I haven't seen one of these Bambi's lately, nor have I seen green grass.
I guess it was time to humor myself this morning by posting the photo.
By the way, it was taken just down the road last year in our neighbor Eva's field.
Every last deer, with a brain, has left Selle by now, looking for greener pastures or, at least, a lot less snow.
Just nine days left of January.
Down there in the Southwest, many of my friends, with brains, aren't counting.
Almost every day, my former colleague and friend Esther Booth documents another hike in Nevada by posting pictures on Facebook. She and her husband Ernie own a condo in Mesquite.
So, during the winter months they get to walk on dry ground, wearing their shorts and sun hats.
Other retired teaching friends take their trailers or motor homes and spend nearly three months in the Southwest, usually returning home with the West Coast Conference Tournament in early March as a stop along the way. .
To them, January probably goes by all too fast with all the fair-weather opportunities.
For us bad-weather schmucks who tough it out up here in the north country every year, we do take time to count, several times a day.
How many more days left in January?
There's always hope that we'll accidentally (or, on purpose) miscount and feel good for a while.
There's always hope that we'll accidentally (or, on purpose) miscount and feel good for a while.
That manufactured euphoria lasts until we double check our math.
This morning I subtracted 22 from 31 and got 9. I just couldn't believe that we could actually be down to single digits.
So, I tried counting on my fingers, excluding today cuz we're already ticking off today's minutes.
By golly, I came up with the same answer.
Only nine days and several hours left of January.
Immediately after I came up with my finger-count answer, another big mass of snow slid and roared off from our roof.
Most of the snow has left both of the roofs, descending in iceberg-like rectangles and, in some cases, overflowing into shoveled pathways.
Yay! I guess. Glad it's off the roof. Don't want to shovel those paths again.
I'm waiting for the barn roof to lose its snow and have even been closing the doors during the day, hoping the heat inside will help it along AND that it slides off during the day and not at night time.
Horses don't need much of an excuse to get stirred up.
So, I can just what imagine the rumbling of those huge chunks of snow while cascading to the ground would do to my three inside their dark stalls at night.
On another note, Ma and Pa Love are once more excited and thrilled as Willie's girls basketball team earned another victory last night on a road trip to Kellogg.
Good job, Bulldogs!
Whenever I wasn't counting my fingers yesterday, I found other distractions for January, including a trip to town.
It started out as a drive to the grocery store to pick up more Purina Beyond cat food and kitty litter for Festus.
But when Vern Windham, an announcer on KPBX, said it was dark and raining in Spokane and noted that we would have some rain for the next few days and because it was raining on my car, I made the spontaneous decision to call my friend Chris and suggest going to lunch.
She was up to the task, so we agreed that I'd get my cat food, she would finish what she was doing and we'd meet at Baxters on Cedar Street.
We had a delightful time, catching up on our lives. We especially enjoyed visiting with our server who turned out to be the granddaughter of Watt Moreland, one of the voices of Radio Station KSPT-1400 while we were growing up.
Hearing that information inspired some blasts from the past. Watt worked for Norm Bauer at the station for 25 years.
Of course, our discussion led to some historical data about where the radio station was located back in the good ol' days.
It seemed to me that when I was really young, it may have been out past Dover. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong. I am sure, though, of it location not far from our home over on HWY 95.
We really depended on the radio station back in those days for information and entertainment, especially for winter time "no school" announcements, local sporting events and the "Hopalong Cassidy" show.
Long past the days of Watt Moreland and Norm Bauer along HWY 95, KSPT-1400 still exists as one of the Blue Sky Broadcasting stations coming out of the studios on Marion Avenue in town.
In short, my visit with Chris and our server helped bring some sunshine to a rainy January day.
I don't know what today holds, but the good part is that it's one day closer to February and one fewer day of harboring a tinge of jealousy toward my snowbird friends.
Happy Wednesday.
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