One of the assignments from the boys’ PE teacher was to build a home obstacle course and then send pictures of it to her. They were told that they could work together on the project. At first, there was a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth at even the idea of working together. A parental ruling made their arguments moot.

From there, their arguments were more focused on whose idea would make it into the final design. We encouraged them to look at YouTube for ideas, and they eventually came to a consensus. At that point the screaming (mostly from Rowen) was due to who got to set up what. Finally they got a working course up ... effectively blocking me from going downstairs, but wisely not obstructing my path from my office to the upstairs bathroom.

Janelle did not get home until much later than expected (having worked a 12 hour shift at the store), so we had to wait a little while for her to get home so the boys could run the course. Despite all of the consternation, I think they overall had a good time.

A couple of interesting events occurred during our walks with the dogs these past few days. Yesterday, as we were making our way down the road, River suddenly started barking, her fur standing on end. I couldn’t see the source of her concern and neither could Janelle or Starbuck. It took me a moment to realize that she was barking at a trash can that had not been out there on any of our walks before. It wasn’t until I walked up to it that she was willing to get close enough to sniff it and realize it wasn’t a threat.

Today was a little more harrowing. My plan has been to walk one dog and then the other; however, on my way back home with Starbuck, we saw a small moose in the road. It was just standing there, looking up the hill at us. I texted Janelle, uncertain of what my next move should be.

Thankfully, a car came and the young moose seemed to leave the area. It was then that I realized that the moose was not a baby like I thought, but (although still young) quite a bit bigger than me. I was actually a little relieved because that explained why I didn’t see a mama moose around.

We were past the point where we saw the moose enter the woods that I saw it, and it was closer to the road than I thought. I decided to pick up the pace and continue on. It was only when it was directly across the road from us that Starbuck noticed the moose and started barking at it, making its hackles rise. I sped up even more saying that it was a nice moose and we were just heading home.

Fortunately, we were passing the neighbors whose dogs are always in their fenced yard. Their barking seemed to distract the moose enough for Starbuck and me to make our getaway—which I did while still trying to take a couple of pictures. Trust me, the moose looked a lot bigger and closer in person.

I did not take River for a walk after that.

With multiple days reaching forty degrees or more, the snow from our roofs started coming down last night. As this was our only such slide of the year from our garage and due to the greater than normal snowfall of this winter, the snow slide on the cabin side of the garage nearly covered an entire wall of the cabin. As the heater for the cabin has its vent on that wall, I had to dig it (and the nearby window) out.

The snow covered half of the deck and a portion of the cabin’s from window as well. It also blocked that section of our circle driveway (a first in our time living here). On the other sided the garage, the pile of snow nearly blocked the entrance to the dog yard. Thus, we rallied as a family and dug the necessary areas out. Thankfully this happened while there was still enough daylight to get the work done.

I was already mentally fatigued from building content for the (now officially mandated) online classes I’ve been working on. Now I am physically exhausted as well.