Winter in Korea and our latest snow fall!

I have been complaining for the past few weeks about the lack of snow this Winter in Korea. Facebook kept reminding about all the snow we had here last year, and all we got was a measly few centimetres at the end of November. Well, the weather man finally heard my pleads for snow and we had a non-stop flurry of snowflakes which started last thursday afternoon and only let up Friday night, nearly a full day and night later.

While this was wonderful for me and my camera, it wasn't so great for my car. Poor Cherry (the VERY old red Matiz) had to spend the night at the bottom of the driveway after she failed (on more than one attempt) to get up the drive way to park. She spent the night under a tree and woke up to her handbrake and wheel frozen solid.  Farmboy and I spent a solid 15 minutes trying to pry her from that icy grip but to avail. Luckily the 1 degree increase in temperature during the day had thawed her a bit and we were able to get her started again...come on Cherry!

Here are some photographs from our early morning walk with Shadow, who simply adores being out in the snow. This will be one of the things we miss the most when we return to South Africa. 

Growing Up Jindo: A series of photographs documenting #ShadowTheJindo's first year

On a late evening In September 2014, Farmboy and I were driving home from work when we came across a tiny puppy alone on a dark farm road. As we pulled over, cars appeared from nowhere, and the little ball of fluff was narrowly escaping becoming roadkill. I picked him up, and so began the start of life with #ShadowTheJindo. You can read more about his rescue by clicking here. 

When we found Shadow he was around 2 months old and our local small town vet could only hazzard a guess as to his breed. We have since been told (and from our own observations of common dog breeds here in Korea) that he is a black & tan Korean Jindo. Of course we can't be certain if he is pure Jindo or mixed without a blood test but from his temperament and from the limited English information I can find on the breed, he is most definitely part Jindo; a breed of hunting dogs native to South Korea.

Since arriving in Korea in 2012, we had no intentions of ever having a pet due to the difficulties and costs associated with taking them back home to South Africa. We spent a great deal of time over the first few weeks of rescuing him, trying to make a responsible decision. We even had a wonderful home lined up for him in the US where it is much cheaper and easier to send pets from Korea. We would have had to wait until he was at least 4 months old before he would be allowed to travel, and I knew that I would never be able to give him away to someone else after caring for him for that amount of time. And so, after setting up a bank account in his name and starting the debit orders in preparation for taking him home in 2016, Shadow became a permanent part of the Hutton family.

I started this series of photographs to track his growth (thank you to my patient husband for being the one to actually take these photographs) and have loved looking back at them and watching his growth from tiny ball of fluff, to gangly teenager and finally to wolf dog.

I hope you enjoy this series and if you are inspired to do the same, please share your photos on Shadow's Facebook page, I'd love to follow along in your pets journey.

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You can follow along in Shadows adventures on Facebook by clicking here.