This is Deputy Digby Pancake.  You know, when you have been cooped up as long as we have these past few weeks because of the rain, you start hearing things.  You start seeing things.  You start imagining things.  You start being hungry.  Actually, if you are me, you never stop being hungry.  And so, if you have to nap the day away, you choose to dream about things that you like.  Pancakes.  Pancakes with syrup.  Eating all the pancakes.  When it is raining, you can dream about anything that you want to, and for as long as you want to.  And it makes me happy.

I’ve heard people say that “the nicest thing about the rain is that it always stops.”  And yes, sometimes it does stop and you have to wake up for dinner.

Now, sometimes, if you are like me, when you wake up, you are a bit groggy.  It takes a minute, or an hour to realize even where I am at first.  So when I looked out of the window after my fifth nap of the day yesterday, I thought I was seeing things.

I am not sure if you can see it.  If you can, you may wonder.  Am I seeing things?  What is that?  I rubbed my eyes a bit more…

Now.  You know that our friend Ollie Gator lives around here.  And we are always on the lookout around the lakes and the creeks and the swamps.  But it never would have been in my wildest dreams of even blueberries and pancakes that we would be camped next door…to…him. This was our neighbor?

I like this campground, I am just going to say that.  But, it is true, sometimes, we get neighbors that are loud.  Or neighbors that throw trash.  Or neighbors that leave their lights on all night.  So this new neighbor?  He wasn’t the worst.  And in fact, this guy was just sitting there.  Being all alligator like.  My only worry?  I would have to share if he came over and asked for a cup of something.  Like flour or whatever.

About the same time as I saw our new neighbor, Boy Person saw him too.  He asked Girl Person if she had looked out the window.  And I wondered…what was the big deal here?  Seriously though, he had his camping pass in the window.  But then Boy Person asked Girl Person if he was real.  Girl Person shrieked, looked a little closer, and they stood there and watched it to see if he was breathing.

They could not decide.  But right about that time, other neighbors who have busted in our RV for the last two days decided to make their presence known too.  The flies.  The family of flies.  We get one out, two come back in.  We get two out, four come in.  And so, the persons got distracted as they always do.  Even with the new neighbor not breathing outside of our door.

And even though I was sleepy, and yes, hungry, I noticed what was happening here.  I wasn’t currently worried about the new neighbor, because he wasn’t that big.  Also, not breathing.  But if the persons kept getting the flies out of here, and our neighbor kept eating the flies, wouldn’t he get bigger?  And then he would be able to move and then come knock on our door and ask for flour which makes my pancakes?  I could not let the all you can eat fly buffet from this Big Blue Treat Wagon RV be open any longer.  Sheriff Brickle and I had to take matters into our own paws and eat all of the flies before our neighbor could.

Now, when you have had the ultimate in culinary delights, you find it hard to go back to the real world of flies.  I don’t like Shoofly Pie.  At all.  And Brickle either. So as bored as we were with the rain and the dreaming, and what was at stake with our new neighbor, we made the executive decision to just go back to sleep.

They say if you feed the alligators, you get bigger alligators.  But also, he was not a real alligator.  Did I really need to tell you this?  And they call Sheriff Brickle the smart one.

For the persons, spending their day chasing out flies, and inviting more in, while trying to decide if an alligator was real or not outside our RV put some stuff into perspective.  We had a bit of a crazy life.  And we wouldn’t change this life for anything.  Maybe there are crazy things in your life too.  Maybe sometimes,  you think that you are the craziest of all.  And you may be right.  But I like that.

Because I can guarantee you will never be as crazy as a person chasing out flies while watching for a fake alligator to breathe.  I guarantee.

-Deputy Digby Pancake

Did you watch Girl Person live on Facebook making Chicken Cacciatore For Dogs and People to share?  Watch below! Get the full recipe here.