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snow

There’Snow Winter, like A Cold Winter …

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When everything is frozen.

We got hit with some CUH-RAZY weather the last couple of weeks, after an unusually mild winter.  I was feeling pretty pleased at not having to contend with anything exceptionally brutal my first winter in the stupid tin can, but Mother Nature showed us!  After nearly two weeks of below zero temperatures, both day and night, and days/nights on end of endless winds ranging from 50-90 KMs an hour, everything froze. And I do mean everything. The water was the first to go – the first day it froze, my drinking water hose committed suicide, and I was forced to  to go buy an ungodly expensive heated water line (still paying that off, actually).  I was apparently not the only one caught off guard, as it was the last one in stock.  By the time I got it hooked up, it was too late… the water lines in my trailer had frozen.  Then the underground waterline froze.  You have no idea how much water you go through every day until you’re using bottles you have to fill up at your neighbour’s place every other day.

You also have to be super cognizant of how much of that bottled water you’re emptying into your grey water tanks when they are frozen/frozen shut and you have no means of emptying them.  And speaking of emptying … black water tank frozen too.  Enough said.

The first night of the bad windstorms, two panels of my poultry shed blew right off the frame.  My poor, tropically-inclined Mexican stepdad had to come out and brave the tundra winds to fix the shed so my birds didn’t freeze.  We then stuffed the whole shed with straw up to their eyeballs in an effort to keep them warm.  Turns out bales of straw expand a LOT when you untie them, so the second bale of straw was somewhat superfluous.  We put up boards all around the underside of the trailer in a (as it turns out) wishful attempt to insulate the underneath and used the extra straw bale to close one of the gaps.  The gap that happened to be at the intake and outtake flow of the furnace.  Which, as it turns out, gets really, really hot.  And straw bales and heat aren’t super good friends, so it caught on fire.  Which is a cool thing to see happen when you have no running water.

Which makes you paranoid forever after about running the furnace, so you don’t turn it on at night.  So when your power goes out because of the wind, so does your space heater.  And when you get up in the morning and can see your breath in your living room, and you try to put your shoes on to take the dogs out only to find that your shoes are frozen to the floor, you realize that you pretty much hate everything that ever existed.

And then it snowed.

In some places there is no snow, and in others, the drifts are over 3 feet high.  The poor poultry exit their house every morning and stare at a wall of snow, which confuses and depresses them. Addy faces a similar wall of snow when I force her to go outside to pee, which confuses and depresses her.  Actually it doesn’t depress her, she’s irrepressible.  But she sure doesn’t like it.  I think I’m not going to like it when it melts.  I just hope it does it slowly, or we’re all gonna drown.

At least the snow managed to time itself around some important big commutes I had to make the last couple of weeks, and didn’t interfere with my ability to travel into The City.  Dexter and I have this job we do from time to time, where we go to casting calls for tv commercials and Dexter (and sometimes Maisie) spend the day interacting with actors auditioning for parts in which they would have to interact with a dog in the actual commercial.  This way the casting director can see if the actors are actually comfortable with dogs.  It’s actually a pretty fun way to spend a day or two – the dogs get a million pats and hugs and snuggles and cookies, and I get paid money.  And then sometimes the director likes my dog so much he gets a part in the commercial too, which is what happened to Dex, so last week we went and he “acted” and I “animal wrangled” him, for which I also get paid.  I didn’t ask if I was allowed to share what he’s in or doing, so I won’t, but if I ever happen to see the commercial once it airs, I will post it on the blog!  All I can say is that he got to do one of his favourite things ever, and he didn’t get yelled at to STOP THAT!! for it while he did it, so he was in heaven!

