A Happy, Snowy Walk In The North Hay Field

It had been a relatively easy winter so far with little snow and temperatures which frequently warmed up enough to melt what snow was on the ground. But one morning it turned colder and began snowing in earnest. Sometime mid-morning I decided to take the dogs out across the north field to revel in the heavily falling snow:

They were beyond themselves with joy - as you can see in this photo of Fergus in mid-leap:

We walked clear across the field. I opened the gate and we then began walking into the woods. That pile of old lumber, fence posts and tree trimmings is the result of a full summer of hard work, piled up there to rot naturally:

There was a sort of road through the woods once upon a time, but there's not much left of it now. But I knew where it led, so we followed it as best we could:

Seamus and Fergus made side trips to sniff for Sasquatch invaders:

The brush became quite heavy and the rocks underfoot were threatening to twist one or both of my injured ankles. I stopped and the dogs looked back at me, disappointed we weren't going any farther:

Madeline investigated a little creek. I wish my cows could get to this creek to drink, but I suppose they'd be all muddy if they could:

Clover ran along the creek just to see what she could see:

But it was time to return, so we headed back up toward the open gate:

And the dogs were happy to moving again:

We began making our way back across the hay field:

Madeline ran ahead and wouldn't come when I called her, but I got the other dogs to heel as we neared the road. We crossed safely (not that there's any traffic to speak of on that dirt road) and returned home. We found PeeWee sleeping under my desk, unaware that we'd even been gone. This had been a brief but enjoyable jaunt, the last one we got to take before the snow on the ground became too deep for any more such walks: