Dog Day

Snow-encrusted puppy

Five inches of snow yesterday, soft powder, making me wish I still had cross country skis (for the way down our half-mile driveway) and glad I didn't (for the way back up). Today, after our morning walk, I let Pepper run. I didn't see him for the better part of three hours. When he came bounding up to the sliding-glass door, he looked like an orange-and-white Christmas tree, festooned with white frosted balls hanging to his long chest hair and leg feathers.










I had him lie down on his goat-fleece rug and started working on the crusted snowballs, which clung tenaciously to him. Mostly, he liked having his head and back rubbed down, so I did that for a few minutes. Finally, he finished the job himself, and settled down for a long nap, first on the fleece, then on a Persian below our Christmas cactus.

Right now, it's raining, and a Chinook wind is blowing up the valley. Much of the snow will have melted by tomorrow evening - not into our crawlspace, I hope.