Strange weather here in the south

We had another snow storm last night and into this morning. Snow and ice intermixed – really made quite a mess, but a very beautiful mess. Because snow and ice are so rare in the south, the equipment to manage bad roads is virtually non-existent, so the south really just shuts down.

The week before the big predicted event occurs, grocery stores have to scramble to keep their shelves stocked. To me, it is really funny, but then again, I am also out there trying to do some shopping myself. Let’s just say that I will be baking bread if we need any to eat because Winn-Dixie had NO bread … none. Not even hamburger buns, hot dog buns, dinner rolls. Nothing. Well, unless you count those adorable little finger-food decorative breads and even then, there were only 2 lonely loaves of those. What cracks me up is that some people must have bought this type of bread in a desperation attempt to have some bread in the house! Although milk is also normally gone, this time I was able to get milk.

 

I will be the first to come to their defense, though. This stuff is slippery!!!! We didn’t attempt to drive in it, either. We ended up with about 3”+ of snow with ice mixed in, so it was exceptionally slippery. Even the dogs had trouble! At the risk of my sounding mean, I did have to laugh at our 3-legged dog, Mercy, (our neighbor calls her tri-pod :) – she was having a little extra trouble. The ice didn’t deter her from going on a walk with us, though, and she is as happy as can be curled up on her blanket in the warm house now.

This isn’t a great quality picture, but I was quickly trying to snap a picture of John with 4 dogs – our 3 plus a visitor. They were all excitedly jumping around on the ice. Would have made a funny video. This is a friendly visiting dog who belongs to someone else, but spends a lot of time up with us. I have named him “Happy” because he looks like he is always smiling.

Four years ago, this was my birthday present - Lilly. John was out of town on business and the kids and I went to the animal shelter to visit our other dog, Mercy, who was not able to be released yet. There was a fluffy, white, adorable little puppy that I could take home that very day. It was my birthday, so John agreed to my request over the phone. She was a mess of a puppy – in fact, she had already been returned to the shelter by one owner. Although she still is a mess, she is my favorite. She has me wrapped around her paw pretty tightly, too, and she knows it :)

Back of the house with the snow and ice. Incidentally, the trampoline support net is frozen solid!

This is a cute little bush on the ground shot at different angles. I like the picture on the right because of some of the detail of the ice. Can I tell you how impossible it is to take macro pictures of little bushes on the ground with a very friendly 9-month old puppy “helping” me??

    

“Who me? I was smelling your camera and pushing my nose under your arm because I love you!” We watched the movie “UP” over Christmas!! This is a modified reference to Dug from that movie :)

Oh, how I love these dogs. And I’m showing them to you because I like you. (If you haven’t seen UP, you must – these will make more sense, I promise.)