Never Have Enough Snow

This is from two weekends ago. Marilyn is sitting in the middle of the snow path to connect her and her besties, Sammy and Kannya. Olga, their mom, told me when they come down the path, Kennya always looks for Marilyn in our yard. When Marilyn walks down the path, she looks up Olga's deck to see if Sammy and Kannya are there. Then, she walks straight to their door. Marilyn tries to visit them. It is almost their routine to see each other everyday. It is very interesting to see how they care about each other.

Chad has been plowing this path so many times since the last week of January. The snow banks have been getting taller and taller. Now, they are much taller than these dogs.

Not just this doggy path, the side walk's snow banks are even taller. Dogs must feel like walking in a maze. For dog owners, they works as guard rails to protect our pooches from traffic. Marilyn seems to like those walls since she doesn't get distracted and it is clear where she is suppose to go... straight ahead. In the first winter she joined us, we had a big snow storm. I took her to a park. Everything was covered with snow and there was no path. Then, she got confused. She didn't know where she was supposed to go after all her familiar things were buried in the snow. She was just staring at clean flat white space. Some dogs would jump into it and make their own path as they desire. She seems to prefer a defined structure.

Speaking of confusion, it seems she has been having a hard time to figure out where she's suppose to make a turn.

Last week, we were on a regular morning walk. It was not dark. We were following her route marked as the dotted line. All of sudden, she started walking down the neighbor's drive way. I thought she found something to sniff. I waited on the street. Once she felt a pressure on her leash, she turned around her head and looked at me "What are you doing? Let's go." Then, I realized she was thinking she was following her route which was a little further down from the drive way. The snow was taller than her. Her weakened eye sight by aging was not helping her either. "Marilyn, you cannot go down there. This is somebody's yard. Come back here." She still didn't realize she made a wrong turn. She was unhappy thinking I told her she couldn't go her regular route. She stood there for a while to express her resistance. Then, she slowly walked back to me. We were back on the track and hit another corner. Marilyn finally realized she had made a wrong turn. She made a turn even more confidently this time, and was back to happy self again.

A couple days later, we were on an evening walk. It was getting dark, but still enough light to recognize everything. This time, she made a turn at one block early. It was good she was still on a street instead of somebody's property, except the street was dead end. She was confidently walking down the street. All of sudden, the road was cut off. The poor girl was confused and looked at me. "Honey, you made a wrong turn." She turned around and got back on her route.

Left is a view from my eye height. Right is a view from Marilyn's eye height.

I wonder all dogs in New England are having a difficult time and boring walks with the same white walls all the way.

Wednesday, February 3rd

It was a beautiful day with clear blue sky after the snow storm. A great thing to live in a suburb is cleaning up snow is much quicker than Boston. Only problem place is a parking of a train station. Snow is pushed away to the edges of the parking which means spots along the edges are occupied by the snow. This means less spots are available. Here, a parking spot war begins. Even if you get to the train station 10-15 minutes earlier, there is still no guarantee for your spot. Once the parking gets full, there is no other parking you can go. You screwed. This hasn't been a fun situation at all.

Boston takes much longer to clean up. Once we have a big snow storm, the city is not people friendly at all. Side walks are slippery with snow and ice. It is not rare you need to crime up a snow bank to cross a street. Drains on streets are covered with snow. There is no escape to melted snow. It makes huge dark slushy paddles at every corners where usually people cross streets. Snow boots or rain boots are must-have. We just do what we've got to do to deal with the situation.

I went out during the lunch break. Here is a winter wonder land!



The paths in Boston Common seemed to be cleared by noon time.

Some people were enjoying ice skating at the Frog Pond.

The old brick buildings look beautiful in the snow.



Not so safe for pedestrians. It must be hard to get around after dark. This is a busy road.

The city is trying their best to clean up, but it's just too much snow.


I would say the winners in the city were kids. School is off. They were heading to Boston Common for sledding with their dad.


