As expected, rain during the night. It has stopped when I got out early with Charlie and Suzi and the Special One. He is at the door in his pajamas with his boots in his hand. He will not take no for an answer. It’s Saturday: he will go out into the yard. I get dressed, and my boots too. How gray the sky; and wet, all the trees and grass. Some wonderful mud. We walk wherever he wants. And, to the river, where the boots testy the squish of the muddy edge. We take our time. In the wetlands, some fragile, long-lasting ice must be explored and cracked. I listen to no podcasts. We talk. Learn new words. Make animal sounds. Throw sticks for Charlie. Taste some sticks to see what it is that Charlie likes so much about them. Sit on Frank’s tractor. Fall down into the mud a few times; get pretty wet. I show him how to stand under the wet evergreens and shake the branches for a drenching. Finally, inside for a warming bath and clean up. It was a perfect Saturday walk. Later, the rain picks up, the temperature drops, the wind chills. We go into the city for the afternoon and evening to celebrate my daughter’s birthday Monday. It’s a messy day to be out trying to have fun. Dinner out is lovely though. Leaving the restaurant, driving home, it’s all snow, and the roads grow white. She was born almost thirty years ago in Dunedin, Florida. Jokingly, I check the weather there. Still, she’s grown to be a New Englander all the way thorugh. The dogs dig into their late dinner without complaint. And outside, the wind picks up. Frank turns the clock in the kitchen forward an hour, and we go to bed.