Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine’s Day! With a little imagination, deer prints in the melting snow look like hearts.

Deer Valentine...

We had rain last week, which turned our lovely white snow to slush. It’s all gone now except in the shadows of the trees. On Tuesday, rain water and snow melt flowed on top of the ice in the creek.

Rain and snow melt on top of the ice

The view upstream shows holes wearing through the ice on the far side.

Yesterday, the creek was clear of ice, and the water level had gone down again. We avoided a flood, for now.

Bingo and Banjo keep trying out new favorite places. For Bingo, it is Terry’s Birkenstocks, which he leaves by the front door when he changes into his outside shoes. Mmm. Foot smell!

Bingo can't get enough of Terry's foot smells

Banjo has taken to sitting in my chair again, even though there are TWO perfectly fine cat trees by the study window. We are in a territorial struggle, Banjo and I.

Hey! That's MY chair!

Another place he likes to lie is on the stairs, which reminds me of a poem by A. A. Milne (from When We Were Very Young, 1924). 

Halfway Down

The first verse goes like this:

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit

There isn’t any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I’m not at the bottom,

I’m not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.