Last week it warmed up

enough that all of the snow on the deck and patio melted off, which made Oribal very happy. She had been able to go out, roll around on the bricks for a proper scratch, and get her feet all muddy. Yeah, just what we needed, little muddy paw pints to go with all the big muddy paw prints on the white tile floor. (No, not really.) We told her it wouldn't last, but I don't think she paid any attention to our snow talk. Sure enough, it got all cold and snowy again on Thursday, just like we promised. (It was still only February after all.) After awhile the snow slowed down and Oribel got up from her nap to watch her private back-yard "TV" channel. She was happy to be watching all the birds at the feeder and on the deck and asked to go out, but I figured they could use the momentary lull in the storm to fill up their tummies without any help. All of a sudden she started making a bit of a fuss and dashing over to the window over the sink from the door. So I looked out the kitchen window to see the problem and saw that there was a squirrel in the bird feeder. Oh the horror! She really, really wanted to go tell it that those are her birds and bird feeder. (She is deluded about that, it is really mine. DTE made especially for me for Christmas; but I let her pretend.)
So I went ahead and opened the door for her, figuring the squirrel would dash off as soon as it heard the door, but it didn't seem to notice it at all. That was so much the better for Miss Oribel's plan!





She hightailed it out there, so fast and single-minded that she didn't even notice that the deck now had 3+" of snow on it that it hadn't had three or four hours earlier!

 

She was less than impressed when she realized what she had gotten herself into. She stayed out there for a bit, did a bit of a "see if I can dig myself a clear path back" routine, decided to hunker down for a while when she realized that she really was going to have to walk back through all that snow. It did start snowing again and she decided it would be best to come back inside and get a few kitty treats. (Probably a good thing she doesn't know about hot chocolate with whipped cream on a cold afternoon!)
I'll leave you with one more picture of her, just because I am not sure which one has the best perspective of her leaping tracks in the snow (though, as always, they will bigify if you click on them).