A Dark and Stormy Night

January is in its last week, and it seems as though this month has stretched on forever. It started off bitterly cold and then turned into a rain-soaked mess, which we are still in the middle of. Today was the first day we've had in a week where it was not pouring down.

It's been so foggy here that the mornings and nights have rendered the rest of the world invisible to me. When I look out my front door, all I can see of the house across the street is one hazy halo of light from their front porch. The trees are hulking spider-shapes that loom out unexpectedly whenever I leave the safety of my porch. It's wonderful and disturbing and makes me think that ghosts must be lurking somewhere out there, because if ever there was weather that suited a lost spirit, this is it.

Today was unusually warm for the season, and it was like the tiniest scrap of spring crept out for a single day, but next week it will be lost to the cold temperatures again. The ground is soggy, made up of sucking mud that weighs down my shoes and gets all over everything.

Such is winter, here in Kentucky. It's really no more than I expect. The only good thing so far is that we've not had another ice storm, like we did last year.

Despite the brief respite from the rain, I stayed inside for the most part today. I wanted to take my camera out and take some pictures of the bare trees, the flooded creeks, and my poor, mud-caked goat, but laziness prevailed. Not laziness, exactly, because I have been working today. I've been making jewelry, and etching copper, and doing the massive loads of laundry that this time of year generates.

I wish spring were here, and I look everywhere for signs of it, but I find none. It won't be until the end of next month that it starts to show itself in the red buds clustering on the maple trees, and the first crocus blooms pushing their way out of the ground. By the end of March the woods will have the faintest haze of green and Bluets will start to pop up in clusters around the yard.

For now it's just mud, and rain, and ice, and more fog than a victorian murder mystery would know what to do with, and a slow deep ache in my joints that begs for warmer, drier weather. Alas, I must wait.

Up to my knees in it

My mother has always been fond of animals. She takes in the ones that no one else wants. The strays, the dumped, the hard luck cases from the Humane Society..Beagles are her favorite when it comes to dogs. She has one particular beagle by the name of Bradley whose main purpose in life seems to be escaping her back yard. The yard it fully fenced, but he will always find a way out. She has tried everything, including fitting him with a set of saddlebags made especially for dogs (they made him too bulky to fit through or under or over the fence). Those worked until he figured out how to chew them off of himself.

Last week he got out of his saddlebags and escaped. Mom was frustrated, as he refuses to come when called and will only take off running if you approach him while he's out of the yard. He is perhaps the most stubborn dog I have ever met. No amount of training has broken him of it.

I tried catching him once, when I saw him digging up mole holes along the side of her fence. Unfortunately he saw me coming at the last second and took off running. Half an hour later, there he was again..nose in the mud, digging furiously. So intent was he on his task that he didn't notice me this time. I crept up behind him as quietly as I possibly could. Traffic on the road helped mask the sound of my feet on the neighbor's gravel driveway as I crept closer and closer, intent on my mud covered and still furiously digging target.

Right as my fingers brushed his collar, he whipped around and tried to take off again. I wasn't having it this time, though. Yelling an inarticulate war cry along the lines of "BradleyARRRRRGH!", I flung myself on him like a football player sacking the quarterback, landing with a rather squishy thump on the ground. Unfortunately for me, his choice digging spot was right beside a ditch lined with fallen tree branches. It had rained recently. I believe I've mentioned before that Kentucky turns into sticky, clay-filled mud around this time of year. So there I was, half laying, half kneeling on the ground with one knee in a ditch full of water, tree branches jabbing me in the rear end, and one arm around 30 lbs of squirming, muddy, angry beagle.

Naturally a lot of traffic was passing by, so I had plenty of witnesses to my highly professional display of dog catching.

I managed to extricate myself from ditch and branches and got him into the house before he had a chance to make a break for it again. Mom is now only taking him out on a leash until she can figure out a different way of keeping him inside the fence.

I had to wash my jeans twice to get all the mud stains out. Luckily for him, Bradley only had to be washed once. Nothing quite like Kentucky mud...