Sheep herding will not be pastoral or pretty for Red over the next month or so. Up where I  live, the price we pay for Spring is the boggy, smelly mess they call mud season. Animals are filthy, so are shoes and houses. On a farm, the mud mixes with manure and stinks up everything that is already wet and muddy. Snow melting off of roofs, on the saturated and frozen ground, mixes with rain to make an even bigger mess today.

Red is impervious to the weather, he does not seem to notice it. Enough of the snow has melted for him to resume his beloved outruns, but the sheep can’t really go anywhere in the snow-packed pasture. All Red can do is keep order and hone his skills, even as he sinks into the mud and is soaked by falling rain. Red is a constant, he does not change his focus or stance, surely not because of the weather. He will be a mud dog for awhile, a dirty and smelly dog. Just like us.