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February 10, 2010February 10, 2010

A Significant Event… UPDATE

Guess what? We really did get more snow. In order for you to appreciate just how much snow we have, Hubby and I took some pics yesterday. Some between storm images so we’d have a good comparison. (Yes, Hubby actually took pictures specifically for me to post on this blog.)

the_world_1 — Baltimore-Washington Parkway

At first glance, this road looks pretty good. Until you consider that three days have passed since the blizzard hit and this is one of the primary routes to get into Baltimore City. It’s a two-lane road. There’s a tree down in the left lane, which has just been plowed around, so this two lane, major artery without warning suddenly becomes a one-lane road.

the_world_2 — Interstate 95, South of Baltimore

This is I-95. Again, it looks pretty good. Until you think about that eight-foot wall of plowed snowed filling the entire shoulder of the road.

I’m not complaining. I think road crews have done a fine job considering the sheer volume of snow we received. What if we get two more feet?

a_lot_of_snow — Where will they put all of this snow?

This is our street. It’s a relatively wide suburban street. Most cars are parked in driveways. Look how much snow is piled on each side of the one lane that was plowed. Now, imagine if we lived in the city and the street was skinnier and/or had cars parked on both sides. In close quarters like that, you can’t push this much snow out of the way. There’s simply too much of it.

leaving_the_community — The main route out of our community.

This is the main road in our neighborhood. It looks great, really. It took three days and lots of work to get this way. I am looking forward to tomorrow. I want to go see the aftermath. I want to see what our world looks like now with 17 MORE inches of snow.

We’ve had a total of 44 inches of snow fall on us since Friday. Many folks around us got more. Here’s what it looked like at lunchtime today…

Needless to say, Hubby and I didn’t get out much. The girls went outside a lot. I’m convinced we have the only operating bird feeders for miles around because our yard has been full of critters for days. Lots and lots of critters. Birds mostly. And some squirrels.

Belle and K are both super fast. And they LOVE chasing critters. You know what they love more than chasing critters? WAY more?

Catching critters, of course. Belle actually caught a squirrel today. She and K have both been trying to catch one of those little buggers for months. Months and months. All day, they watched the feeders. We’d open the door, they’d run out through the blinding snow, the birds would all fly away and they’d come back inside and start all over again.

squirrel2 — She was quite proud. After she did a couple of prancing laps around the yard, she had to bring it inside to show Hubby and I.

It’s a good thing Hubby was home. Because she couldn’t just stick her head inside the door, show it to us, then take it back outside. Nooooo. She had to bring it in, take it up the steps and plop it on the carpet at the top of the steps for everyone to see. Lucky for us, it wasn’t bloody.

K thought that Belle’s squirrel was awesome. Meg wanted no parts of it. The last time Belle caught a squirrel, she laid it in the grass on its back. Meg went up and sniffed the squirrel, which wasn’t dead after all. It grabbed and/or bit Meg’s nose. It really, really freaked her out, which is why she was actually afraid of Belle’s new squirrel.

It was all very exciting. But that excitement was short-lived. Hubby disposed of the body and, less than 30 minutes later, they were out chasing critters again.

Tomorrow I plan on getting out for some “after” pics. I have to. I mean, this is a 100 year storm. I’ve never walked through 40+ inches of snow before. I hope I don’t get lost…

February 7, 2010February 7, 2010

My Birthday Blizzard (continued)

As I said in My Birthday Blizzard post from earlier today, I love snow. That’s a good thing, because we got a lot of it. Over two feet!

I took a lot of pictures. I deleted quite a few of the images I shot, but still uploaded 229 pics to my Flickr page. The pics are from Friday, at the very beginning of the storm, through Sunday evening. I have some good video footage, too, but that takes a while longer to process.

It was actually a pretty busy weekend. When it snows, I like to cook. We started things off right on Friday with Boiled Chicken Potpie. I made the noodles/dumplings extra thick. I also made twice as many as I usually do. It was fabulous.

Saturday, the first thing we had to do was let the girls out in the snow. If you didn’t see the video, go back to yesterday’s post. They didn’t stay out for very long, yet Meg and Belle were still covered in snowballs, which cling to the very fine hair on their bellies and legs. It was bad. It took a good while to clean them off. Knowing how much the girls like the snow, Hubby and I decided to give them quick haircuts before sending them back outside.

Before we did that, however, we needed some breakfast. I finally made the chocolate chip scones I’ve been wanting to make for weeks.

While I was making the scones, Belle and K were watching the birds. There were lots and lots of them in the yard.

The bigger black birds (Grackles) completely inundated the feeders. So Hubby sprinkled some birdseed on the back steps for the smaller birds. Belle and K were riveted.

Meg would look at the birds every now and then, but she was most interested in the scones.

Belle and K continued watching the birds.

These little birds are called Dark-eyed Juncos. They are northern birds who spend the winter here in Maryland. They are quite social and think nothing of hanging out on the step with two very interested dogs on the other side of the glass.

