Friday, April 10, 2009

Dust Bowl


Rain does this.

Even in the rain, I have to patrol my perimeter, just in case the scrubjays or robins or field mice or raccoons have trespassed. Mom doesn't like rain because it makes mud. Mud doesn't bother me, except I'm not crazy about Mom dunking each of my paws and wiping them clean. I'd rather just trot inside like on a sunny day and check out the kitchen smells.

Poor Kharma, she tolerates my mud routine but she doesn't like it. I'm not happy about having to dunk eight paws, multiple times on some days, each time she and Zelda come inside either. I'm grateful that we have a laundry room that can serve as a canine mudroom, with warm water and doggy towels.

This has been the worse year ever for mud. We lost lawn and gained dirt during our fence rebuild. By summer's end, all the construction was complete, but we had large areas of dirt--it turns out that if you don't water grass and if you have big dogs romping over a lawn daily, well, turf just gives up the ghost. The new landscaping has evolved s-l-o-w-l-y. Plans for altering sprinkler heads got postponed while the pond took precedence. New soil didn't get tilled in until we finished struggling to remove tree roots, so irresistible mounds of soft diggable humus beckoned puppy paws.

Two dogs, eight paws, three or four times each day...I'm sure I've washed at least a cubic yard of soil down the drain this winter.

Mom has been mumbling about sod all day long. She even talked about it on the phone. I smell change in the breezes blowing through the backyard. It smells...green?

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