“Life with Coal the Cattle Dog“…Hmmm…might have to update that somehow now that Red’s with us too. And she certainly doesn’t tolerate being ignored! Maybe “Life with Cattle Dog Chaos!” {smile} Since she’s been with us, we’ve had a false-alarm hurricane, and a for-real Nor’eastern with 3 days of downpours, but this past week was her first really cold snap.

The snow started on Saturday and I was the first one up and moving around. Not the normal turn of events around here, but the kiddos have been staying up pretty late since their holiday break. And I’m not a morning person, but I don’t mind getting up early when I can do so peacefully, slowly, and quietly. With coffee.

So I was up first and took the dogs out.

Actually, shoved the dogs out. Because everyone was racing toward the door until I opened it and they got hit with that cold blast of snowiness. Then there was an abrupt halt and a furry pile up.

Penny went first, being the oldest and most experienced.

Then Coal went out–which meant Red had to go out. Because they compete over everything. It took Coal a minute to take it in since he hadn’t seen much snow since he was a little puppy either, then he took a flying leap off the porch stairs and was off!

Red was a bit slower to get the hang of it, but came around. It was pretty deep for her first adventure. We probably had 6 inches on the ground when she first went out, and it kept snowing all day. 

By the time I had bundled up and we headed out for a real walk, she was much more confident.

Coal was really enjoying himself and was very playful. Thankfully his recent shoulder injury was well on the mend. I think he probably stretched it more than he should have, but his limp didn’t show up again, and there was a lot of this…

Playing and running through the snow definitely tired them out more than usual as well. They got their normal 4 walks a day, plus time outside with the kids playing in the backyard, so there was nothing but snoring when they came inside that night!

I think plowing through the woods was probably the hardest part for Red. Being so much shorter, the drifts in some spots were up past her chest and she had to deer-hop through to keep up.

We did also have some minor damage to the back fence line that we need to fix. I don’t think it was the snow as much as a deer probably miscalculated and crashed into it instead of over it. It happens from time to time, although the high-tensile wire does have some give in it for that purpose. But we’ve got two fence lines down in the back of the big pasture that need to be repaired.

And now the snow is long gone–it was 70 degrees yesterday! And we’re back to–you guessed it–MUD. {sigh}

That’s Virginia winters for ya!

How are thing around your neck of the woods? Do you have snowy winters, or muddy winters?