Winter not the fun it used to be
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- February 28, 2022
- 672
As kids we loved snow. As soon as we saw the first flake falling, we’d grab our sleds, pull on our boots and stand at the windows watching the ground for enough snow to play in. We didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold back then. I remember coming inside after a morning spent building snow creatures and my hands would feel frozen, but that didn’t seem to concern me either.
As an adult, watching the snow fall doesn’t thrill me at all. Piles of the white stuff meant shoveling walks and mopping floors. Though our children are now adults with their own walks to shovel, we have our canine children who manage to bring in more snow on their little feet than our children ever did.
Our bigger dog has developed a love of romping and rolling in the snow. It only takes a minute or two for him to turn himself into a snow-dog. He actually comes inside with little snowballs stuck in his feet. Our little dog is not a snow fan. She is short-haired and doesn’t handle cold weather well and hates doing her business in piles of snow. She takes care of her outside needs with alacrity and dashes back into the warm house.
This year our new porch turned out to be a target for snow drifts. The wind managed to blow several inches of the white stuff onto our porch and totally inundated both the floor and steps with several layers of the slick powdery stuff. Even worse, under that fluffy coating lurked a layer of ice. Snow is slick, but ice is slicker.
We humans had to take great care going down those steps, but our silly big dog didn’t. He hit the steps, slipped, then tumbled down into about 6 inches of snow. Little dog witnessed big dog’s fall and decided the porch was a safer place to take care of business, and she managed to do that before we realized her intentions. Poor porch.
Thankfully, big dog suffered no injuries and managed to take care of business. He had, of course, forgotten about the slippery steps, and he managed to slip and fall his way back onto the porch. It took us at least 20 minutes to clean him off, check again for any injuries (found none) and clean up the powdery mess they both tracked inside. It’s interesting winter just isn’t the fun it used to be.