Hey Tribe,
Winter finally arrived to our slice of The Last
Frontier. One day it was golden and
crisp with fallen leaves and the next day, poof, 6” of soft white snow
blanketed everything.
On Saturday, the KBDs and I happened to be out with the SAR
team training when pitifully small and crusty flakes of snow meagerly began
tumbling to the ground. An hour after it
began, someone looked about and remarked (to nobody in particular), “Hey, it’s
snowing,” but nobody gave it much thought, because to label it “snowing” was
rather generous. However, the sky
persisted and, as they say, practice makes perfect – by late afternoon it truly
was snowing perfectly formed flakes that clung to the dogs’ backs as they
worked their searches. Then, evening
fell and so did globs of snow and we found ourselves joyfully clearing several
inches of the stuff off our vehicles as we packed up our training gear.
With an entire Sunday free from responsibilities, we made
the most of it and took the dogs down the road to an abandoned stretch of marsh road so they could romp and play – and boy did they ever!
It was such a pleasure to watch Rex experience his first
snow day: his puppy body exuded happiness as he bounced, rolled, and dashed
through the new powder.
The marsh doesn’t completely freeze during the winter and it
hasn’t been cold enough for it to freeze much at all, so there was open water
for the dogs to drink. Swimming was also
on Fly and Rex’s agenda, apparently, because both dogs purposely waded into the
open water on separate occasions, much to my surprise.
Icy fur and snow packed feet didn’t slow them down all
day. It is doubtful that they even felt
the biting cold, though my hands certainly did.
If this is any indication of how winter is going to be, we
have wonderful adventures and a bounty of exploration experiences ahead of
us. I can’t wait!
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