End o' January

I took the dogs for a walk late in the afternoon the other day, and snapped some more pics. The light in winter can be very dramatic, or very subtle.

 

Good night, sun!

 

An animal (or various animals) likes to hang out in the hole at the bottom of this big old tree. The dogs feel compelled to stick their heads in there every time we walk by! A few weeks ago, something was in residence and it was not pleased with the invasive dog noses. It could have been a pine marten, or a fisher, or even a small raccoon. It made some very nasty sounds, and I dragged the dogs away before the occurrence of any tragic nose amputations. I just caught a glimpse of some dark little paws in the hole. I am tending towards pine marten.

 I decided to be brave and snowshoe on the frozen "municipal drain" (aka creek) that runs through our property. I figured that if the ice was thick enough for people to be skating on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa right now,  then this ice is thick enough to hold me. Plus the water beneath it  is currently about 8" deep, unlikely to cause a fatality if I fall in. I am paranoid about walking on ice. I think I paid a bit too much attention to the ice safety movies they used to show us in elementary school!

 Sophie is not worried at all about ice. Now if I had a Zamboni, I could groom this ice into a nice skateway.

 Anyone know what the tracks in the middle are? The ones on either side are from the dogs. I need to get out my field guide. They looked too large to be a cat, but I could be wrong about that.

 

 Winter presents lots of opportunities for stark and dramatic photos...

Look at this poor, pathetic soul. Tristan is afraid of Sophie, who has a nasty habit of snarking at him at the end of our walks. So when we are nearly home, he hangs back and lets her go ahead, and waits for me to call him over and walk beside him to the house. I'm his personal thug! It's funny how he can't see that he has at least ten pounds on Sophie and could take her if he wanted to. But bitches rule. ;)

Tristan is definitely the master of the sad, "poor me" look.

 This is outside my office window.

And now I must go eat the wonderful breakfast my husband is preparing, because today is my BIRTHDAY! :)