DOGGONE GOOD NEIGHBOR
Tugger knows a good neighbor when she sees one.
Wende and Tom Barker describe their female black Lab as a quintessential “country dog.” Her neighborhood is a collection of 10- and 20-acre parcels in the Mount Spokane foothills, and she made a point visiting the neighbors regularly.
Tugger spotted Les Stone shortly after the engineer-cum-gentleman farmer moved to the neighborhood about 10 years ago with his wife Marje. She would join him every morning for his quarter-mile walk to the mailbox and back, and he would scratch a special spot behind her ears she particularly likes.
You could say the Barker-Stone friendship started from scratch.
“(Tugger) owns a good section of our neighborhood up here, and she patrols it regularly to make sure we’re behaving well,” Stone explained. “I’ve never met an animal I didn’t like, and I had the good fortune of getting to pet her and play with her without ever having to take her to the vet or feed her. She’s absolutely an ideal pet.”
Stone even offered to look after the dog when the Barkers would go away.
“He’s always offered to take care of her whenever we’ve gone somewhere, and she’s satisfied his need to have a dog without having to actually take care of one,” Wende Barker said. “Then the horse kind of joined into the mix. And then there were cats that figured into the mix. At least he was never around when we had the ferret to take care of.
“It’s nice to have a neighbor you can trust with that kind of thing, especially one who’s always willing.”
Stone said he has always looked forward to those times – and so has Tugger.
“That was always good for both of us,” he laughed. “For her especially. That always means more ear-rubbing time.”
But therein lies a familiar, neighborly dilemma.
“Every time he does take care of the place, whether it’s take care of the animals or mow the grass or water the plants, you always wonder how to repay someone for that kind of thing,” Barker said.
Offers of money always are rejected. Besides, how does one put a price tag on that kind of neighborly gift?
And then, Wende said, she hit on just the right thing: fresh, home-baked bread.
“Whenever I take it over to him, he usually slices a big piece off right away, slaps some butter on it and eats it,” she beamed. “Then he rolls his eyes and asks, ‘When are you going again?’ “
For Stone, helping out the neighbors is just something you do.
“This neighborhood is the best in that way of any one I’ve ever lived in,” he said. “We’re far enough apart that we don’t interfere with one another, but if someone is going on vacation, we’re close enough to keep an eye out for each other. I don’t think anyone would be here for very long without someone coming by to see what was going on, politely, of course.”
Stone’s neighborly feelings go well beyond pet-sitting.
“Les has a tractor,” Barker laughed. “Any excuse to get on it and he’s ready. You can only do so much on your own place, so if anyone needs help he’s always willing to go. He helps us haul manure, he pulls people out of ditches. He plows everyone’s driveway.”
Still, there is more tractor than there is reason for using it, Stone said.
“I have a meter on the tractor,” he said. “All of last year I only ran it for 50 hours.”
Stone uses his engineering skills to help neighbors in other ways.
“The men around here all have their shops, and Les helps design them and then everyone kind of gets together and helps build them,” Barker said. “We just built one for another neighbor this fall.”
But through it all, she said, Les Stone always looks good.
“He’s a real gentleman farmer,” she laughed. “His gray hair always looks just right and he never seems to get dirty. He always wears a button-down shirt that’s always pressed. He looks better in his grubbies than my husband does dressed up.
“He’s an engineer, so I guess it all goes together, but at least he doesn’t have all those pens in his pocket.”