As soon as the haircuts were finished, the girls and I went outside to play in the snow. It was over my knees by then. But I plowed my way through it anyway, helping to make paths for the girls and knocking the heavy, wet snow off as many of our pine trees as I could reach. I was out there for a long time.

Meg wasn’t running around with the young girls, but she was enjoying the snow just as much.

Meg, full of birdseed and ready to go inside.

K doesn’t have a coat here. The only reason Belle and Meg were wearing them is because the snow sticks to their fur. The haircuts helped, but didn’t take care of the problem completely.

The girls spent hours chasing the birds, who seemed to know the dogs couldn’t reach them very easily. Look how close Belle is to the bird feeder. By the end of the day, all of the dogs were exhausted.

The storm actually ended sooner than expected. But not before this blizzard monster crashed into one of Hubby’s hammock posts.

It cleared up just in time for a pretty, colorful sunset.

Before I knew it, it was time to cook dinner, which was steamed shrimp and onion strings (really super-thin onion rings that are to die for!).

After dinner, we watched several episodes of Sons of Anarchy, a TV series on DVD that Hubby got for Christmas. We also ate my special birthday desert.

Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Brownies with Peanut Butter Icing

Store-bought brownie bites with peanut butter icing are really good. Homemade brownies COVERED in peanut butter icing are sinfully delicious.

This turned out to be a pretty long post. So I’ll stop here. Maybe tomorrow I will talk about digging out.

For now, I think I’ll go have another brownie.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OF MY BIRTHDAY BLIZZARD PICTURES

February 7, 2010February 7, 2010

My Birthday Blizzard

According to my parents, I was born during a blizzard. I tried to find snow totals for that storm on the Internet, to no avail. I’ll just have to trust them. Since they’ve told me the story at least 40 times, and I’ve heard them tell others just as many times, it must be true. Right?

screwed — The Predictions, courtesy of Julia Smith

Before the storm arrived, well in advance, the weather guys said it was going to be a big one. As you can see from the map on the left, we were in the “totally screwed” region. We were supposed to get 20 to 30 inches. I was so excited. I love snow. I really wanted 30 inches. Really.

The dogs love playing in the snow, too. But keep in mind, Meg’s back is 21″ high. She’s our tallest dog. Belle’s back is 18″ high. And she’s got short legs. K has longer legs, but the top of her back is still only about 20 inches off of the ground.

I could not wait to see how the dogs reacted to that much snow. I told Hubby to make sure I was awake first thing in the morning before her let the dogs out. I wanted to get it on video. I did.

Throughout the course of the day, I got lots of other pics and video, too. I’ll have to share more of them later. Between playing in the snow, cooking and eating, I just did not have time yesterday. And now I need to go and shovel some snow. I’ll do a longer post later.

January 27, 2010January 27, 2010

Chester, the Orange & White Brittany

Most of my readers know I have several dogs. They’re all Brittanys. Technically, the plural form of Brittany should end in “ies”, but I prefer using Brittanys.

All of our dogs came to us through breed-specific rescue organizations:

C, who we lost in November 2008, was our first dog. She was rescued from a breeder and adopted through ABR.

Meg, who turns 11 in June, was our second dog. She was an owner-assisted placement through ABR. An owner-assisted placement is what you call it when an owner contacts the rescue group to surrender a dog, for whatever reason, but agrees to keep the dog until a new forever home is found.

Belle, who will be 3 in June, was our third dog. She was surrendered to ABR by a family who was losing their home to foreclosure and could no longer care for her.

k_and_belle_27Jan2010 — K and Belle make the goofiest faces as they play...

K, our fourth Brittany, who will be 4 in June, came to us through NBRAN. She was dropped at a kill shelter by her previous owners who could no longer afford to care for her.

k_and_belle2_27Jan2010 — ... but they sure have fun playing together.

Why switch rescue groups? We were looking for a very specific dog to add to our family. We needed to find one that was a certain age (young) with just the right temperament. ABR didn’t have any dogs fitting the bill at the time, so we discovered NBRAN. I’m glad, too, because K is an amazing dog. And, through NBRAN, I’ve met lots of really wonderful people.

American Brittanys come in three different colors: liver & white (like Belle), liver & white tri-color (like Meg) and orange & white. Their coats can either have a clear (Meg and Belle) or roan (like K) pattern with ticking (freckles).

I figured I’d give you this little bit of background before introducing you to Chester, an orange & white Brittany, who happens to be the latest addition to our pack.

I’m not sure of Chester’s exact age, but he’s definitely a senior. I think the vet estimated him to be around 11 or 12. He looks much older, however, because he has some sort of spine issue that makes walking sort of difficult. He also tends to get a bit confused. He’s gotten stuck behind our sofa twice now because he couldn’t remember how to back up/turn around.

