JANUARY THAW

 The neighborhood squirrels were taking advantage of a break in cold weather to raid the compost heap.

 After a snack of carrot peels and chunks of celery stalks it's time to stroll along the fence.

 Down to the brace.

A quick scuttle.

 Spring to the top of a post.

 Check the area for any danger, such as evil crows, and then down again.

 Hanging on with all ten toes when the going gets slick.

 A drift of snow in the way. 

 Time to jump up again.

 OOOoops!  Lost traction and the leap went wrong.

 “I’m okay.”

 Second try brought him to the last fence post with the flag pole and the solar light.

 Down again to cross the snow covered hedge.

 A scramble to our front step.  (The little pink specs are ice-melt to take the edge off the slickness)

A quick dash from one car to the next.

Another check for danger.

 Then on out of view to meet up with another squirrel friend to chow down on scraps under the bird feeder.

WEATHER REPORT TWO--MORE SNOW

On Christmas Day we woke up to almost a foot of fresh snow on the ground.  After opening presents and stuffing ourselves on turkey, some of our family adjourned to the yard for snowman construction.

The snow was a little dry and it wouldn’t roll.

The kids took it as a challenge and resorted to stomping the snow down in storage tubs.

They stacked the big hunks up with plenty of decisions on design and engineering.

They went so far as to take some of the snow inside to warm it up enough to use as mortar between the blocks.  Complaints from inside followed.

The snowman grew in size and personality.

 Finished product!

This morning we got up to discover even MORE snow.  Beavis was soon putting our new snow thrower to good use to dig out our driveway.  I’ve drawn a red line around the snow on top of my car so you can see how much had fallen.

 When the guy with the snow plow came by to clear the street we welcomed him with mixed feelings.

 Note the big wall of snow he is leaving across our parking area.

Still, the snow blower took on the drift and sent it high into the air.  When Beavis was through there, he went across the street and plowed out our new neighbors.  They are from Taiwan and haven’t had time to tool up for Idaho weather yet.

Just for fun here is a little animation of what it's like to be inside when Beavis goes by the window with the snow blower.

WEATHER REPORT

Our December in Southeast Idaho has been unusually warm.

For quite a while our backyard looked like this.

Then we got this wimpy snow.  It wasn't long before that all melted.

We were all wondering, where's the white stuff?

Yesterday morning we woke up to a BIG storm.

Along with lots of presents, Santa brought us a white Christmas!

A note to Linda Sue from The Elf.

"Where in stinkin' $#!+* Siberia did you send me?!"