Wintertime Houndliness

In case anyone has been wondering what my dogs have been up to lately, the answer is:

not much.

My dogs are hyperactive spazzes, so we generally like to take them out for exercise as much as possible.  In winter, however, they simply refuse to go.  Literally.  The won't go for walks without Lucy demanding to be carried, they won't go outside to play, and sometimes won't even go to the bathroom.  When it's below 20 degrees and we take them out for a bathroom break, they just whine at us pathetically and hold up their feet as if to say, "Mom!  Dad!  Our feet are cold!"  If they could, I swear they'd lift all their feet out of the snow at once.  Sometimes it's so bad they simply refuse to do what they need to out there, which inevitably leads to accidents inside.  It would help if it didn't take Lucy a solid 15 minutes to pick a spot to use.  By the time she picks a spot, we're so frozen through ourselves that we've run out of sympathy about her cold feet.

We have boots for them, but it takes a good 10 minutes to put 8 boots on two uncooperative and highly distractible dogs.  And if we're going out because someone asked to go out, neither one will wait those 10 minutes.  Someone will inevitably poop on the floor while I'm putting boots on the other dog.  We can't leave them on all the time, either, because they will just busily work at removing them, and in the process will completely destroy their expensive boots.  Thus, I gave up on boots for bathroom breaks long ago, and they're just going to have to cope with their cold feet.

Anywho, aside from whining about the cold, they've been ripping around my 179 year old house as if it were an indestructible race track, bouncing off the furniture and the walls.  When they're not being spastic, you can see they have it rough:

They're lying on a giant, floppy stuffed hound that we bought them.  In the foreground is their giant, floppy stuffed bear.  They're in front of the fire.

Simon's getting fat and lazy.  For that matter, so is the cat Tucker and so am I.  So, while I can pick on them and complain about their aversion to cold, I also get it.  I tend to want to eat comfort foods and hibernate every winter, too.  Simon and I will just have to start our jogging routine again in the spring.  I for one, will be cursing my laziness over the cold months.  I do every spring.

Between now and then, though, move over hounds.  That looks like a nice spot for a snooze.

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Big Bad Boots

I little while ago, back when I bought my snowshoes, I was lamenting that I did not have and could not currently afford nice insulated boots.  I spent a bunch of time on the Internet and at EMS and a few other places looking at all the usual good brands I consider for outdoor gear.  My searches were fruitless - they were, quite frankly, bloody expensive.

Then I went to Marshalls one afternoon.  I stumbled upon the most absurd pair of boots that were so obnoxiously over the top that I stopped and gazed longingly at them.  I love boots.  Big, fluffy, silly boots.  In fact, I love anything fluffy.  These boots were were deliciously fluffy.

They had one pair left, they were in my size, and they cost less than half what all the other insulated boots I'd looked at cost.  I tried them on.  They fit perfectly.  I read the box.  I hadn't heard of the brand before - Lafuma - but they sounded like real outdoors gear, based on the description.  They were waterproof and insulated and supposedly had specially engineered soles.  

But really, I bought them simply because I loved them hopelessly.

Gaiters?  Who the heck needs gaiters?  Not me anymore!

The first couple of times I wore them I thought I understood why they were on clearance at Marshalls, as they kind of chewed up my ankles.  But I've now officially broken them in and they're amazingly comfortable.  The very best thing about them?  They're SO WARM.  My poor pathetic Raynaud's ridden toes stay completely warm and normally colored snuggled inside my ridiculous boots, even in sub-zero temperatures.  Let's face it - my whole calves stay warm.  The traction on them is outstanding, and they're comfortable enough for very long walks.

The next best thing about them, after their warmth?  The hilarious up-and-down looks I get from people when I wear them in public.  They seem to make an impression on people, for better or for worse.  Women, in particular, will gaze at my feet for a minute, then steal furtive "who the heck is wearing those" glances up at my face.  It sometimes takes all I've got not to burst out laughing.

Mind you, the down side to them is that they take about 10 minutes to lace up, especially with a cat or two hanging off those long laces as I whip them back and forth.

A few days ago my husband shouted to me that Simon had somehow gotten off his leash, and could I please help him run around outside to try to find the dog?  I flew out of my chair by the fire and over to my boots.  I started lacing.  I continued lacing.  I laced as fast as I possibly could.  I kept lacing.  By the time I got my boots on and made it out the back door, my husband was irritably walking up the back walkway with both dogs trotting next to him on their leashes.  He asked, what on earth had taken me so long?  All I could do was look eloquently down at my ridiculous boots.

