Erm, have we skipped a few months?

Saturday dawned sunny, warm, and glorious, and feeling like May.  Alas, my husband, who is my usual woods walking companion, had to work.  However, my dear friend M also felt the itch to wander outdoors in all the sunshine with cameras.  He'd never been to Clark Reservation before, so I decided to take him there.

Clark Reservation was the perfect place to go.  I was afraid that some other parks (like Green Lakes) would be far, far too popular in that amazing weather, but Clark Reservation never seems overcrowded.  We had most of the trails to ourselves.

It was a glorious day for both the walk and the photography.  Poor M arrived there, took out his camera, and discovered he didn't have his SD card for it.  Oops.  Bless him, he still had infinite patience with my photography efforts, stopping and waiting for me without complaint.

I loved some of the shots that look like abstract art.

We found some very surprising early early flowers.  Bloodroot Hepatica (thanks Woodswalker!) (which according to this blog I believe the earliest I've ever seen is April 3):

some Trout Lilies just getting started but not in bloom,

and Myrtle,

which was in blossom on a prior visit to Clark Reservation on May 4, 2010.  I hope these poor brave flowers aren't shocked by a snowfall this year, but according to the forecasts I think they will shortly be joined by a lot of other early spring flowers, all at once.

Even the turtles had decided to emerge from their mud to sun themselves.

M gets the credit for spotting this shot of moss:

And M also gets the credit for being brave enough to wade into the stream to get this shot:

Here he is, just about to wade in:

All in all, it was a magnificent way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  The sunshine was positively good for my soul, and the company excellent.  I confess I am concerned about the implications of this weather relative to climate change.  But there's another part of me that is just basking in the glory of 70+ degree days and worrying about sunburn... in March.  I remember the blizzard of '93 happened in March.  What a contrast!

Enjoy the rest of my shots from the day.

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A Doggie Test of Wills and Some Pictures

It's disturbingly un-January-like around here these days.  Being a non-winter person, I confess I am loving sunny, 40+ degree days and lack of snow.  There's a part of me that worries though, about what this weather means about climate change, and what it means for increased flea and tick problems, and whether it means we'll still have snow on the ground in July.  I mean, we have to pay for this somehow, right?

Anyway, enough winter philosophizing.  An update:

Our Christmas flew by in a positively mad whirlwind of activity, and then my husband left town to spend some time with his family in South Carolina, leaving me home with our zoo all by myself for the better part of a week.

The 5 cats are not a problem.  They kind of do their own thing.  Although at the moment we have discovered we've got a carpet pee-er, and I'm not entirely sure which cat to blame, or which cat to take to the vet.  And when I'm the only human around I sometimes wish I could clone myself so that one of me could get some sleep while the other spends much of each night snuggling with each needy cat in turn. But aside from those minor factors, and the occasional hairball, the cats aren't much bother.

The dogs are a lot more work.  For the most part, Phoebe and I get along just fine.  She's a good girl, and has largely outgrown the worst of her puppy misbehaviors (although she did eat a pen on the rug one evening, leaving a puddle of black ink on the cream carpet and grinning up at me with blue-black teeth). On the whole, though, she behaves.  She does what I ask her to with enthusiasm.

Simon and I, however, should never be left home together for an extended period of time without supervision.  We seriously get on each other's nerves.

This happens every time Seth leaves town for a few days.  Simon starts off being his usual stubborn self, but day by day, his response times get slower and slower when I tell him to do something.  I can stand at the top of the stairs and tell him to come, and he'll sit at the bottom of the stairs and look at me.  Then scratch his left ear.  Then nibble on his right front paw.  Then look at me.  I'll tell him to come again, sounding more exasperated.  Then he'll look at me.  And scratch his right ear.  And still sit there.

