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What a day! We’ve had many gray days and even rainy days, it seems like for the last two weeks or more. Around here, we are used to blue skies and bright sunshine reflecting off the cold, deep snow. Today was that day! The sunrise produced beautiful alpenglow on the mountains inviting us to explore on foot.

After agility practice (Willow watched), we headed for the hills above town and walked on a well-trodden path through the pines and out in the open. I looked at the road above us and saw movement. My brain went from what’s that, to is it a horse, no wait, that’s a moose! How cool! Moose occur nearly anywhere in the valley but are only occasionally seen. It’s always a treat. We crossed its trail and then followed its tracks back til we found the spot where it got on the path. There were also tracks of tiny creatures who had been out since yesterday’s fluffy snowfall.

Willow likes to lead the way but, so far, she doesn’t get out too far ahead. She is always turning back to see me and/or Sky. And today, she posed nicely with her big sister for portraits in front of the mountains. She is five months old and learning so much. Maybe she is a Good Girl, after all.

Willow got to romp with the curly redheads of the Good Girls’ Club the other day. They had lots of fun running on our muddy roads. Willow hopes to get her official invite into the Good Girls’ Club soon. Next time they get together, Willow will be taller than Rozie, that for sure. Sky felt old, watching them run up and down and refused to be in any photos.

We have had a January thaw with rain and permanently gray skies, giving us a premature mud season. This morning, everything is frozen so winter should get back to normal soon.

Little Willow is growing and changing so fast! Her body has grown long and soon she will be all legs. In these photos she looks serious and thoughtful. She’s still a puppy in that lanky body though.

Yesterday it was twenty below zero. Fahrenheit. It was hard to do anything outside like breathe. It was perfect to make bubbles and watch them freeze and quickly photograph them. They are ephemeral, coating themselves with ice crystals and then slowly, or quickly, deflating.

It’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC) season. Last week, I joined three other birders and one dog to count the birds in southern Okanogan County. Winter came early and it seems that many birds left for places where they can find food more easily. I’ve done this count many times before and have never seen so much snow. One of our counters broke trail with snowshoes but it was still a slog. Lucky for us, it was not too cold with the temperature hovering around freezing and endless blue skies! While we did not see a lot of bird life, we did enjoy studying tracks in the snow and wondering about the tales those tracks told. We saw lots of beaver sign and watched one across the river. There were many bobcat tracks too. Our favorite unexpected bird species was a small group of Chukars!

At the end of the day we had 38 bird species for our section of the count. Last year, with just two of us counting, we had 56 species in the same area.

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