We didn't lose power, water or gas. Only thing we had a problem that week was a trash collection. None of us thought this was coming. In fact, we'd never had this problem before. The collection for the week prier was cancelled due to the snow storm. Then, another storm hit on our trash collection day again. We had trash for two weeks waiting to get picked up. But, the sides of the road got built up snow from plowing. It was not easy for trash collectors to work on the top of catching up with two weeks amount of trash. People complained to DPW. They were working even after dark to catch up in the freezing temperature. A little empathy, compassion and appreciation would be nice especially we all know this is out of our hand and they were trying their best.

Monday, February 9th — Snow Day

Another big snow storm came. The Governor declared a state of emergency. We stayed home. Marilyn refused to go outside as soon as she saw the snow from the porch. By the evening, the lattice below the porch was completely covered with the snow. And, snow kept falling down.

My asparagus patch was deep under the snow blanket.

I spent a day finishing up a couple more pillow covers for my Etsy shop and getting ready for Marilyn's Valentine's Day give away. I found these cute Valentine's Day cards. You can simply download it.

After cleaned up the drive way, Marilyn finally agreed to go for a walk. Snow fell down on her black coat. You can actually see the snow flakes. It's pretty cool.

We walked down the quiet street. We saw Bruce came out from his back yard. Marilyn was walking toward him to say hi. Then, we heard barking. That was Sammy, Marilyn's friend. She is a mixed dog from Puerto Rico. This is another Sammy. Marilyn has two Sammy friends. She noticed Marilyn was there and started barking. So, Mallie, Sammy's mom, brought her out. As soon as she saw us, Mallie said "It's so cold out. Are you crazy all the way waling down here?" Sammy was so excited to see Marilyn and running around like a crazy. I guess we all crazy there.

The snow is taller than a car. This is happening most of corners on streets. I get very nervous to make turns. It's hard to see if cars are coming or not. Yes, driving is a quite challenge.


Tuesday, February 10th — Another Snow Day

All trains were canceled. I got another snow day.

Marilyn and I went a morning walk. When we walked by Lorri's house, we saw big birds were having breakfast in her back yard. At least a dozen of wild turkeys. Some were not in the picture. It's hard to see, but some are on the branches. It seem they are the watches while the ones on the ground are eating. As we approached her house, they started alarming. I saw Lorri in the evening. She told me there are over 50 of them come and go her back yard. And, she is feeding them to help them to get through the winter.

These big birds have big feet! They are a half the size of my feet.

I love big dogs, but no so much big birds. I prefer small ones. He was in my yard this morning. Once he showed up, two females came. He might be a bachelor?

After breakfast, I went outside to clean up the porch and the path to the drive way. Marilyn decided to join me, but as soon as we got outside, she took me to the garage. I opened the garage door since she likes to hang out in the garage. Once I started working, she came back on the porch watching me working. When I finished, she took me to the garage again. This time, she stands at the back door of my car where she usually hops into. She was telling me to go for a ride. To find out she really wanted to do that, I opened the door. She hopped right in. "Oh well, I guess we are going."

We went to see her "the other" mom. When we got there, we saw her, Laurel, Emmet, her husband, Molly, one of their daughter, Laurel's bother and mom. They are all very good to Marilyn. She is adopted by them, and they spoil her. She is a very lucky dog to have two families.

Next stop was her favorite shop, Barkery. We saw Kristi, the owner. Marilyn was so excited to see her. Of course, Kristi gave her some yummy Barkery cookies. Marilyn chowed them down quickly. She also said hello to the staff working in the kitchen. We picked up some Valentine's Day gift for her friends.

For her two legs friends, I'm going to bake madeleines. They are the people who always spoil her a lot.


This is our fun New England winter with snow and dog cabin fever. We also enjoy warm mulled apple cider and hot chocolate.

Whenever I run into neighbors, they say "Enough! I cannot wait spring comes." A neighbor seems to be missing summer a lot.

The mother Nature however doesn't think we have enough snow yet. More snow storms are coming over this weekend. It is expected that we're having one foot of snow.

Comments