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Magic

I so love snow that comes down in proper, perfect flakes.  In the sunlight on Sunday the surface of the earth had been transformed into pure magic - sparkling, glinting, and incredibly beautiful.  Here are a few of my favorite shots that show the sparkle.

This last one is my absolute favorite.  My husband gets credit for it, as he's the one who spotted those perfect little stems sticking out of the snow.

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A Frozen Bog

Sunday dawned bitter cold, with temperatures below zero.  But the sun came out, and unlike the previous day, the sun actually accomplished something on Sunday.  In warmed to near 20 by the time we left home for our woodland wandering.  Unfortunately, along with the sun came the wind.  It will take a few days for my cheeks to lose their wind-chapped glow, I'm afraid.

Because I knew I might get called into work at any moment, we stuck pretty close to home and went to Beaver Lake Nature Center.  I do love Beaver Lake, probably in large part because of happy childhood memories there.

I knew it was going to be a good photographable/bloggable sort of walk right from the start.  As we walked from the car to the start of the first trail we walked past this fine fuzzy fellow:

He seemed to be snuggled in a wind-sheltered and snow-free spot, enjoying the sun.  The click of my camera shutter sent him flying over the tree trunk and bounding in absurdly spastic leaps through the woods. I felt mighty bad for having disturbed him, but appreciated having been privileged enough to spot him.

That would be his rapidly retreating backside, in the middle of the photo.  I wish I'd managed to snap a photo at the instant he was at the top of one of his bounds, rather than the bottom.  They were very cute flailing bunny bounds.

My favorite trail at Beaver Lake is the bog trail.  I am utterly fascinated by bogs of all sorts.  I've always liked bogs, and developed a deep affection for them when I was a college student in Maine.  My ecology class took a field trip to a good old fashioned Maine quaking bog.  The amount of life teeming in that bog was incredible, and now bogs always make me long for nets, sampling jars and waders.  Sphagnum moss, which makes it all possible, is awesome stuff.

A description of the Beaver Lake bog in an incredibly brief nutshell:

My very favorite thing about bogs, though, has got to be the carnivorous plants.

What an awesome concept.  I get so excited whenever I spot pitcher plants.

But I digress.  The only way we could even tell we were in a bog on Sunday was that a) there was an elevated walkway, and b) the terrain suddenly got very bumpy.  Compare the woods:

with the bog:

The underside of the elevated walkway apparently provides a convenient hiding and/or snoozing spot for wildlife.

Over and over again we walked past spots where there was access to the space under the walkway, and lots of critter prints leading in and out.

This particular spot had its entrance rimmed with soft rime.

I'm not sure if that rime formed because decaying matter in the bog was releasing heat, or because the critter stayed in there long enough to fog the place up with its breath.  I think I'm leaning toward the former, though, since there were other spots in the bog that had rime around openings but which did not have any tracks leading in or out.

Sadly, it wasn't a great day for tracking as the snow was so fluffy that most feet just left vague, indistinct shapes.  Certainly there are good trackers out there who would have had no trouble reading the impressions in the snow, but my beginner tracking skills didn't come up with much meaning out of many of them.  We did find this great melted impression, though:

Given all the hoof prints leading to and away from it, I'd say a deer decided to lie there for a bit.

The lake was so wind whipped that there weren't any tracks out in the center, just wind sculptures.

Were these left by a mouse?  Bird?  Not a clue.  But they were absurdly tiny and therefore cute:

These must have been made by a very little rodent of some variety or other:

He didn't take a very direct route to wherever he was going, did he?

I loved this set:

My husband took one look at it and exclaimed that whatever had made it appeared to have become lunch since the tracks just ended in the middle of the field.  After looking at it for a bit, I don't think that's the case, though.  There was no indication anything had snagged it from the air - no impact at the end, no wing prints. Moreover, it was squirrel tracks, but messy ones.  I think instead that a squirrel had scampered out, then decided to turn around and retrace his steps.  If you looked closely you could see spots where he or she had stepped out of the trail and then back into it.

Moreover, if you followed it back up to the clump of brush, you could see lots of nice clean squirrel tracks, and evidence of its most recent snack.

Spot it?

Somebody's been giving the squirrels handouts.

Elsewhere in the field, though, it did look like there might have been a wing print.  The faint parallel lines on the left look wingish, but beyond that I have no explanation to offer, and no idea what the impressions are on the right sidem since there were no tracks leading up to this spot:

Overall, what a lovely and fascinating day!  Not much exercise, but tons to look at and wonder about.  Wind chapped cheeks can be so incredibly worth it.

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