Part of our back yard

Yes, the day after I wrote about the Big Thaw, we had the Big Freeze. A couple of inches of snow and the temps started to plummet. It’s currently about 6 degrees out as I’m writing this (nighttime temp) and it gets up to 15 or so during the day. We’re spending a lot of time indoors. The dog walks have been shortened to a run to the mailbox.

The house is staying cozy with our newly insulated roof, but suddenly we are aware of small, cold drafts coming from other parts of the house, namely, the dog door. We have a homemade dog door in our back door, which we built many years ago with the help of a friend. We were convinced that a store-bought dog door wouldn’t last long with our big dog Charlie running in and out. It’s not a well-insulated opening, however, so we recently broke down and bought an Extreme Weather dog door (size large). But, it’s been too darn cold to take the old door out and put the new door in! It’s supposed to warm up later this week so maybe we’ll get a chance to put our new, magnetically sealed, insulated dog door in.

Our dog door doesn’t always close properly when someone goes in or out, especially when Sammy sticks his head out for a quick visual inspection and then pulls it back in, so our new door will be appreciated. If we ever get it put in.