Selfies During Fern's Ravages...

 That monstrous storm known as Fern is raging all over the country, and it has just started to hit our area too, though we are only getting snow, maybe 4-6 inches...through tonight and some more on Monday. So we will just endure it, cause we are glad that we are not going to have freezing rain, it's way too cold for rain. Friday night around 8 pm when petcretary got home from errands, it was -13F...when she got up in the middle of the night it was -16F, and when pawppy got up it was -19F. Talk about BRRRRR! Saturday's high was 8F...and with no wind it almost seemed warmish, BOL! We are just going out to do business and then we hurry back into the warm house. 

Petcretary has shovelled snow every day this past week, except Friday!, each day it seemed there was more than what she's cleaned up the day before...does that mean that today, (Sunday) there'll be an even deeper load? Sheesh. Of course today, Sunday, is the day she's scheduled to work...hasn't been there in the last ten days, so of course Murphy's law is finding the perfect day to mess things up! At least she won't have to be back there till Feb 5...who knows what that day will bring weather wise!

The birds are devouring the feeder offerings very quickly, *she* has never seen bird food disappear this fast ever since she started feeding them so many years ago. So she got two more suet feeders so the various species of birds that love that stuff can all have a better chance at getting some. We commonly have three kinds of woodpeckers, chickadees, titmouse, wrens, nuthatches that like suet. Sometimes there are the huge pileated woodpeckers and rarely a redheaded one. Of course we have all kinds of sparrows, finches, cardinals, juncos,  bluejays, and great flocks of mourning doves. We'll leave all the suet up until the starlings come back...they'll shove other birds out of the way and eat a whole suet cake in a matter of hours, same with mealworms. Even the cowbirds don't gobble the food as fast as the starlings.

We sure hope and pray that all our blogging friends stay safe and warm during this nasty and scary storm.

Around 8pm, Jan 23rd (It looks like -8, but if you enlarge it you can see -13...

Around 4am, Jan 24th; Baby It's Cold Outside!

Will someone play ball with me, I'm so bored when I can't be outside to patrol the yard and bark at everything...

All this staying indoor stuff, is enough to drive a pup to drinking...

We had to sadly say goodby to a dear blogging friend's cat, Sienna. She was part of the Dash Kitten's Crew. What is doubly sad is that she lost Thomas not that long ago. Petcretary made this memento to honor her memory.

Sienna, from Dash Kitten

Please visit there and leave your message of comfort if you have not already don so.

We are joining all the other Selfies at The Cat On My Head, who are our hosts each week.

We Missed Some Special Days

 Yes we did, we are wondering if we need to send away for a better organized petcretary...or maybe we need to send *her* to school for learning to pay more attention to details, BOL! Just kidding, as she was doing a lot of not doggy things this week...lots of snow shoveling, household chores, working, (She works 3 - 4 days a month), shopping for herself and hubby, and also for a friend undergoing chemo...and also she visited that lady for a whole afternoon, braving awful roads, esp her own street, as she lives even more rural than we do. (Her friend is the wife of our lumberjacking friend...whom we've known as long as we've been married; and this is her third bout of cAncer, sheesh, ☹️ )

The weather dudes say we are going into the deep freezer for several days, starting tonight...and snow is coming again as well. Gads, we are going through loads of the salt/sand mixture petcretary uses to keep the walkway from being slippery...she doesn't want to fall and break something like last winter...and she for sure doesn't want our pawppy to crash either...he has enough problems with mobility as it is.

And the bird feeders are emptying very quickly these days...the birds are VERY hungry in the cold season. We have suet, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and two other feeders with mixed seeds...there are a lot of birds flocking to our yard for the tasty tidbits they love and need. And so many varieties, it's fun for her to watch them, we and our peeps can see them from the kitchen and dining room windows. We pups like to watch that area too, in case a squirrel might come by...then we scramble in a big hurry to go out there to chase him/her away! Even though we know they, too are hungry...when the snow levels are not too deep, they dig little holes in the grass to find all the walnuts and acorns they've stashed there in the fall.

Anyways, we are already past the halfway mark of January, wow, time keeps on flying past us! Soon it will be time for that notorious groundhog weather predictor, BOL!!

Well, we missed Dress Up Your Pet Day, and also Hat Day, so petcretary looked through our huge archives and found some flashbacks to fill that gap. And of course some others, not so old.

Dressed up, ca 2019; Benji wasn't quite a year old yet...

Hat day, ca, 2020

We can't wait until we can see all our grass again!

Benji, after romping in some deep snow, he collected some snowballs, BOL!

I, Dalton, would rather stay warm inside and try to get all the treats out of thise treat holder/puzzle.

That's all folks!

We are joining up with the Sunday Selfies at The Cat On My Head, whom we thank for being  our wonderful hosts for this weekly blog hop.

A Lily In The Winter

 This is Lily...she's a Jackhua, being a cross between a Jack Russell terrier and a Chihuahua!

Check out those ears!! And we thought Dalton had huge ears, BOL! This sweet gal came to see her daddy, and she would lay on the bed with him to keep him company. So when petcretary was at her work, Lily allowed a selfie so all could admire her!

Saturday was a dank, dark and dreary day as was Friday. Saturday it rained and then it began to snow, , but at least *she* was able to pick up our outside doings before they became frozen buried treasures, BOL!

