The dogs
Mud
The rescue. Found in a flooded November in 2020, and the soft-hearted counterweight to everything Dirt is.
Mud came along later — a rescue from a flooded November in 2020. Where Dirt herds, argues, and supervises, Mud mostly just shows up next to you and leans in. Different job, same shift.
Between the two of them they taught me more about patience, consistency, and showing up than any book or class ever could. Mud's specialty is the second half of that list.
You'll find him all through the stories — usually as the quiet one in the corner of the scene who turns out to have been the point all along.