Winter is Here

Our first weekend in WV for 2009 was a cold one. Saturday morning dawned cold, but dry. Which was good. It was Belle's first weekend there and the last thing I wanted was to be trudging around in the rain. Snow I can handle. But rain is just no fun.

Wondering how Belle did at the WV place? She was fabulous. Except that we didn't take her blankie. And we soon learned the she won't sleep without one.

It didn't take long at all for Belle to discover what began as a deer trail behind our house. It runs pretty much from the corner of our back patio to the back of our property. Our dogs have always used it as a main thoroughfare. At that back corner of the property is a fence. On the other side of the fence is the Price estate. That's where Buddy lives.

Buddy is the big, friendly Golden Retriever owned by Jean and Jim Price, our WV neighbors. Our dogs love to play together. Buddy comes to visit regularly, and our dogs go to visit him, too. When he showed up on Saturday, his size (I think) scared Belle, so she hid in the house.

We walked down to visit on Saturday afternoon, but it started to rain. Cold, freezing rain. So we came back home. But not before discovering this bit of grossness at the back of our property.

My guess is, it was wounded by a hunter before coming into the woods here to die. The dogs, of course, thought they'd discovered gold. It wasn't too hard to get them away from it, though.

Belle makes a great lap-warmer.

Sunday morning's walk was a bit treacherous. There was ice everywhere. But it didn't slow the dogs down.

And we actually made it down to the Price place so Belle could meet Buddy. The following sequence of shots shows how fast Belle is and how much fun the dogs were having.

#1 - Belle, in the lead, as the dogs race around the house.

#2 - She's a bit of a blur because she moves very fast.

#3 - Meg and Buddy were running, too, just not nearly as fast.

Wanna see all the pictures I posted from the weekend? I added comments there, too, mainly so Belle's foster family, who are going through serious Belle withdrawal, can keep track of how she's doing with us.

Here's one last picture to close this post, just so you know Hubby was in WV with us, too.

He may not look particularly happy here, but he is. Belle has proven to be a very welcome addition to the family. It's only been a week, but it already feels like she's been here much longer.