He’s a sweet old guy, though. He’s pretty quiet, but paces a lot while in the house. It isn’t easy for him to sit either because of the spine issue. Plus, this place is new for him.

Belle keeps forgetting Chester is here. All of the girls hang out with me while I work in my upstairs office. Chester doesn’t do steps too well so he’s been staying downstairs. A couple of times now, when Belle has run downstairs and seen Chester, she’s started barking. She barks pretty loud, too, which has set the poor guy’s heart a-pounding.

K doesn’t seem to be thrilled by the old guy, but I think that’s just because he doesn’t play. Meg, being Meg, is mostly indifferent to him.

chester3 — "Mama, he won't play with me."

Hubby says he reminds him of Duke, our first long-term foster dog. Oddly enough, Duke and Chester were both pulled from the same kill shelter on the same day in late 2004. The lady who fostered Chester had just lost a Brittany of her own named Duke, and knew fostering a Duke would be hard on her. SO she opted to foster Chester.

Chester is what this particular lady, the Maryland state ABR coordinator (she coordinates for other states, too), refers to as a failed foster. Chester was not the failure. The failure was all hers. You see, once she’d had Chester for a while, she couldn’t bring herself to give him up. So she adopted him. She’s had two more failed fosters since then (Bodie and Sam), too.

The lady (Andrea) had to go on a business trip. She put Bodie and Sam in a boarding facility, but didn’t want to subject Chester to the same, with his various issues and ailments. So he’s staying with us for a few days. I picked him up on the way back from Carol’s house yesterday. He’ll only be here until Friday evening.

chester4 — Belle is checking Chester out.

Yep, Chester’s just a temporary addition to our pack, which I could have said at the very beginning of this post, but thought it would be much more interesting to let y’all think we had completely lost it and added a fourth dog!

Sorry, but I just could not resist. 🙂

It’s very weird having four dogs here…

January 5, 2010

Readjustment

Now that the holidays are over, it will be interesting to see just how long it takes the girls to readjust to my work schedule.

This scene was repeated over and over yesterday. It’s a good thing I wasn’t busy…

My girls can be quite demanding at times. After I’d let them out a gazillion times, all K wanted was to sit on my lap. Having her there tends to put a crimp in my typing speed, however.

With my handy new point-and-shoot, which I can keep by my side at all times, I snapped a couple shots of K on my lap. Then, last night, I did some editing with PS Elements and this is what I ended up with…

I applied some different lighting, color and texture effects. Then I framed it. What do you think?

I took Wednesday off to go skiing with my baby boy. I am determined to take advantage of some $21 all-day lift ticket specials this year.

Wish me luck. It’s still damn cold. Tomorrow’s forecasted high is 20 degrees with snow showers and some wind, so it will feel like 8 degrees. If I dress appropriately, all should be fine. Right?

Snow conditions are great. They’ve had 63″ so far this year and expect some more overnight tonight. We’ll be driving out to the WV place this evening if all goes as planned. That’s about an hour away from Wisp and just outside the snow belt, so we shouldn’t have any problems.

If you want to see how things are going for us on Wednesday, check out the Wisp web cams.

January 3, 2010

I Got to Hold TWO Puppies

The family that served as K’s foster family while she was still in rescue are fostering a young French Brittany mother and her two pups. I have always wanted to see a Brittany puppy. Other than Max, a friend’s yellow lab, I’d never held any puppy, much less tiny little 4-week-old puppies like these!

Comet (shown on left) is the bigger of the two. He’s a boy. Dancer, shown on right, is a girl.

I like Dancer’s little freckled nose. Here she is all wrapped in a towel after I rocked her to sleep.

The first time we went down to see the puppies, we left K upstairs. She was not happy. She cried the whole time I was gone. So, when we got back upstairs, she wanted to hang out with me. Emily sat on the floor, too, and soon we were surrounded by critters. Other than me spinning K around to face the camera, this shot was not posed. Isn’t it hysterical that even the cat got in there?

K was such a good passenger. On the way home, after stopping at my parents’ house, I stopped at a pit beef stand to get dinner. I asked if I could have a couple of little scraps for K. They gave me a bag with at least a pound and a half of beef, ham, turkey and corned beef scraps. Thanks to K, all of the dogs ate well last night!

I created a slide show using some of the pix from yesterday. I did it with Photoshop Elements, and it was super-easy. If you are looking for an inexpensive but powerful piece of image editing software, that’s the one I would recommend.

I had hoped to stop at Conowingo Dam on the way home for some eagle pix, but, as you’ll see in the slideshow, it was ungodly cold. Most have left the dam to head for their nests. Eagles lay their eggs in mid-January. Wanna see some Eagles nesting, laying eggs and hatching the chicks? Follow the Eagle Cam link I just installed in the right navigation bar at the bottom.

NOTE: There’s an error in my slideshow.
The picture of two dogs labeled Hannah and Brandy
should read Bella and Brandy. Sorry, Jenn!