DOGS
We got a new puppy today... 
She slept some of the way home... 
We stopped at Tractor Supply to get a few supplies... 
We pulled out the toy box when we got her home... 
She'll play fullspeed for a while then flop down and sleep... 
Finlay was all happy to meet her...
Now, she's not too sure. Finlay's taken to guarding the puppy toys.
We went to the Lake House to visit Mike and Jan this weekend. Finlay continued a proud Martinko tradition...
We were in the Mercer Candy Cane Parade again. Kelly brought Finlay along...
She was a big hit. I don't know how many times we heard, "Oh! Look at the puppy!"
This is the float that was in front of us...
It was titled "Santa's Workshop". It's Santa sitting in an outhouse.
Today, we went out for a hike on the ski trails...
The trails are just getting set up, so we snowshoed. We did 3.3 miles. Finlay did about 2. After the first mile, Kelly carried her off-and-on. She was wiped out when we got home...
We got a new puppy! We got her from Finlayson, MN, so we named her Finlay, pronouced "Finley"...
She's silvery-brown. The breeder says she'll turn more chocolate as she gets older but should keep her blue eyes...
She's a mix of English and American Labradors, so she'll have a blockier face and stockier body than Kody. Speaking of which, Kody has been quite the tolerant big brother...
Sometimes we think she's part cat. Or maybe pirate parrot...
I took Kody out to the lake with me. After a bit of coaxing, he jumped off the end of the dock and swam out to me...
Here's a candid of Abe on the last leg of his World Tour 2017...
I might have more pics tomorrow. I'll have to check my phone.
The thermometer says it is 8° outside. We might actually hit double-digits!
In other news, Kody found his spot to nap...
Today is Abe's Birthday...
So, Kelly made him a special dinner: Aged, venison stew-meat...
A couple weekends ago, I pushed about sixteen inches of snow off the roof. It makes pretty good pile under the eaves. Abe likes because he can stand on it and look in the living room window...
If I'm sitting on the couch and feeling like teasing him, I'll stand up and wave my arm. When he starts to run around to the back door, I'll sit back down. After a few minutes, he'll be back up on the pile looking in and woof at me.
Today is Abe's birthday. He is eleven. Kelly made him a hat...
Click HERE to see a couple more pictures.
Just a short video showing how deep the snow it...
We have a foot on the ground (and roof) here in Mercer. There's more like two up in Hurley.
The snow is melting. Abe isn't happy about that. He's more of a winter dog. He likes to go outside in the middle of the night and take snow baths. There's a bit of snow left in the ditch that he'll slide around on when we're coming home from a walk...
It was Abe's birthday yesterday. He's still pretty spry for a thirteen-year-old.
I was raking up some leaves to cover garlic and blueberries after work today. Whenever I'm outside, Kody wants to play, so I rake-rake-rake, throw the ball, rake-rake-rake, throw the ball. I threw it into the leaf pile once and he dove right in after it. He took a while to find it the first time, but got better the more he did it. I finally went in and got my phone to take a video...
Maybe I should teach him to root out truffles.
When I play the video, Kody looks around trying to figure out what's going on.
While I planted garlic tonight, Kelly spent half-an-hour brushing the dogs. It's not the easiest to see in the picture, but all the clumps are hair...
I think if we raked it all up, we could prob'ly make at least one miniature dachshund.
Abe got an Alpo breakfast AND a snuggle on his birthday today...
He is now ten years old.
Kelly's Uncle and Aunt were up for a vacation. We went over to Grandma's last weekend and showed off Kody's diving skills...
We went skiing today. Kelly's mom and dad gave me a harness for Christmas for Kody so I can wear him out a little more. I found that if I wait a few minutes to let Kelly and the other dogs get out ahead, Kody will pull pretty hard to catch up to them...
Kelly took a short video of Kody pulling me...