The dogs and I got up at 7 am this morning to….. you guessed it - NO POWER!!! Again. It is hard to be positive with so much negativeity happening!  Dave finally got his van unstuck this morning by 10 am and drove to Houston to get some dog food - we used the last of it last night!! He came back with a cooked chicken for me - itsn’t that so sweet - sure beats flowers in thsi country!! He could only find two small bags so he came home with that and food for me - we are right out of staples. And of course no meat - all the freezer thawed out - 4 days with no power does that. It was a hard job before the storm but I don’t know if I can keep on - things were rough before but now with having to replace … see it is hard to stay upbeat. This round of power came on at 12.40 - it probably won’t last. Hydro says trees are falling on the lines behind them so they have to go back and do it over and over…. It is snowing in Smithers - Dave has to drive 1 and half hours to Smithers to buy dog food. How rural are we??   Hopefully he will make it back before more snow blocks the roads. It caught a lot of us unawares and not prepared. We have been complacent with the mild, dry winters we have been having. Sure shows you how dependent we are on electricity! We are hoping to market our cute Turtle Gardens bookmarks to help the dogs out. Check out our new TG Store - links on the side . 100% of proceeds go to the dogs for food, toys, medicine, and vet care - especially spay/neuters. Never lose your place in your book and help out homeless dogs!

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Dave made it in at 11.30 this morning but he was stuck in the centre of the road! The conditions of the snow - rotten snow, like sand - it won’t pack when you drive on it. BC Hydro had a brand new 4 wheel drive truck and they had a very hard time on this road even with chains. Thanks to our neighbour for pulling our van home. Thank you to the staff of the Dennis Mackay constituency office for their very good communication concerning our local conditions. Power came on at 5 pm Monday evening - it went out Friday evening at 10 pm after flickering on and off for a couple of hours.  The snowplow arrived to clear our road at 8 pm tonight. We are almost back to normal - but now comes the fun part - digging ourselves out and accessing the damage to the freezers - all our meat and dog food for the winter. Methinks it was a very expensive snowstorm!!

This is taken from the front door Saturday morning so add two more feet of snow by the time it finally stiopped snowing late Sunday morning!!

Looking for their bones and they did find them all and dug them up!!

Storm in her favorite dog house - it is three feet high!

This is watering the dogs!! The pot with the dish is my pot roast with gardens carrots. The front pot is my camp coffee.

Just a little insight in the great snowstorm of 2006 at the Topley Zoo!

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

BC Hydro says the ETA for Yvette to get power is around 4pm today.  Lets all cross our fingers and hope she can join us all online here again.  I know I’m looking forward to all the snow pictures she’s been taking, especially the pictures of the puppies and dogs playing in the snow.

Good luck Yvette!!! Come on B.C. Hydro!!!

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Yvette is still living like an old time pioneer, no water or power and coffee perked on the woodstove.  Still large pockets of no power in Granisle (eta for power tommorrow at 4pm), parts of smithers, burnlake and houston.

Yvette’s down to her last candle and the batteries are dying in her last flashlight :)  It snowed all day on and off, just enough to keep the ground white.  Snow is so high the dogs can look in the kitchen window, Luna takes particular joy in this new activity.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Talked with Yvette again and got an update from her.  She says:

It’s up to my waist.. let me put it this way “The dogs made paths, and when the labrador was walking in one of the path/tunnels all you could see was the tip of his tail”

Thanks to Richard, Glenn and their friends who drove two 4×4’s to bring Yvette a load of  wood for the woodstove. One 4×4 had a snow plow and the other pulled the first out when it got stuck.  Still no sign of either hydro or snow plows :) 

No water either, no hydro no pump for the well.  Yvette’s melting water on the woodstove for the dogs but had the forsight to fill the kettles for herself last night.  Morning coffee on the wood stove just doesn’t have the right flavor, tea is better.

The dogs are having a blast in that snow, they are tunneling in it, swimming in it, then they shoot up into the air.  The puppies love it!  Pictures are coming when power returns. 

Manged to find a news report online Huge power outages due to snow storm in Northern BC

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Be careful what you wish for - you may get it. Haven’t we all heard that wonderful saying!! I wished for no more mud. And this is what I woke up to this morning!
This is Dozer two minutes after going out !! It is a blizzard!!

The puppies are loving it!!

These are the three new guys from the pound - two came back yesterday (they came earlier for a visit) - very nice dogs.  The front one is a pup - the tan and white Fuzzy (not his name but an observation) slept on my bed last night . He is a follow you everywhere kind of dog. What a great family dog he will be for a lucky family. Why was he thrown away like yesterday’s garbage? Most likely because he was not neutered He was following a longhaired white female dog. She was redeemed by her owner but the two males are here - NEUTERED.  True treasures for special families. The other fellow is an injured black lab mix - my vets think he was shot in the face. He has 4 stitches, his wound cleaned of dead tissue, the bullet removed from his teeth He has antibiotics to take. He too is a good natured fellow - he stands quietly with his head on my knee so I will pet him. Again I ask - how could people be so cruel! When a neuter would solve his problem so easily and cheaply - so much more cost effective than starting over with a puppy.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.

Why is it that some days the faster you go the slower the job gets done? Take the fire for instance - I forgot to do the kindling yesterday so I had to go outside first thing this morning to break up the wood - it snaps real easy so not a big job but a coldone - bracing, invigorating get your blood circulating brisk.� The frost is very heavy on the ground and the ground is hard - looks very pristine this early. I decide to take water and fill the outside dish. It had ICE in it. So I bang it and break it up so the dish is empty to fill up with the recycled bleach bottle water. The food trough is nearly empty so I fill it up with dog food. Then I go out the gate to get the wood. Back in the gate and little Kenny has rushed through my legs and out of the yard - we really need to build a double gate. I put the laundry basket of kindling down and go after the little brat. He comes right away - it’s not so much fun when no one is outside with him! As I reach down to grab the basket, I pick up scattered kindling - the dogs were busy for the few minutes I was out the gate! I round up all the kindling except the one that Moeki is racing around the yard with. And start the fire. It is burning well and the heat rises to warm my bones. Time for my coffee and blog!

Here is another Happy Endings - from Lucy and Kate: - I LOVE these stories - don’t you?

Her coat has turned a deep red gold now, and brushing her out isn’t stressful anymore,� she weighs 13 lbs. now, we walk everyday.� the one pic. is Lucy in Ravine park, and because rain doesn’t stop this dog, I got her a rain coat, so we can go for walks, and she’s not soaked, she’s a happy happy girl, and she has made me happy too.,

�she has personality plus, but you really have to know her before you begin to see the real Lucy, the story will always continue, as there are more things to learn and new challenges to overcome, but I wanted to let you know everythings a-okay, and we are both doing great.

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.