Winter Abides

We are stuck in some sort of time/space nightmare where it is always winter. There can be no other explanation. It has been snowing and blowing for eternity. Every morning Jack and I take one turn around the run-in and are back in the barn before the woman has the door halfway closed. We find the air just a tad too fresh to be healthy.

Being inside has allowed me to observe Sally the cat more closely, so at least there is that silver lining to the snow cloud in which we currently dwell. Sally is very, very small and of a fastidious nature; she keeps her brown fur coat tidy at all times and even though she has been starved, she never bolts her food. We all wondered how her introduction to Penny the dog would go and it went just fine. Sally sits regally ensconsed in her blue igloo and regards Penny with amusement tempered with a hint of disdain. Penny performs a clean-up operation on the floor and ingests any spilled cat kibble. A state of symbiosis is obviously evolving.

Jack is obsessed with the idea that Penny wears a coat like his and he insists on examining it closely at every opportunity. The dog has given up trying to evade him in the close quarters of the barn and allows him to run his nose all over the material. "Huh" he says " I never seen such a thing as dogs in clothes before." When I point out that he himself is wearing a larger version of the same coat he just shrugs and says that's different. You simply cannot reason with someone that age who has made up their mind to ignore logic.

Doc is rather subdued owing to the fact he is outside on his own all day. Molly on the other hand, is the belle of the ball and rarely has fewer than six or eight people clustered outside her stall inflating her already supersized ego. She'll need an overlarge trailer to return home - one with room for her ridiculously swelled head.