I wasn’t even sure he was going to be able to do the commercial for a minute there, because in the days in between, he suddenly LOST HIS MIND.  He was FRANTIC, couldn’t lay down for more than a few seconds; he’d spring to his feet and start racing around the ‘house’ and then stop and scratch frantically.  He’d leap up and race down the hallway to the bedroom and back, was scared of the dog beds, was falling asleep standing up in between bouts of being frantic and he did it ALL NIGHT LONG.  None of us got any sleep.  The next day, driving to our hike, he was exactly the same except he was seatbelted in the front seat and couldn’t go anywhere, so he thrashed around and kicked the dashboard and flung himself from side to side.  It was extremely unnerving.  When we got home that evening, I checked him over and discovered this terrible, awful rash across his shoulders and under his armpits.  I washed them, and slathered them in a cortisone spray, then put him on an old t-shirt so he couldn’t scratch and watched as he visibly calmed down and finally fell asleep.  I realized that the rash was in the exact place his seatbelt harness sits – he hasn’t worn it since, and it hasn’t happened again.  I don’t know why he is suddenly reacting to the harness he has been wearing forever, but I’m just glad he is back to normal.  “Normal” being a relative term, when it comes to Dexter.  Or any of my dogs, really.

The dogs don’t seem to care whether it’s snowy or not (Addy being the very notable exception – when it’s time to go potty, her thrusters engage and she goes into warp drive, flies down the stairs, skids into her snow-free spot in a 90 degree corner where the wind is at its weakest, and empties her bladder like someone turned the valves on a geyser, and is back in the trailer and in her sleepy sack before you can blink.  I’m actually surprised she can pee at all; she clenches so hard that she runs around basically on her front legs.

I don’t think Maisie has seen snow before, given her age, but it didn’t give her pause at all.  She was in it up to her eyeballs without a second of hesitation.  There was just one night when I let her out to pee and the gale force winds just blew her right back inside.  She eyeballed the doorway for a second, and decided she didn’t have to go that bad after all.  But other than that, it seems the snow is just one more thing for her to revel in.  She really is a lot of fun!

At our most recent casting call gig, I brought her out of the van to pee before bringing her inside, and a homeless guy lurched at her and tried to grab her (dude appeared outta nowhere!  He must have been a ninja) and that was it for her for the day – everyone was terrifying, she couldn’t relax in the building at all (everyone clumping down the hallway in their snowboots scared the bejesus out of her) and I realize that living out here in the sticks means she’s not socializing enough in unfamiliar locations.  She is super comfortable in the middle of a trial in the building, because I bring her there all the time for that purpose, but the Big City streets are something else altogether.  So something we need to work on.

The snow has now mostly frozen, so everyone is skipping lightly across it rather than plowing through it.

But periodically there is a soft spot under the crust and a dog disappears for a second.  Yesterday Maisie sliced up her carpal pad in the icesnow, so after playtime I wrapped it in cotton and then covered it in vet wrap to prevent her from bleeding all over my furniture.  The vet wrap is the kind that tastes bad when they try to chew it off, but there as an *itty bitty* piece of cotton sticking out from under it, which she made diligent efforts to remove by unraveling it … I would hear her chewing at it and look over the top of my computer screen and she would make eye contact with me, with a cotton string in her mouth … she’d slowly lower her head until her chin covered her whole bandaged foot, then she would blink at me innocently, like she hadn’t been doing anything.  She’s so funny.  And smart as a whip.  A few months ago, I was rating chips while watching a movie, and I noticed she had found a piece of paper that had fallen off my desk that I didn’t want her to destroy.  I was covered in dog, and didn’t want to get up, so I asked her to bring it to me and I traded her a potato chip for it and told her what a good girl she was.  The following evening I was in pretty much the same position (I’m a creature of ritual, what can I say?) so she ran around the place looking for paper, finally found a small piece of some kind of wrapper sticking out of the garbage, and she finagled it out of the can and brought it to me for another potato chip.  There were lots of toys and stuff she could have brought me, but she had decided that chips were only traded for paper products.  Brainy little thing!

The WooTWoo and the Seasons seem to believe that there is a veritable sea of small critters who exist in a hidden mouse city underneath the surface of the snow, because they spend all of our outside time hunting for small furry things while the rest of us play dumbball.  I think this is because about three weeks ago Winter found ONE mouse in a dirt pile and since then, it’s Good Hunting for everyone who enjoys that sort of thing.  It seems to exhaust them as much as playing ball, so whatever floats their collective boat.

