Blue Skies Follow Gray

February 11, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Bright blue skies today.   Expect to work tonight, will have to leave around 3:30.  Last night Moi called the plow man, but by 10 am he hasn’t shown, and Moi is outside shoveling.  I take over at 11, and we clear the driveway by ourselves.  I tell Mway to stay inside while I’m shoveling.  When I come back in about noon, she is under the kitchen table, patiently waiting.

State of the Path:  Moi and Mway have made fresh tracks to the clearing, but beyond the sumacs there’s untouched snow to trudge through.  Mway veers off at places: down at bug land sticking her nose up in the air again; above the ridge around bug land finding herself stuck among briars. Coming down from the summer house, rabbits have made a winding trail through the snow.  Trudging through the snow is more tiring than shoveling 75 yards of lane.

State of the Creek:   Still largely bound in by snow.  There are a few more places where running water can be seen; two spots where you can hear the water trickling.

The Fetch:  There’s a slight clearing in the clearing, where Moi, Mway, and I have previously smashed down snow.  But the problems that Mway had yesterday with fetching the stick plague her again, and I don’t throw the stick more than 10 feet.  She can’t drag it back more than 5 feet.  But again and again, I toss the stick and she doggedly drags it halfway back, snorting, barking.  She keeps at it more than 20 times, then finally decides for herself that she has accomplished whatever it is she accomplishes, and I’m happy to watch her proudly carry the stick back to the house.   Inside, she runs to her water dish, while I remove a briar that’s clinging to my wool cap.