Here’s the skinny: The Albany reader has recently taken a half-time job that will have her in Greater Fly Creek for one-half of each work week. She’s found a place to live for those three days, but not a place that will accommodate a beloved long-time pet. Would I, she asked, canvass Fly Creek for someone willing to dog-sit the big, friendly lab from Monday to Wednesday? I’ll let you know the outcome.

The canine house-hunting reminds me to call to your attention a wonderful local service, in business now for about a year. It’s a match-up system for people who must give up a cherished pet and others who are hunting for one. Both categories register detailed information with the service, and then the three talented women running it watch for good matches and serve as go-betweens in bringing the parties and the pet together.

A parallel service is, of course, offered by our own wonderful Susquehanna SPCA. The difference is that "Home-to-Home," as it’s called, can set up a match without the animal being in a shelter for an undetermined time. If you’re interested, email info@home-to-home.org or phone (607) 267-6897. The three organizers, by the way, are themselves animal-care pros.

Meanwhile, Anne and I are continuing our preps for Induction Weekend.(Warm thanks, by the way, to the dozen or so of you who’ve offered us a place to stay, hoping to keep us from camping in the barn. In fact, we’re looking forward to the adventure.)

In our B&B preps, we’ve reached to point, thank goodness, of attending to small details. This 1794 house, for instance, has never had locks on any interior doors, including the bathroom’s. (A bathroom wasn’t even a feature until the 1950’s.) But since we’re setting up our B&B for just a one-weekend stint, we don’t want to encroach too far on the old woodwork.

I’m glad to report that the bedrooms and the bath now have small hooks and eyes on the inside; that should prevent someone blundering in, causing embarrassment and perhaps exchanged blows. And each bedroom door’s outside now sports a modest hasp and padlock so that guests can lock up when they leave for the day. The hardware will come off when the Induction weekend is over (though I think I’ll leave that hook and eye inside the bathroom.)

I didn’t tell you that, besides our indoor guests, we’re to have some outdoor ones, too. Bernie Freiland, a confrere back in our shared monkish past, will be arriving with a pop-up camper, his grown son, and two other Oriole fanatics. They’ll be camping toward the back of our west field and handling all their own needs for food and hygiene.

I am concerned, however, that they won’t have shower facilities; three days as hot as those recent ones could make the air pretty ripe inside that pop-up. And so I’ve broken out something stored in the barn loft since my late wife Gwen and I used to camp out there. It’s a solar shower, a three-gallon bag of heavy black plastic with a hose and shower nozzle attached.

You fill the black bag and leave it out in the sun, which heats the water up to a very comfortable shower temperature. Then you haul the unit to a convenient tree (ideally, screened with other greenery), hang it on a limb, and shower away.

I really envy Bernie and company. Showering outdoors is almost as sensuous as swimming naked in a shady creek. After all guests have gone home, I just may treat myself to using it.

But I’ll be more careful than I was on a first use, 25 years ago.

That was back when I was still convincing Gwen that camping upstairs in the barn would be great fun. Oddly, she was put off, by the fact that former owner Frances Stucin had raised flocks of chickens up there for 20 years. Such use had left a lot of byproduct behind, largely petrified, but a pungent reminder of those birds when the weather was damp.

Determined to provide us with a Fly Creek foothold (we had tenants living in the house here), I made many weekend trips up from Maryland and spent days scraping, scrubbing, disinfecting.

At each day’s end, I’d haul the solar shower upstairs in the barn, hang the hose out the haymow, and luxuriate in a solar shower. More or less hidden behind the barn’s open door, I’d scrape, scrub, and disinfect myself, then head in to Cooper Cabin for a hamburger and the Cabin’s signature fudge-and-malt sundae, the Dirty Bird. The name seemed apt.

The first time I used the solar shower, I hadn’t figured out about using the haymow. Instead, I stepped into the nearest tree line and found a suitable branch, seven feet up on a gnarled apple tree. So far, so good. But the ground below the tree dropped off on a steep angle, continuing down a brambly slope to Oaks Creek. How to give myself level footing as I washed?

Luckily, Frances Stucin’s husband Stan never threw things away, and I found in his scrap pile a one-foot length of 2 by 8 board, plus a two-foot square of heavy plywood. Back to the tree I went, set the board on its edge and placed the plywood with its back edge against the slope and front edge on the board. Voila! A shower platform.

To the barn and back again, this time with the solar shower. Pausing only to shuck off all my smelly, sweaty clothes, I stepped onto my platform and raised the heavy water bag over my head to hook it to the branch.

In a millisecond, the board had sprung out, the plywood panel had dropped under me like a hangman’s trap. Somehow I let go the bag and grabbed the limb above me. There I hung for a while, like some pale and exotic squash, though one with a wildly thumping heart. If I hadn’t caught hold of the branch, I’d have tumbled, bare butt over teacup, all the way down through the blackberry thorns to the creek.

Maybe I should warn Bernie about that.

Read about Jim Atwell’s new book, "From Fly Creek _ Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at Jim Atwell.com.