Why Sassy Refused To Go Outside

 The morning walk is non-negotiable, unless...

Normally I wake up before dawn and make coffee. Sassy comes into the kitchen and sits in expectation of some Johnsonville brat pieces. Her morning walk is the long one for the day, when she visits friends and urges me onward so she can explore more yards.

By the way, some people are wroth that I write about Sassy, but I wonder who gave them a license to run the world. I assume they have done badly with their individual efforts, so they need to expand their management to Planet Earth. So I am doubly motivated to write about Sassy. Many readers consider her their CyberPet. Others need something to tweet about to their mutually despairing friends.

After finishing a mug of fresh Ethiopian coffee and providing the same to Mrs. Ichabod, I dressed for the morning outing. Normally I have a dog smiling and tagging along with me as I find shoes and socks. I was all the way to the front door when I went halfway back to collect her. We walked to the door, quietly, calmly, almost with foreboding. Then I opened the door to see a steady rain coming down. Her ears picked that up from the start. "Come on out!" Nope. I later told Mrs. I that Sassy would give her life for me, but not if it was raining. I told Sassy, "At least come out and get drained." She accomplished that and headed back to the porch.

I was left standing in a very light rain, so I came back in, too. Sassy got her morning food, which we call her crunchies. The day before we found her favorite neighbor-girl running toward the school bus, which was pulling away. I stood in the street and waved both arms until the bus stopped enough for Ess3 to get on board. Later she told her Mom that we stopped the bus for her. The four daughters' names start with S, so they are the Esses, numbered accordingly to keep them straight in conversation at home.

So the morning started with rain, something I really wanted but discounted from the recent meteorological disappointments. Three days of previously predicted rain turned into a few hours of stingy rain. The remnants of a hurricane went somewhere else and the drought continued. My plans were to gather the rain buckets and water the new Cinnabon shrubs (Clethra) and the Butterfly Garden. Instead, we had all day rain - steady, gentle, and persistent. Even in the late afternoon, a fine mist was falling. Buckets and barrels are now overflowing with rain.

 Clethra - Summersweet, aka the Cinnabon shrub.

The bulbs I planted are hydrated from the rain and forming roots for their growth in the spring. Previously planted herbs are greened up and thriving in the mild weather, 60 - 70 degrees. Soil has been settled by the steady rain. Tons of rain-fertilizer have fed the fungi, bacteria, all earthworms, all creatures large and small. The rain did more work for me in a day that I could ever accomplish.

Roses do not like the hot, dry summer, but they thrive in the cool, wet weather of spring and autumn. Bugs are relatively few, and bushes thrive from the moisture and nitrogen compounds. In addition, rain activates the soil creatures

• to aerate the soil, 
• to fashion tunnels for rain, and 
• to hold usable chemicals in the root zone (by living or dying, by eating or being eaten).