The Grass is Always Greener

If you live with dogs in any place on earth where it rains and snows, you will know this to be true: there are only three seasons in a year.

Snow.

Mud.

Grass.

For the uninitiated, I will attempt to explain here. Tucker has volunteered to illustrate them for me.

Snow 

Snow is exciting. The dogs dig in it, push their snouts in it. Stitch trails across its pristine whiteness as they play Chase.  A short dog like Lilah bounces her way through it, ending up sprinkled with snowflakes and looking like a powdered chocolate donut. The snow sticks to Tucker's wiry fur as if he's part Velcro. When the gang comes back inside the house after a romp with their best buds through the white stuff, we go though a de-snowification process. While this isn't a favorite activity, we play a game called Treats for the Feets, where the dogs earn snacks for each foot cleaned, and that makes it just a tad more tolerable.

Snow sticking to Tucker's paws

Just as a pearl is formed around a minuscule irritant within a clam, snowballs form around just a few strands of dog fur. With her long black fur, Lilah has to deal with this every winter. Because she has fuzzy paws, she winds up with hard, cold pepples stuck between the pads. In the middle of a spectacular game of Snow Chase, Lilah will suddenly stop, sit down, and lick her paws. That's when I know she needs help digging rock-hard snow chunks from her paws.

One of my previous dogs, a Keeshond mix, had it worse than Lilah. Pasha's paws were so furry that it looked like he was wearing fuzzy slippers. And when snowballs formed around his fur, they could be huge. We're not just talking golf-ball sized snowballs. We're talking cantaloupes.

Yes, that giant snowball is stuck to poor Pasha.

Mud

Mud comes twice a year...before and after Snow.  Sometimes there is a brief interlude of frozen ground, but it eventually melts and we're left again with oozy, squishy, splashy mud.

The key word is splashy.

If you've ever watched a horse race on a wet track, and seen horse and jockey afterwards, then you'll have an idea what the dogs look like after a few minutes of Fence Running during Mud. This is why we have designated linens known as dog towels--towels that are so ratty and abused that one doesn't mind them turning a lovely shade of chestnut brown as we clean paws. And legs. And bellies. And tails. And sometimes faces.

We use up lots of Treats for the Feets during Mud. Sometimes we need a bowl of warm water to dip paws into, or we soak small dog towels in water to wipe down the pups. Treats are given freely while all body parts are cleaned on each of the three dogs. The washer and dryer get a workout as soaked and muddy towels are cycled through to make sure we have enough for the next time the dogs come inside.

You can see the mud all the way up Tucker's legs.

Grass

My favorite dog season is when the grass has grown in and there is little or no mud. The dogs run freely, and even when it rains, all we have to deal with are a dozen wet paws. If it's raining while the pooches are outside, however, they may need an overall body rub-down and dry off, or the resulting floppity will splatter everything within a five-foot radius. (The cats have learned this the hard way--hard for them, amusing for me.) Sometimes, particularly after the grass is cut,  Jasper and Tucker will sport green-tinged fur, but that wipes off easy. For the most part, though, the Feets don't require as much attention--or Treats--during Grass.

Tucker, a dog out standing in his field, or backyard. 

I think we all might agree that Grass is a favorite. As show in the picture below.

Grass time is play time!

Other folks look forward to the flowers of spring, the warmth of summer or the color of fall. As for me, I just wait for Grass season.

Elsa Clair, the Great Black-and-White Hunter

As soon as I grab the leashes, they come running.

The cats.

The dogs come, too, but the cats get there first. Elsa Clair skids into the laundry room, brakes screeching (I swear!) as she makes a snap-quick turn to leap onto the counter. Calvin knows his sister has her paw on the pulse of all things interesting to cats, so he's not far behind. Athena, keenly aware of her dignity, arrives after the dogs and all their inconvenient large paws and waggy tails have settled into well-behaved Sits.

Jasper, Lilah and Tucker are currently being trained to WALK across the deck, and WALK down the stairs, instead of running like crazed derby horses when the gates are released, so leashes and treats are required equipment every time we go outside.

There's always a chance that a snack will fall from the treat bag as we're getting ready, which is one of the reasons the cats materialize when I'm about to take the dogs outside. However, the true cause for all the excitement is that when I open the door, Something might get inside. Its a sure sign that spring is here when the warmth brings out the insects and the cats turn into Bug Hunters.

There are several opportunities for the winged creatures to enter the house, beginning with the first time  I open the door for the dogs. Elsa Clair stands on the corner of the counter, neck stretched out, eyes wide, plaintive mrows escaping from under her quivering pink nose. Calvin peers over her shoulder.

Anything bugging you?

I come back in a few minutes later to hang up the leashes. If an invader has made it past the storm door,  Elsa Clair is instantly on the hunt. Calvin knows something is up, and is looking puzzled, but stands ready to steal his sister's prize. Athena takes up position on the washer or dryer, where she has the best view of the action. She likes to watch.

After dark, the porch light just outside the back door attracts the most fascinating prey. Almost every night, a twitchy lamp-blind moth slips in the house and sketches an erratic flight through the laundry room. As long as it stays on or very near the ceiling, it will live a few minutes. Once it comes below a certain height, it's demise is a near certainty.

If I can reach it, and the poor creature is harmless, I'll capture it gently and release it back into the wilds of suburban living. When I'm successful, the cats glare at me dolefully, not quite believing that I ruined their sport.