Us:

 

Them

Winter seems to have recovered as much as he’s ever going to.  His hind end is still a little weird, and he’s still a little weak on the left.  He can’t Be People anymore unless he’s holding onto something, like my leg.  But he comes hiking and runs around like a crazy thing without issue.  The deep snow gives him a little bit of trouble because the surface is unpredictable and one afternoon he started crying a little bit, made his way over to me, shoved Addy off my knees and tried to climb into my lap, which was our cue to cut our playtime short.  But he’s been fine since then, so probably he just tweaked something in the snow.  I have to wonder if he had an FCE, like Piper did, given the lack of pain and the continued weakness on the one side.

Even though snow makes my life difficult for a bit, I’m always excited at first for snow photos.

But now I’m tired of snow photos.  My knees get wet when I kneel down and I’m too lazy to dig out my waterproof pants every time we go outside.  I am counting down days to spring, when things bloom and the entire world isn’t either just white and/or or grey and brown.  But first I imagine everything will turn to approximately 3 feet of mud thanks to the snow drifts.

In the meantime, I will have to amuse myself with having the WooTWoo DNA tested!  I was contacted by a reader who works for a science project that offers, among other things, DNA testing.  In exchange for some behavioural studies I entered them in, the lab is going to try and figure out what they are, and if they are related.  So exciting.

What could they beee no-ow?

I’ve had their swab kits here for a bit, but have not had the motivation to do them and send them back, because honestly, right now I’ve just been sort of … struggling a little bit to get through every day.  I’ve been super stressed about money (I need to borrow $400, if anyone can lend me $400.  LEND), bummed out because I feel overall crappy about my life, bored because photo sessions this time of year are not abundant, and I lack a creative outlet, and definitely cabin fever because for nearly two weeks we were mostly stuck inside as it was frostbite-risk weather, with no water and just general all around suckiness.

Although this puppy photo session was a bright spot in my otherwise dreary life!  Her name is Friday and she is super itty bitty; in this photo she is 11 weeks and a whole 9lbs.  SUB ADDY in weight!  I have the Puppy Envies!

Now that’s cute!

Not doing a very good job of blogging more often in 2019 (Another new year’s resolution shot to hell) but I’m going to keep trying.  Promise.

 

Snow Day Part II

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After we played in the snow yesterday, it continued to dump snow all night long and we had about a foot of snow when we got up this morning.  But it stopped snowing and the sun came out so it was clear and bright and shiny and that means it is of course going to rain and ruin everything.  So we made time for Snow Photos The Second, since we are unlikely to get snow again, plus it will probably just pee rain until, like, June.

Since my suggestion of a second snow photos post received an enthusiastic YES from y’all, here you go.  This time I made sure I got shots of every dog so nobody is left out.  We’ll showcase them alphabetically, just for fun.

 

ADDY has a look of grim determination on her face.  Is it because she’s trying to break through snow that’s almost as tall as she is?  Is it because The Food Lady forgot to put a sweater on her before we went out and she’s freezing to death?  Is she being pursued by bear?

No.  I offered her a cookie, and she is coming to get it as fast as she possibly can.  It’s serious business, cookies.

 

DEXTER cannot apparently have a photo taken of him where his tongue is not lolling out of his mouth as though he were a halfwit (*whistles innocently*).

… unless you shove something in his mouth, so I did.

(Peetie ruined the Wootie Toy (surprise surprise) but it still flies straight!  It’s a good toy, we’ll have to get another)

 

Retrieving this toy is FAE‘s version of tap dancing for attention.  When she gets it, she does the zoomies with it and flings it around to be sure I have noticed what a Good Retrieving Girl Who Needs A Cookie Or Ten she is before bringing it back.

There are these “sticks” sticking up all over the property.  They are the remnants of some dead plants and they plague me.  They ruin more shots than I care to count, by virtue of being in the way.  I edit them out when I can, but sometimes it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.  In this shot, however, there were only two “sticks.”  Just two in a vast stickless atmosphere, and MINI MAMA chose to run right between those two sticks.  But hey, it worked, and it’s a good photo!