On Friday it rained most of the day and the winds were whipping around like a roaring lion. The wind played havoc with some of the things on our patio...but with this stormy day only bits and pieces of branches came down in our woods, no big limbs like a few weeks ago when a huge top of a tree came down where all the partly cleaned up logs were. At least our fence is intact, Phew!

Today there are cold winds though not like on Friday, and its still a bit snowy off and on. The wonderful lake effect, Bah!

So here we cuddle and stay warm in our bed. We often share this one, but there are a couple of other ones, somehow we rarely share those, weird!

We wish the nice weather would return...like it was on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when all the snow was gone, and we were able to dig holes and trenches hunting for all the active moles and voles...

Well in this kind of weather it's fun for the humans in our lives to play in the AI world...so here we have some AI artifications of us two.

We asked AI to make a nice New Year's picture of us in the above image of us in the bed. We thought it's still new enough into this year...

We took this image from November when there was a LOT of snow and asked AI to do a few things with it...

'Romping in the snowy yard'

Wearing snowsuits

Wearing cozy sweaters

Running in the snowy yard, wearing our sweaters. Petcretary wishes we had a fence like this one, then we wouldn't be able to see the neighbor's dogs, (One on either side of us) and bark our heads off at them...

Sadly we had to ask petcretary to make yet another memento for a new Angel Kitty

This is Morgan from Views and Mews By Coffee Kat. You may go there to leave comforting messages if you have not already done so.

We are hopping along with all the other selfies at The Cat On My Head, who are our wonderful hosts each week.

In Memory Of Sawyer

Recently the well known and much loved Sawyer from The Cat On My Head flew away to the Rainbow Bridge, for a new and healthy life...it was unexpected and a shock for all who knew and loved him, especially his loving family and furblings.

We made this memento to honor him, and to give his family a wee bit of comfort.

If you haven't visited there, please do so, and add you own words of sympathy.

Sawyer

In spite of all the words we are joining the Wordless Wednesday blog hop.

Time For The First Selfies Of 2026!

 Here we are on Day 4 of the first month of the New Year, 2026...It's already speeding by!

Petcretary thought she was going to have time to 'go visiting' but the weather said no, (Lots of snow, sleet and ice to clean up, including a huge limb that came down in the bad wind storm we had a while back...she was back there to check the yard after that, and thankfully it didn't fall on anything, other than the leftover trees that were already on the ground, waiting to be cut up...now of course there is more;  as well as she made those 3 mementoes and so on...(those gift mementoes sometimes take many hours...one day I should actually see how long they do take...but still, that won't stop me from doing them, I think it is a nice way to send out comfort to those who are grieving.)

Unfurbro-the-elder came over on New Year's Day to help us devour a yummy meal...and he also helped with clearing about 4 inches of new snow. I, Benji, had fun begging attention from him, BOL! Dalton avoided him..

And of course after unfurbro left, we had more snow...sigh..Petcretary cleaned it up on Saturday, took about an hour...we love the clean sidewalks. thanks for clearing them off.and pawppy will be able to walk better out there, now too...because she put down salt mixed with sand...the icicles and snowy roof will have to wait for another day, or maybe even a melt off, as the weather dudes say it might warm up by the end of the week into the 40'sF. (Should we believe such a long range forecast??)

Well, here are our first selfies of this year...we still had our New Year's bandanas on...and some beads, too, BOL!

We are hopping along in the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop! The hosts are The Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head

New Angels

 Sadly, we have to start off the new year with Angels. So sad for their families and friends, especially at this supposed to be happy time of the year.

Anyways, petcretary made some mementoes to honor these new angels, and now we want the key to the RB gates thrown far away.

Please leave your comforting messages at their blogs, well, if you haven't already...

Willow was a kitty of #1's friend, at the Poupounette.

Laila was from Cat-a-Holic, of Laila and Minchie fame.

Neville, from I Have Three Cats

We know that Petcretary made all these mementoes as art work, so we will join the Caturday Art Blog Hop

Happy New Year!!

 Wow, we have entered the Year of our Lord, 2026!

May it be filled with many blessings for all of us and our families.

And may we step bravely into this as yet unwritten chapter in history.

The weather here yesterday and today is simply put: awful. Sleet and snow and more of both of them...we stayed home from our New Year's Eve service at our church, as the roads were treacherous yet again. Our older son stayed put as well...he'll try tomorrow to get over here for a celebratory dinner.

Oh well, that's winter in Michigan....

We made an ussie to ring in the new year, as opposed to the bubbly that the pawrents were having, BOL!

And Benji volunteered to make a special card for you all to celebrate the New Year.

We are thankful for being able to reach this milestone year, the 250th anniversary/birthday year of the USA!

That makes petcretary;s home country of Canada feel like a wee one...we are in the 159th year over there...

We here are also thankful for a cozy warm home, humble as it may be, our pawrents, good food and care, and so MUCH more! We are also thankful for you our friends in the world of Blogville...we may never meet in person, but you all are the bestest virtual friends! Thank you!

We are still trying to get our thankyous out for the Christmas greetings and cards you sent to us...hopefully before next holiday season!

Once again:

Happy New Year!

We are joining up with the others at Brian's Home for Thankful Thursday's Blog hop