Happy day

I had a good day yesterday, my birthday, thanks to Gordon...

 

 We went out snowshoeing. It was sunny and beautiful out, not too cold.

We followed the creek along our field into the adjacent field. Then I broke through the ice! You can see how it has fallen away from the edge in this photo. Uh, that was me. But I didn't even get wet, just leapt onto shore. I told Gordon to stop where he was and climb our, which is what he was doing in this photo! (The water here is about six inches deep. No worries of hypothermic drowning.)

The dogs were having a great time and posed for a photo or two.

Then they gave me a bunch of over-exuberant birthday face-kisses!

 The farmer who owns the land next to ours has a nice hardwood forest. They've been driving their snowmobiles and ATVs through it. We walked through for a while, for a change of scenery.

I was surprised to see a sunflower had been growing in the woods! I grow lots of sunflowers in my garden. I figure some bird transported seed to the woodlot, and voilà!

A very large tree died and fell into the fork of another tree.

When we got back to the house, Tristan pulled his usual stunt of settling down in the snow and looking pathetic.

 

We fed chickadees by hand near the house. They are so sweet! And can you see what's on Gordon's hat?

Yep! A hungry little chickadee. I am going to try to get more hand-fed chickadee pics in the coming weeks.

But wait, there's more fun! We met a local dairy farmer recently, and he invited us to come see his farm. He and his wife have lots of lovely cows who like to lick...

They licked my hands, they licked my hair, the licked my coat, they licked my leg!

 Worse than a cat!

Here's Gordon slacking off while the farmer does the hard work.

The healthy, happy barn cats enjoyed fresh creamy milk.

And look, a new born calf. Mama cow hadn't even finished cleaning her up yet.

After the dairy farm, we went out for Thai food. I was hoping that the other restaurant patrons wouldn't notice the scent of barn emanating from our booth.

Snowshoeing, chickadees, dairy farms, Thai delights... never a dull moment around here!