Basically, I’ve given up.
It’s not that I’m not happy about the spring. In fact, it’s one of my four favourite seasons.
But I live in the country, in a 320 square foot space, with a giant Newfoundland dog, by a lake.
She, the infamous Lady MacBeth (aka The Bug) doesn’t seem to recognize that mud puddles are not for walking through or rolling around in.
And then there are those ridiculously sticky (has anyone looked into marketing this stuff as glue) seed pods that the dogwoods throw down in copious quantities and last year’s wild rose branches littering the woods.
Aside: if I am wrong that it is the dogwoods, someone please educate me, I just don’t feel like doing the research right now.
Even if you have never seen what a 130-pound Newfoundland dog (20 pounds of whom is fur, 10 pounds of which she sheds in the spring) can do with mud, ridiculously sticky dogwood seed pods, wild rose branches, 10 pounds of shedding undercoat and a lake within swimming distance can do to a 320 square foot space, I am sure you can imagine.
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To think it was the winter I was worried about.
Between a full-time job, probably too many hobbies for one person to effectively manage, and all the sundry chores and errands of everyday life, at some point you just have to say, ‘screw it, I just can’t keep up.’
Now, my standard of cleanliness has never been what anyone would describe as obsessive, but I do try to maintain a reasonable separation between the outdoors and the indoors.
At this time of year, though, given the above-mentioned circumstances, I have lowered my tolerance level for dirt. I’d have to be cleaning three times a day. I have better things to do and this is the lifestyle, best-described perhaps as elevated, year-round camping.
And, of course, it could be worse, I could have a full-sized house for her to destroy.
In any event, the love of a faithful canine is certainly more than adequate compensation for putting up with a little bit of dirt on the floor.
As the spring shifts to summer, I have to wonder what tiny living challenges will present themselves.
Whatever they are, I am sure they will be more than offset by the privilege of living in such an idyllic setting.