PEETIE has started picking fights with my other dogs.  I don’t know why.  This morning she decided to kick seven kinds of shit out of Winter, and he wasn’t even interacting with her – he was playing with me at the time, and this apparently offended her.  It’s not the first time she’s done it and it’s not just Winter; she has also tried to kick the crap out of Spring for no really good reason.  AND she knocked Piper ass over teakettle when she did it.  AND she tried to bite me when I hauled her ass out of that scrap.  I cannot have this in my household/life … Peetie is going to meet a person this week who is thinking of taking her home.  This was a tough decision for me, but I cannot risk her hurting one of my other dogs and for the life of me I cannot figure out why she has taken up this new hobby now, two years into her life with us.  If the woman does adopt her, Peetie will be moving to Belize.  So not only has she driven me crazy for the last two years, and started beating up my other dogs, and making me feel like a monster for rehoming her, she is also going to have a much cooler life than I do.  THANKS, PEETIE.

PIPER is doing much better on the steroids than off, so we are leaving her on them.  Notice she doesn’t need to wear her harness anymore because I don’t need to haul her to her feet or help her walk!  She can get along just fine on her own, even if her gait is a bit weird, as her right hind leg doesn’t work super well.  And she can’t wag her tail anymore (?).  And she gets stuck in a left-turning loop sometimes if I am out of eyesight, but less and less often as the days go by.  And when she goes outside to potty she gets a bit confused and I have to put on my shoes and a coat to go retrieve her.  But all in all, she’s holding it together pretty well, and I am very happy about that.

 

SILLY needs no explanation.  Really.

 

SPRINGalingaling, while initially pretty traumatized by spontaneously having her ass handed to her by Peetie for no reason, has bounced back and is her very happy self.  After all, when she is outside she gets to hunt all the bunnies, real and imagined, that she wants, and inside she gets to share my tv watching chair with me under the heated blanket.  Not a bad life!  And I love that provides me with “Look ma! No feet!” photos like this.

 

TWOOIE is becoming lazier by the measurable second.  I cannot believe how expertly this dog can conserve energy (and thus body fat.  No diet in the world will slim this chunk-o down).  The ONLY thing that can motivate him to run is a bunny.  Otherwise he spends the entire time we are outside laying down and pretending he’s scanning the property (but his eyes are usually closed) or dogging my heels making his snapping-turtle face for cookies.  Deep snow makes him even lazier, if that’s possible.  Cold be damned, he’s going to sit his ass down in one place and stay there until he can get back to the sofa.

 

Poor WINTER who this morning just wanted to play the “Don’t steal my apple!” game with me this morning (I have told you, haven’t I, how every morning he sneaks over to the landlord’s side of the property and steals a single apple from the goats?  My landlord says he’ll be drinking coffee and see the goats startle, look out the window and then says “Oh it’s just Winter getting an apple.”  He kills me).  When he (Winter, not landlord) brings the apple back, I start stalking him and telling him I’m going to steal his apple and he growls at me and gets all hunchy over his prized fruit and then runs away with it so I will chase him.  It’s a very innocent game that delights him, so it was super mean of stupid Peetie to attack him mid-game.  And hard for Winter to fight back with an apple in his mouth.  Winter also is built like a tank and cannot get Spring’s air, but he tries his best, my brave little weird soldier.

 

And last, but never least, we have WOOTIE.  So distinguished, so photogenic, so full of poise and suaveness.

Oh FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, Wootie!!

 

In other news, if you happen to have a spare washing machine, can I have it?  Mine died last week and there is a frightening, mounting pile of dog laundry in my kitchen.  It smells bad, and pretty soon it’s going to all have to go live on the porch, which will make me more white trash than I am keen on experiencing.  I keep trying to buy a cheap one off craigslist but these things get snapped up like a hot damn, as fast as they are posted!  And given how the liquid-iron-I-mean-water here kills appliances, I am not keen on spending a lot on a brand new one.  If you have a line on a cheap washing machine I can get my hands on, hit me up!

 

Dashing Through The Snow …

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This is the kind of snow I like!  Sure it’s cold and stuff, but it snowed one big-enough dump to make the world fluffy and pretty, but the roads remain clear and driveable.  My landlord plowed my driveway so I can get up and down it, and the dogs have fun in it*, but it has not trapped me on my property.  All good things!

