Planes, Trucks, Snowblowers, and Bears

We survived!!!!!

It was a brutally long day where just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  It started with a particularly snotty woman who wouldn't check us in at Schiphol because pets were "too much work" so she passed us to her colleague (who's line was three times as long) who had never done the paperwork for pets and was terrified of dogs; then picked right back up on the other side of the ocean  with the equally snotty immigration woman at Dulles who threatened to call the police on us for having the dog outside of the kennel;  and continued right through the incredibly long lines to get through customs and climaxed with the truck with the completely dead battery.  I only wish that I had the foresight to take a picture of the parking lot strewn with all of our belongings (including pets) with the hood of the truck up and the baffled look on the Romanian cab driver who was trying to give us a jump start ("No lights?  No lights?  Now? Lights?  Now? No Lights?)

But there were also some real gems on the journey as well, like the stewardess who wouldn't let the doors of the airplane closed until she was sure that the pets were on board, to the customs woman in America who helped us slip past a host of bureaucracy ("Just say 'yes' to my questions, then you can be on your way.")

In the end, we got on the road about 3 hours behind schedule and forced our way down the driveway covered in over a foot of heavy, wet snow well after 10:00 on Monday night.

But the next few days were brilliant blue sky and 65 degrees (F) ... it seems that I haven't felt air like this nor seen skies so blue in many, many years.  I fired up the snowblower, bought two new chainsaws, and dove into clearing the trails...back breaking work and mind numbing bliss!

Here are some pics from the mass migration:

Practicing for the flight.

A little bit of luxury to relieve the stress...intercontinental business class!

 No worse for wear.   Sage has adapted really well, although it is an odd situation dealing with a dog with jet lag.  Awake at 3:00 AM; hungry at 2:00 PM.   But at the end of the day, all that mattered was sunshine and snow.  Here she is playing with the original "bucket on a rope"...I have almost the same picture from 9 years ago.  The cats are also adapting very well.

 Welcome to Appalachia...where duct tape repairs to gloves are just part of a normal day.

Never mind the snow or broken trees...look at that sky!

 

Last night when I left Sage out to pee, she immediately started barking and I heard crashing through the woods.  It definitely wasn't deer, but I wasn't sure what it was until this morning...a bear raiding the bird feeder!  You can see the claw marks on the tree that he climbed to reach and swat the bottom of the feeder away.  Sage now thinks she's the "big dog" on the block and can take on anything.