A Clarification

After yesterday's post extolling the virtues of snow, I thought I needed to clarify a little...in November when you haven't seen snow for a number of months and have been scorched/drenched by heat and humidity all summer, then snow is quite a welcome relief, and very beautiful. However, in late March, when you are standing out in the middle of your driveway clearing out a foot of snow for the third time in as many days, and you are so sweaty that your hat is making your head itch, but the wind is too cold for you to go hatless, and every muscle in your body hurts because you've spent the last three days shoveling snow, and you know how futile it is, because they're forecasting forty degrees in a couple of days and it's all going to melt anyway but you have to clear it out because you have to go to the grocery store to buy food and your hubby has to get to work, and he can't help because he had a heart attack a few years ago and snow shoveling is at the top of the Activities Not to Engage In list, then, my friends, then, snow is not beautiful at all.

I speak from bitter experience.

Snow

It is snowing here in lovely Minnesota...wet snow that is sticking to the bare trees and turning my neighborhood into a gorgeous white fairyland. I love the snow and I hope it sticks around. My dogs love the snow, too. Being 3/4 husky, they are dressed for it, with thick fur coats and soft, downy undercoats (that end up all over my floor in wispy drifts when it's shedding time...which is most of the year...). This morning, though, Canis Feisticus decided that she really didn't want to go out in the cold (it wasn't that bad...33 degrees isn't really cold in Minnesota) and the wet...I let the dogs out the back door and Canis Dafticus went bolting out into the snow and did a funny little leap and came down on his elbows with his butt in the air (this is dog for "play with me now!"). Canis Feisticus, on the other hand, stepped daintily out, sniffed the air, and turned around and came back in. When I finally convinced her that she really did need to go outside, she went, ever so slowly, ever so carefully, picking her feet up high and planting them back down reluctantly, as if she really didn't want to get them all wet and cold. I felt a bit sorry for her. How would I feel if I had to go and do my business in the cold and wet at 5:30 am?

Perhaps I will have to knit her some doggie booties?