Mackey came to B.O.N.E.S. from a bad situation in central Massachusetts. He was underweight and limped painfully. X-rays revealed a displaced femur fracture in his right hind leg – it was amazing that Mackey could use the leg at all. The options didn't look hopeful, but with help from the B.O.N.E.S. Medical Director, a carefully-structured exercise program, and a lot of TLC, he can now lead a normal life.
As Mackey recovered from his injuries, long-time B.O.N.E.S. adopter John was mourning the loss of his long-time beagle companion, Hudson, whose "Chronicles" were documented here for many years. John was settling into a new job with lots of driving, and Mackey loved to ride... a great match. John and Mackey will both share their viewpoints with us on this page.
John:
Winter has finally arrived in its full glory, with two storms in one week. Fortunately, my employer doesn't send the trucks out in severe weather, so I had two snow days.
The first storm was on a Monday, so I spent most of the day cleaning out from the 18 inches of snow. A lot of work and a lot of time! Tuesday morning, I arrived at the yard in Pittsfield at 5 am to find all four trucks buried in snow that had drifted and buried them.
It took 45 minutes to shovel paths to each door, so we could at least get inside and get them fired up.
The other drivers arrived just as I was finishing up getting access to each truck. We then grabbed a loader operator and had him remove the snow from directly behind each truck. It took more than another hour to dig out around the truck, wheels, bumper, etc.
I rocked and rocked and finally got the truck out from its snowy grave. Most of our job sites were digging themselves out from the storm, so we spent the day digging out trailers from similar tombs as our tractors. Three days later we got to do it all over again... but this time, we didn't have to dig out the tractors again, since we were in them, on the road. Winter makes things difficult when working outdoors with equipment, but all in all, we've been lucky to have had an easy winter.
