FALMOUTH – A man and a dog stood together next to a rope swing in a blizzard on the side of Grews Pond in Goodwill Park. By all appearances, they had agreed to the same plan. Freya the dog waited.
Sam Botelho and Freya, the dog, make a plan.
It was just before sunset. And then Sam Botelho grabbed the rope swing and swung out over the frozen, snow-covered pond. The dog ran out after him and jumped up at him just as he reached the exact right height.
“She’s loving it,” said Botelho afterward, while standing on the pond and throwing a stick for Freya to fetch. “She’s got a lot of energy.”
Botelho, 57, of East Falmouth, is a carpenter who works on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is my relaxation,” he said. “I come here every day after I come off the boat It’s great, I love it. There’s nobody here. Well, except you.”
Despite our intrusion, we quickly decided that Botelho swinging on a rope swing over a frozen pond in a blizzard was perhaps the greatest display of optimism about a blizzard that we have ever seen.
Standing on the frozen pond watching was Botelho’s friend, Shelley Whitman. Her son, David, owns Freya, an 18-month old mastiff-rottweiler mix “I love the snow,” said Whitman “The way I feel, you can’t control the weather so you’ve just got to, you know, adapt.”
A man, a woman, a dog and a blizzard on a frozen pond. The dog, Freya, fetched a stick and jumped for snowballs.
This is Cape Cod in winter.
For more stories about animals, see Pets
For more photos from across Cape Cod, please see Scenic Cape
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