Winter Dogs

We had our first snow of the season early in December. We are about to get our first big storm. It was a good amount of snow, not too much not too little - about 6 inches or so. It came and with wind and blustery weather. The next day brought brittle cold and sunshine. I love the sunshine on a fresh snow before anyone wakes up and starts walking on it - you can see little bird feet prints in the snow and drifts showing the path of the wind. In the first few hours of the morning after a big snow, you can see the sunrise and reflection of the sun off the crystals of ice that form on the top layer of the snow. It looks smooth and soft like a down comforter cover - soft, light and warm.

Snow is a funny thing - just water frozen in the atmosphere and drifting down to earth - in the summer it would be rain. I have lived in three places with snow. Iowa and Minnesota both have snow, but the winters in Iowa were always different. Cold and gray but not very much snow and most of it wet and sticky and thick - heavy with humidity. In Minnesota the snow varies from light and fluffy to heavy and wet. In Antarctica the snow was dense and dry and heavy. The snow drifted on forever and the patterns of the wind were always on the top of a drift. You could see it as it swept over the glaciers.

As a kid we would build forts out of snow. We would build caves with rooms and have snowball fights. We would lay in the snow and make snow angels - swinging our arms and legs out beside us. My uncle would take us to the camp across the way and toboggan with us. I also learned as a child and an adult how to skate with my dad holding my hands and skating backwards while I wobbled. I have strong memories of putting on my skates at the warming house, using my finger holding my brothers crosses as he laced up his hockey skates.

I have very dear friends who live between Duluth and Two Harbors in the woods. I have had the privilege of taking care of their house when they travel. I have helped build their sunroom, their greenhouse and watched the barn and welding room go up. I have helped plant the spring gardens and chase the neighbors ferrel cows from the yard while enjoying a grilled vegetable harvest dinner in the late summer. I have helped check and feed the hives of bees. I was willing to save the bees from the bear that we chased from their backyard. Let it be known that I took a cast iron skillet to scare the bear - they took a single shot in a shotgun - just to scare it not to shoot it. Molly and I took GPS and hiked to the highest point of the property. Then back along the river returning to the house. I have enjoyed skating quietly alone on winter nights on their pond and snow shoeing with their dogs just the three of us, listening to the river run under the ice even, trickling along in February.

February is when my friend turned 50. Her partner gave her an outside camera that is motion sensitive and takes pictures in light or darkness. It came with a bear safety box. On the weekend we celebrated her birthday, the dogs and six of our friends snow shoed out to place on the many acres of woods they live in and place the camera on a tree and set it for taking pictures of unknown but soon to be discovered wildlife. We had a wonderful sunny hike - six of us and six dogs. We set the camera and took a few pictures to make sure it was working and then went on our hike. We found the pine grove. The dogs jumped on the back of the snow shoes and ran ahead to sit and pull off the snow balled in their paws. Their tales swayed back and forth and the bumped into each other and bowed and barked at each other. I do sometimes love the winter. Nothing as pretty as green pines, straight and tall and full and fresh against a soft heavy winter snow, good friends and good dogs.

As an adult, I learned how to cut snow blocks and stack them to make a safe harbor in a storm - survival training in Antarctica. I learned how to power up your stomach with butter and chocolate when you were cold. I could light a tiny stove in the wind and cold in order to melt snow and have water to survive in the event that you were isolated from assistance. I slept on the Ross Ice shelf with a team of others learning winter survival skills. I learned to work and move to stay warm but to minimize sweat.

Our dogs are winter hardy. They love the winter and are fine in the cold weather. They play and run in the cold. Gromit will run and leap through drifts of snow. Chewie loses his ball a little more often in the cold but is still dedicated to finding it and returning it to me. They both have a lot of extra energy in the winter snow and cold.

I am not thinking that Chewie nor Gromit spend time looking at the all the blues in the snow when the sun hits it - I think they do have that same sense of playfulness that comes out in many of us when there has been a snow storm. They run and slide and laugh as they play together. They leave their foot prints in the snow and when they run by me the snow flies in my face. They leave their deep chest prints in the snow and their elbow marks when they lay down. They eat the snow and sniff the snow. They chew the snow out of their paws. They are always happy to go snow shoeing with us - at the golf course across the river from our house or the woods at my friend's house. They are happy to be with us.

When we hiked out a couple days later to get the camera and look at the pictures before we left my friend's house, as we looked over the photos we laughed realizing most of the pictures were practice ones and then a couple of the dogs playing that had set off the motion detector. I don't think the dogs wonder what has been in the snow, or what animals play in the woods - they see it with their noses, they knew where the bear hibernated and they found the prints left by the birds and the trails for the wood mice. Gromit and Chewie - they are okay with winter. They make it a bit more fun and a lot warmer.