(*Addy doesn’t have quite as much fun in it.  Yesterday I took everyone out and she complained mightily that despite a sweater AND a winter coat, it was intolerably cold and she was miserable.  So I put her back in the house with a chewy which made her happy for a while, but then she decided that everyone was having fun without her and she was intolerably lonely, so she yapped and howled her little head off until I went inside, redressed her and brought her back outside.  Lather, rinse and repeat.  I love my little fair-weather diva, even if she does turn her nose up at warm clothing, and then turns into a ridgeback when she goes without it.  I have no idea how she manages this with no hair!)


I bought her an adorable little turtleneck sweater at the feed store, because it was only $10 and because it was long enough to cover her bum and the neck flips up to cover her throat. I thought she would appreciate the warmth.  Instead I just walked past the bedroom and found her naked under my covers (heated blanket is still on!) and her turtleneck in a tiny heap on the floor.  I don’t know why she is so allergic to clothes.

But she is not allergic to COOKIES, which is convenient for me, because I did a fun little session with my doggies where I put one in a sit stay and then threw a cookie at them so I could capture the moment before and during the leap for the cookie.


There were a lot of photobombs until everyone figured out they’d each get a turn.  But some of them turned out awesome!

I like this one of Wootie; I even caught his curly orange locks in motion just as he was preparing to “leap.” His actual leap was more of a faceplant, but the pre-leap was pretty adorable!

I didn’t get any of his brother, because he would sit and watch the cookie land, then haul his fat arse out of the snow and saunter over to consume it as his leisure.  TWooie does not believe in wasting perfectly good energy.

Winter was adorably frantic.  The one uppy ear is his anxiety tell.   WHATIFTHECOOKIEDISAPPEARSOHMYGODOHMYGODWHEREDIDITGO?WHYWOULDYOUTHROWACOOKIEAWAY???

And then the mad scramble to get the cookie before the snowmonsters gobbled it up.

Springaling looks like a fox pouncing on a hare in a nature documentary.
(Yes her nails are recently trimmed.  No, after all these years, I can’t get them any shorter than this!  She has the world’s longest quicks)

Fae won the whole day though.  As if her obsessive tracking of the cookie’s arc through the air wasn’t adorable enough …

… the “Meercat” pose that preceded it was KILLER cute!

She may be a rotten, spoiled, hateful little beast, but man is she ever cute.  I went to my parents’ for Christmas dinner and when I came back home, Fae practically turned herself inside out with glee.  She kept trying to scale my body to get at my face so she could lick it, but when I picked her up she was so excited she would thrash around and hurl herself to the floor.  I was afraid we were going to end up in the Animal ER if she kept that up, so I eventually just sat on the floor so she could reach my face.  Unfortunately, I sat in Piper pee, because old dogs and continence aren’t always super good pals.  Merry Christmas to me!

Speaking of cute … a friend of mine is fostering 7 border collie X whippet puppies and asked if I could get some photos of them.  So brought the entire pile of the little suckers over on the weekend and I got to indulge in some serious puppy lovin’s!

Look at these impish little faces!  Also, look how lovely my landlord’s chicken barn door is for photos!

Also, look how they mob poor Addypants!

Addy’s not stupid though … she indulged in her favourite activity for a while (puppy humping – she channels Puppy Uncle Tweed sometimes) and then her second favourite activity, which is running away from puppies who cannot catch her speedy little self, and then she’d had enough of being mauled by puppies and she led them straight into a pack of Terrifying Turkeys which stopped them in their tracks so she could make her escape.

Our goal was to get individual shots of them and composite them altogether for a group photo.  I wish I had photographed them inside, because it was a bright sunny late afternoon and the sun and shadows change so quickly while wrangling recalcitrant 8 week old puppies that it didn’t turn out awesome, technically.  There is just no consistent shade on the property for this kind of shot at that time of day.  Not my best work, but still really flippin’ cute.

ALSO super cute … Mini Momz!  Why on earth has she not been adopted yet?  She is such a wonderful little dog.  When I woke up this morning she was spooning me, with her head sharing my pillow and her body under the covers with me.  She is SO MUCH LOVEBUG.  She can also convince ANYONE to play – even TWooie!  Even FAE, who has finally caved to her charms and has a good wrassle with her every afternoon.  I just don’t understand how everybody could not want her.  If I could, I would just keep her all for myself.


This guy is pretty cute too, although I am a little tired of virtually every photo I take of him being this Crazy Face.  He used to be such a charming poser when he was a pup … now in his middle age he is like that crazy uncle that makes rabbit ears with his fingers in every family photo.

Although he mostly behaved himself for our group Christmas photo.

And here’s Peetie.  I still have nothing good to say about Peetie.  The passing months don’t make her any less annoying, and there were no Christmas miracles that turned her into a pleasant-to-live-with dog.  At least she is consistent.

Now Christmas is over.  Living alone sometimes sucks because I didn’t get anything for Christmas as my dogs are lazy freeloaders without any spending money.  Got a little tired of seeing all the fabulous cameras and lenses and gear that people in my photo groups got from their families for Christmas, so now I’m staying away from facebook for a bit until I get over my snit about it.  Because inside me there is a 9 year old girl who really, really likes unwrapping presents.  What did you all get for Christmas this year?  I hope it was awesome!

Terrence got another pardon, so he thinks Christmas is fabulous :)

And *Poof* – Like Magic, It Was Gone

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The snow that is.  It got warm, started raining and overnight, inches and inches of snow has vanished, like it was never here.

(This post would be more effective if I had photos taken after the snow melted, but it’s raining and I don’t wanna take my camera out there)

It’s hard to imagine that just a few days ago it still looked like this!

The only thing that has still not melted is my driveway, which remains not only an ice rink, but a wet EXTRA slippery ice rink.  Apparently the expression “it gets worse before it gets better” was invented specifically to describe trying to drive out of said extra slippery ice driveway, which was the silly thing I attempted yesterday before giving up, sliding backward into my spot and deciding I didn’t *really* need to go out after all.  I’m hopeful that another day of rain will make it navigable.

Addy is completely skeptical of the sudden change in weather.  She starts shivering before we go outside in anticipation of this:

And then is pleasantly surprised when there is no snow to be found and it’s a balmy 11 degrees.  But then is pissed off that everywhere in the grass that is springing back to life after being smooshed down for a month and a half, is a puddle lurking right at Addy-belly height.  It’s hard to be a tiny dog sometimes.

The other dogs don’t seem to care either way.  As long as they have a ball, the collies don’t care if it’s a monsoon, typhoon, hurricane or sandstorm.

It’s mine, you can’t have it.

These two just want cookies.

I would also like cookies pleaz kthnx.

… and nobody knows what this dog wants.

And this dog just wants to cosplay Snoopy.

(These two just kill me, the are SO FREAKIN’ ADORABLE!)

I actually miss the snow.  Despite complaining about it for like 6 weeks, I guess I had forgotten how much I hate mud.  I was spoiled by not having to wipe paws and bellies every time the dogs come in from outside for so long!

Stop wiping my feet, or I’ll kill you.

 If only the snow wasn’t so cold … and if my landlord would have sanded or plowed the driveway, the snow coulda just hung around until it was 25 degrees outside.

Also, I will miss taking photos like this:

I’m sorry I said that thing about my feet and murder.  Please love me.

(I taught Winter to stand up on his hind legs and turn his back to me rather than putting his paws on me when he wants cookies or pets, that way he doesn’t get reboundy terrier mud feet prints all over my clothes.  This is my view of that trick.)

Winter’s creepy!

You’re all creepy.

(says the turkey with a tiny penis on its forehead)

So Wootubers … I am looking to partner with other creative types to create some sellable items that combine my artistry and yours.  I partnered a few years ago with Claudine of Laughing Dingo Studios for a limited edition Woo print if you recall, and it was quite a hit and very successful.  I would like to do this again, or something similar, or work with an artist wherein we could combine our services for a fee – ie, I take the photos, client chooses a photo(s) to be turned into a painting, sculpture or similar, at a discounted rate for the client for combining the services.  It will build up both our portfolios while earning us both some dineros and also offer people a unique blend of services!  Are any of my Wootube friends interested in partnering for something like this?  Any Wootubers interested in purchasing such a service?  Food Lady needs to make some dog food money while building up her business (and thank you all for the many many shares, please feel free to keep sharing and recommending my business!).  I have a couple of interviews coming up for part time jobs to keep us all in kibble and potato chips in the meantime, but I have this funny catch-22 where if I am employed full time I can’t walk my clients’ dogs, but if I don’t walk dogs full time I can’t … you know, afford to live.  Got any other brilliant ideas for me?

