For Christmas 2006, my mother, sister and I, went to visit my mothers lifelong friend Jill Maize and her family in Ontario Canada, about 1 hour North of Toronto.

They live on a farm, but only have a few cats, some horses, dogs, a duck and a Donkey; it's an eclectic mix of animals.

We spent a week out there, mostly relaxing and drinking beer and doing Christmas things. My mate Jeff Homuth from University also drove up from Ohio, to visit for a couple of days as well. I also went running every day as part of my cold weather training for the Antarctic marathon, which I was preparing for.

One morning a few days after christmas, all the women went into town and went to visit some sort of arts and crafts market; I opted out of that trip. So instead, Sam Maize and I went out to walk the dogs, and of course I took the opportunity to practice my photography and tried to capture this idyllic winter scene.

The Maize's have 3 dogs, but one of them is too old for long cold walks, so we set off with just the two of them. As we walked down past the fire, which we'd been drinking around at night, we looked back to see Hobbs the cat following us. Sam assured me that the cat would be alright, and wouldn't get scoffed by cougars or bears and that we'd let it trail along behind us as we walked around the farm.