Snowbound!

Welcome to my new bloghome!

Thanks for all the great feedback on the blog redesign. I'm cackling, thinking of all of you loading this page for the first time, no warning, just boom! New look! That's how we do things around here. No fanfare until the fanfare. If you missed the prior post explaining what has happened here, scroll down--I put up a little howdy-doo Thursday morning.

It keeps snowing and snowing and snowing here. I looked out this morning on our seemingly permanent foot-and-a-half of snow, with more drifting down. Considered the fact that the kids have been out of school almost a week. And thought that this is kind of like being in a hospital. You look out and think, man, I'd love to go for a long walk in the sunshine!

but no. You have to stay in your room, and there is no more sunshine. You can't have sunshine, and you can't have a walk. Egad--just getting around to all nine bird feeders in this crusty, powdery, slushy/slompy stuff makes me huff like a steam engine. It is decidedly un-fun to walk outside. It isn't actually walking--it's more like controlled staggering.

Chet Baker has taken to peeing in the snow right on the front porch, or right on the back deck, less than three feet from the door. He minces out and unloads and then expects to come right back inside. The next time he does it I'm going to smack that little black rumpus of his. I shovel out pee alleys; he'd darned well better use them. I don't know when he last pooped. Not my problem. It is not yours to tell the world about my elimination situation, Mether. A Boston terrier has no fur on his underside, and he must be excused all manner of rule infractions when the snow is so deep that it hits his most tenderest bits when he tries to walk in it. You try going out naked on all fours and see how you like it.


Chet hates the snow. I mean, he's happy to romp for oh say three minutes and then he's on the front porch bouncing up and down like a kangaroo needing in NOW. NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. As I write he's clawing all the blankets on my bed into a huge Jedd-like pile and circling five times before flopping into them.

He is a dog of comfort. I would like to discover his secret for staying sane without putting miles of trail under his boots. I would like to bottle it and drink two quarts of it. I'm trying the sleep cure, and it does help to konk out with a book on my chest at 8:30. Just get this winter over with. My God, the woodcocks are due this week. I hope they stay in Alabama.

Back to our regularly scheduled program:

Bill of the Birds is good at talking girls into things. However he is good at talking men into things, too.

This is the Testosterone Express. David, Sherm, and Bill in a never-to-be-repeated lineup on the Green Menace. Zane wisely decides to race alongside.



Look OUUUUT BELOW!!! It's the BeefSkid! Oh, the manly grunts of pain that emanated from the Express as it hit the bumps.

Unfortunately there are no photos of the Estrogen Sled, which bore me, Margaret, Mary Jane and Beth in one epic ride. Wouldn't you know we went into the groundhog burrow. ow ow ow.

Phoebe and Liam ready for a run.

Daddy gives them a mighty shove.


And they trudge back up the slope. Sledding is great exercise; you have to climb that awful hill each time you want another ride. And hooting and hollering and laughing your head off is the ultimate cure for cabin fever.

Girlfriends in the snow: me, Mary Jane and Margaret. Mmm.

Phoebe takes a breather. Her groovy hat-scarf from Taos is a snow-caked liability now, offering weight and wetness without much warmth.

Liam readies some snowballs. There are always snowballs, especially with Daddy around.


Dusk falls on the pasture.

The kids are exhausted. So are the adults. And we've been down and up the slopes half as many times as they have.


There are roses in the snow. You have to kiss those cold lips to bring them magically back to life.

We go to say goodbye to Abby and Veronica

who watch and wonder
the snow collecting on their backs.

Veronica snorts and shakes her heavy little head

and turns to get a little warm comfort in the gathering dark. She's a little old for it, but Veronica has nothing better to do.

We head for home to do the same, but ours is spaghetti and firelight.

Brave New Bloglook

Woooweee!!

Today, I celebrate my WebWitch, Katherine Koch. Her artistry has given my blog a new lease on life. I sent her a CD of my favorite images, and she poured it all into her cauldron, tossed in eye of newt, toe of frog and tail of Boston terrier, stirred it lovingly under a new moon, and sent me this happy, fabulous template, this lovely and active frame for anything I want to share. I don't know how she does all she does (she's an artist and writer as well as a Web designer), but when she gets done writing her historical novel, I would like her to go ahead and...

hmmm... come in on Sunday so she can... design my entire life. Mmmm, yeah, that would be greeeeaaaat.


She's created a place this blog can live happily ever after. I'm all Oh! Oh! Oh!

Stills and obscure references from the movie Office Space. If you've seen it, you're laughing. If you haven't seen it, you must.


Need a Chetfix? Click on His Chetness and see what happens. Want to read some of my favorite posts? Click around on the quote boxes and pieces of flair and see what you find. Mess around in the archives. Try the search box. Searching my blog has been an exercise in futility for a long time, because Blogger's FUBAR and has been for months. Thanks to a Googlyslick end-run by Katherine, my search box works fabulously once again.

You can get anything you want at Zick's new restaurant. So if you want to see a giant Amazon otter or a manatee or a wild macaw; if you want a Chet Baker fix; if you want to know about orchid care; if you want to look at bluebird nests or box turtles or red-spotted newts or bobcat scat (hey, some people get a hankering for it); or even if you just want that infernal Zick dough recipe again, just type it into the box in the upper left corner and off you go. Egad, it's like having a personal assistant. And it's darn nice for me, too, as I find myself dipping into the archives for all manner of inspiration and assignments. There's four years' worth of good stuff in here.

You can share a favorite post on your social networking sites by clicking "Share This Post" in the toolbar. I'm just getting my feet wet in social networking, but I can see the viral power of that. More readers: good. Please feel free to spread my virus far and wide.

Those who get this blog by RSS feed and have forgotten what my blog even looks like, click on http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com
and bookmark the page if you want to trade a little convenience for the ever-changing, clickably beautiful fun.

I'm so happy to have a dynamic new template for my stories and pictures. Flippant Office Space references aside, I'm deeply thankful to employ a WebWitch who is not only an artistic genius but who gets me, top to toe. So I asked her to tell us a little bit about her process.

"When Julie asked me to redesign her blog I knew I was in for a challenge. A successful design is like a clear window into another world - you don't pause to think about the glass pane bringing joy into your day when you're immersed in the subject beyond it. In this case that window had to reveal a vast and varied landscape conveying all that Julie brings to the blogosphere - watercolor painting, writing, the wonders of nature, gardening, family life amidst the tranquil rhythms of Appalachia, and a Boston terrier in all his adorable Chetness. Needless to say it was a daunting task.

Mether, here you need to put in a picture of me, Chet Baker, applying my undercarriage to your naked couch. Because I am one of the things that brings you joy every day. Probably the main thing, if my doggly intuition is correct.

"I think it was the mission statement that served as the lightning bolt - 'making room in your life, every day, for the things that bring you joy.' At that point, 'everyday' became the mantra, inspiring post-it notes, papers, a wire-bound journal and paint drops, all elements that hint at the mundane while reveling in the extraordinary. I hope Julie's readers find this nook in the web a place that's as warm, inviting, and illuminating as Julie herself. If I've accomplished that monumental goal in a way that excites her loyal following and draws in a broader readership, then I can rest assured that the resulting design is a grand success. Thanks, JZ, for the challenge!" --Katherine Koch, Web Designer Extraordinaire (I added that, she didn't.)

Thank you, Katherine, for giving this design your extraordinary all. I wouldn't change a thing. 'Cuz we've already done that. And it was just about bang-on perfect from the get-go.

Hit Reload a few times, just for fun. Let us know what you think of the new look. As if you wouldn't.

JZ

Sledding!

Sledding is a very intimate way of appreciating the landscape. You can look at a snowy hill, and think how beautiful it is, but putting your nether bits in direct contact with its contours is a whole 'nother thing.

It's a hugely exciting thing to hurtle down a steep slope, feeling every bump and groundhog burrow under a too-thin covering of snow. Our fastest sled is thin plastic; it cost $6.99 and it fits four people on it. We were given another by a neighbor that cost $130 and while the thick foam insulates from some of the crueler bumps, it's not as much fun as the Green Menace. Saucers generally suck; I don't like going 30 mph backwards and being dumped off without warning. The inflatable, inner-tube style has a lot of potential and is a lot easier on aging tailbones than the aforementioned. There's a lot of spinning with those, too, but it's a cushier ride.

I love the processional out to the slope. Out the driveway, under the drooping snowy pines.


The sumac branches are laden with snow.


Oona tells Liam to MUSH!!
And David carries his homemade sled. David can make anything, including a sled with real downhill skis as runners. David and Mary Jane (here's Mary Jane, a wonderful artist and art teacher, with your blogger)
keep Chet Baker when we go away. They are Chet Baker's West Virginia parents. David and Mary Jane are always hoping we will go away, because they love Chet Baker. And when they visit us, Chet Baker always gets in their car, hoping he can go to Camp Baker. He comes and asks me to go get his bed and food and leash and toys, because he's ready to GO. We always get such a laugh out of his eagerness to go to Camp Baker, where he gets a couple of walks every day, and the chipmunks are naive and there for the taking. Couldn't invoke the doggeh without a photo to slake the Baker thirst. We call this photo Christmas Sweetness. Unfortunately you won't find Chet out on the slopes. He is perfectly happy to stay home by the fire and greet us as we come in, not being a fan of prolonged outings in the snow. The problem has to do with his sparsely-haired undercarriage, well displayed in the photo above. Brr!

The slopes are prime for sledding. That's a big bowl of a hayfield. We are most thankful that the farmer who leases it didn't pasture cattle there last fall. Frozen cowpies are incredibly painful when they connect with your rump through a thin plastic sled.

Sez who?
This is Abby. Abby and her daughter Veronica like to watch us sled. Our sledding parties are probably the most exciting thing that happens to them all year long.

This is Veronica.
Veronica is sort of a bovine Oona.

The common denominators being crippling cuteness and a sturdy build.


It's hard to get Oona to go down the slope on a sled or saucer. She much prefers to give people a mighty shove and send them down, then watch from the top.

The only person who can consistently coax Oona onto a sled is Bill of the Birds. He is very good at talking girls into things, any girl, any thing.

I Do Not Want a French Bulldog.

The only thing I don't like about posting twice a week is having to squeeze the Chet Baker posts in between all the zoo animals and pithy philosophizing. If I'm having Chet Baker withdrawal, what about you?? I can go in and snuzzle Mr. Popcorn Paws any old time. Still miss him on the blog.

No, thank you for the suggestion, I am not going to start another blog devoted to Chet Baker. I am going to keep painting. Here insert emoticon of smiley face. Or winky face, if you're the type who does that. I have been known to do it, but only when I'm pretty sure someone's going to take something the wrong way otherwise. Emoticons. Ecch.

One photo can change a person's outlook. Sometimes a life. I'm thinking, naturally, of some of the famous Life Magazine photos of Viet Nam that are seared into my memory. But because I am by nature a happy, silly person, I'm also thinking of photos like this

of a French bulldog puppy beset with some ridiculous and obviously unworkable footgear
that a Facebook "friend" who shall remain unidentified for now had the temerity to post on my wall. She knew, even as she posted it, that this seemingly innocuous act would set up a barely-controlled puppylust in me, which is just flat out not a fair thing to do to a friend, even an imaginary Facebook friend. Misery loves company; she is suffering from that same puppylust. As for me, I could put that French bulldog on a bun and put a little country mustard on him and have him for lunch, he is that delicious. I did not know they came in anything other than fawn, black, red, black-and-white or brindle and now that I know there is a tricolor variant I am doomed.

This "friend" likely knew in hitting me with this photo that the first breed of dog I decided I wanted when I decided, after 13 years of hemming and hawing, that I wanted a dog (is this still English?) was a French bulldog. Now make that a tricolor French bulldog.

But then I decided that I needed a French bulldog with legs because we would be hiking, oh yes we would, and clambering around these steep slippery Appalachian foothills. And so I put nice long legs on that wish and got a Boston terrier and I think you know that I have never been sorry about that, not one nanosecond have I been sorry I got a Boston terrier instead of a French bulldog.

Until LINDA M. LYSAGHT that RAT FINK sent me that !@#$#!%$# PHOTO. But I am STILL NOT SORRY and I would get a Boston terrier again not that I am even CLOSE to shopping,f because HERE is what a Boston terrier can DO.

This is Chet Baker's patented aerial switcheroo in which he leaps up heading right and flips his hindquarters around and lands heading left. I remember the day he taught himself to do it and it's been his favorite move ever since.

Try that with your little peg legs and your hi-tops, Frenchy. I shall now revel in the natural athleticism of the Boston terrier. This is Chet Baker at his best, modeling the sweater knitted for him by loyal Chetfan Sue Robbins back when he was a puppeh.

I'm sure you could teach a French bulldog to fetch. Well, maybe you could. I hear they're a little headstrong.

But for airs above the ground? Look no further than the seal-brindle marvel that is his Chetness.

These photos are of poor quality, but it is hard to photograph perfection. I included this one because he looks like a man in a Boston terrier suit.

Float like a butterfly. And he doesn't even need to stick his tongue out to do it. I know I'm mixing references to great American athletes here, but forgive me. I am not a sports person.


Michael Jordan, hang your head.


Sometimes you have to give him the stick.

Come on, Chet! Get your stick!

I am not falling for it, Lee Dum. You will just sweep it away like Charlie Brown's football. I know that is what you are going to do, Phee Bee. You are rotten children. And a dog like me does not fall for that stuff.


All right. Brace yourselves. Here I come.



After a workout like that, only Shila knows which muscles to massage.

Mether. How could you ever think of any other breed?

I couldn't, Chet Baker. My heart is yours forever. I will not look at any more pictures on the Internet, I promise. All right, Mether. When bad old Linda sends you more, just cover your eyes.



I will, Chet Baker.

Sara, Mary, Jane(s), Susan(s), Wendi, Chris, Jen(s), Tim, Jason, Maureen: stop kissing your screens. There's your Chet Baker fix. I know, I know. It's been too long. Now wipe your screens. ;-)

:-D

:-/