Poor Lucy!

When Lucy was a puppy I taught her to rings bells, hung on the door, to let me know when she wanted to go out. It was very successful and Lucy manages to ring those bells very loudly when she wants to go out. However, she also uses the bells to tell me that she really really wants to go for a walk. All week when Lucy rang the bells I ran downstairs and put her out in the back yard thinking she wanted to romp in the snow, but inevitably by the time I got back upstairs Lucy would be barking that bark that says "Hey - I don't want to be out here by myself ! Let me in!" So after a few minutes of that insistent bark I would run back downstairs, let her in and dust the snow off her only to get back upstairs and have her ring the bells all over again.
Lucy loves the snow and this week has been a frustration for her and me. With temperatures at -18 with the wind chill for a few days it was impossible to give her the kind of walks that she feels she is entitled to and she has let me know all day everyday just how upset she is about it. Tonight, with the snow falling, but the temperatures rising I managed to get her out for a good hour and thankfully she is sleeping like a baby right now and all would be good if she had gotten into her own bed instead of MINE!

Winter- Time

Winter-Time

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap:
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And trees and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Although we had been buffeted by winter wind and rain storms the weather on the coast has been mild and temperatures fairly warm till Sunday when everything changed. The temperature dropped and about a foot of snow dumped itself in my back yard! As if that was not enough today the temperature has plumeted and tonight we are going to see the temperatures drop to about -10 with a wind chill factor of -18--20! I think it may be time to let Lucy sleep with me. Just for her sake of course!

You can say that again!

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"

And the Winds Did Blow!

Fall winds and rains storms have pounded the west coast this past 10 days bringing flooding and power outages to a lot of communities. We were very fortunate to only have lost power for a very few hours as some people in our area were with out heat, light and telephone for 4 or 5 days!
As soon as the winds died and the water began to subside Lucy and I headed to our favorite places to see what Mother Nature had done to them.
The bog was looking very different from the sunny lush days of late spring and summer. Huge bare patches where the water had flattened the grass and foliage when it over flowed it the creek banks and the wind had stripped the last of the leaves from the tree branches
Davis Creek in the bog had obviously over run it's banks and there was a great deal of debris on the road we always walk giving us an idea of just how strong the current in the normally sleepy creek had become. However the real eye opener was the trees that had been snapped like match sticks and so many of them! I counted at least 11 large downed trees just on the short path that we were on. It is so awesome to go to the woods and see the incredible power of nature. I cannot imagine how much power that wind was packing when it struck down so many trees.
Lucy and I decided to walk back via the canyon and see what surprises that would bring. I had not been in there for many weeks and expected to see a lot of mud and water on the trail, but what I did not expect to see was what had happened to the creek bed there. The force of the water had caused rocks and tree branches and silt down the creek to Lucy's swimming hole and where there was 5 feet of water last spring there was now only about six inches!
As you can see in this picture where Lucy used to swim all summer long she is now able to just walk across to the other side. Lucy, after giving the whole thing a bit of a puzzled look, was not to be dismayed and happily ran into the creek to retrieve a stick.