Oh, Hi There Winter

Tucker would like you to know that Winter has arrived.

Six or seven inches of the white stuff fell last night.  The yard, the trees, everything is covered with a gorgeous coating of snow.  It’s quite nice and of course, spurs a few thoughts about the coming of winter.

1. Tucker is a Winter Dog.  Pretty easy to tell from his fur coat but once the snow comes down, he falls into a set pattern that goes like this :

• Scratch to go out
• Eat snow (sometimes he’ll even get all the way out the door before he starts this)
• Do his business
• Eat more snow for 10 – 15 minutes
• Come inside
• Realize eating all that snow fills up his little bladder
• Scratch to go out
• Repeat

We enjoy this.  Tremendously.

2. Tucker also insists on his walk, every morning, preferably early.  Steph wasn’t feeling well this morning (she’s gotten better) so I took the leash and we headed out.  Snow plows had already been down our street and did their ritual piling of rock hard snow at the end of the driveway so Tucker and I both jumped the pile …

… discovered the ice that coated the road.

I think Tucker and I fell on our butts a dozen or so times on the walk.  Every time I went down, Tucker would dutifully stop and sit next to me until I got up.  I think he wanted to hear what cuss words I was going to say next.

3. My brand new driveway is wonderful for shoveling.  With no cracks or gouges the size of the Grand Canyon, it almost makes it fun to remove the snow.

4. My brand new driveway is also wider than it was last year.  I have to say, it seemed like such a good idea when we decided to do that in the Summer.