sometimes it just....

rains and rains and rains.
it has to, you know.
the earth drinks
the green deepens
spring continues her dance.

the rain doesn't bother me too much. there's always a lot to do indoors and outdoors and this way, with the rain, i don't have to choose whether i'm tackling the in or the out. the decision has already been made for me. once the rain stops, though, there's gonna be sooooo much work to catch up on outside.

during a lull in the rain i stepped outside with lille and lizzi. the dogs' noses led them straight to a tiny baby gray squirrel who was eating fallen bird seed under the plants near one of the feeders. at first i couldn't even see the poor frightened thing, but i heard him squeaking. i thought the pups had stumbled upon some mice or voles or birds. instead they had discovered a very bold bundle of fur, who was either a recently displaced, tossed-out-of-the-nest baby struggling to survive without his mother's milk, or a rapidly-growing, ultra-hungry youngster grabbing some extra chow.

the labs would never bite or hurt a squirrel intentionally, but lille, the young one, ever alert to the possibility of a retrieve, could, in her drooling enthusiasm, have given the itty-bitty toddler a major heart attack so.....

i grabbed the dogs' collars and held on tightly, allowing the snub-nosed mite a chance to haul his roly-poly rear end up a tree. i was surprised at how he just sort of jogged over to the safety of a big white pine. maybe he was dazed by being snuffled and slobbered on from head to toe. i was also surprised the munchkin didn't give the dogs a good nip on their noses. maybe he thought his baby milk teeth were useless against my (unknown-to-him) lovable monsters.