By the end of Seth's time away, I was starting to worry my neighbors must think I'd lost my mind.  I was all-out bellowing at Simon daily. He got into the garbage, he pooped on the rugs, and he refused to do anything I asked him to do.  He even took to refusing bribes of treats.  Then the day before Seth was due to come home, he escaped the leash, refused to come when I called him, and when I finally recaptured him and tried to bring him back home he tripped me, then pulled so hard on the leash that he was pulling me face-first down the icy sidewalk.  I didn't know whether to scream "Simon!  I'm going to kill you!"  or just give up and say "Hyah!  Mush!" and make him drag me home.

The little $#!*

When Seth finally walked in the back door, I believe I said something to the effect of "Hi honey.  Glad you're home.  They're yours."

Heh.

It's funny how very much Simon is Seth's dog and Phoebe is mine.

Anyway, all this winter sunshine is conducive to some lazy sunny winter day photography.  I found the pups snoozing in the sun on the spare bed, and took advantage of their cuteness.  If you've seen much of my photography, you know I love to play with sunshine and shadow.  I suppose it's no coincidence I took far more photos of Phoebe than of Simon.  I think I'm still holding a grudge against him.

This pic of Phoebe cracks me up.  Something about her in it reminds me of Zuul, from Ghostbusters.  I expected her to say "I am the gatekeeper":

But then she looks at me like this, and reminds me more of a bat:

Simon, drooping:

Bat and droops:

Simon looking his most handsome:

This is akin to the look I get when she knows she's in trouble:

I simply love this last one.  She looks so contemplative:

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Where, oh where is the snow???

I woke up to the very first dusting of snow at my house for the year.

It's December.  That's pathetic.

Apparently as of yesterday Syracuse had just set a record for the longest streak with no snow accumulation - since February 23, 2009.  That's 276 days.  See here.  What is this, Florida?  If we want the golden snowball (I love that site) this year, we'd better start doing some snow dances.  Honestly, though, it doesn't look like Rochester and Buffalo are doing any better than Syracuse at the moment.

A few sad wet flakes that melt with the morning light hardly get us caught up.

Given how weird weather patterns are, I understand that it's generally impossible to attribute any single weather phenomenon to global warming.  For example, one of the effects of global warming is to cause the jet stream to do weird dipping and swooping things, occasionally bringing frigid arctic air into Syracuse and making all the commenters on syracuse.com say a streak of below-normal temperatures is proof positive that the global warming scientists are full of it. 

(A complete aside:  how syracuse.com collects so many wacky, uninformed and boorish commenters, I don't know, but the majority seem to be completely appalling on nearly every topic.  My sincerest apologies if you happen to be one of the few sane and articulate commenters.)

It seemed to be a fairly cool rainy summer, but that may just be because I was comparing it to some recent scorchers.  Every above-average temperature day, every non-snow streak, every winter that has an above-average temp overall, every drought makes me nervous.  I guess I had better get used to less snow and warmer averages, less biodiversity and more invasive species taking advantage of the milder climate.

I don't think I ever will get used to it.  No matter how much I pound my tiny fists and stomp my tiny feet, I'm powerless to stop it.  It makes me squirm and writhe in helpless frustration just to contemplate. 

Snow, where are you?  In my mind, snow is the only excuse for winter.  Why be cold, gray and have such short days if there's no payout with the fun white stuff?

"Where's our snow?"

I want to go up to Tug Hill and the Osceola Tug Hill ski center and buy myself some long-overdue new cross country skis.  I want an excuse to splurge on the snowshoes I've been drooling over (although realistically skis and snowshoes can't both be in the budget for this year).  I want to try out my new Nokian Hakkapeliitta snow tires (they're gnarly suckers).  I want to feel like a tough chick for fearlessly venturing out in blizzards and shoveling feet of snow out of my driveway before I can pull in.  I want to again watch my shrimpy dogs bound through snow that's over their heads, and laugh at the cat for dipping his paws delicately into the snow, shaking them off, and returning quickly to the house with a look of distaste on his face.  I want to make a snow fort.

Anybody know any snow dances??  Wanna teach them to me???

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