I don’t even know how much snow we have so far this winter.  I only know we have mountains of white stuff.  Kevin is such an old school gentleman, he assumes the job of snow removal, be it with a shovel or a tractor.  He is out there either shoveling out kennels, plowing our driveway, a walking path down to the kennel, all around the kennel and of course he plows out his mother’s driveway….he did finally give up on our deck…lol.  Then, our son gets home from a 10-12 hour day of snow removal and if Kevin doesn’t have ours done he jumps on it.  Yeah, the men in my life are something pretty spectacular. 

The dogs love the snow but when the temps are 30 below wind chill, we can’t let them stay outside longer than it takes to clean kennels.  They go on a run behind the snowmobile and before you know it they’re back and pretty much ready to go inside.   No one is missing spring more than they are.  Then there’s the puppies, who spend everyday weather permitting from April through October outside during the day.  They either play in the puppy play yard or run around the yard with our grandchildren….but the winter pups don’t have it as sweet.  It’s just too cold to put those littles outside before 7-8 weeks old and even then it’s only for a moment.  It looks like the 10 day forecast is shaping up, I didn’t see any temps below zero and even a few days in the twenties….thank you blessed Jesus!  It’s kind of funny, I’m over here longing for warmer temps but you know what comes with sunshine and warmer temperatures?  Melting snow, mud and wet dogs!  Good times!

Well yesterday I felt like a bombarding winter funk was about to set in on me, and then I scrolled down fb and my friend Sara posted ” Things to LOVE about Winter, List em’ here.”  Of course mind you, she just returned from Aruba and is probably still warm from all that sun kissed skin she’s wearing. It did make me think though, and I was able to come up with quite a list of blessings and as I typed them I felt God melting my almost funk away.

So yeah, winter has really been mocking us Northern Minnesota Dog breeders and no doubt both Kevin and I  will be welcoming the wet dogs and mud with open arms, however; in the meantime we will be thanking God for flannal sheets, snowmobile exhaust, heated car seats, card games and snow covered dog noses.