We Love the Outdoors, for Good or Bad

The kids (canine variety) just love the outdoors.

It doesn't matter what time of year, what type of weather, or how cold it is. If they can be outside, that's where they want to be.

The only exception is summer heat, but that's another story for another day.

They especially love to be outside when it's messy: muddy, rainy, icy. Go figure.

Well, Don took Baxter, Elsie, and Ridge for their usual lengthy Saturday morning romp out along the dirty roads and streams near our house. And, you guessed it: they loved splashing in anything they could get their paws into: mud, ice cold water, drainage ditches.

Silly, muddy, muddy kids.

Thankfully we have a somewhat mess-free backyard. And the kids love to hang out there.
They stay pretty clean, all things considered (not that they care; I care, though, especially when they come inside!).

They stay mud-free just about everywhere in the back yard, except when they visit the lower corner beyond the crabapple tree. That's a mud pit. And, of course, it's right next to where the neighbors come and go, so the dogs loiter there so they can bark and race back and forth when the neighbors walk by.

It figures. Their one guard post happens to be the only mud pit in the yard.

So, we decided to throw some straw in the mud pit to at least tone down the splash factor.

Elsie, Baxter, and Ridge had to help, of course.

And they did.

But even two bales later, we still have a mud pit.

And muddy dogs.

I guess that's just part of living with Labs. :o)

I'll take muddy paws and underbellies with Lab kisses and faithfulness any day. To experience the good, we accept the bad (or at least learn to live with it).

Sounds a lot like life to me.

'Til next time,
Joan