On a recent visit to my sister's house, I noticed their dog Bella had gotten a bit overweight in recent months. Winter can do this. It's often hard to get outside when the temps are so cold or the snow is too deep. But I also noticed that my niece was slightly pestering her mom about getting more of an allowance.
Long tongues from lots of playtime!
So on my drive home, I put the pieces together and decided to offer an allowance proposal to my niece when I got home.
The terms: I would pay her $5.00 for every 30-minute walk she took with Bella up to $20 per week. She'd need to download a dog-walking app similar to the one I use to track my hikes with the dogs to show proof of the walk (mileage, time walked and the date) and send me a screen shot of the completed app results as well as a picture of Bella on the walk.
We've just finished up Week 2 of the project, and so far it's been a pretty good success! My sister reports that Bella is much calmer in the house now that she's getting a few walks each week and my niece is happy with the extra allowance. Plus I get to have more communication with my niece via the texts about their walks so we can stay in touch better.
I'll be happy to see if Bella has lost any weight the next time I'm down for a visit. I guess it's a win-win for everyone.
We're enjoyng a 3-day weekend to celebrate Alan's 50th birthday! I wish we had planned something more special for such a milestone but with the crazy weather we've been slammed with these past two weeks, there wasn't much time for planning anything.
Yesterday we went road-tripping to do some antique and second-hand shopping around our area. The dogs came along for the boring car ride, but unfortunately we didn't do anything too fun with them.
So I decided to take the kiddos snow-shoeing today to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and fresh new snow. Alan had to bow out for this excursion so we went just the three of us.
The roads are in great shape now that the plow trucks have had time to clear them. The trails, on the other hand, have not been blazed yet. I should have known when we arrived to the parking area for the trailhead and it was empty.
There was one zig-zagging snow shoe trail someone had left, but it didn't really go anywhere and by the time the dogs and I made it to our actual trailhead, we were totally exhausted from trekking through the extremely deep snow.
I laughed out loud at how the depth of the snow completely swallowed up the dogs when they climbed the snow mountain at the end of the parking lot and disappeared on the other side.
Look at them run!
I struggled up with my snow shoes on and then was as buried as the dogs were on the other side. After some photos and romping around, it became apparent that we weren't going to make it too much farther so we headed back to the parking area.
I have a feeling a lot of people will be out today packing down other trails for us, so tomorrow we're going to head out really early before anyone else and enjoy some quiet time at one of our favorite places.
Waiting for me to slide down the snow mountain in the parking lot to go home.
Despite the difficulty of removing snow earlier this week, it sure was pretty to get out in nature and enjoy the fresh drifts like a little kid!
We've been hit hard with a lot of snow over the past week. The sky dumped about 15 inches of snow on us today... on top of the 12 inches we already had from last week. Looking around at the enormous piles of snow, it's hard to believe there was no snow just a week ago. Lesson learned: be careful what you wish for!
I took the day off work today since my little car likely would have gotten stuck either on my way to work or on my way home. Plus I figured it would be best to clear the snow from my driveway and sidewalks continually throughout the day.
It turned out to be a good decision because people were already getting stuck on the road in front of my house right away this morning... and continued to get stuck all day long. Neighbors stepped up and helped strangers dig and push their cars out of impossibly deep snow.
There was already 6 inches of snow on the ground for my first round of shoveling after breakfast. I took a short break mid-morning and then headed back out before lunch to shovel another 6 inches (it was coming down fast!).
After lunch I tackled the deep and very compact snow at the end of my double-wide driveway where the snowplows dumped all the snow from the road as they passed by. This took another hour.
With lunch behind me and a short break to bake some Valentine's cookies for Alan, I headed back out to clear another couple of inches again.
In between all the necessary shoveling, I played with the dogs in the backyard and shoveled out race tracks for them to play in. Jake absolutely LOVES snow... even more than Charlie (which I never thought possible). Watching them joyfully bounce through giant snow piles made all the hard work of actual shoveling worthwhile.
They reminded me that snow days can be fun too... not just all work.
We finally got a chance to get outside for a hike today after a week of bitterly cold temps. It hasn't been this cold in decades and I'm really glad for it to be over (for now).
The dogs have been sticking to me like statically-charged dog hair (you know what I'm talking about!). I can't get a break. They have been following me around non-stop all week wondering why we're not going for a walk or a ride to the park.
Jake pauses at the hook by the door where the harnesses and leashes hang... nosing them and then looking at me like, "aren't you going to put these on us?"
Ugh. It's torture. Mostly because I want to go outside too, but also because I don't speak their language and have no way to tell them that I can't control the weather.
They could barely get enough time to go potty in the backyard before their paws would freeze up and they couldn't walk. For two of the days this week, we had to go through the routine of putting boots on them for potty breaks because it was just too cold to go potty at all.
But today, it finally reached that 20 degree mark where it was safe enough to be outside for an extended period of time.
On our drive to the hiking trails, a dense fog developed and visibility decreased drastically. It coated the tree branches, making them look fuzzy. The atmosphere became ethereal.
There were a ton of people out on the lake ice-fishing, but no one on the trails. I decided to play it safe and made our own trail out onto a peninsula so we could play without running into anyone.
Charlie was a little nervous from the ice-fisherman sounds drifting across the frozen lake... ice augers and 4-wheelers zipping around. I urged her on so we could get some good exploring time in and she grudgingly agreed to come, although she turned around frequently threatening to head back to the car by herself.
After a while she relaxed and decided romping around and chewing sticks with Jake was fun afterall. I liked breaking new trail through the fluffy snow, taking my time to make sure I didn't trip on buried branches, admiring nature's frosty decorations clinging to all the tree branches.
I practiced my camera settings and feel that I'm improving but I'm my own worst critic and at home I instantly hated all my photos. After I gave them some time to grow on me, I came to like a few, but there is still a lot of learning to do.
An hour and a half of exploring the woods and running around was enough to make the dogs curl up and pass out in their respective seats on the car ride home. I'm always delighted to see my rosy cheeks and twigs in my hair after a hike like today. I feel refreshed and renewed; it was a good day.
