The S*** Word

I know, it' s an offensive, dirty word, but what can you do?  Snow happens.

I figure, as of right now, we've had the perfect amount of winter.

We had a really hard freeze with two cold, nasty days.

Just enough snow to give the Border Collie a bit of contrast...

so we could go out and take some pretty dog-in-the-snow pictures.

and show off the Autumn light in the Hemlock swamp.

That's enough winter for me.  I'm ready for Spring.

Everybody Needs a Pair of Muck Boots

It has been the craziest week for weather.  Thursday night started with snow, turned to sleet then torrential rain all night only to revert to snow Friday.  Today, we get blizzard conditions.

We went from squelching muck...

to squelching muck covered in snow and 60mph wind....

I took a short trip over to the next little village where there is a tire shop for farm vehicles.  You know you live in the country when the owner of said shop knows just what you want when you say you need an inner tube for a donkey's foot.

He led me out to a massive, truck-sized pile of dead inner tubes of every conceivable size, from tiny wheel barrow size to massive things that you could hide a large body in (you also know that it is a good thing we have made it to the solstice and the days are going to start getting longer when these are the kinds of analogies that spring to mind:).  I brought home several likely candidates and made Ramsey a muck boot...

I think it will work.  Lord knows the price was right, I could have hauled away as many dead inner tubes away as I could carry had I wanted to.  The tire shop was glad to be rid of them.  We didn't really get a chance to try it out because I couldn't convince either Emma or Ramsey (or the horses) to do more than poke their noses out of the barn.  

Instead, I gave them fresh, clean bedding  and a pile of straw to play with and keep warm in.  I also had to break down and put Emma's blanket on last night.  I was hoping to avoid blanketing her, but she was cold and is much happier now.   She is also oozing out of the blanket in every direction, I could barely get the front fastened and if it weren't for the tail flap, her hind end would be hanging out in the cold.  I guess she has really grown a lot since last winter, I am going to have to find a bigger size.  Maybe there will be some good after Christmas sales....

At least Tanner likes the snow (today is our 10th anniversary.  I brought him home as an 8 week old puppy ten years ago today) and the woods were pretty (just as long as you don't mind the occasional crashing limb, falling tree and the fear that you might not make it out un-squished)...

An Unpleasant Discovery

"YO, MA!"

"Yes Ramsey?"

"WHAT IS THIS NASTY STUFF???

"That, my dear Summer Baby, is snow."

"IT'S COLD, AWFUL, ICKY, GROSS AND IT'S MESSING WITH MY LUNCH!!  HOW DO WE GET RID OF IT?"

"Ohhhh if only I knew the answer to that question.  I hate to tell you this baby, but this is just the beginning.  It's gonna get worse.  Much, much worse."

"WORSE THAN THIS?!  WHAT WILL WE DO???"

"Do like I told you kid, keep your tail tucked tight and your ears down.  When that fails, stay in the barn and demand room service."

"AH JEEZ.  THIS DOESN'T SOUND GOOD AT ALL.  YA KNOW, i THINK i REALLY NEED TO  JUST GO BITE SOMETHING."  WHEW, AT LEAST THE TREES ARE STILL EDIBLE.... 

Woods in Winter

The weather here lately has been bad, very bad, and that's the kindest thing I can say about it.  All of the equines are staying huddled in the barn out of the wind and off of the ice that is covering everything.  I tried to get some pictures of Emma this afternoon, but the light was bad in the barn and I didn't want her getting cold, so I gave up, put all her blankets back on and left to put more wood on the fire.  You wouldn't really have wanted to see any of the pictures I tried to take today, they'd have made you cold just looking at them.  I did take some photos last weekend which, while intensely cold, are a little less bleak.  Since we are all hunkered down, waiting for the weather to break and not doing anything fun or interesting, I thought I would share some of them with you.  These were mostly taken a day after a snow storm.  The sky was intensely blue but very cold and the woods had the feel that we had just stepped through the back of the wardrobe....

Tanner's Wintertime Toy

Tanner loves ice.  When he was a puppy and started teething, ice cubes just about saved my sanity.  He would wake, crying in the middle of the night and nothing I did would make him happier until he could go out and eat snow.  This got old very quickly and in a fit of sleep deprived inspiration, I gave him some ice cubes.  After that, every time his teeth started bothering him, I would go down and get him a bowl of ice cubes.  He would happily crunch them up and when he was finished, we could both go back to sleep.  He outgrew the teething but not the love of ice cubes.  Now that the cold weather is here, Tanner is having fun with one of his favorite winter toys - frozen puddles.   

First snow

We had our first real snow here last night.  We have been enjoying unseasonably nice weather the last few weeks and really, I wish it would stay that way all year.  I hate snow.  The snow we had last night was just about enough.  After all, it's obvious that it did snow.  It just didn't amount to much and it won't last long if we don't get anymore.  It's that "if" that's the problem.  It is only wishful thinking on my part that we won't get more, lots more, of the stuff.   Last year we had so much snow and then more and more on top of that......well lets not talk about that, I haven't fully recovered from the trauma of it.

This snow is about what snow ought to be; fairly innocuous, not deep, picturesque and followed  by a nice, calm, sunny day (where lots of it melts).  I went out and did what everybody does, I tried to take pictures of the pretty snow trees (what else would you do with a tree covered in snow?).  Tanner does enjoy the snow just as long as it isn't too deep.  Actually, he loves snow, even the deep stuff, but he gets bogged down in it and struggling through it makes him very lame. 

Tessa also likes snow but, Emma, I think she is on my side.  She would have been so small last winter that not even her ears would have cleared the drifts.  I am guessing that she doesn't have fond memories of last years trauma  er, um winter either.  She spent all afternoon wandering around rather dejectedly, looking for bits of grass.  They did both came over to pose for some photos (although Emma just wanted to go somewhere warmer and if that wasn't going to happen would I, "please just get the white stuff off the pasture".  She is a desert animal after all) 

"HOW long until Spring?????"