Puppy Photos and General Updates

 It's been a chilly couple of weeks! Looks like there's a little more work to be done as far as winterizing the cottage - if my fire dies out while I'm at work, or if I don't add logs frequently overnight and it's a below zero night, I have a super hard time getting the temperature back up to a comfortable level (and comfortable for me is 50F). I'm thinking that I'll probably add skirting to the deck this spring, touch up my insulation, and maybe even add small mud rooms as a buffer at the two doors. 

Other than that, things are going fine. The puppies are about 6 months old now, and I still have both Molly and Enna. I really only meant to keep one. 😝 I got their hip scores back a couple weeks ago, and I'm mulling those numbers over - they're not awful, but not as good as I had hoped, either. I would maybe consider letting one of the puppies go, so I'm praying that if that's God's will, He will send exactly the right home at the right time.

Here are a few pictures of how they're turning out. Enna first... she's quiet and fairly independent but enjoys an occasional snuggle.

And Molly. She's sweet, a little needy, and very social. And her cute, perfectly tipped ears are one of my favorite things in the whole world. 

I'm planning for the spring... I'm hoping to start a garden this year. And there are more animals I'd like to add, which means I need fencing and shelter. I've done a little clearing for pastures, but have a long ways to go with that. 

I still have more interior work to do too - cleaning, organizing, drywall, painting...

In other words, I guess I should get off my phone now and pick a project. 😝 

I hope everyone is having a peaceful winter so far and staying warm enough... like Bartholomew. 😂😂😂 

Happy Tuesday!!

Adventuring

 Dad stopped by for a few minutes this morning. While he was here, we hiked out through the snow to take a look at a couple trees - we may try to use trees from my property when I build a barn. 

There are lots of deer tracks everywhere, but a little ways from the house, we saw some different tracks. We're no experts, but after studying them a bit, we decided that a dog or a coyote had crossed the trail there. 

We carried on and looked at the trees. Then Dad left and I got lunch. There's a lost dog in the area, and it occurred to me that there was a tiny chance that the tracks belonged to that dog. Feeling adventurous, I decided to follow the tracks and see if there were any further clues.

The trail led me through the deep woods, in 4-6 inches of crunchy snow, across a creek (I carefully balanced on a log) and well off my property. (I haven't noticed any "no trespassing" signs, and I don't believe that lot is occupied, so I'm pretty sure it's okay to hike there.) 

Here's approximately what my journey looked like, starting at the bottom. I gave up the search where the blue dot is on the left, just before I would have had to cross the road.

I started toward home...or so I thought. Lol, I pulled up the map after a few minutes and discovered I'd been going too far east and not enough south. That did lead me to an intriguing discovery, though - I found a cleared trail, a very sketchy bridge, and a neat little pond. Here's the trail and pond: 

And the bridge. I tested it carefully with each step - it's hard to see in the photo, but the dropoff on the right was probably 5 feet, and a lot of boards were missing. I had no desire to fall through a rotting board into the creek!

I never did figure out whether the tracks were from a dog or a coyote, but it was a fun excursion! 

Here's a neat branch I saw:

And a neat mushroom:

And then the scene I saw when I returned home:

Happy Monday!!!