Pictures with Santa

I just spent an hour looking for pictures with Santa (another attempt at avoiding getting ready for Christmas!) but only came up with two.  And you're not going to see them because it looks like Santa is strangling Brooke and I don't want to expose the big guy's bad side!

What I did find though were pre-digital camera pictures of Oscar, Ceasar, Chevy and Brooke - yes, all my four legged friends. 

Ceasar came home with us after Dan putting up with months of me sticking pictures of dogs to the fridge.  We went and met him at a shelter, took him for a walk and put him in the car.  The young girls at the shelter were crying because he was leaving and Dan was shaking his head because Ceasar had zero leash manners!  Dan said if we got a dog it would have to live outside.  Yeah ok (more like 'yeah right').  It took about three days and then Ceasar was safely living inside and sleeping on  Dan's pillow at night.  Dan worked graveyard shift back then so the transition was easy.  Ceasar settled in just fine and quickly learned that sleeping on the couch or the bed was better than sleeping on the floor. 

Ceasar had a cat buddy that lived next door to us at our old house.  For the record, we didn't steal that cat when we moved.  When we moved in here I bugged Dan for a cat.  And along came Oscar.  Ceasar and Oscar became fast friends.  They would rip around the house chasing each other, knocking over furniture etc.  Ceasar would flip Oscar over and chew on his belly - company always thought the dog was killing the cat but it was all in good fun until one day:

I didn't mean to kill him momma.

No, Oscar is not dead, he's stretching! 

Ceasar became ill and we lost him too soon.  He was our intro to living with dogs and my protector from the Jamaican stalker.  Ceasar lived a good life, so good in fact that when he was ill and I was at the butcher getting him chicken to boil, the butcher offered to quit his job and come live in our yard on a chain if we'd feed him that well.

Next came Chevy.  Oscar spent two years in hiding - not very fair.  Chevy had more training than any dog should require and despite that he still had issues.   This picture is an indication of his drive/determination:

Yes, he's standing on the hood of Dan's truck (known as 'bigwhiteugly') and that is Oscar trying to get away.  I learned  A LOT working with Chevy but eventually with my vet's intervention, he was rehomed. 

Then along came Brooke and since you see her all over this blog I won't subject you to her now.

Don't expect that to last long though.  I got a scanner for my birthday and finally put it to use this morning with the pictures above.

Wholly snowflake batman

The snow finally started falling and it didn't seem like it would ever quit:

Oscar ventured out, before it was over his head:

It kept falling, and we kept shovelling:

We kept shovelling except for this short beverage break.

The fence in the background is six feet tall - yes, SIX!

As you can see, we are running out of driveway space.

Brooke uses the yard area on the left side of the picture shown below for her, umm, personal business.  By now the snow is as deep as she is tall.

We actually had to shovel a trail and an 'area' for her:

The sun finally made an appearance and we were able to start cleaning up.

These pictures are actually from the winter of 2008/09!  We've only had a few dustings on the coast so far this year but we are ready for it.  No more shovelling for us - Dan got a blade for the ATV.  The weather experts better be right with their 'worst winter in 50 years' prediction.