STEELERS GAME

Hey Pals,
Scruffy & Lacie picked us up in the Steeler Trolley to go to the Steelers football game last night. Mama told us we had to dress warm if we were going. So here is what I Butchy wore to the game:
I'm even taking my little football. Do you think some of the players will pawtograph it for me???
(sadly no one wanted to sign it for me, sigh......)

Here is Snickers all ready & waiting for Scruffy:
Boy, it sure was a fun game & of course the STEELERS WON!!!
Scruffy will probably have more highlights from the night on his blog.

Today it's only about 6 degrees so of course we have the fireplace going to keep us nice & toasty:
We tried to get a picture of the WHOLE thing to show you:
Mama & Papa collected every stone for the fireplace from 3 surrounding counties. The fireplace also has stone on the outside of the house. Boy, it sure was a lot of truckloads of stone. It's nice & warm in here right now, about 80 degrees, hehehehe.

Here are updated photos of the ponds this morning:

Mama was not happy when she saw this:
If you look in the previous photo, you can see this by the big open hole. Mama said this shows that something fell through the ice last night. Now she's worried that something might have drown, like a deer, just like last year, yikes! Since the whole pond is covered in ice, you can't see if anything is in the pond. Most deer can usually get out of the pond, but last year one couldn't & sadly died. So she hopes what ever fell in, got out.

Many of our pals ask about our koi in the winter months. See this open hole?? Mama has a big aerator running that keeps this open hole in the pond. You need to have an open hole to let the gases escape from the water in the winter, otherwise gas buildup can kill your fish. The water is about 39 degrees at the bottom of the pond, so the koi sit down there & almost hibernate. They don't eat and rarely move about when it's this cold now. They lose about 20-30% of their body weight during the winter months. So that's why we feed them extra in the fall to build up their fat layer. We won't see them now until around March sometime when the ice melts away & the water starts to warm up to 50 degrees.
The bad thing about the open hole is that all of the critters & deer come to drink water each day. It's good that they have water to drink, but bad with the ice layer when it's not very thick yet. We've only had the ice layer for about a week, so it's only a bit over one inch thick.

This picture is the smaller pond. There are no fish in here, just bullfrogs & they hibernate down in the mud. No need to have an open hole for them.
A few pals have mentioned that we should have an ice skating pawty. Well Mama told us that if we can get enough friends that want to come here in the cold weather, we can have a pawty. So please let us know if you would want to come & we'll see if Aire-Ruby is available.

Stay warm!
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers