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…of SNOW! and turning it into fun snow photos!

Clearly the dogs are loving it.

On Wednesday it was still really quite cold, so we only went out for a little while lest we lose doggie feets to frostbite. But not Addy’s feet, because I bought her some booties. I think she might have preferred to have lost her feet. tbh. Not a fan of booties, as it turns out.

Fae was concerned that there was something neurological wrong with her sister, because Addy was walking like she was drunk.

When she walked at all. Which was a rare event in and of itself. I also got boots for Christmas, and I was quite happy to have waterproof, warm fuzzy footwear. One of the many ways in which my skinny friend and I differ.

The rest of us played a little bit of frisbee to run off some of the pent up energies that had built up, what with us being stuck indoors in the space the size of a large bathroom for several days. It was as low as -23, which is just too cold. One of the reasons I live here is that temperatures like -23 AREN’T A THING. Everything froze. I filled my fresh water holding tank this year, thinking I would outsmart the water lines that always freeze, and that f*cking thing also froze. I have officially given up and can now do nothing but wait for everything to thaw. Just in time for me to return to work. Worst. Christmas Vacation. Ever.

As usual, the Terror Twins were hunting for snowmices, but even their relentless determination waned as they found their own spit freezing to their faces as they explored the snowbanks.

Winter decided he would rather play some frisbee too. The problem is, Winter doesn’t want to chase the frisbee so much as he just wants to HAVE the frisbee, and not let anyone else have it.

This is not cool with Maisie, who both doesn’t want anyone else to have the frisbee AND wants it to keep flying through the air so she can go get it again. But as Winter was determined to have the frisbee and NOT let it keep flying, we had a canine stand-off in the making.

Battle Frisbee was about to go down.

Apparently Winter is scarier than Maisie, in the grand scheme of things, so he ended up with the frisbee. And then he decided the best way to forestall another Frisbee Battle was to just EAT THE DAMN THING so nobody could have it at all.

Dexter just could not believe the nerve.

Because I have warm, fuzzy waterproof winter booties (pay attention Addy) I marched over and removed the frisbee from Winter’s murderous jaws, and he decided he would go back to hunting snowmices with his sister.

Phew.

VICTORY IS …errr, hers.

Shortly after that, dogs started looking like this:

i.e – COLD. So we filed back indoors (after I used the handle of some branch trimmers to break up the ice that had formed on the door and prevented it from opening).

Oh but winter (weather, not dog) was not done with us yet! Overnight it snowed like fury and we got a fresh new 8″+ of the powdery stuff to play in. It warmed up to a positively balmy -3C and even Addy didn’t need her booties this time.

I mean, not that she liked it any better, but at least she walked,

Warm-ish lots of snow is apparently better than freezing cold not much snow, according to my dogs. Also according to me, as it’s a lot more fun to take photos when I can feel my fingers.

Okay so Wootie doesn’t look so thrilled, but he was jogging around all over the place, so I think he was having some fun.

No frisbee this time, as it would have just disappeared into a snowbank, never to be seen again, but the always innovative Maisie dig up this wrecked Jolly Ball from under the deck and brought it with us into the field.

But not everybody wanted to play with a frozen Jolly Ball bigger than their whole body, and so somedogs just stood around in chin-high snow looking mildly traumatized slash murderous.

So I took the ball away and told them it was time to just run around like actual dogs. And as Maisie is uncapable of not doing SOMETHING, she turned once again to one of her top three favourite activities – tormenting her brother Winter.

And she was happy about it.

Until Winter wasn’t.

DEATH TO MAISIES!

I should really intervene … but it makes for funny photos, so I don’t.

You’re welcome

As much as I hate living like this, in this thing, the views out here can be quite lovely, even this time of year.

Bald Eagles live in this copse of pines in the neighbours’ field – when you’re outside, you can hear them calling to one another (until the Littles start barking back at them).

It’s so much fun after a fresh snowfall.

ADDY BEGS TO DIFFER

Still not 100% sure what Wootie thinks. I was worried he would be cold without his thick layer of locks, but as he’s not a skeletor like this brother Dexter, who lays around in the snow shivering, he seems pretty confortable.

We had a good hard play until everyone was tired and then they all napped for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

And now the novelty of the snow has worn off and I want it all to go away. Except it’s going to DO IT AGAIN TOMORROW.

Can we come live with one of you in a warm place?

This is the unimpressed face of a lady turkey who has stepped outside for the first time in several days, only to be greeted by a blanket of snow and freezing cold temperature. She looks how I feel.

This afternoon it’s -11C – “feels like” -18C. This is positively balmy compared to last night when it was -26C. We just don’t get that cold here ever, so we’re all a bit disgruntled. Mostly me, because this is my annual vacation (between Christmas and New Years) and I can’t even go outside or parts of me will freeze and fall off. The dogs are also disgruntled, because they don’t like being cooped up inside in each other’s business for long periods and are getting kinda grouchy with one another. Except Addy, who is 100% content to stay inside and cried and howled when I made her come outside this morning to pee while I fed the poultry (who are also disgruntled. I see a trend).

But at least the 70KPH winds have stopped. That wind is KILLER. It was shaking the whole tin can last night and the snow drifts are epic! So this afternoon while it was sunny and not windy, I bundled up and took the camera and the dogs out for a whopping 25 minutes of running around. My fingers were really, really cold but we could have stayed out a bit longer, except I noticed quite a bit of paw lifting and Fae just flat out rolled on her back and refused to go any further.

Addy stayed inside.

