It's Snow Time!

Winter has only just begun, yet we've had two snowstorms already. Like most dogs, my three love the snow. I don't know what it is about the cold flaky stuff that makes Lilah, Jasper and Tucker, well, flaky.

Dogs who normally can't stand getting wet (that's you, Jasper and Tucker) romp around in the snow like it's the Best Thing Ever. A Gift From the Sky. And you can Eat It, too! Just an inch of white on the ground and my dogs turn into goofy puppies.

And I love it. I turn in to a kid as well, watching my four-legged friends romp and jump and pounce and bound. Sometimes I just run around in the snow with them. And then we all come piling back in the warm house, happy and tired--and wet.

Eventually, it all melts. And we're back to plain hard frozen ground--or worse yet, nasty thick mud that sticks to dog paws like Velcro. Until the next snow storm blankets our yard and we get to go out and do it again.

The first storm of the season came in the fall--November 7. This year, The Weather Channel started naming winter storms, and this one was christened Athena.  I'm sure our Athena felt she finally got her due.

"Wait! What? A snowstorm named after me? Of course. As it should be."

Tucker, Lilah and Jasper run through the snow as the storm just gets started.

Too much snow on your back and you have to Floppity it off.

By nighttime, we had more than six inches. The heavy wet snow covered everything with a soft white blanket, including our patio.

And the snow kept falling...

The next morning, a walk through the woods revealed nature's beauty at every turn. The heavy snow bent branches and trees already stressed from Hurricane Sandy's wrath a little over a week before, creating a new landscape--and in some cases breaking limbs that couldn't bear the weight.

Morning sun shines through the trees after Snowstorm Athena.

The wind blew snow against one side of the trees, streaking them with white.

The jagged jumble of fallen limbs was softened by the covering of snow.

I wasn't the only one walking in the woods after the storm. A deer had come through earlier.

Heading back toward the gate and my home. Leaves were still on some of the trees.

The front yard offered up its own beauty.

And in the back yard, the dogs explored their territory..

The second storm, Snowstorm Freyr, came just a few days ago. It was colder, and the snow was dryer. Only three inches fell, but that was enough for doggy fun and games.

With snow still falling, the dogs are ready to romp.

Ooh! A sniff under the snow.  All Noses report to duty.

Once the dogs get started, they play in all combinations.

Three dogs chasing each other. (That's Jasper's head in the corner.)

Jasper and Lilah

Tucker and Lilah

Jasper and Tucker

Tucker and his Ball. Doesn't matter how frozen or snow covered it is, we eventually have to Play Ball.

There are a few quiet moments, usually with one dog sitting it out while two others run around. It's at those moments that I like to try and capture a few Snow Portraits.

Lilah, with a snowy snout. I love how the snow decorates her fur like fine sugar.

Jasper, always looking regal, even as his fur is coated with snow.

Tucker, showing off his Snow Beard, acquired from digging in drifts.

And every once in a while, I capture something that just makes me smile. In the picture below, it wasn't until after I enlarged it on my laptop that I saw Tucker reflected in Jasper's eye. Cool.

Through a dog's eye's: Tucker reflected in Jasper's eye.

All of our cats are indoor kitties, though it doesn't stop them from watching us and wishing they could join in the fun. Though I would hazard a guess that one step into cold wet snow would have them turning around in a whisker's instant and heading back into a warm dry house.

Calvin, Elsa Clair and a partly obscured Athena peer out the window at us.

Once we head inside, we all play the Treats for the Feets game, where each dog gets a treat for getting his or her feet wiped. This also involves toweling off and removing snow clumps from furry paws. Of course all this activity requires Supervision by at least one of the cats.
 

Tucker and Lilah waiting for their Feets to be dried. Elsa Clair Supervises.

What IS this stuff? Calvin ponders snow brought inside and shaken off the dogs' fur.

The Winter Games have just begun, and we're looking forward to the season.

Stormy Weather: Sandy Pays an Unwelcome Visit (Part I)

I think you would probably have to be living under a rock these days to not have heard about Hurricane Sandy or Superstorm Sandy or whatever you call the monster storm that hit the east coast of the U.S. in the last week of October. It was, the weather forecasters told us ahead of time, a recipe for disaster. Take one nasty hurricane, add a nor'easter, sprinkle in a cold front and stir with a backwards jet stream. Cook slowly with a full moon to create an ultra high tide. And hunker down.

