Poomageddon.

It finally warmed up this weekend. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, but it has started to melt. It occurred to my lovely wife that it has been a while since we last went out back to pick up the end result of feeding our dog. Let’s just say it was overdue due to weather conditions. My orders were cut, my mission was clear, it was time to deploy.

Our dog is rather prolific, and when he does his business in the snow an interesting thermodynamic process takes place. When the hot poo hits the snow it disappears. The temperature difference between a hot turd and cold snow is such that it actually melts into the snow and creates a little crap cavern before freezing at a point just before it reaches the dirt underneath. The turd just lies there, like a little land mine. And like a land mine, it’s waiting for the right conditions. While buried deep in the snow it is essentially frozen and inert, but when the snow begins to thaw, the poo thaws first. It’s now armed and ready.

With a combination of deep snow, a long duration between cleanups, and the perfect temperature, there was a high potential for a true Poomageddon. I went out back with a dozen or so plastic shopping bags and followed my dog’s footprints, intent on finding and disarming these landmines. But our dog is clever. He left obvious and easily identified turds in plain sight as decoys. So when I stepped through the snow to disarm the decoy, I nailed the one hidden under the snow.

This did not just happen once.
When I started the backyard was covered with a white layer of virgin snow and meandering tracks of dog paw prints. After an half an hour of picking up bag after bag the yard looked like a battle field of detonated crap bombs. The debris field was immense. I tried wiping my shoes on the snow covered grass, but it just made things worse. Oh, and some of the bags from the grocery store had holes.

After a while I simply surrendered. It took another hour to clean up and dispose of the giant bag full of little bags. I swear the bag weighed as much as our dog. My shoes needed serious cleaning. All I could hope for is a good hard rain to rinse clean the field of battle.

I learned a lot during the Poomageddon of 2016. I also learned that snow is a remarkable turd refrigerator. It keeps things fresh for much longer than expected. I learned that a dog paw print in deep snow looks exactly like a thermo-genic turd mine. Most important of all I learned that it is much better to wage small battles on a frequent basis than wait. Oh, and I learned that my dog can somehow transmute minerals from the air and add it to food. That is the only way I can explain how he can make more output than input.

pf