Weather never asks my opinion. If it had, I'd have said-- summer please... spring if you can't do better.
What we got was winter multiplied, with what for my part of the Pacific Northwest were frigid temperatures (to which means many parts of the country would say-- wimp) down to 17° F and that to me is way too cold.
Earlier this year, in December and January, I would have liked snow like this one that covered the fields, coated the branches, covered up all the mud, and turned the world a different color. Nobody asked me then either, and this one came way too late to be appreciated.
Oh I admit it was pretty especially when the sun came out with the fresh snowfall. We grabbed the cameras and headed toward the back of the farm requiring a circuitous route to avoid the main barnyard with mud so thick I could have had to resort to four-wheel or rather four-point drive to navigate my way through it-- which might have even ended up five-point... if you know what I mean.
Basically even going around, it wasn't easy as the ground under the snow wasn't frozen hard and anywhere near the barns and where we get runoff from the hill, was mud... nearly boot deep, stick like glue mud. Thank goodness for Muck Boots that are above mid-calf and don't easily come off. I should have brought a walking stick but fortunately I had Farm Boss.
I like to see the creek in snow and it didn't disappoint me.
Right now, most of my thinking ideas (such as they are) are going into my political blog, Rainy Day Things (and don't even ask how it got that title for politics, but it was hanging around, unused and so it inherited all of that).
Here, for awhile, I will put up some photos -- like two blogs worth on the snow because I have the pictures, and hope that eventually I will find some inspiration for something else. At the moment, inspiration is in short supply.
18 comments:
What a peculiar winter but we get to see your beautiful photos because of it.
Excellent post. I am ready for some warmer weather here too. It seems like we have had weeks and weeks of lows in the 20's. When I was a kid it was pretty rare if it got into the 20's. And no political jokes from me on this one, but last summer was the coolest on record in San Diego.
We actually had much colder winters when I was growing up with a lot of those kind of icicles. The last 10 years here have involved very little if any snow. A lot of the Willamette Valley didn't get much from this storm either as I heard it kind of hung over Washington.
It's obvious though that a lot of the US has had very cold winters which might be one of those natural swings. It has though made me wonder how far south that mini-ice age, that they predict coming along with global warming, will go...
Well, these pictures are quite wonderful Rain...and your description of the kind of conditions you are experiencing is so well written, I feel like I am there with you, but---glad, I'm not! Strange strange weather in so many places....I think about all your wonderful animals and how they are fairing in this severe cold and snow and mud....Not an easy time, my dear, is it?
Thought you would enjoy this:
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued. (Robert Frost)
Great poem to fit the images :)
We are now in the midst of mud and more mud. Nothing very poetic about that
Well from the coverage of the Superbowl in Dallas and the story the other day about animals freezing to death at the zoo in Juarez, Mexico I think the cold is going pretty far south. When I was a kid it seemed like we got snow a lot more often, but not nearly as much cold weather as this winter.
What was unusual here was more when it came. It seemed like our winter was quite mild and then boom. I didn't grow up where I am; so my reference to 60 years ago is the Columbia River Gorge area which more extreme even today than down the valley where I am now. Although I guess this snow, the Portland area didn't get it where we did and they did farther north in Washington.
My dad talked about seeing Model Ts drive on the Columbia River when the ice was thick enough but that was changed when the dams went in which made the water warmer.
Out of curiosity I did a quick Google search and found out the Columbia has frozen over several times in our recorded history. Columbia River can freeze over and they said the Willamette last froze over in 1979 but it doesn't have the big turbo dams on it.
Nice pics Rain...:-)
Down here the dams make the water cooler because it comes out from the bottom of the reservoir which does not see any sun light. But it is not as cold here in general so maybe that is the difference.
Are those hydroelectric dams? I think that's the issue with the electricity generating turbines here. Our dams also make for less flooding as the Columbia used to really let loose. I can see how a different air temperature though might change the impact of a dam.
So beautiful, but I'm glad it is at your house and not at mine. Outside the Hurricane Ridge gate to Olympic National Park in WA yesterday morning, a tree fell and covered the main road down to Pt. Angeles. My son couldn't get out to go to work. My DIL said the boys couldn't go outside because the snow would be over their heads.
Oh, forgot to give Robert Frost credit....:)
Yes they are electricity generating, but the water still comes out much colder most months than it would be if the dam was not there. But the rivers in the valley would never freeze except maybe a little along their banks with or without the dams.
Your photos catch the beauty of snow that I remember and enjoy only at a distance now.
Never figure winter is over until the end of March or first of April.
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