first tracks

 

Oliver barrels through the snow.

There’s nothing more fun to watch than a happy dog playing in fresh snow. With his long legs and seemingly waterproof coat, Ollie is in dog heaven on days like this; as a bonus, he’s discovered that by loudly barking in the vicinity of the feeders, he can startle a flock of birds into flight and then joyously “chase” them as they scatter, a game he’ll repeat over and over (thank heavens we don’t have close neighbors). It’s been a cold, wet, noisy, happy morning.

Under the thistle-seed feeder.

While I wouldn’t pretend to know what birds are thinking, they sure don’t seem to care that Ollie plays with them this way, and he has never tried to catch one–he just likes to watch them fly. With brambles and shrubs nearby to the feeders, there’s a place for the birds to escape, so their flight paths become a visual pattern against the clean snow.

We keep another feeder right outside the kitchen door, a cause of great excitement when the occasional squirrel invades. I loved seeing that when Oliver pointed at birds this morning, his foot didn’t make it over the snow (we got at least ten inches). In my newly empty nest, without that festive chaos of messy boots and sleds and wet outerwear strewn around the house, I’m finding that the real blessing of a snow day is the opportunity–almost a requirement–to gaze outside and actually attend to what I see. I may not bark at the birds like Oliver, but I’ll follow his lead and watch them.