Anxious for Spring

We saw a few snow flurries on our drive into work early this morning, but later in the morning the weather cleared and we ended up with a nice, sunny day. The temperature actually got above freezing and there was a fairly brisk breeze from the south. The snow is starting to settle and the roads are getting slushy.

We have a metal sculpture in the backyard of a German Shorthaired Pointer and it's pointing at a metal sculpture of a pheasant. We haven't seen the pheasant since the last big snowstorm. Because the dog's head comes up past my knees, we use this sculptures as a gauge of how deep the snow is. Here's a picture I took yesterday of the dog. There are still spots in the yard where the snow is drifted at least 2 feet deep.

Next is the picture of the dog I took late this afternoon. If you look really close you can see just a little bit of light underneath the dog's tummy (due to the settling of the snow today). In this picture you can also see the well-used bunny trail coming from one of the bigger pine trees in the yard to the brushpile in the middle of the wildflower patch. The brushpile is the stopping spot on the way to the other birdfeeders and corn in the yard closer to the house.

While I was filling the bird feeders, Sophie entertained me by chasing her ice cream tub lid (aka frisbee). This is a good toy for her because it's cheap and I don't feel bad when she chews it up. The bad thing is it's white and really hard for Sophie to find in the snow, especially if she doesn't watch when you throw it. She gets really tired running through all the snow but she never gives up -- even when her entire tummy is coated with snow. She'll plunge her head into a snowbank and eat snow when she starts getting thirsty and runs till she's panting. She's scared of the camera, but I was able to get these pictures because she was distracted with the frisbee.

She has to flip the frisbee upside down to pick it up and bring it back to me. In this picture she's trying to flip it over after she stepped on it and pushed it down into the snow.

"Come on Sophie, let's go in the house."

Look at how much snow is still piled up along our road. It's going to take quite a few days above freezing to get those piles melted.

Until next time, keep thinking spring!

P.S. A correction on yesterday's post: Brother Phil was 44 on his birthday, not 43 (I'm still stuck in 2006).