue. The episode becomes a reflection on the animals people choose to live with and the unexpected connections they create.
“‘Think of all the neighbors who have rescued you,’ I told her. ‘This is payback.’” — Sasha Paulsen
The Tortoise and the Husky
by Sasha Paulsen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — One of the positive results of living with a Siberian husky who requires four walks or runs each day — or she invents her own entertainment — is you get to know your neighborhood. In the year and a half since Luz took up residence with me, we have probably walked up and down every road in northern California and a few in SoCal, too, but at least once a day we take a walk through our neighborhood, observing life. It is a constant wonder to me how much I have missed.
If our neighborhood walk is not long enough as we are nearing our house, Luz will flatten herself down on the sidewalk or road and refuse to budge unless I turn around. It is a husky tactic, I’ve learned from watching YouTube. These canine Odysseus tricksters apparently do it regularly; you can see videos with their beleaguered people trying to haul them to their feet or even drag them down the street. I don’t attempt this, having learned that Luz will pull the mule act only until an irresistible distraction comes along. Most recently she had planted herself in the road half a block from our house when the four teenagers walking by spotted her.
“She’s so beautiful,” they exclaimed. “Is she friendly? Can we pet her?”
It is possible I replied, “You can have her.”
But Luz sprang to her feet to accept their admiration and trotted along with them. They kindly walked up to my front door, where Luz paused, clearly bemused: “Wait, now, have these humans outwitted me?”
Through her various antics, we have met most of the nearby residents. She has mostly given up leaping over 6-foot fences to surprise neighbors, such as Tony and Candy, whom she once visited at 2 a.m., but she has no qualms about crashing parties. She joined our next-door neighbor, Ted, for his Father’s Day party, sitting happily at his feet sharing tacos and listening to him speak Spanish, which she loves. She also trotted into a recent gathering at local church for a World Cup viewing and barbecue.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” one man asked. “She wants to root for Mexico.”
I had to disillusion him by admitting it might have been the scent of burgers on the grill; they gave her one.
We have also gotten to know our non-human neighbors. My grandson called me to FaceTime one morning when Luz and I were walking, and so he went along on tour. We visited the goats at the corner and saw the scary cat who once jumped out at Luz from under a car and so she makes a large detour around his domain. We found chickens, a rooster, two rabbits (securely sheltered in a garden), two snails crossing the sidewalk, a falcon on a telephone wire and even a peacock strutting along the street. (An ostentation of them lives up on a nearby hill; they squawk at twilight.)
“Now,” my grandson commanded, “find a cow.”
We have not yet found a cow in the neighborhood, but I did make a discovery one morning as we paused for Luz to smell a telephone pole, and I noticed that the nearby garden had a turtle-shaped climbing structure and several fine statues of turtles. Then one statue came to life and lumbered across the yard, huge, magnificent and mysterious, a creature that had climbed out of an ancient time. I watched spellbound until Luz tugged me back into the present.
Thereafter, I always paused to glance into the yard to see if I might again see the tortoise, but I rarely did until one morning, on our neighborhood walk, I noticed the gate to its garden was open, and there, ahead of us, on the sidewalk, the tortoise was ambling along placidly, headed toward a busy road.
I turned Luz around to knock on the door of the house to tell them they had a tortoise on the lam, but no one was home. We caught up with the tortoise, not a hard thing to do. Luz was objecting to this erratic deviation from routine.
“Think of all the neighbors who have rescued you,” I told her. “This is payback.”
I attempted to turn the tortoise around. It immediately went into its own version of the mule act and withdrew its head and legs into its shell. It was not going anywhere. I picked it up, and we scampered off at husky speed, with me clutching a tortoise the size of a bicycle wheel.
We put it back in its yard, secured the gate and resumed our walk, only to discover – yes, a second escaped tortoise even farther down the street. Fortunately, by then, Luz had entered into the spirit of things. It was not our usual walk but just another strange but interesting thing humans do. It was an interesting act, the husky and the tortoise, two creatures who generally move at different speeds now in a rare harmony.
I later learned that, in fact, four tortoises live in the yard, but only two had made their great escape that morning.
“My dad loves them,” the boy who lives there told me one day as we paused to watch them. “They eat the lawn, but he still loves them.”
I have more than once wondered what mad impulse causes one to adopt an animal, but I can appreciate the good sense of choosing a tortoise as compared to a wild thing.
It is something I might give more thought to, but Luz has just come into my writing room to remind me that it is 7 in the morning and we still have not gone for a walk. And we have yet to find the neighborhood cow.
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Sasha Paulsen is a Napa Valley-based novelist and journalist.
Today’s Puzzler: Fact or Fiction — Tortoise Edition.
Tortoises are built for the long game. But which of these shell-shocking claims is actually true? Cast your vote, then find the answer at the bottom of the page.
