It Looks Like Christmas In The Adirondacks!

I drove up to the farm on Thanksgiving weekend with all the dogs. It was snowing when I arrived in the Adirondack park and apparently the snow had been falling all morning. The main roads were being plowed but the parking lots and small roads were uncleared and had about four inches of snow on them. I got brave and drove off the road and into the woods, trusting my previous experience to guide me. I wanted to get the dogs out of the car for exercise and a potty break. They were, needless to say, delighted:

We walked from the car directly into the forest. The snow was falling and piling up on the spruce branches, giving the whole landscape the look and feel of a living Christmas card. Fergus could still, however, find plenty of interesting aromas to sniff:

Wally has had eye problems and his vision is much impaired. But he and Winky, usually the last two in line as we progress along a trail, took the lead. The puppies, after all, were running and wrestling and generally too busy carrying on to worry about any trail:

The puppies and Fergus overtook the older dogs at one point:

Dear placid Seamus was happy just to plod along, enjoying the sights and smells and general sense of joy coming from the puppies:

Wally and Winky seemed to have forged a new, closer friendship and were best buddies for this trip:

Then we walked from the forest down through the trees toward the banks of the Ausable River:

Curiously, Wally kept walking ahead of us, either in spite of his impaired vision or because of it - I was never quite sure:

Several times I saw Wally hesitate, apparently unsure where the rest of us were. But as soon as he and Winky hooked up again, they took off toward the car leaving the rest of us to catch up:

The youngsters wanted to stay back and explore the woods, the stone fire ring and the riverbanks. I urged them on so that we could catch up with Wally and Winky:

Indeed, Wally was the first (along with Fergus on the right by the rocks) to reach the car. His vision problems hadn't prevented him from knowing where to go:

That passageway through the trees was the "road" on which we left the highway and entered the forest. Barring a major thaw, I don't expect to be able to drive back there again until late spring. I'm sure glad we tried it this time, though, or we'd never seen the beautiful snow covered woods: