Road Trip

I drove to Maryland with a friend last weekend to pick up her newly adopted puppy (who may or may not eventually be named "Sparky Malarkey"). She found him on petfinder.com and it was love at first sight. He is probably 11 weeks old and looks like a border collie mix. The story is that he was found as a stray in Kentucky and was driven to a small shelter in Maryland by a gentleman in a pickup truck who found him and couldn't locate an owner. Now of course he is in Virginia, so this little guy has already traveled more than most dogs ever will. He may also be the cutest puppy I have seen in the past year.

..

Barns

This image was taken on my way back from Maryland last weekend. The roads were clear, but (as you can see) there was still a lot of snow on the ground. I wish I had a barn like this, or even a much smaller one, on my farm. Doesn't every farm need a barn? I thought I read that somewhere. Rumor has it there was a barn at one time, but it fell down or was sold off or something like that. There is something that looks like an old building foundation behind and to the right of the farm house, so I imagine that was where it was located ---- but the area is now covered by small trees and brush. Sigh. Maybe one day I will figure out how (and where) to put a barn --- and then of course I'll need horses or other fun animals to live inside.

..

Snow and Ice

..

The storm appears to be over (at least until Tuesday) and the sun even came out a bit this afternoon, which was lovely. We still have a whole lot of snow on the ground in Richmond though --- and they got TONS of it up in the Maryland and DC area. Cold temperatures mean we will probably continue to have both snow and ice for the remainder of the week, although I am happy to report that roads have been easy-to-navigate so far. Also happy to report that tall rubber boots appear to have been the best investment I made in 2009!!

..

Snow Birds

Put out seed this morning and was visited by hundreds (maybe thousands) of birds, despite the rapidly falling snow. Blue jays and cardinals were well represented, but the vast majority of my visitors were grackles. Apparently a large group of grackles is called a "plague", which seems rather unpleasant. I think they need a better PR agency. I suppose a "plague" of grackles sounds better than a "murder" of crows, but not by much.
..

Happy Snow Day!!
....

Happy Snow Dogs

..

I probably now have enough pictures of my adorable dogs playing in the snow to last for ALL of 2010 and maybe longer. Couldn't resist posting a few more though. :-)

....

Snow Days in January

Pilot retreated to the front porch quite quickly while the other dogs played. In his defense, his 5" legs were no match for the 10" of snow.

I will add though that Gadget has the same 5" legs as Pilot, and she didn't seem to care one bit. She LOVED the snow, even when she seemed to be almost buried. :-)

..

..

There really has been some nice weather since the last time I posted, but you wouldn't know it from my blog. Once again, I will resolve to post more often during the year ahead. The snow is back in Virginia though and most of my dogs are thrilled. Yesterday the world was white, white, white --- and today the sun is shining and it really is gorgeous out there. Haven't tried to navigate my driveway yet, but I think I will wait until tomorrow for that. Fingers crossed. Note that both of my web cams (above right) are working perfectly --- so anyone who is interested can get a live view of the front driveway and agility field during daylight hours. Username is GUEST and password is WELCOME. Enjoy.

..

Note for observant visitors: the pictures on this post were accidentally loaded as thumbnail images this morning, so the quality was very bad. I have reposted with full-size images now, so they should be clearer.

..