I can always tell when Elsa Clair has her sights on a bug. She narrates the process with a series of meerows, wows and trilling purrs that are off the charts on the Cat Sounds Adorability Rating Scale. Her mews and calls always sound like she's asking questions, as the tone of each utterance ends in an upnote of utter cuteness.

I have been attempting to record these sweet sounds for quite a while, but have been mostly unsuccessful.  Either Elsa Clair decides her soliloquy is over, or the bug is caught by the time I grab my cell phone, or--the most common occurance--some other sound like a barking dog (as if that ever happens in my house), interferes with the recording.

Below is a video with just a taste of Elsa Clair's adorable I'm Hunting a Bug song. The clip starts slow, but is worth watching in it's 22-second entirety. Please ignore the dog sound of Jasper slurping in the background.

Springing into Action

Well, that wasn't much of a winter.

We had maybe one serious snowfall--other than the infamous branch-breaking snow last October. (If you're interested, check out my two posts from last year: 'Snow Kidding and Snow. Fall.)

And we had very few days where the temperature dipped below freezing.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm not much of a fan of cold weather.

But all that warm and unseasonable weather has messed with Mother Nature's clock. Here in New Jersey, everything is about two weeks ahead of itself. Plants are blooming early. Spring is popping out all over, and way too soon.

Bloomin' Crazy
Though you may not have heard of New Jersey's Cherry Blossom Festival, there's one every year at Branch Brook Park in Newark; the park features 4300 cherry trees, 600 more than Washington D.C. This year, organizers were worried that the trees would be finished blooming before the festival even began. (Though they made sure everyone knew there were enough late bloomers that there would still be some blossoms to see.) They're talking about moving next year's festival up by a week or two.

Not that I'm complaining. I love seeing the first touches of green, telling me warm weather, flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies are on their way. But there's a cost--or at least a risk.

You'd think that warm weather is great for our friends the honeybees. But apparently if it doesn't get cold and stay cold, the bees stay active. And when they stay active, they eat. And they didn't really plan on eating all through the winter. So apparently, many honeybee hives have been lost as the poor litttle pollinators starved to death when they ran out of food. 

And on top of that, last week, we had a hard frost, a killing frost, that could have decimated the orchards of the Garden State. And all those early buds and leaves could have left us gardeners with blossom-less bushes, or worse, dead plants.

So in addition to figuring out how to protect my tender spring shoots from rampaging dog paws, I had to figure out how to protect my early rising plants and leaves.

Not that I'm complaining. Sometimes the fun of being a gardener is taking on the challenges thrown at you, and even sometimes succeeding.

Spring Preview
Below are some pictures from my early spring garden; here's hoping everything survived the hard frost of last week--and the few cold nights they're predicting for this week.

Hellebores: a recent discovery, these have quickly become favorites of mine. They are the very first to bloom, they don't care about the cold, they love shade, and the best part: they are absolutely deer proof!

Crocus are another favorite, as they bloom early, creating small spots of color on the ground. On a warm day, the first honeybee of the season came by for a nibble. I'm happy to see him, and hope he eats his fill.

Running through my crocus, Jasper demonstrates why I've had to be creative in protecting my plant from marauding paws.

In addition to the stick fence I have around my perennial garden, I also put up these (admittedly ugly) wire barriers throughout my garden beds. They create a series of obstacles that make it less fun for dogs to barrel through. It seems to be working.

Forsythia: supposedly deer resistant, but not in my neighborhood. Here it is deer candy. I use a special minty anti-deer spray that seems to hold them off--as long as I spray often during the spring.

Lilah traipses by grape hyacinths and daffodils. The rock border is another arrow in my quiver of tricks to protect my plants from pups. The dogs jump over the small barrier, and go right over the plants. Susan: 1, Dogs: 0. Usually. Except when there is a particularly intense chase. Or a squirrel. Then, all bets are off.

The magnolia, in full bloom, adds a touch of early color to my home.



I love the simple perfection of a single magnolia blossom.

I have several varieties of hosta in the shadier parts of my garden. Hostas only were able to join my garden when we put up a deer fence.

The leaves of bleeding hearts capture droplets. Sometimes I'm amazed at how the structures of leaves on so many plants come up with different solutions to gather and flow water.

Preparing for the freeze, my garden looked like a dumping ground. Under those garbage bags, tiny sproutlings were huddled, hoping to use the earth's warmth to avoid the killing frost.

While I think most of my plants survived, many were damaged. Here, black leaves signal cell death on one of my hydrangeas.

This is the second time I've tried Jacob's Ladder. Yet the first time it came back. So I'm hoping it survives.

I'm a big fan of vines like the clematis shown here, and honeysuckle. I've been training several varieties to climb the deer fence. That said, I try not to plant too many things right next to it; if I leave a trail for the dogs to run along, they're less apt to charge through the center of my garden bed. Usually, the only reason they're in the garden is because there's a Deer or a Squirrel on the Other Side of the Fence and it Must Be Attended To. The path allows for that.

A variety of honeysuckle, about to bloom. This one features gorgeous pinky orange blossoms.

Virginia Bluebells, a New Jersey native. I've lost these nearly every year--to overly aggressive landscapers. This year, Brian (and my daughter's boyfriend Luke) did the spring cleanup and the result is the bluebell display I've always wanted.

Bleeding Hearts in my front yard are already setting up blooms. These have to be sprayed to prevent deer nibbling as well.

There are several varieties of ferns in my front yard. They have a unique way of curling up out of the ground.

The redbud is unusual in that the flowers bloom directly off the trunks and stems; in full blossom, the tree is limned in color.

And of course, my own weeping cherry tree puts on an early spring show.