Dog Astronomy, parts 4348 - 4351

 4348. They suspected that underneath it all there was some kind of truth to be uncovered, but had no idea what it might be.

 4349. What Remo said about the setting of the sun seemed to them to be obviously false, and so they both, almost in unison, said the same thing.

 4350. “The sun,” they said, “Never sets in the same place twice.” Then the Rooster elaborated for dramatic effect saying, “The sun comes down like lightning, and never strikes the ground in the same place twice.”

4351. How could it be that those three animals could have such diametrically opposed ideas about the sun? The explanation is rather obvious. The answer is, the location of the bed you go to sleep in every night gives rise to your Cosmology, and therefore of your Astronomy.

Dog Astronomy, parts 4344 - 4347

 4344. It always does this every day, proving that it is moving, but so slowly you can’t see it. But I am talking about a different kind of movement, the changing of the place where the sun sets. Trying to see any movement it that position takes weeks and weeks. 

4345. Finally, at the end of the fall, the sun seemed to reach the end of her journey across my Mistress’s back yard.

  4346. Otis and the Rooster listened to this explanation of Remo’s about the setting of the sun with as much patience as they could, but in truth, they had no idea what he could possible be talking about.

4347. They listened to him as an adult listens to a child, a precocious child, who comes home from school quoting ideas he doesn’t really understand. 

Dog Astronomy, parts 4340 - 4343

 4340. But the sun seemed to be unable to maintain any relationships for very long, after a while she stopped visiting the barn, left the barn behind and began to visit a large field of wheat. 

 4341. It was during the few weeks that the sun was going down in the wheat field that I first began to form a suspicion that the sun was on some kind of very slow journey, from one place to another.

 4342. The slowness of the suns journey across the wheat field from one side to the other, was simply unbelievable. The sun moves much slower that a turtle or a snail, and actually, if you did not know it was moving, you would think it is perpetually standing still.

 4343. This is not to say that the sun doesn’t move across the sky in an almost noticeable way. If you look at it for a few minutes it certainly seems to be stand still, but when you look back a few hours later it will be in a completely different place.

Dog Astronomy, parts 4336 - 4339

 4336. After a while I noticed that the sun was even more similar to myself than I had at first thought. 

 4337. When I go to sleep I do not always manage to flop down in exactly the same spot, and soon I noticed that the sun did not set in exactly the same place every night, but sometimes sat down just to the right hand side of the pine tree in the backyard.

 4338. A few weeks later, to my great surprise, I noticed that the sun started to avoid the pine tree, and was going down well to the right of it every evening.

 4339. Why the sun started to avoid the tree I had no idea, but it seem to strike up an acquaintance with a barn nearby, and so it was the barn that kept the sun company when it settled down for the night.

Dog Astronomy, parts 4332 - 4335

 4332. “You see,” said, Remo, “ each night when I go to bed, I say goodnight to the sun, which I can see going down, out my window. I have been doing this for a long time, and when I started a few years ago, it was the beginning of the summer.” 

 4333. The first time I said good night to the sun, it was setting right on the tip of a pine tree that is far in the back of my mistresses’ gardens. Each night, when it set, it would land first on a pine tree, in the very same place.

 4334. It was very pleasant, in a way, to see that the sun was always consistent about where it likes to sit down, before it pulls up its blankets of the mountains and the fields and rivers, and goes to sleep.

4335. I am very similar to the sun, because when I go to sleep, I always walk around in a circle three and a half times, and then plop down with the chin on my paw, always in the same direction, looking out of the window.  

The Prodigal Dog, parts 4328 - 4331

 4328. He took no stock in astrology, as you might well imagine, since he has no patience with the superstitious practices he companions had been using to guide their travels.

 4329. Although Remo did not know which direction was South, if he had known, he was in possession of some ideas which would have allowed the trio to progress in one consistent direction.

 4330. If they started out going South, he would have been able to keep them on the right track, if only the sky was not overcast, and the stars were visible.  

 4331. He tried to explain to Otis and the Rooster how it was that one could travel always in one direction, by using the placement of the sun in the daytime, and the stars at night. The entire idea struck Otis, and even the Rooster as preposterous and they were unable to conceal their disbelief.

The Prodigal Dog parts 4324 - 4327

 4324. He knew that Rome was in the South, but he did not know what direction south consisted of.

 4325. Because of the fragmentary nature of his knowledge, he was not of much use, but the little that he did know resulted in the destruction of Otis and the Rooster’s confidence in certain plans and ideas they had.

4326. They began timidly to ask Remo’s advice, and, just as people do, he answered their questions with the facts he felt sure of, and fleshed out the unknown pieces from his imagination.

4327. There was one area of expertise in which Remo was proficient, at least by the standards of the time, and that was astronomy.