Yes we did, we are wondering if we need to send away for a better organized petcretary...or maybe we need to send *her* to school for learning to pay more attention to details, BOL! Just kidding, as she was doing a lot of not doggy things this week...lots of snow shoveling, household chores, working, (She works 3 - 4 days a month), shopping for herself and hubby, and also for a friend undergoing chemo...and also she visited that lady for a whole afternoon, braving awful roads, esp her own street, as she lives even more rural than we do. (Her friend is the wife of our lumberjacking friend...whom we've known as long as we've been married; and this is her third bout of cAncer, sheesh, ☹️ )

The weather dudes say we are going into the deep freezer for several days, starting tonight...and snow is coming again as well. Gads, we are going through loads of the salt/sand mixture petcretary uses to keep the walkway from being slippery...she doesn't want to fall and break something like last winter...and she for sure doesn't want our pawppy to crash either...he has enough problems with mobility as it is.

And the bird feeders are emptying very quickly these days...the birds are VERY hungry in the cold season. We have suet, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and two other feeders with mixed seeds...there are a lot of birds flocking to our yard for the tasty tidbits they love and need. And so many varieties, it's fun for her to watch them, we and our peeps can see them from the kitchen and dining room windows. We pups like to watch that area too, in case a squirrel might come by...then we scramble in a big hurry to go out there to chase him/her away! Even though we know they, too are hungry...when the snow levels are not too deep, they dig little holes in the grass to find all the walnuts and acorns they've stashed there in the fall.

Anyways, we are already past the halfway mark of January, wow, time keeps on flying past us! Soon it will be time for that notorious groundhog weather predictor, BOL!!

Well, we missed Dress Up Your Pet Day, and also Hat Day, so petcretary looked through our huge archives and found some flashbacks to fill that gap. And of course some others, not so old.

Dressed up, ca 2019; Benji wasn't quite a year old yet...

Hat day, ca, 2020

We can't wait until we can see all our grass again!

Benji, after romping in some deep snow, he collected some snowballs, BOL!

I, Dalton, would rather stay warm inside and try to get all the treats out of thise treat holder/puzzle.

We are joining up with the Sunday Selfies at The Cat On My Head, whom we thank for being  our wonderful hosts for this weekly blog hop.

 This is Lily...she's a Jackhua, being a cross between a Jack Russell terrier and a Chihuahua!

Check out those ears!! And we thought Dalton had huge ears, BOL! This sweet gal came to see her daddy, and she would lay on the bed with him to keep him company. So when petcretary was at her work, Lily allowed a selfie so all could admire her!

Saturday was a dank, dark and dreary day as was Friday. Saturday it rained and then it began to snow, , but at least *she* was able to pick up our outside doings before they became frozen buried treasures, BOL!

On Friday it rained most of the day and the winds were whipping around like a roaring lion. The wind played havoc with some of the things on our patio...but with this stormy day only bits and pieces of branches came down in our woods, no big limbs like a few weeks ago when a huge top of a tree came down where all the partly cleaned up logs were. At least our fence is intact, Phew!

Today there are cold winds though not like on Friday, and its still a bit snowy off and on. The wonderful lake effect, Bah!

So here we cuddle and stay warm in our bed. We often share this one, but there are a couple of other ones, somehow we rarely share those, weird!

We wish the nice weather would return...like it was on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when all the snow was gone, and we were able to dig holes and trenches hunting for all the active moles and voles...

Well in this kind of weather it's fun for the humans in our lives to play in the AI world...so here we have some AI artifications of us two.

We asked AI to make a nice New Year's picture of us in the above image of us in the bed. We thought it's still new enough into this year...

We took this image from November when there was a LOT of snow and asked AI to do a few things with it...

'Romping in the snowy yard'

Wearing snowsuits

Wearing cozy sweaters

Running in the snowy yard, wearing our sweaters. Petcretary wishes we had a fence like this one, then we wouldn't be able to see the neighbor's dogs, (One on either side of us) and bark our heads off at them...

This is Morgan from Views and Mews By Coffee Kat. You may go there to leave comforting messages if you have not already done so.

We are hopping along with all the other selfies at The Cat On My Head, who are our wonderful hosts each week.

 Here we are on Day 4 of the first month of the New Year, 2026...It's already speeding by!

Petcretary thought she was going to have time to 'go visiting' but the weather said no, (Lots of snow, sleet and ice to clean up, including a huge limb that came down in the bad wind storm we had a while back...she was back there to check the yard after that, and thankfully it didn't fall on anything, other than the leftover trees that were already on the ground, waiting to be cut up...now of course there is more;  as well as she made those 3 mementoes and so on...(those gift mementoes sometimes take many hours...one day I should actually see how long they do take...but still, that won't stop me from doing them, I think it is a nice way to send out comfort to those who are grieving.)

Unfurbro-the-elder came over on New Year's Day to help us devour a yummy meal...and he also helped with clearing about 4 inches of new snow. I, Benji, had fun begging attention from him, BOL! Dalton avoided him..

And of course after unfurbro left, we had more snow...sigh..Petcretary cleaned it up on Saturday, took about an hour...we love the clean sidewalks. thanks for clearing them off.and pawppy will be able to walk better out there, now too...because she put down salt mixed with sand...the icicles and snowy roof will have to wait for another day, or maybe even a melt off, as the weather dudes say it might warm up by the end of the week into the 40'sF. (Should we believe such a long range forecast??)

Well, here are our first selfies of this year...we still had our New Year's bandanas on...and some beads, too, BOL!

We are hopping along in the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop! The hosts are The Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head

 Sadly, we have to start off the new year with Angels. So sad for their families and friends, especially at this supposed to be happy time of the year.

Anyways, petcretary made some mementoes to honor these new angels, and now we want the key to the RB gates thrown far away.

Please leave your comforting messages at their blogs, well, if you haven't already...

Willow was a kitty of #1's friend, at the Poupounette.

Laila was from Cat-a-Holic, of Laila and Minchie fame.

Neville, from I Have Three Cats

We know that Petcretary made all these mementoes as art work, so we will join the Caturday Art Blog Hop

May it be filled with many blessings for all of us and our families.

And may we step bravely into this as yet unwritten chapter in history.

The weather here yesterday and today is simply put: awful. Sleet and snow and more of both of them...we stayed home from our New Year's Eve service at our church, as the roads were treacherous yet again. Our older son stayed put as well...he'll try tomorrow to get over here for a celebratory dinner.

Oh well, that's winter in Michigan....

We made an ussie to ring in the new year, as opposed to the bubbly that the pawrents were having, BOL!

And Benji volunteered to make a special card for you all to celebrate the New Year.

We are joining up with the others at Brian's Home for Thankful Thursday's Blog hop