Bracing for Winter

Fabulous Fall!

Minnesotans (including Gracie and I) have been enjoying a protracted and unusually beautiful autumn.  We've seen frost on the grass only one morning so far.  Leaves have fallen, but the trees are still not completely bare despite more than a few extremely windy days.  I have been noticing that even the red oaks--often just a dried out brown around here in the fall--are a deep, rich red this year.  I love fall and wish it would last forever, particularly colorful ones like this with little rain, warm days, crisp nights.  Unfortunately, winter will come.  It could come any day now and come suddenly without warning.  Precedents exist for this.  Watching the activity in our neighborhood like the neighbor with the leaf blower (could it be a new one?) who seems to sit at his window waiting for a leaf to drop so he can dash out, gas up, and blow the thing into our yard or into the gutter along the street in front of our house attests to this as clearly as the squirrels madly burying nuts does.  Actually, the longer the weather stays this nice, the more frantic the activity of that neighbor...and the squirrels.  Though I wish he would pick up his leaves rather than sending them over for us to pick-up, I agree with the sentiment that has him doing this.  We all want to be ready: leaves off the grass, garden put to bed, shovels (or in his case snow blower) out and ready to go.

Gracie says, "I'm ready.  Are you?"

This will be my first winter with Gracie.  Though she is probably not preparing for winter consciously, she is certainly doing so.  Her fur is thickening up and fluffing out.  As I brush her these days, I can't help but plan what I will do when she is wet and probably a bit muddy.  Wet dog is not my favorite perfume.  More than that, though, I worry about wet dog at school: wet foot prints, dripping belly, and that wet dog smell.  Students have not minded Gracie being with me in class.  I think they even enjoy the idea of it--so far, at least.  Will that tolerance wear thin when winter presents its inevitable challenges. though?  This winter, I will be able to continue keeping our dog supplies in the office I share with one other part-time instructor who is scheduled to be on campus the days we are not (a fortunate occurrence that luck alone can take credit for).  However, the true occupant of this office is returning at the end of Spring semester.  He is a full-time faculty member who has been on a protracted leave of absence that ends just in time for the summer session.  Gracie and I will be evicted then and undoubtedly sent to the huge, communal adjunct office where nothing of a "personal" nature can be left even overnight much less over the semester.  Thinking ahead about totting our dog supplies in an out daily has me thinking of how to accomplish this now, our first winter.  I imagine needing a towel and a dog brush and maybe even a hair dryer in addition to the water bowl, dog treats, poop bags, and chew toys that we have already filled a desk drawer and part of a book shelf with.

Trail behind Century College

The other challenging aspect to winter will be managing toileting breaks for Gracie.  So far, we have been able to go outside between classes and either take a short walk between entrances to the west campus building or a longer walk around the building or into the woods.  When it gets colder, I will need my coat (another thing to carry or wear to class and then stow while teaching) and will have to deal with Gracie getting wet again.  Short breaks will by necessity be longer and more involved once we have snow.  If we have anywhere near the amount of snow we had last winter, very involved!  Because of this, breaks will take more time, and that time is time away from office hours etc.  I am not looking forward to all this, but at least I know it's coming.  If anyone who has been there and done this--taken a service dog into a part-time teaching situation with all the temporary and volatile circumstances that this implies--has a tip, hot or otherwise, please do not hesitate to share it.  Having access to a clothes dryer while at school would be nice but is just not in the cards in any foreseeable future!  Oh, well.  We're plucky and will, as usual, find a way to manage.  After all, as recent research has concluded, we European Americans are only 4% Neanderthal, which is not enough to keep us peering out from our preferred cave until we become, as they did, extinct.  Instead, we will pull the retracting handle from our rolling briefcase and roll on.