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Tag Archives: dogs

Yesterday’s Walk

We took the dogs up a steep hill on the game range near Twisp. It was sunny and cold. We could walk mostly on dirt although the dogs enjoyed little snow patches. Luna especially likes them. She does better in cold weather and isn’t looking forward to the end of winter. And she seems to not care to have her photo made. I had hoped to find sagebrush buttercups but it is not the warmest hillside in the valley. We did find other green shoots and soon there will be more. Probably not this week with nightly low temperatures forecast to be in the teens. Brrrrr.

Sawtooth Mountains in the distance
Sky is practicing for her cover girl and calendar photos
Where’s Luna?
Mary Ann tells Sky not to hit her with that stick again!
Quincy helps
Bitterroot leaves looking like sea anemones.
Bitterroot growing right out of a lichen covered rock!
A Red-tailed Hawk watched us and scolded.
This might be the leaves of yellow bells
Quincy and Frida
What do you mean? Why do we have to go back to the car? We’re not done here.

A Walk in the Woods

On Friday we went up to the Loup and enjoyed a walk on hard-packed snow on a Forest Service road. It was a nice change of scenery with tall healthy ponderosa pines and western larches. The dogs seemed to really enjoy being someplace different. Different smells, sights and sticks too. We saw some moose tracks and heard plenty of Pileated Woodpeckers and Mountain Chickadees. We walked about five miles or so and little Quincy kept up all the way and was not overly tired.

Attempting to get a photo of all four dogs.
Now that’s a stick.
Let me have it!
Mine.
Oh, ok, you can have that end.
This plant must keep its leaves all winter. The snow just melted off of it.
Willow buds.

A New Puppy in the Neighborhood

My friend Mary Ann got a new puppy recently! We traveled down to the Quincy Animal Shelter to find him. He was taken to the shelter as a stray and seems to be in very good health. He looks to be at least half border collie and the other half – well that’s a good guess. Maybe heeler, maybe English setter. Who knows? MA named him Quincy in honor of the place where she got him. He looks to be about four months old and is just as cute as cute can be. Yesterday the girls and I got to puppy sit while MA had other things to do. Frida came along for good measure. Fun was had by all in the soft snow!

Who could resist that face?
Frida keeps an eye on things
He loves the snow
Sky teaches Quincy a thing or two about getting sticks.
He is fearless
They play rough and Quincy goes back for more each time.
Wait up!
I can keep up.
What?
Here I come!
Oops.
Luna, wait for me.
This is a lot of work.
Watching over us.
Challenging Sky
He doesn’t hold still for long
Frida is patient
Finally got all four in one image.

Black Dogs and Snow

The dogs and I go for a walk every morning, regardless of the weather. Once this winter it was too cold to get very far and another day it was too icy for me to walk safely but those are the exceptions. We walk on the road on our hill and a trail through our property. They are familiar with the scents of others that walk these routes and when they come across a new one much time is spent examining it and I imagine the two of them talk about it too. Sky often looks for new sticks but not as much as she did last year when she was more of a puppy. Luna is often content to walk near me. Most days a bout of dog play erupts and if we have other people or dogs with us, it is even more vigorous. Usually Sky starts it with a ‘puppy sneak’. Luna knows what’s coming.

Sunshine for Skiing

The Methow Valley has been socked in with fog for a few days now and it’s not very pleasant. Gray and feels colder than it is. The light is flat. This morning I had lots of choices for skate skiing on groomed trails and I could tell from a web cam that one of them had sunshine and it’s a dog trail. Sky has not been to Gunn Ranch but she’s doing well at Big Valley so I figured we could give it a try. This trail is a long gradual uphill climb of 5k, or more. I just went the 5k and that was enough for me today. And then it’s down, down, down back to the trailhead. With perfect grooming it was lots of fun but when I got going pretty fast, Sky would come too close and cut me off or step on my skis. Twice she caused me to fall. I did figure out how fast to go and keep her out of my way after that and also I kept my eyes on her pretty closely. And we stopped and took pictures too. It was beautiful in the sunshine just barely above the sea of clouds in the valley below.

First tracks
Sky watches for other skiers sneaking up on us, or so she thinks.
Ponderosa pines in glorious winter sunshine
Lucky to be here!
Running with stick
She carried the stick all the way to the car.
Looking up valley
The fog is rising
Back towards town, somewhere under the clouds.
Probably should have stayed longer.