My candle lantern looks particularly Narnian in this morning's snow. I'm prompted to think back nearly a month, when it was 75 degrees Farenheit here, and the refrain was, "Always Christmas, but never winter."
Some further scenes from the backyard early this morning:
Everything becomes sculptural in the snow, even when it's only a light one. Apparently at this moment our entire county is encased in ice, at least at the road level –– it's 23 degrees Farenheit right now, and although last night's little storm wasn't technically an ice storm, and the trees and power lines all seem fine, the roads have frozen over good and solid. I'm glad I lazily ordered my groceries, instead of going out to get them, on Thursday, and the house is full of food and drink (and only two people to consume it, so we won't suddenly and mysteriously be out of milk).
Wearing today:
A muted tonal effect, I think: a repeat of yesterday's thrifted wool pullover, over my gray Sierra wool dress, marble-patterned bamboo/cotton leggings, and Doc Martens.
Interesting so far to note my clothing patterns, as I've been tracking them. A lot of Sierra, a lot of Doc Martens, at least in January. It'll also be interesting to note, as time goes on and seasons change, what items might pull out ahead of these frontrunners. I also note that I wear the same pair of dark-green wool socks a LOT, but that's because they're a) warm and b) thick enough not to slide down inside my Docs, which are such good winter shoes, being roomy enough to accommodate really warm socks and rubber-treaded, so they're fairly slip-proof.
Meanwhile, there's no more perfect winter garment than my Sierra, which layers so well. I'm sometimes tempted to wish I had a plain gray skirt, and . . . actually, I do, whenever I layer something over this dress. I will be curious to see how often I reach for it once spring is really here, and then summer –– will it be too hot? will the gray feel too wintry and blah? I am glad it wasn't my challenge dress, from July to October, and I wonder how much I'm going to want to wear it in the season of floaty florals and light colors, but then that's what my Camellia is for (not to mention a heck of a lot of the rest of my wardrobe, which is why I don't venture too far into minimalism).
A SHORT TIME LATER:
A good counter-conditioning session just now, involving Dora and the next-door neighbors. Of course, the neighbors didn't know that they were part of my dog-training scheme; they were just cleaning ice and snow off the cover of their above-ground lap pool. For that matter, I didn't know when we went outside that I was going to be enacting a dog-training scheme. I just thought that, since she'd been stuck in my crate while I took a bath and got dressed, Dora could do with some sniffing time outside. We'd gone out, and I'd scattered some kibble for her to find in the grass, when we heard voices in the backyard next door. Up went Dora's head. Up went her ears. I could see her about to lock in on the threatening people who dared –– DARED –– to be talking to each other on their own property. Then –– down went her head to the grass, and sniffsniffsniff she went, and crunch crunch crunch. I scattered some more food so that she could keep focusing on her sniffing with a ready reward for doing so. Every now and again she would lift her head and look over at the neighbors, busy about their own tasks, but then she'd go back to her sniffing and crunching. She was aware of them, but she was able to regulate herself enough to hold the thought of sniffing the grass for food.
This is progress. And it's exactly what you want: for the dog to rehearse a desired behavior (in this case, sniffing and self-regulation, hand-in-hand with each other) in the presence of a trigger or distraction, rather than an undesired behavior (losing her tiny mind/giving the whole neighborhood a very loud piece of said mind).
What made the session successful?
1. I had plenty of kibble ready and on hand. That meant that even when a situation arose that I hadn't planned for, I had the key resource for coping with it, i.e., food.
2. The thing I had planned for her to do was actually the thing to do in the presence of a trigger. Sniffing exercises are good in and of themselves, but they're also the best response to the presence of a trigger.
3. We were close enough to the trigger (i.e., the neighbors) for her to be aware of it, but far enough away that she could easily stay under her threshold. If they'd come up to the fence between our yards, this probably would have been a fail, not a win. We're not quite ready for that close an interaction yet.
4. I was able to recognize the opportunity for a counter-conditioning session, thanks to the training course we've been doing. Part of this course involves planning for sessions like this, where you deliberately set up an environment for controlled exposure to a trigger and conditioning of the dog's emotional response. This is good, but it also trains you, the human, to recognize situations that you can capitalize on as they arise –– as well as training you to be prepared for those situations, by which I mean that you're never out with your dog without a good supply of high-value food rewards on hand.
Also, I was plenty warm in the outfit described above, plus a puffer jacket.