The Way the Wind Blows

The prior residents of our house were weather fanatics. Or at least that is what we assumed when we viewed the house and saw the large barometer on the living wall, thermometers spread throughout the house and other various weather-related objects that appeared to have little purpose. Now we have benefited from this because they left a handy thermometer mounted outside our back door (i.e. only door we use) and a weather vane atop of our garage monstrosity. So now I never step out of doors without knowing the temperature. You would think I know the wind direction too, but I'm not convinced the wind vane is useful for anything besides decoration.

Anyhow, just now I was letting the dog outside and noticed the temp was 60+ degrees. Yippee! So I went out with the Caper, picked up some trash that had blown into the yard, finally took our wreath down (hey, better late than never) and removed a nasty wad of leaves that had been plugging the gutters. Ready to head inside, Caper comes trotting up behind me covered in mud splatters. See, with the glorious temperatures, the inner part of our yard has turned into a muddy lake.

Now being that our back yard has northern exposure, there was still a bit of snow around the edges. So I invented a new game to play with Caper. I grabbed some snow and threw it up in the air in the hopes that Caper would think it was a ball or some other toy and lunge after it. And lunge after he did. He loved it. Perhaps that's because if he actually caught it, the snow would just dissolve in his mouth. But the part I loved was when he didn't catch it and the snowball landed amid the other snow and Caper would dig in the snow looking for the snow I had just thrown. Quite comical, I tell ya. Ok, fine and good, but the key part of the game is that the snow has to be thrown over an area with lots of other snow. This way Caper leaps into the snow and cleans his paws and legs of mud, eliminating the need for me to give him a bath. Brilliant.