What our road looked like this time last year.

Our road this year

This might be fun, but no where near as much fun as being buried in snow.

The black and white team (L-R - Frankie, Natasha, Kiska) is enjoying their snow walk.

Natasha says it is worth a good shake.

And even getting out of order (of course, when you are the Queen, you set the rules).

The Red and White team maintained decorum.

Well, except for that whole snow sniffing thing.

Everything else was normal, right, Cheesewhiz?

Well, at least Rusty normal.

P.S. – Our Alaska friends could ship all of their excess snow.  Really.

View from our front porch watching the sunrise reflect on the western mountains of our hollow.

View down to our creek

Looking up from the house at our neighbors, Cataloochee Ranch.

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Funny story (and yes we wish we had video).  The hu-dad decided that this morning would be a great day to sleep late, so The Herd was being quiet about their waking up.  Except that it was song time.  Normally, song time in the morning is this raucous chorus on the porch or in the dog yard, but everyone was still in the bedroom.  So, it was solved by having song time in the bedroom.  Very melodic and LOUD.

The hu-dad is now awake and talking to every pup trying to wake up enough to handle turnout of the dogs from the bedroom to the dog yard.  Frankie is laying upside down in his lap, Qannik is resting on his head on the hu-dad’s shoulder, Rusty is laying across his legs and Kiska, Natasha and Cheoah are laying around the room.

Song time #2 erupts.  Five Sibes singing loud, but Frankie is enjoying his upside down morning chest scratch, so can’t sit up to sing.  Problem solved – he sings laying upside down across the hu-dad’s lap.

Just one of those great Siberian Husky moments.

We have not had much snow yet this year, and what little we have had has melted in most places.

But there are some north facing areas that retain the snow throughout winter.

Rusty sure is smiling to have some chilly paws.

Hey, we are having to make do this winter.

So while we would have preferred to be buried in snow here, we were happy that so many of our canine friends received the great gift of snow and were having so much fun in it.  But looking over our hu-dad’s shoulder as he browsed Facebook, we saw all of this human whining that it should not snow when leaves are still on the trees.  We could argue that point forever (think about it – snow the last of July would seem quite refreshing, now wouldn’t it?), but let’s be clear about what condition we are in here:

Our favorite tree. Note that we have NO leaves.

Catawba Rhododendron with a dusting of snow. Let's call this NO snow.

This is Rusty giving a sympathy look to the whining humans. Say it with us - NO sympathy.

Sigh – It was November 6 last year before we received our first measurable snowfall (but October 18 the year before and October 27 the year before that – can you tell we keep track?), so guess we will just have to be a little more patient.

P.S. – Happy Halloween.

We woke up to just the slightest touch of snow.

The distant mountain tops are snow covered while the valleys are green.

Queen Natasha enjoyed her morning perimeter patrol.

She checked to make sure everything was secure.

While Kiska handled the center of the dog lot.

And then it was time for our morning walk.

We are thankful we had some snowy roads to walk this past Sunday.

We are postponing because we have real breaking news.  Not some silly story like you see on the TV networks.  You know, not something like Charlie Sheen said something totally incomprehensible or Justin Bieber parted his hair in a different way.  No, this is real news.  Look at this:

SNOW!

We were supposed to receive heavy rains all weekend and had received about 3 inches (8 cm) of rain when suddenly it shifted to snow Sunday morning.  The National Weather Service helpfully issued a Winter Weather Advisory, AFTER we already had an inch or so and the snow plows were running.  Guess they were as surprised as the rest of us.

Rusty was loving his unexpected snow romp.

Not wanting to let a surprise snow go to waste, we took off hiking.

We enjoyed the snow surrounding our favorite tree.

And, of course, we had to watch in on our neighbors over at Cataloochee Ski.

Cataloochee Ski was enjoying their last skiing day of their 50th season.

The ski patrol had planned to work for another month, but our unseasonably warm February ended skiing season early.

But we didn't want to think of winter ending early, so we just took off to enjoy our snow.

And walked our way back through our field toward our favorite tree.

We will be back tomorrow with Ruby Tuesday and a visit to our cousins across the valley, and then we will resume our look at that mysterious damage at Chez Herd and the repairs on Wednesday.  Thanks for your patience!

Cataloochee skiers enjoying this past weekend's fun.

After a very snowy and cold January, we have had one of the warmest and driest Februarys we can remember.  For a Siberian, nothing is worse than a warm winter month.  Well, except maybe those humans smiling about it.

Our revenge is very predictable, however.  Since the ski resort maintains the road off of our mountain, they stop clearing snow as soon as they close.  Every year, there is snow that falls after they close and our humans are stuck figuring out how to drive the 15% grade on a snow slick road.  We are counting on a wonderfully miserable March and April.

In the meantime, pictures of our suffering:

Natasha says a February day is not supposed to be this warm (the picture was taken Sunday on the closed Blue Ridge Parkway).

Kiska says her wooly coat had better start shedding any day now.

Qannik is so warm he just melted.

P.S. – The good news is that the Blue Ridge Parkway in our area should reopen soon which will allow us access to some of our favorite trails.  A week ago, we were still finding snow covered roads (the Parkway has very little snow removal budget, so they just close the road when it snows which means that our section is closed for several months each year).  This past Sunday, our hiking found very little snow even above 5000′ (1500 meters).

Snow at the ridge tops

So time to do a little hiking so we can go play in the snow.

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