Puzzle #606

[mrspunkysmom]

Like Miss Pinot, I've got more than a few things to do this weekend. Y'all enjoy and I'll be glad to drop in and guess a letter or two.

[Karen]

Well, as the puzzle is basically all solved, let's move on to the next one. The only missing letter at this point is the first one, which is, of course, a J, so the final quote reads (putting hyphens and dashes back in instead of asterisks:

James and Kipper rounded the hill at the top of the pasture - it
was little used now, and overgrown with weeds and scrub - to make
their daily check on the farm's boundaries and fences. The two
of them would have made a lovely pastoral painting, the
still-handsome, blue-eyed, tall and craggy old farmer with his white
shock of windswept hair, and the intense and purposeful low-to-the-ground
black and white Border Collie, moving rapidly but off*kilter on his
three legs.

It is from one of the short stories in Dancing Dogs, by Jon Katz, a collection of short stories. I interviewed him for the radio show last week!

Asiel, would you like to do the next puzzle, as you have the next-highest point total, after the two ladies who have passed because of other obligations?