(The last time we got hit by a hurricane was Irene in 2011; feel free to read my post on the battening and hunkering we had to do back then and the post about how we weathered the storm, which was only a little over a year ago.)

We knew it was going to be bad when Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel showed up in Battery Park in the lower tip of Manhattan. He only goes where they expect the worst weather to happen. Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel. Mike showed up on the Jersey coast. When you see them in your neighborhood, you know you're in for it.

So it wasn't too surprising that Sandy hit New York and New Jersey very hard.

During the storm, which began in earnest on Monday, October 29 and lasted through the next day, we spent most of the daytime in the basement. It was the first time the kittens were down there, so for them it was mostly fun and games and exploration.

How do kittens while away the time while in the basement? By playing Foosball. Of course.

The wind kicked up as the day went on, and by evening the wind really was howling. I would take the dogs outside to do their business and I kept looking up at the sky and wondering why jets were still flying--and so low that I could really heard their engines. And then it dawned on me. The sound wasn't from airplanes; it was the wind. That loud. Really.

The dogs weren't happy. It was loud and wet. And blowy. Not fun to play in. They kept looking at me as if to say, "Turn it off already!"

Jasper and Tucker: It's raining! We're getting wet! Let us in already!

Even when the rain let up a bit, Tucker and Jasper weren't that happy with the nasty winds.

 

A wet Lilah didn't mind wind or rain.

I always thought hurricanes meant lots of rain. But this was really a wind event. We would get bands of rain with serious downpours now and again, but it was the blowing, thrashing wind that showed Mother Nature's power to us.

Pine siskins attempted to shelter from the winds by clinging to the side of our large maple tree.

Strong winds shredded leaves from the trees and plastered them against the house. Jasper didn't care; he just wanted to get inside where it's warm and dry.

In the midst of it all, Athena slept right next to the windows as the wind rattles the panes. She barely twitched a whisker.

By nighttime, the winds were getting stronger. You could hear it even within the safety of our home.  The dogs and cats and kittens, for the most part, ignored the storm. You could tell Lilah wasn't very happy as she stuck a little closer to me when the winds were bad. And every once in a while, a gust came through that made everyone perk up their ears and brace for something. But nobody was panicking or hiding...except for maybe Dawn, but she Hides all the time; it's her hobby.

At 7:30, the power went out. I would say we are lucky enough to have a generator, but we have a generator because two years ago we were very unlucky; an ill-timed storm caused us to lose power, and our battery back-up sump pumps couldn't keep up with the rain. We lost a lot of what we had stored in our basement from the resulting flood. It took us months to pick up the pieces; the silver lining was we were able to put the insurance money toward finishing the basement, and most important, installing a generator that is hooked up to our natural gas line.

That last part is real important: the generator is hooked up to our natural gas line. Which means when the power goes out, the generator automatically starts up. And keeps going. We don't have to fill it with gas. All we have to is check the oil if it runs for more than five days. Which one always hopes never happens.

We invited our neighbor over to spend the evening with us, and we spent the evening with our generator providing light and warmth--and power to the pumps. At one point, a particularly vehement gust shook the house. We halted our conversation and looked at each other, wide-eyed. When we started breathing again--not realizing at first that we had been holding our breaths--I could feel the adrenaline pounding through me. We all did. It felt like we had been brushed by something unbelievably powerful.

Later that night, we put the cats and kittens in the basement, as it was one of the safest rooms in the house--and the one most likely to stay closed and untouched if a tree landed on our roof. And my husband and I slept (make that "attempted to sleep") in my son's vacant room, along with the dogs, figuring it was furthest from the giant tree in our backyard, and hopefully less likely to be damaged.

It was a Very Long Night.

In my next post, I'll write about the aftermath of Sandy.

Picture Perfect, Part II

Last week, I wrote about the challenges of taking a good picture of three dogs.  This week, I'll feature some of my successes.