Amazingly, Mr. Woo was unperturbed by the snow and cold. Must be the malamute in him. Alarmingly, he is the EXACT SAME COLOURS as the field – yellowish covered in white. As he is mostly deaf, I lost him like 4 times on the horizon. But he was quite happily wandering around as though it were a warm Spring day. He didn’t even want his sweater.

Spring, OTOH, in her advancing years, says it’s quite cold out and she doesn’t appreciate being asked to go out in winterpublic nekkid. So I put Mr. Woo’s sweater on her. As Wootie is kind of, erm, *portly* and Spring is not, it’s a bit big for her and it caused her some grief.

But once we got it sorted out, the sweater business did not stop her from hunting the mices that was pretty sure she was hearing under the snow.

This is how we do it baby (if you don’t immediately have an earworm right now, you’re too young for this blog!)

Maisie also ended up face first in a couple of snow banks, hunting for her manky old toy that she either brought from home or found out in the field.

In typical Maisie fashion, one of her face first leaps was a little too enthusiastic, she displaced a lot of snow, and somewhere in the process, buried her manky old toy. We have yet to locate it. I’m pretty sure she blames me.

Once the toy had vanished, Maisie turned to her second favourite pastime, which is tormenting Winter by chasing him all over the place and shriekbarking in his ear. He Does Not Enjoy It, which just seems to make Maisie enjoy it that much more.

And Dexter … well, he just creeped around being super good looking.

Poor guy – the itchies are back with a vengeance, and the Apoquel is no longer making a difference at all. He hasn’t started the Desmopressin yet just because of some timing where I have to get a urine sample at the same time every day for several days to see if its working and with Christmas and clinic closures haven’t had a stretch of time to do that yet. But he’s not frantically peeing anymore regardless.

And this is Fae right before she rolled on her back and waved her four freezing cold white feet in the air to surrender.

I am hoping it warms up enough that we can go out and take some proper snow photos with risking our extremeties! I miss taking photos like this!

Woke up this morning to pouring rain and I had to turn the heat on. Yesterday Auntie Michelle and I took the dogs to Barrowtown and were sweating in our t-shirts. How?

I mean I even took off my socks and sneakers and pulled up my pant legs to get in the river and (impotently) attempt to scrub the fish stank off of SOMEDOGS who think that rolling in slimy dead fishes is more fun than anything else on earth.

*ahem*

As irritating as that was, a certain fish-smelly beast KNEW I was going to scrub him off and catching him was an exercise in futility, and was hilarious. He did salmony drive-bys at top speed while I lunged ineffectually this way and that way trying to catch him without getting too fishy in the process. I do love that at 11 years of age, he still plays a joyous game of keep away like a naughty (and slimy. and smelly) puppy.

He still kinda stinks though.

I gather it’s spawning time, and the river was literally rife with fishes. You could see them swimming all over the place. Because at heart I am a 12 year old boy, I spent some time trying to catch one with my hands (I failed). Because Auntie Michelle is a grown up, she rolled her eyes at me and remained on shore doing that thing with her knees that growns up do when trying to avoid letting a fish-stinky dog from leaning against their pants.

Maisie decided to pretend they simply did not exist.

La la la, not looking

Scary fish will not keep a dedicated ball dog out of the water though.

Kept a careful eye on them though, in case they were thinking of touching her, or maybe stealing her precious ball.

I’m actually a little offended by that “precious ball” tbh – all the money I spend on price Chuck It balls and she picked up this manky tennis ball on our walk and refused to play with anything else (this is another way she is like Tweeders; there is One Ball in the universe and it is the Only Ball that can be fetched). In general, tennis balls are my current nemesis; someone left one right outside the entrance gate before our last run at the trial last weekend, and when Miss Craisie espied it on her way in, she could think of nothing else. The run was a disaster! Someone had a case of the fuzzy green brain.

Now FaeFae aka Tiny Rage was going to take those fish on and teach them a lesson!

Just kidding. With Tiny Dog comes Tiny Brain and she was oblivious to all things Fish (except the dead one that she ate). She was actually chasing the waves left in the wake of a passing speedboat. Mysteriously, she finds waves extremely offensive. There’s a lot of ferocious barking and much chasing.

Peetie is too stupid to care about fish. Smart enough to know that stealing the Coveted Tennis Ball brings her a moment of petty glee though.

Wootie got in the water and was SHOCKED at the number of fish swimming around him.

SHOCKED I TELL YOU

You know, until he started thinking about how delicious they would be, maybe with a little lemon and some pepper.

He was pretty tired after our outing and fell asleep outside in the yard while I scrubbed stank out of the Seasons’ fur. He needed a little “help” going up the deck stairs afterward (by “help” I mean he wanted me not to touch him, but walk behind him just in case he fell over backward) and he had some trouble hoisting his back half off the dog bed when it was time for dinner, but I gave him some Tramadol and he was soon back to his old lumbering self.

I hope he lives forever, but he’s very old and I am very lucky that he can still do a two hour outing with us without it taking too much out of him.

Saw Addy once or twice.

She spent some time obsessed with a plant pot someone had discarded at the river’s edge and buried and unburied it several times. She spent some time running away so that I’d have to call her back and reward her (she has worked out THAT game quite thoroughly). But mostly she spent her time ignoring me, because she is an ungrateful little shit. She didn’t even listen to me long enough to stay for the obligatory family photo.

We are clearly out of practice. I think this is the worst one I have ever taken!

I kinda wish Twooie was still with us though. He would have caught one of those fishes!