This is not a picture of an unhappy dog. This is a picture of a dog who’s been outside in 15 inches of snow and is looking for something else to get into.
I’ve never had a dog that loved the snow like Jesse. All my previous dogs enjoyed the snow, but after 1/2 hour or so they were ready to come in, get a treat, get warm and snooze.
That is not the case with Jesse. He comes alive in the snow, it’s all a game and he’s more than content to be outside for hours on end. He digs, rolls, has zoomies, plays with toys, and then curls up watching the world from one of his favorite spots on the decks or near the front gate.
Today is a little different in that he’s not wanting to come in. The last couple of snowfalls haven’t been that impressive. Just a couple of inches and while he’s enjoyed himself he’s been just as happy inside as out. Today on the other hand it’s 29°F and the snow is deep. He’s preferred to be outside running around and when I’ve offered to let him in, he’s just looked at me and run some more.
That’s a good thing because he’s not getting his usual 3 miles of walking today. He’s built for the snow, and plows through it like it’s nothing. I on the other hand, don’t do well in deep snow.
This photo is of the snow we woke up to this morning. 15 inches. We’d already cleared 3 to 5 inches off the decks and the driveway on Saturday. So out in the yard where he’s playing there’s probably at least 18 inches of snow, and the trail that he and I walk every day is going to have at least that much.
I don’t do very well in snow that’s above my knees.
You can see how deep it is in this picture, after clearing the drive and part of the street.
The weather report says that we’re to expect heavy snow and perhaps even thunder and high winds into Monday.
This blog will post automatically early on Monday. I’m writing it on Sunday Morning.
This morning we had power glitches and I’ve had to shut down some of the devices on my local network. With the predicted high winds and snow I’m writing ahead in case the power goes off on Sunday night.
I must admit that the snow is pretty. I wish I wasn’t the one out there clearing it and that the roads were clear. On the other hand, We haven’t had any snow players today so it’s been a quiet Sunday for a change. Saturday morning, I looked out in my front yard and there were complete strangers tromping across my front lawn to pose for pictures and movies on my wooden bench. I ran them off. It is just unbelievable what people think is okay just because there’s snow on the ground.
Coming back from a walk with Jesse, a guy asked me if I had a lighter. He was parked in the yard of a house for sale and wanted to build a fire… On the lawn! I pointed out that he and his party were on private property, that I didn’t have a lighter, and generally speaking folk in these mountains take a very dim view of open fires.
His response, “Yeah I know it’s private property but we weren’t doing anything.”
Then why do you need a lighter???
One of my neighbors came around the corner on an ATV. He’d been using a blade on the front to clear the street . He stopped and told me that he’d had a lot of success for the first time he’d tried the blade.
We chatted a bit and I pointed out that it was great that our street was clear but that we might regret it because of the jackass snowplayers having access to our yards and driveways.
It was at this point Mr. “Have you got a lighter?” decided to pack up and leave.
It could have been that my neighbor and I was chatting about jackass snowplayers, or it could have been that my neighbor has a very nice confederate flag on the front of his ATV.
Perhaps Mr. “Have you got a lighter?” decided that our neighborhood wasn’t to his liking.
Don’t know, don’t care!
Then there were the morons that decided to have their wedding in the snow just off HWY2, (The main road into town,) they thought nothing of blocking the road with their wedding guests and cars. 3500 People in the town were going nowhere, including EMTs!
Apparently, that didn’t even occur to the thoughtless bride and groom. After all… It’s was their day. I couldn’t help but wonder if a snow wedding was the brides way of telling the groom what their marriage was going to be like. You know… Cold as Ice!
In all though, the day was pretty snowplayer free. Turns out, the reason was that there was a 7 car pileup on Highway 138. I guess that put the kibosh on all the other dingbats getting up to the mountains on Saturday.
Sunday has thus far been pretty clear too. Chain requirements and CHP inspection points will do that…
We’ll see what Monday brings.
If there’s power, I’ll update with Monday’s events.
01/27/2021
I missed the update I promised. Between snow clearing and trying to entertain the dog it’s been a busy couple of days.
Monday was a grey and cloudy day. It was bitterly cold, windy and the main focus was just trying to get the driveway, decks, and walkways clear.
Tuesday was bright and sunny it was still 29° F but bearable as long as you stayed in the sun. So later in the afternoon I took the dog for a walk.
As you can see he was very happy to be out of the yard and having a more routine day.
I should note that he’s prancing on a ridge of rocks. In reality the snow on either side of the ridge he is walking on is quite deep. Above my knees in many cases and were it not for the sledding path made by some of the local children It would have been a miserable slog for me. As it was I got a heck of a workout. Jesse did too and I think part of his happiness is that he remembered the rocks under the snow and wasn’t buried up to his shoulders in fluffy dry powder.
This is not to say that he wasn’t snow diving on a fairly regular basis. There were a couple of snowbanks where he jumped as if he was planning to land on top and then look like king of the hill. Things didn’t go as he planned. Instead of landing on top of a solid bank of snow, he disappeared completely.
I was standing there with a leash disappearing into a snowbank making it look like I was walking a snowbank instead of a dog. After a few seconds, Jesse would explode out of the top of the snowbank, so now it looked like a small volcano. Then he’d do this goofy bunny hop to get clear of the snowbank, once clear he’d come running over to me with that laughing look he gets.
It wasn’t until we got to the bottom of the hill that he started to act tired. He’s strong but even for him pushing through deep snow is a lot of work. We walked back up the hill at a slow but even pace and Jesse was pretty much right by my side. He’d occasionally bury his head in the snow trying to catch some illusive smell.
When we got back to the house, Jesse attained his “King of the Hill” Status in our front yard.
The snow pile in the yard is about 8 feet tall but is made up of fairly hard compressed snow because it was piled there by the snow blower.
Tonight, Wednesday we’re expecting more snow going into Thursday and Friday. At this point none of us on the street are sure where we will pile the additional snowfall.
8 feet is about as tall as the snowblowers can pitch the stuff. I suspect that after the next waves of snow, I’m going to have to use a shovel to redistribute the existing pile more evenly over the yard.
That should allow us to clear the driveway and our section of the street again. Then it’s fingers crossed that the next 10 days provide us with warmer temps and sunshine to clear the ice patches.