We did it!  At last a real Dog Walk!  We went through the barn, back to the line fence, plowed our way up the hill, across the top, and down the front.  The snow crust is hard enough to hold all three of us, at least most of the time.  It’s only 12 degrees outside, too cold for scent, but we could follow rabbit tracks.  They have been busy eating the bark off the small Ash trees.

We got up at 6:45 this morning and watched the sunrise with Momma Dog from the front window.  “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse” was as true for us as it was in Clement Moore’s (1779-18630) poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.  Well I hear a chewbone calling me.  Cheers Mates!  Huck

Finally the crust on the snow can hold us both up, so we went rabbit hunting in the forest while Momma Dog tried to climb the back hill.  We ran and ran, but the crust can hold the rabbits up too and they must have heard us coming, because we didn’t see any.  Lots of tracks though.  Can you find me in today’s picture?  I needed to clear my head after celebrationg Australia Day yesterday.  I think Nemo and I are going to make some skis, then we’ll get those rabbits!   26 F todayand cloudy.

There’s a strange yellow ball in the sky Nemo.

That’s the sun!

Where’s it been, rhino rear?  How about if I see my shadow and jump into a snowhole, will we only have six weeks of winter left?

Why are you so perky small insignificant terrier?

It’s Australia Day Mate!  Fireworks, no school, picnics on the beach, concerts,….

Aaaahh, I don’t think we have Australia Day here Huck.  No beach.

“Makes your blood run cold doesn’t it Mate,”  said Huck solemnly.

“Yeah,” replied Nemo.

“Imagine that, a Red Tail Hawk swooping down and grabbing a squirrel right in front of our car!  Momma Dog watched her carry it off toward the trees.”  Krikey Nemo, I escaped being eaten alive by that same apex predator last week.  I told you that hawk was diving at me!  I wonder if Steve Irvin ever had to deal with a sky diving apex predator raptor?

“Probably not Huck, he was too busy wrestling the easy ones,  twenty foot snakes and crocs.”

“How did Momma Dog know it was a female A.P. Hawk?”

“She said females are 25% bigger than males, and if you hadn’t run outside to see if you could see which tree she was  making squirrel nuggets in, you would also have learned that people train Red Tails for falconry.  They have to be “passage hawks”  though, ones that have left the nest but not yet be a year old.  Otherwise they are too hard to train.”

“You mean like in the Middle Ages?  Hunting prey with them riding on your outstretched paw?  Let’s go get one Nemo!”

“Are you mental?  Do you want to be a canine crunchie at a raptor convention?”   Think about the meaning of the word ‘shredded’.  Why don’t you go outside and practice your iceskating and see if you can land your jumps without four-footing them?”

Krikey, my old buddy Nemo is a mess!  It’s wash day for his Gorilla and he’s been pacing in front of the dryer for twenty minutes.  If the suspense doesn’t end soon, he’ll be in the bathroom ripping the toilet paper off the roll.  Let me tell you that gorilla needed a bath!  Whooeeee!  Nemo left him outside for awhile yesterday and something marked him!  The good news for me is I can run on top of the ice crust pretty much, I only break through once in awhile.  Someone else, an overweight someone else, breaks through with every step.  Thank the great dog, there’s the buzzer saying the dryer is finished.  Five minutes more and there would be nothing left of Nemo but a tramatized id.

We’ve been out again.  This time we plugged along in two foot snow all around the house.  Our internet was out for awhile and Momma Dog wanted to check the cable.  Problem must of been somewhere else because it’s fine now.  Huck has not been able to find his rabbit feet, thank the great dog for that!  We are getting ready to watch tv and chew our rawhide chewbones.  We love the kind with “meat in the middle”.  Affectionately, Nemo

Yep, just as soon as they realized how messy my rabbits feet were, Momma Dog put on her rubber gloves, made me give them to her, and pesto chango, she took them to the ditch.  Just let me out and I’ll go and find them and bring them back and they will be even worse. 

It’s raining ice today, the ice, on all the bushes and trees, is falling off banging cats on the head.  Well, I don’t know that for sure, but you can hear it falling on the barn roof and the cars.  Real rain coming tonight, run cats run!

“Singing in the snow, just singing in the snow, what a glorious feeling”….I just had to tell you guys, I Huck, have found a treasure.  I have two rabbit feet!   We went out for a second walk today and decided to try climbing the back hill yet again.  While Momma Dog and Nemo were struggling up there, I veered off into the woods and found what was left of a rabbit.  Two front feet which I commandeered for my very own.  I am going to be double lucky!  Maybe I’ll even win the lottery.  Nemo is extremely jealous, and I haven’t even let him smell them yet!  I am sticking close to Momma Dog as I’m afraid VOG will throw them and me right out the back door if he finds out.

Also Happy January Birthdays to Seth, Michael and Dale.  I’ll let you guys touch my lucky rabbit feet.  Which do you want, left or right?  Whoops, I’d better get back on guard, Nemo is sneaking in here.  Seth is 19, Michael 29 and Dale, well, let’s just say Dale knew Lassie as a pup!

Momma Dog says if we go hiking today we will fall and break our hips so we are staying in and reading Rita Mae Brown’s “Cat on the Scent”.  It’s one of the books in the Mrs Murphy series where the animals talk and help solve mysteries.  Huck gets a big kick out of Mrs Murphy and Pewter insulting each other.  He says he is gathering ammunition.  This is probably going to mean trouble for a serious dog like me down the road.  When one of them called the other a “bubble butt” he was laughing so hard, he fell off the bed onto the floor.

 Last night it rained a little on top of all our snow and then  turned to ice.  So now we have a 1/4″ of glaze on everything, and nothing is moving on our road.  We need to see the sun in Iowa and temps above 32 F.

Nemo what do you think about December 21, 2012?

I think it’s a wonderful day for a nap.

The Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world.

All things end wee terrier, even the History Channel.

Not me, I’m not going to end, and neither is Momma Dog, VOG, and the back hill.

Get a grip Huck, the Mayan calendar shows the end of a cycle called the 13th b’ak’tun.  A b’ak’tun is 144,000 days.   The winter solstice of December 21, 2012 happens to be the time of a rare conjunction when the sun is in the exact center of the galaxy.  I could be more technical and tell you about galactic planes and the Milky Way, but it would only make you want to tear your whiskers out!

Krikey!  I saw the previews to the movie “2012″ and I’m packing my backpack just in case.

Well, throw in an extra chewbone for me and Huck, grab me a bottled water.