Judgey Spring will judge you if you don’t!

Well, That Was Awkward

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Happy 2017!

I got stuck on a hill coming home from the grocery store today.  On New years Eve my party plans were ruined when it decided to dump another almost-foot of snow on us out here in the sticks.  Seriously – I live in a temperate rainforest FOR A REASON.  Why does it keep snowing?  So I got snowed in with the dogs.  After it snowed, rather than getting warm and washing the snow away as per usual, the temperature instead dropped.  Right now it claims to be 1 degree outside, but we have an arctic outflow that with windchill makes it like -10.  So all that snow FROZE and for reasons known only to city officials, snow plows and salters use our neighbourhood to go salt and plow other neighbourhoods, but do nothing to ours en route.  As such, the one road leading in and out to the main routes (and it has a big hilly dip in the middle of it) is basically inches and inches of solid ice.  I’ve been snowed/iced in since the 30th and desperately needed groceries so today I risked the road to go run errands.  I made it out onto the main route and was literally shaking by the time I got there, it was so harrowing.  But coming home was worse – as I turned onto our street from the main road, a car coming up the intersection couldn’t stop on the ice and plowed into another car driving down the main road.  I stopped to see if they needed help, but it was a low impact collision and everyone was cool (though annoyed AF, obviously).  I then made my treacherous way down the hilly dip but part way back up the other side I started to slide backward … and slide, and slide … thankfully there was nobody behind me and I eventually came to rest on the side of the road (but not IN the ditch, thankfully, as I was basically in someone’s driveway).

Some people get a shiny knight on a white horse to their rescue.  I got a farmer in a tractor from the farm two doors down from me.  He towed me over the crest of the hill and I inched my way the remaining two blocks home at 7 KM/H in first gear.  My teeth have finally stopped chattering and I have managed to scrub the frozen tears off my cheeks.  It was so scary.

I am going to miss my neighbourhood so very much, they are such good people here :(

The plus side of the snow is that the dogs really enjoy it* though they seem a bit mystified about where it keeps coming from.

(*Addy exempted from above statement)

Here’s Wootie enjoying the icesnow pack from the 30th:

And here’s Wootie wondering what the f*ck happened to the earth after the second dump on the 1st.

Here’s Spring levitating over the icy ground from before New Year’s (notice “greenery” clearly visible in background):

And here she is bounding through the snowdrifts on New Year’s Day (notice nothing visible in background except more snow):

Look!  You can see the ground!  You can also see a bad TWooie hunting on the neighbour’s property.

Now – nothing but Winter in the snow.

Speaking of Winter … this is the face of a dog in the midst of an existential crisis that only a man could experience.

Namely, Peetie is in season right now and has decided that Winter is her chosen mate. Winter The Giant Penis (interpret as you wish) is neutered, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking impure thoughts.  He does not like Peetie, as he finds her (as we all do) annoying and persistently pesty, but he is also a horndog – which means he growls at her when she butt-flirts with him and then he furiously humps her, and then he’s angry at both her and himself for what he’s done.  Wash, rinse and repeat several times a day.

I hate myself.  Moar sexy times pleaze.

His self loathing may come from two places;

1) Dexter was her Numero Uno choice.  Dexter obliged.  The naughty dogs started to tie, Peetie lost her nerve and started crying, Dexter ran away and is now terrified of Peetie.

HELP ME, I’M CONFUSED!

2) Peetie is a slut, and is flirting with everyone and everything that will engage her and if Winter won’t get it done, she figures someone else will.  I caught Wootie giving her sexy ears this morning and doing a little tap dance for her (which reaffirms my belief that Wootie is not, in fact, a dog, but rather a species of exotic bird).  But most amazingly, she has charmed TWooie into thinking he might have a shot at some sweet, ermm, lady bits.

I thought TWooie was asexual, so this has been entertaining.  He is practically doing cartwheels to get her attention.

Who am I becoming?

Meanwhile, this tiny dog (in her coyote vest for safety, and sweater for warmth) is enjoying the snow endlessly.

