Monday

Just in from toodling around on my snowshoes. The snow is about 20" deep in most places...it can leave any time now. Enough already. I somewhat pointlessly washed my car in town today. It was dirty again by the time I got home, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

We have moose tracks at the east end of our property. We saw a young moose yesterday on Horse Lake Road.

Today we took a long scenic drive behind Clinton. We went through some beautiful ranch land, and saw a brand new calf with his mom. I forgot the camera at home. Darn.

Cariboo Fences

A snake fence.

A Russell fence

Horses on Watch Lake Road

These guys are some of about 30 horses on winter pasture. I think they belong to Watch Lake Lodge. I stopped to say hello to them, and a few were friendly enough to come over for a pat.

Scenes from the Weekend

Bare gravel is showing...only where we've plowed and scraped...but it's a start. Inferior Roads has pushed all the snow from the roadsides off the shoulder and into the ditches as the snow begins to melt.

Rupert spent the afternoon hanging out with Buck today...he went straight into the big loafing shed and rolled in the shavings.

Another scene from the Big Bed.

We picked up forty more bales of hay from 70 Mile yesterday. The moose have been in Dennis's hay shed and torn many bales apart. We didn't get done in time to do the webcam thing to wish my big brother a happy 50th birthday, but we were thinking of you Dave!

I saw a beautiful fox near Green Lake today. His (her?) front end was red, and the back end was dark grey. He was chest deep in snow, making his way through a clearing. It was quite lovely.

Thursday...

I've been hard at work (of the paid variety) all week and haven't had time to update. Will put up a bunch of new pics over the weekend.

We've been summoned to 70 Mile House to pick up the rest of our hay on Saturday...apparently there are three moose who've been hanging around the hay barn!

It's been drippy and melty all day here. At work I made the mistake of taking a vacant parking spot next to a 10' high pile of snow...when I got out of work, it was ankle deep on the drivers side of the car. I had to get in the passenger side where it was only "soak your feet" deep.

All is well here...hope all is well with you.

Don't Believe What the Groundhog Tells You...and other assorted topics

My hopes of receding snow have been shattered over the past week. We've been getting a little new snow every day, and are now seeing a net gain instead of a net loss as I reported last week. Today the temperature has hovered around minus 7 all day, and it's a raw cold. Bleh.

We're going to try Lucy on anti-inflamatory analgesics for her arthritis. Besides having hip dysplasia, which we found out about last year when she had xrays before her knee ligament surgery, she has arthitis in her hocks and shoulders. She becomes distressed if we try to limit her activity by separating her from Gillis and Jasper, so we're going for maximum comfort and quality of life and allowing her to do whatever she's comfortable enough to do at the time. Once we get her more comfortable, we're going to look at a prescription diet to see if that helps. And thanks, Jan, for the Recovery SA suggestion...we'll try that too. Poor Lu, she was so stoic while Gord manipulated her joints and drew blood, but went neary hysterical when he was kind enough to clip her nails for me. What a ninny. Anyway, she's curled up on her nice new bed, having a snooze now.

Yesterday we took a drive to Sheridan Lake. I wonder why people who have vacation homes on lakes feel it necessary to put up cutesy signs at the end of their driveways announcing to the world who they are. Is it a prestige thing? We saw that the Burds had a sign "The Burds' Nest", and the Holmes had "Holmes away From Home" and when we saw the Leppers, I suggested to Mike that they could have been more creative and called their place "The Lepper Colony." It would probably keep unwanted visitors away.

We have seen three moose in the last week on Lone Butte - Horse Lake Road. That's the first we've seen since fall. I guess they're confident now that hunting season is long over.

Because Lucy tends to get sore and stiff, I ordered her a nice new deluxe supportive bed. It arrived on Wednesday, and it seems I should have looked more closely at the ordering size chart, as her bed would easily suffice for a small elephant. However, there's lots of room to share. The record so far is three critters at a time. Molly thinks it's pretty nice.

A great thing about blogging is that I can look back to what was going on at the same time last year and compare with the current year. And February 2007 is warmer and drippier than February 2006 was, which is probably a good thing, because we have about 50% more snow than we did last year.

I'm eagerly awaiting my first seed shipment, and have been pouring over an ever growing pile of seed catalogues. I may be able to start a few things in the spare room with a grow light. Molly and I are in discussion about this.

Time to go and tidy up Rupert's pen, top up the water, hand out some hay and bring in some firewood. Then it's nap time, as I have picked up an extra shift this evening.

In the trees, up to the knees.

Melty Monday

Things are warming up, and we're beginning to see a net loss of snow, I think. Spring is by no means anywhere near, and there's snow in the forecast for midweek, but overall I have the impression that things are compacting, if not melting.

Buck is beginning to lose the longest hairs in his winter coat, but the rest won't start to shed till about April.

I spent an hour or so burning pine branches this afternoon. Mike cut down a few dead pines yesterday, and there are many more to go. If we do a few each weekend, there'll be fewer to do when the snow is gone and we'll have more time for fun projects like greenhouses, chicken coops, and goat housing. The dead pines are going to take a couple of years to deal with. Luckily, we have plenty of spruce as well.

Things Have Changed!

A year ago, the dogs & I had just arrived to join Mike here. How things have changed for us since we moved away from the city. And 99% of them are for the better. The downside is missing family and friends. But they're only five hours away, and we stay in touch by phone and of course online. And we get lots of visitors from the coast!

The upside...

Nature, lots of space, fresh air, no shortage of stuff to do, horse, donkey, no traffic woes, room for a garden, nice people everywhere, lots of birds, lots of deer and moose around, local lakes, free firewood forever, beautiful white winters, less rain than Vancouver - my list goes on and on.

And I like walking around in my nightgown, snow boots, big plaid quilted shirt and gloves when I go out to feed the boys in the morning. It's really quite glamorous.

Hangin' Out