Monday, February 7, 2011

Bisou In Winter

In a word, she loves it.  And for someone with a 300-year history of intensive lapdog breeding in her genes, she is remarkably sporting about it.

Some of her littermates have been donning coats and booties to go out in the elements this cruel winter, but I don't think Bisou stands still long enough to get cold.  She plows straight into four-foot snow drifts,  then emerges, head covered in snow, swims back to the relatively dry conditions of the driveway, then finds another snow drift.

Yesterday she had a play date with her brother, B.  B's owners have a securely-fenced yard, and prior to Bisou's arrival they had snow-blowed (sic) a network of paths for the dogs to run in.  Since we were having a heat wave--the temperature had risen above freezing for the first time in recent history--we left B and Bisou outside to growl and chase and roll each other and went inside for a cup of tea.

A while later one of us looked out and...no Bisou!  Polite panic ensued, followed by understated relief.  She had climbed up on a big pile of snow, walked over the fence, and was retrieved from the driveway.

This morning, when I took the dogs for our driveway walk, Bisou was in her glory.  Overnight the short-lived thaw had covered the snow with a sheet of ice hard enough to withstand her nineteen pounds.  She scaled the ragged wall of snow formed by the snow plow and took off into the pristine field as fast as her legs would carry her.  She ran and circled and sniffed and ran some more until she was a mere red speck in the distant whiteness.

I saw Wolfie look her way, approach the snow wall, then back off.  When he couldn't stand it anymore he scrambled up the wall and leaped into the field, and crashed through the ice.  Bucking and twisting and thrashing he got himself back to the driveway, and tore a branch off a tree in frustration.  He didn't try to follow Bisou again, and was subdued and downcast for the rest of the walk.

Now it's snowing again.  Even the hardiest winter lovers around here are starting to whine a bit.  But not Bisou. Tomorrow, when she catches me looking in the direction of my boots, my fearless would-be sled-dog will be scrabbling and moaning at the door, dying to throw herself body and soul into winter, once again.

8 comments :

  1. As I await the roof guy today, I am indeed among the hardiest winter lovers who are starting to whine a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I AM sorry about your roof, and hope it gets mended soon. I'm worried about our chicken shed collapsing on top of the hens.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If your chicken shed collapses on your hens, your decision of when to buy new chicks will be made but it certainly would be a traumatic decision-making process. We have little green shoots sticking their heads out of the ground but also still have snow and freezing temps. At least the days are longer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Little green shoots! We haven't seen bare ground since December.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Indigo!? Roof mended????? I don't know what happened but I know I'm sympathetic.

    A guy is here with a bucket loader to clear our driveway - a plow just doesn't cut it anymore.

    Lali - is it time to sprinkle spinach on snow yet?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think I'm going to wait until later--for one thing the stores haven't put up their seed racks yet. For another, I want to make sure I survive this winter, before planting anything.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can send you Seeds of Change seeds which are selling in our local market. You guys are having the floods we had last May but just frozen. And, no, I think we'll visit you in the summer. Most people here are grumbling every day and they don't have a clue.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You sweet thing! You should plant those seeds yourself--it's probably just the right time down there. At the moment, the snow is way over the top of our 2-foot raised beds, and who knows where those seeds might end up come mud season.

    ReplyDelete

Followers