Mint and Mushrooms

My backyard is AWESOME!!! When you walk out of the back door, you step down onto a large natural stone patio. The crevices of the patio have soft, lush moss growing between each stone. In addition to this moss, there is mint. Beautiful, green, fragrant, accidental (I’ll get to this in a moment), mint plants. Mint not only smells good, it tastes amazing!
Did you know, mint grows like wildfire???
Mom didn’t know either when she planted her adult beverage infusion in large pots around the patio, three years ago.
My favorite morning routine involves having a nice bowl of food, laying next to Scrappy while he finishes his breakfast (he never leaves me any, but I do get to lick the empty bowl), then returning outside to do what Mom calls “the weeding”. I will lie outside on those hot stones for hours, just to make sure every last mint weed has been removed from the crevices of the patio, and properly disposed of into my belly. Occasionally, I will also pick at the moss and whatever other little weeds might be in the mix if I get bored enough, but none of that compares to mint! My Gigi (that’s the older version of Mom) likes to say it’s good for my belly. I happen to agree with her.
At the end of our patio there is a low wall, Lola likes to climb up when I won’t leave her alone. Lola thinks it’s the perfect height for her and Mom to get in good snuggles early in the morning. The reality is, it’s just too early to be picked on and it’s an easy escape. Behind this wall are small, dense, yellow bushes lined all the way around the border. I have employed myself to make sure these bushes don’t get too big, or too dense. I like to chew them down to keep them well maintained. These same bushes also feel really good in your fur if you run close enough and fast enough along them.
Under the well maintained, yellow bushes is mulch. Fresh, black mulch that was put down one month before I got to call this place home. Mom said had I come sooner, she would have held off on the mulch this year. I go outside everyday and I get my yellow bush brushing, then I roll around in mulch. Mom says I am filthy when I am finished. She says the yellow leaves and the black mulch stick to my fur like glue. This usually results in a vigorous fluffing before I am allowed to come back inside. Pretty annoying if you ask me, I work really hard on this look.
But here’s the kicker, all of this isn’t even the best part. The best part is the little mushrooms that pop up in the in the mulch every single night. By morning these little suckers are perfect. There are so many mom can’t squash them all before I can get to at least a paw-ful. I race outside to do my business in the morning and while I am waiting for Scrappy and Lola, Mom and I are in a race to can see who can get the most mushrooms first. She doesn’t even eat them; she stomps them. What a waste of perfectly good, melt in your mouth mushrooms. Mushrooms that I am willing to consume.
I keep trying to tell Mom. You’ve got to enjoy the little things. The things that make you happy. Even if those things don’t make anyone else happy. Even if they get upset about it. It’s yours, and you get to have that thing, no matter how big or little, that makes you feel happy. The things that make your heart want to break out in song and dance. For me, those things are mint and mushrooms. For you it might look different – OK, it definitely looks different. But that, my friend, is the point! You get to have your happy too!