Because the snow has flattened a lot of the scrub on the property, visibility is a helluva lot better, so she is allowed to explore more places as I can see there are no carnivorous dangers lurking unseen behind bushes.

The other tiny dog is a miserable shivering collection of bone and skin and wishing she had never left sunny California for this freezing cold god awful climate.  She is not wearing her coyote vest because I can’t put her in my jacket when she’s wearing it, and she spends 99.981% of our walks in my coat.  She basically leave the comfort of my clothes long enough to poop (for which I am very grateful) . No amount of sweaters and body suits can keep her warm, poor thing.

This dog likes the snow so much that she goes out in it to “pee” late at night, then suddenly loses her hearing and refuses to hear me calling her to come back inside and I have to put on boots and a coat over my pajamas and go retrieve her.  Good thing I built a fence, or I might lose her forever!

I’m glad the dogs are having fun in said snow…

Because this weekend we are supposed to get another 25 cms of the freaking stuff (that’s 10 more inches to you Americans).  On top of the foot or so we already have.  That’s gonna be just FREAKING AWESOME.

NOT.

More snow?  Yay!

One year I bought snow tires for my van, and four weeks later somebody totaled my van, and it didn’t even snow that year.  It hasn’t seriously snowed since (just smatterings here and there that last for a day or two and then melt), and thus I haven’t gotten snow tires since.  I am deeply regretting not having them this year.  I’d pimp Peetie out for some!  This kind of weather is so unprecedented.

So far, absolutely nothing even close to resembling something affordable that is dog friendly has come up for rental possibilities, so I guess the silver lining is at least I’m not missing potential homes because I can’t get out to go see them?  (I’m reaching here).  The landlords’ realtor and the buyer’s realtor came up with a one-year lease rental option for all of us (landlord included) but when they approached the buyer, the buyer nixed it – doesn’t want any of us here.  So there is 100% no possibility of any of us staying past the end of February.  I’m trying not to panic.  Even though this place has caused me some serious grief over the years, I’m still going to miss my home a lot :(

I’ll be sad to leave it.  After all, it’s where I am going to bury Peetie’s body after I throttle her for pestering me to go outside to play in the icefridge world.

This photo is from December 12th.  That’s a long time for us to have snow!

Happy New Year, I guess.  (insert New Year’s equivalent of “bah Humbug” here)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

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This is the BEST time of the year!  As soon as it snows, you get to kick your puppy dog!

Before you get all up in arms, just look at them!  They love it!  They’re even lining up for their chance to get a boot in the face from The Food lady!

Whut?  Why you gotta kick a puppy dog?

I kid, I kid.  It’s not kick your puppy dog season, it’s kick snow at Piper season!

It’s Piper’s favouritest season of all.

Ohplease ohplease ohplease!!

Ok!

I have never known another dog to get so over-the-top excited about a toeful of snow to the schnoz.  She’s toe-tally a masnowchist (see what I did there?).  She loves it!

It was nice to get real snow for a change, and super nice of Weather to correspond it with my days off for once, so I didn’t have to *coughcough* get “sick” in the middle of the day to go home and play with them in it.  I mean rest on the sofa.

The dogs love the snow.

Except TinyDog, a California girl who was unimpressed with her circumstances.

Why?  WHY?  WHAT AND WHY???

Until she discovered she could EAT IT.

I want your snow too.

We spent all day yesterday alternating between editing the last Christmas Pictures session and playing in the white stuff.

Even TWooie!

We tried playing a little fetch in the snow, but a certain SOMEONE lost the ball.

When the game stalled, Piper assumed it was because the Food Lady had gone senile and forgotten what implement was needed for throwing the ball, and helpfully retrieved it for me.

But can’t get too upset with Miss Holly, for tomorrow she leaves for what we hope will be her forever home.

Sometimes I just stop and think how blessed I am.  Not everything goes right all the time, but I have a beautiful family and a beautiful life.

Even if Dexter IS batshit insane.

Chill out, Food Lady.

There are lots of things to blog about that I have not had time for the last while, and in the New Year I promise to come back refreshed and ready!  In the meantime, The Woofs and The WooTWoo (and me too!) wish you a Very Merry Christmas!