First Snow, Tepid Tubs and The Deer Hunter

Woke up this morning around 8 and looked walked onto the balcony to enjoy the crisp morning air.

The first thing I noticed was the pond in our backyard had developed a frozen crust on top of it that reflected the sunlight incredibly. It also may have signaled the end of my quest to find out what the little creature that I see swimming around in there daily is until a warm stretch comes along.

An hour or so later, it happened.

The first snow of the year started.

It didn't last long - 30 minutes or so - and none of the flakes remained once they hit the ground, but still. Normally, having even a glimmer of snow before my birthday would make me sadder than Red Sox fans on Sunday night, but this year, I honestly welcome it.

Everything out here is absolutely breathtaking and a layer of snow is only going to make it even prettier.

* * * * * * * *

You can stop being jealous of the hot tub now.

Last night, looking forward to a quick dip and instant warm up, we fired up the tub and...

Frozen.

Not literally of course, but there is something about stepping into 90 degree water at 10 PM in nothing more than my Nike basketball shorts is not really what I was looking forward to.

Instead of investigating, we went to bed and cranked up the temperature of the water.

Thankfully, when I lifted the lid this morning, the temperature read 104 and the display said ready.

Not much better than a nice warm tub watching the first snow...

* * * * * * * *

Cool Hand Luke is no longer.

He's now... The Deer Hunter.

We went for a walk the other afternoon and decided to let the little guy off his leash for a good run. Only trouble was, we didn't notice the couple of deer grazing in the trees off to the left.

Not only did Luke immediately make his way over towards the deer, he proceeded to follow the lead pack up the mountain. And I'm not exaggerating about mountain here either - we literally live in the middle of the Rockies and our stupid dog ran about two miles up the side after some deer he thought would make really great playmates.

Problem #1 - the deer behind Luke who chased after him and nearly stepped on him in defense of the pack.

Problem #2 - the little monster now pulls stronger than ever whenever he so much as thinks he sees a deer.

Most of the time what he thinks is a deer is really just a leaf or a tree or nothing at all, but we're stuck getting our arms ripped out of their sockets because chucklehead wants a new playmate.

Stupid dog!