The rites of Spring in northern Michigan...

 

It happens every spring. I play chicken with the melting snow thinking that I still have time to rummage through the storage room for the basket of old towels I use to wipe muddy paws clean. Every year I put off the task just one - day - too - long and when I do, I pay the price. Mounds of pristine snow once called my backyard home. Now, newborn mud puddles have opened their little, beady, black eyes to greet the world - the little stinkers growing larger and healthier each day.

I lost today and the mud puddles won. I waited too long. I gambled. The puddles called out to Scout and Freyja, "Come here cute doggies. Come play with me. Come dance in the cool, oozing mud I have laid out for your pleasure." Being the obedient dogs that they are - they went and they danced and they frolicked and they celebrated spring with unbridled passion.

Needless to say, after Scout and Freyja made it through the back door to do an encore of their 'happy dance of joy' on the kitchen floor, a good mopping was in order and my basket of towels was pulled out from Winter storage - fluffy soldiers to be sacrificed over and over in the coming weeks ensuring a clean kitchen floor and my continued serenity. Snow doesn't melt in a day up here in northern Michigan, it takes a while - and - it takes a lot of patience and a little humor before I, too, do the happy dance of joy in celebration of Spring.