Cat-sitting and Playing in the Snow! April 25 - May 2, 2010

This is Milo. He loves to play with cat-nip mice and watch James lay on the floor to get them out from under the stove, from behind closed doors, from under the bed, from out of the duffle bag, etc. He thinks it is fun to lick your elbow in the middle of the night and sleep right where your legs would like to be, if there wasn't a black and white cat there taking up the space. Milo likes to jump up on the bathroom counter and sit in the sink. He doesn't like being toweled off after he fell into the bathtub with me. He tried very, very hard to sneak out the door everytime we went outside. He never succeeded.


This is Milli. She loves to sleep ontop of the sofa with a good view of the bird feeder on the porch. She has a very loud "meow" when she wants your attention - perhaps she needs to be petted or her bowl is empty of canned catfood. Milli gets a pill on M,W,F. On Friday, she spit her pill out about a dozen times and finally, she got her pill on Saturday morning.

These are the bird feeders on the front porch. I refilled them all on Saturday. I counted about 9 little birds in this picture. We even had some really big (comparatively) birds - blue jays and wood peckers? - come by for treats. This picture was taken before James and I finished shovelling off the porch.

It snowed almost every day we were up at this cute little Brighton house. This was the first storm on Wednesday evening - it was so nice to curl up on the couch by the cats and look out the window at the falling snow. And James thought it was fun to fire up the snowblower. I helped - I shoveled the porch and steps.

On Saturday we finally had time to get outside during daylight hours to play in the snow. James had all his snow gear and decided to skin up to the top of the Millicent lift. I borrowed snowshoes and wandered the resort boundary out to Silver Lake and back to the house.

There were quite a few cars in the (unplowed) parking lot and lots of skiers/boarders hiking around the mountain. James ended up making two runs. He would have hiked for a third run if the mountain hadn't grown 30,000' vertical feet after the 2nd hike! "So... 3ft of fresh snow in the Wasatch didn't suck. Unless you didn't go. First time I think I have ever had the Milli bowl at Brighton to myself with untracked everywhere and didn't have to scramble to get my lines! It was pretty epic and just wished my legs could've kept going up so I could've enjoyed... some more down cause it was amazing!! Stability was great Saturday, and in fact it was a little on the heavy, heavy side (snowball snow) but not wet if that makes sense? The snow Sunday came in lighter and fluffier and all though I didn't get out Sunday, I noticed it was sluffing off snowbanks pretty easy when I was out with the snowblower. I was guessing up higher that would have been something to watch for."

This is as high on the mountain as I got - see the lift base & cars below?

Then off into the untracked, un-peopled snow for a wander.

Can you see James hiking up on the mountain? Nope, I can't either. This is Silver Lake. Now I've 'hiked' around it in every season. It looked like the water wasn't completely frozen underneath the new snow. Happily, the trail (there was a trail down by the lake and boardwalks) went way around the water.

There are several houses near-ish the edge of Silver Lake. This one has a chair lift swing.

And for the first time (maybe because I wasn't headed straight to my vehicle after a long day of patrolling), I noticed a big boulder near the Brighton Store with this plaque.

Housesitting is done. No more lazy cats. No more 4 am mornings to get James to work by 6 am. No more watching wild birds at the feeders and watching snow fall in the mountains. No more shoveling and snowblowing. No more snowshoeing and hiking for turns. Sigh.