Poem of the Day:
“Baby Tortoise”
By D. H. Lawrence
You know what it is to be born alone, Baby tortoise! The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell, Not yet awake, And remain lapsed on earth, Not quite alive. A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean. To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open, Like some iron door; To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base And reach your skinny little neck And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage, Alone, small insect, Tiny bright-eye, Slow one. To take your first solitary bite And move on your slow, solitary hunt. Your bright, dark little eye, Your eye of a dark disturbed night, Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise, So indomitable. No one ever heard you complain. You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward. Whither away, small bird? Rather like a baby working its limbs, Except that you make slow, ageless progress And a baby makes none. The touch of sun excites you, And the long ages, and the lingering chill Make you pause to yawn, Opening your impervious mouth, Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers; Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums, Then close the wedge of your little mountain front, Your face, baby tortoise. Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple And look with laconic, black eyes? Or is sleep coming over you again, The non-life? You are so hard to wake. Are you able to wonder? Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life Looking round And slowly pitching itself against the inertia Which had seemed invincible? The vast inanimate, And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye, Challenger. Nay, tiny shell-bird, What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against, What an incalculable inertia. Challenger, Little Ulysses, fore-runner, No bigger than my thumb-nail, Buon viaggio. All animate creation on your shoulder, Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield. The ponderous, preponderate, Inanimate universe; And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone. How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine, Stoic, Ulyssean atom; Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes. Voiceless little bird, Resting your head half out of your wimple In the slow dignity of your eternal pause. Alone, with no sense of being alone, And hence six times more solitary; Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages Your little round house in the midst of chaos. Over the garden earth, Small bird, Over the edge of all things. Traveller, With your tail tucked a little on one side Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat. All life carried on your shoulder, Invincible fore-runner.
About the author: D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, short-story writer and critic born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. Although he became best known for novels such as “Sons and Lovers,” “Women in Love” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” poetry was central to his career from the beginning. His work emerged during the transition from late Victorian and Georgian writing into literary modernism, alongside writers including Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, though Lawrence resisted the formal intellectualism associated with some modernist poets. His writing repeatedly examines instinct, sexuality, nature and the pressures of industrial modernity. His poetry, particularly his close observation of animals and the natural world, influenced later poets on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Baby Tortoise” appeared in Lawrence’s 1921 collection “Tortoises” and later became part of the animal poems associated with “Birds, Beasts and Flowers.” Written in loose, conversational free verse, the poem combines exact physical observation with mythic and philosophical language. Lawrence watches the newly hatched tortoise closely — its mouth, eyes, feet and incremental movement — then enlarges that small creature into a figure of endurance confronting an immense, indifferent universe. The shifting line lengths, repetitions and abrupt single-word declarations such as “Challenger” give the poem a rhythm that alternately mimics the tortoise’s halting movement and expands into meditation. “Tortoises” was published in the United States in 1921 and is in the public domain there.
Are you a poet, or do you have a favorite piece of verse you’d like to share? Napa Valley Features invites you to submit your poems for consideration in this series. Email your submissions to napavalleyfeatures@gmail.com with the subject line: “Poem of the Day Submission.” Selected poets will receive a one-year paid subscription to Napa Valley Features (a $60 value). We can’t wait to hear from you.
Today’s Caption Contest:
Pick your favorite caption or add your own in the comments below.
Possible Captions:
“My co-worker contributes very little and remains extremely confident.”
“This is what happens when you hire someone with no desk experience.”
“We agreed: one coffee, then the park.”
“I asked for feedback. The dog gave me paws for thought.”
“My dog said the job was ruff. I said, ‘Join the club.’”
Last Week’s Contest Results:
In “Monarchs in Motion — A Gardener’s View and the Science Behind the Journey,” the winning caption was “I’m not saying I’ve changed. I’m saying I’m going to,” with 33% of the votes.
Caption Options:
“I’m not saying I’ve changed. I’m saying I’m going to.”
“Whatever you do, don’t Google what happens next.”
“Sure, wings. But have you priced a chrysalis lately?”
“At some point one of us has to admit we’re just two tubes with opinions.”
“I’m at the age where I’m mostly thinking about hanging upside down somewhere quiet.”
Today’s Puzzler: Answer + Explanation:
Answer: C) Their shells contain nerves
A tortoise’s shell is part of its skeleton and is made of living tissue. It contains bones, blood vessels and nerves, so a tortoise can feel contact with its shell. Unlike a hermit crab, a tortoise cannot crawl out of its shell — the shell is permanently connected to its body.
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Can’t get enough of your Luz adventures!
You may want to check out Sutherland Park some early morning. I recently came across a gentleman sitting on a bench visiting a friend. He was holding a leash with a cow on the end. I just wish I had a photo to share.