First Snow, again!

It's not often that the first snow is a real snow that sticks! Usually, the first snow is a dusting the melts away that day. But after yesterday's snow, the weather got colder, and more came down! This morning, when we got up, it might as well have been March:


In accordance with a Real Winter day, I made egg flower soup and steamed some frozen pork buns for breakfast:


There is not enough snow to ski, or even to walk on the trail system that is accessible behind our house. At one degree below freezing, the mud is still mud, and the giant puddles are still giant puddles. So we walked the "high" trail, which is an "official" (as opposed to historical) trail that is lined with gravel and accessible year-round:


Roo and Cricket were suuuuuuper happy:


The sun came out for a bit, making the sky blue and the scenery really beautiful:


Cricket posed with me!


The sky was bluetrueblue:


Roo helps me pick out the path through the puddles that is least likely to get my pants wet!


Happy beasts!


Cricket and DL:


I tried to get a photo of the two dogs sitting together, but whenever I stand still, they come up to me and remain verrrrry close. Roo sits right next to me to be petted, and when I back away, she follows me. If I even lean back to attempt to fit her whole body into the frame, she paws me:


Okay, so I agreed to pet her:


And her soffffffty schnozz:


This is kind of the shot that I wanted? But they won't look at me and are different distances away!


I can sometimes get nice shots of them individually.

Starbuck alone:


Cricket alone:


When we get home, I give them fang-cleanin' snackie, either a greenie or a rawhide. The last time I was at Alaska Feed, they were out of rawhides, so I bought (ok who knew this was a product you could buy?) dried cow esophagus sticks. I guess I had not looked closely at the dog chewy section in a long time, because they also have sheep lungs, beef trachea, and variety pack that includes all of the aforementioned, along with pig ears, pig feet, and chicken feet. I declined that one. For all of the ills of our modern industrial food processing system, I do give it credit for using every part of the animal.

They approved of the esophagi: