When spring comes, there is countless poop.

Needless to say, Hokkaido is a snowy country. The fact that the prefecture name contains the character for "north" already makes it a snowy country. Every year when winter comes, snow falls, piles up, temperatures drop, breath turns white, and on extremely cold days, the back of your nose and your eyelashes freeze.

That is the Hokkaido where I live.

Today, in this article, I want to write a claim that would make someone living in a city where snow doesn't pile up say, "No way?", while someone living in a snowy country would say, "I seriously get it."

At the beginning, I wrote that Hokkaido is a snowy country, and when winter comes, snow falls and piles up. So, what happens when spring comes? When spring comes, the snow melts. As the temperature rises, the snow melts away. It is the law of nature.

I would like to ask you all a question.

What are things that make you feel spring?

Perhaps cherry blossoms, horsetails, butterbur sprouts, strong winds, what else is there? Things that make you feel spring.

What is it that people in snowy countries feel and think, "Ah, it's spring"?

The answer is "poop".

This is not a joke. It's for real. People in snowy countries feel spring in "poop". However, it's not the poop in your house. Where is this poop, you ask? It is poop dropped on the side of the road.

Yes, when spring comes, there is poop dropped on the side of the road. Let me explain what that means.

When spring comes, the snow melts. It's just about this time of year. The snow that had covered the ground for several months melts, and the concrete and soil are gradually exposed. Please take a look at the photo from yesterday.

On the left is snow, in the middle is a street tree, and on the right is the concrete of the sidewalk. In the middle of winter, the entire image would be pure white snow. To someone from a snowy country, this is something that makes them think, "Ah, this is a spring scene."

Like this, when spring comes, trash that was likely discarded in the snow piling up in the middle of winter often appears. Please take a look at the image below as well.

The snow melts and mixes with the soil, turning it black. Inside that, there are plastic bottles that someone must have discarded. I feel sad. In this beautiful city of Sapporo, someone discards trash with the mindset of, 'Oh well, it'll be hidden by the snow anyway.' But when spring comes, the trash is exposed.

I think you already know what I want to say.

The same thing happens with 'poop.' In Sapporo—no, in snowy regions—when spring arrives, the poop that was left on the streets during the dead of winter is exposed. Is this Paris during the French Revolution, covered in poop? I saw it yesterday, and I saw it today. I've seen thin poop, and I've seen extremely thick poop.

Instead of 'danger lurks around every corner,' it's 'poop lurks around every corner.'

This poop, of course, is not human. It is likely dog poop.

People walk their dogs in the dead of winter. In the summer, people feel hesitant to leave poop on the street, so they properly pick it up. But what about in the winter? I won't say all owners, but many people leave the 'poop' behind just like trash. That's because there is snow. You can hide poop in the snow.

From this, one conclusion can be drawn.

The fact is that dog owners think, 'If I could, I wouldn't want to pick up poop.' I understand the feeling because I used to live with a dog at my parents' house. If possible, you don't want to pick up poop.

Another conclusion.

The fact is that poop is tenacious. Snow is moisture. If you think that leaving poop in the snow will wash it away cleanly like a regular toilet, you are greatly mistaken. Poop remains through time. Come to think of it, there are even fossils of ancient dinosaur poop. It's space-time poop.

Poop in early spring, unique to snowy regions.

Personally, I find it strange, but before summer, there is no poop on the side of the road. All that poop that was left in the winter and was so tenacious in the spring. I'm not joking when I say poop lurks around every corner. Poop is dropped at intervals of a few meters.

Nevertheless, it disappears before summer.

Here, an inference can be made.

One, poop is weak against heat.
Two, there are people who are collecting the poop.

It has to be one or the other. Is poop sensitive to heat? That seems likely. I don't know why, but poop seems like it would be sensitive to heat. After all, it seems like it would melt in the heat. It seems like it would return to nature.

In midwinter, poop freezes. That's why it remains. There is no flaw in this logic. It seems like there should be research on what happens to poop when it is exposed to sunlight within a certain temperature range.

However, personally, I would like to support the latter.

In other words, the inference is that someone is collecting the poop. The poop that was there in such large quantities disappears completely. It doesn't make sense unless someone is collecting it.

In short, poop is creating jobs.

I think this is actually quite amazing. The providence of nature where everything is connected. People who don't live in snowy regions might say, "No way," but if people from snowy regions saw this, I think they would nod and say, "I totally get it."

Actually, I wanted to post a photo of a super thick poop, too. But I thought that was impossible, so I gave up. Well, I suspect this article has the highest number of "poop" appearances per article in history.

I'll end this article while thinking that it's spring.

[Related] It's poop after all