November 22, 2003

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  Critters Tired and Warm

  
  

  It continues to snow today.  When I finished the blog I posted last night there were about six inches of snow, I guess.  There has to be more than a foot of it now.  Greyfox shoveled a path to the outhouse earlier today, and it has disappeared under new snow.

  
  

  Both of my guys have been complaining about the white stuff.  They’ve been out slogging around in it.  Other than a couple of short trips out in the yard, I’ve stayed indoors all day.  Greyfox walked Koji earlier.  Some of the neighbors’ dogs were running loose and so ours got some socializing done, and Greyfox got his shoulder painfully pulled.  The huskies love this snow.  It’s warmer than it has been all week, of course.  It’s warm moist air from the south that brings the snow.

  
  

  The cats have been going outside more today, too.  Pidney (that’s her glossy black form curled up in the crook of Greyfox’s elbow above) yowls until we open the door to let her out, but when she wants back in she just throws her little body against it and it opens for her.  I wish she’d learn to shut it after herself.

  
  

  Doug took water to the feral cats across the highway, a walk of about half a mile or a little more.  The snowplows have not been around to any of the side streets yet, and it is tiring walking in the deep stuff.  That may account for his crabby mood, or it may be that he’s anticipating having to dig out the woodpile, chopping block, etc., later on when he goes out to bring in firewood for the night.

  
  

  We had our usual first-deep-snow conversation.   Me:  “Does anyone know where the snow rake for the roof is?”  Greyfox said it’s across the highway leaning against his trailer, and we discussed whether we need it more over there or here.  Doug reported that he stood the maul and axes up against trees in the yard, so they’re not lost in the snow.  I said I knew approximately where the mutt is, next to the house near the porch.  It is an ice-chipping tool, flat blade on a long handle, sorta like a wide spear with the cutting edge on the end.  Greyfox describes it as a wood chisel on steroids. 

  
  

  These conversations have become routine since the year when Doug was in grade school, when we lost his sled under the first deep snowfall and didn’t find it until the following May.  Now I know precisely where the sled is:  leaning against the camper shell on the disabled old blue truck in the yard, where it has been all summer.  But I’m sure there is something out there under the snow that we’ll want and not know how to find.  There always is.

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