If everything works out just perfect, I can create a really beautiful photo of my three beautiful pups.  And by "everything," I mean:

• The dogs are sitting down or lying down close to each other.
• Nobody is making goofy faces, sticking his tongue out, or licking her nose.
• The lighting is good.
• No weird backgrounds affect the composition.
• Everyone is actually looking at the camera, or at least looking somewhere together.
• The photographer (that would be me) manages to focus on the dogs and not shake.

Here are a few that actually worked:

When Tucker was still a puppy; he's smaller than Lilah in this picture.

In the shade garden.

On the sitting wall in the shade garden.

During fall clean up.

I swear this looks like the doggy version of an album cover for an indy rock band. Which one is the drummer, which the lead guitar and which the singer/songrwriter?

One of my absolute favorites. Even though they're not looking at the camera, I just love the color and composition of this one.

Sometimes the best pictures are the candids. This is one of the reasons I keep a camera at hand as much as possible. Then I can catch a moment.

One of the easiest of those moments happens nearly every morning. The four of us (Lilah, Jasper and Tucker) head out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Often the dogs stop at the top of the stairs and ponder their day before heading down. Usually I sit with them, but sometimes I go on ahead and they wait before joining me.

On this day, Athena stuck her head through the bannisters at the last second to see what was going on. Photobombed by a cat.

Another place to catch three dogs together is looking out a window. If one dog sees (or smells) Something and feels the need to Discuss it, all of them have to go Check It Out. And contribute to the Discussion. These pictures often wind up taken from behind, but sometimes the view of wagging tails says as much as happy faces.

Someone is coming to Visit. The Welcoming Committee awaits.

Looking out at the back yard. There was a Squirrel. Or maybe a Deer.

We also watch when people leave. And then we're a little sad.

I can also sometimes catch the dogs in action, though I rarely can get them all in focus.

They're all actually smiling!

And sometimes I catch them in inaction, resting after a strenuous Squirrel Hunt.

I couldn't have posed them like this if I wanted to; these just happen to be their favorite places to hang out and rest, though rarely at the same time.

Lilah, Tucker and Jasper share a (short) break between games of Chase and I Have the Stick and You Don't.

After an early morning walk, home looks extra welcoming.

Cover Up

I've shared my home with dogs nearly all my life.  I understand them. They make sense to me, I understand their motivations. They are readable, approachable.

Cats, on the other hand...well, after living with Athena and Dawn for two years, I've come to the conclusion that I will never understand them.

Because, simply put: Cats. Are. Weird.

Case in point: Athena

We feed the two kitties on a buffet in our kitchen. Because the site is just out of reach of dog noses, it ensures that there will be no territorial disputes between canines and felines over whose food is whose. And to protect the surface of said buffet from the bits and pieces of cat food that tend to fling outside the bowls, I put washable placemats underneath. (Who knew cats could be such sloppy eaters?)

Now Miss Athena has a very specific routine when she eats.

After she chows down on her Kitteh Noms, Athena finds a nearby spot to wash herself, while waiting for Dawn to finish. A more efficient eater than her sister, Athena always is done with her meal first. When Dawn walks away--thus giving the All Clear signal--Athena moves in for Bowl Inspection and Cleaning. This is all Normal Cat Behavior. I get it; it makes sense.

And then. (I'm not making this up.) Athena neatly folds the placemats over the empty bowls.

Take a look at the pictures below:

Athena grabs the placemat with her claws

And gently folds one side over the bowl.

Sometimes she'll fold the other side.

The end result

At first Athena wasn't incredibly neat or accurate.

This lovely creation was an interpretation involving the table runner.

And it's not just food that Athena covers. We used to gate the dogs in the dining room when we left the house, and of course provided them with water. Not wanting to ruin our nice hardwood floors, we put the water bowl on a placemat or towel. If we left the bowl there after letting the dogs out, Athena would perform her ritual on that as well.

Athena covering the water bowl.

And lest any reader think this is a one-time event, I present to you the following:

Bowl Inspection and Cleaning

First one side.

Sometimes the other side.

Neatly covered.

I suppose one could say Athena is "burying" the food. But it's so neat. And consistent. And doesn't account for covering a water bowl she doesn't even use. And it's an utterly pointless activity.

Like I said. Cats are weird. But I think that's one of the reasons they're so much fun to have around. And one of the reasons we love them.