It has been nice and warm these last few days, good weather for walkies.
Last Sunday, I took Nikki out for a nice long walk.

For those of you who don't get snow, I have to explain something. In the
spring, when the days are warm but the nights still chilly, snow drifts
melt so that the top melts into water, then freezes during the night.
Gradually, a hard crust forms on the surface of a drift. Underneath, the
snow may melt away completely, and this leaves sort of a dome of ice.

Well, on our walk, we came upon one small and one larger ice dome that
were separated by a thin crack. As we approached them, I saw something
grey scurrying from under the smaller dome to under the bigger dome.
Something small and grey and furry. Nikki saw it too. Well, so much for
that walk. She planted herself by the bigger ice dome and settled down
to wait out the mousie. There were small cracks between the dome and the
ground here and there, and she moved from one crack to the other,
listening to the mousie moving around there.

Finally she decided to enlarge one of the cracks so she could get at the
mousie. She started digging at the snow/ice (which was pretty soft by
now, since it was a very warm day). She was so intent on her diggin that
she didn't see the mousie (I saw now that it was actually a vole)
slipping out a crack at the other end of the dome and scurrying off.
Nikki just went on digging at her hole, even though I told her her
'mousie' was long gone. I finally had to drag her away, and we continued
on our walkie. She didn't seem too disappointed at having missed her prey.