Image Inversion
One more image from Cyndie’s latest collection taken after the recent snowfall:
If you look at it long enough, at the right angle, this is one of those photos where the perception can become inverted, and the high spots suddenly appear as recessed.
The image will take on a softer, fuzzier appearance. Once the mind shifts to the inverted perception, it can be very difficult to switch back again.
Which do you see?
It’s all in how you interpret the shadows and highlights of the snow that actually rests on top of the swirling pattern of the mat that sits outside our front door.
When you can see that the snow puffs up on top of the mat, the image will seem more crisp.
When the perception flips, the puffy snow will suddenly invert and look sunk below the surrounding cutouts of the pattern swirls.
Flip Out, man!
No drugs required.
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Natural Wonders
When I first saw this image that Cyndie captured, I struggled to imagine what could have made these intriguing tracks in the snow.
The alternating diagonal slices in the snow had me thinking of a large bird of prey dragging its talons as it “ran” across the surface while taking off.
Seemed like there should also be evidence of flapping wings, too. There wasn’t.
Closer review led to a much less dramatic, but still rather surprising cause.
The snow that had stuck to the wires of our fence was blowing off in long chunks and creating the lines on the surface below.
Cool!
I wouldn’t have been able to create that artwork if I tried.
Thank you, Mother Nature.
Oh, but nature wasn’t done creating. In an evening walk, Cyndie took one more picture of the fence wires.
Once again, the shadow of the wires was having a visible influence on the melting of the snow beneath the bright April sunshine.
Many thanks to Cyndie for her keen eye and crafty image captures!
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Snow Motion
Here I go again. If I’m not writing about our animals, I must be fussing about the weather. It’s too warm, too soon; or raining way too much; or getting too dry; or… wait for it: snowing too much in April.
It’s always something.
Well, when it is too much snow, and a person needs to drive 65 miles across the heart of the population center of a large metropolitan area, it may also involve a day staying home from work in the middle of the week.
There isn’t much more than that to tell. I stayed home to avoid the traffic risks and spent my precious time shoveling and plowing too many inches of sticky spring snow.
Can I just say, snowman-making snow is not friendly for plowing. It’s already a known fact it is a pain in the back for shoveling, but my poor Grizzly and plow-blade setup does not like pushing snow that sticks together in giant blocks and to everything that presses against it.
Luckily, when the blade frame came loose beneath the ATV under the strain of the heavy snow I was trying to push, it wasn’t because something broke.
One of the holding pins had worked its way out and was laying somewhere along the quarter-mile length of our driveway.
Not to worry, I keep spare pins on hand. This isn’t my first winter here, you know?
Okay, okay, I have spares because this happened one other wicked winter when I had no clue the pins might come out under stressful plowing conditions and I was left stranded at the end of the driveway with a crippled rig.
Despite the challenges of this year’s spring season arriving in “snow-motion,” I’m not stressing over it.
It gave me an extra day off from driving to work!
(For the record, the pictures above were taken in the middle of the day yesterday, about half-way to our total accumulation. We received even more snow than shown by these images.)
Happy spring, everyone!
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Last One
And then there was one. Cyndie came inside from feeding the horses yesterday around dinner time and reported that the Buff Orpington was the only chicken under the barn overhang.
The chickens are usually eager for her afternoon chores because they get a fresh serving of treats to eat. It was uncharacteristic for the two Barred Plymouth Rock hens to not show up. In addition, it was snowing like crazy, so it seemed odd that they would be off gallivanting around the property without the Buff.
That pointed to nothing good.
I put on my winter gear and joined Cyndie and Delilah in a scouting mission around the grounds. We circled past the trail cam, and I grabbed the memory card from it.
Cyndie had picked up three eggs from the coop in the afternoon, but our search didn’t come across any tracks revealing recent activity in the vicinity.
We headed inside with a sinking feeling of more loss.
For all the multitude of empty scenes that regularly show up on the trail cam, this time we landed one positive ID out of the nine images on the card.
That little fox walking toward the fence was ten minutes ahead of Cyndie and Delilah walking down that trail on their noon trek. They never saw it, but I bet Delilah smelled the scent.
We took a tiny bit of solace in the fact there was no chicken in the fox’s mouth in the image.
At dusk, with a looming trepidation, Cyndie went down to close the coop. The Buff was in there all by herself. With Delilah, Cyndie walked one more loop around the back pasture for any sign of what may have happened.
It was Delilah who took noticeable interest in a dark spot inside the fence. Cyndie tied Delilah outside and climbed through the wires and found the proof of our worst fear.
Now we are wondering if we will be able to accelerate the introduction of our new chicks to the lone surviving chicken from last year’s flock. The poor girl must have been cold and lonely all alone last night in the coop.
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Melt Art
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When life gives you snow, make portraits!
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The good news, yesterday’s blue sky and high sun melted a lot of the snow that fell overnight on Friday, even though the air temperature stayed cold.
The bad news, more snow and continued cold air is what lies ahead this week.
The silver lining, plenty of new photo opportunities!
April Fooling
We get the joke. Today starts the fourth month of 2018, and despite the general trend of average warmth climbing around the globe, we woke to teeth-chattering cold. The clear sky overnight was wonderful for viewing the blue moon, but it also contributed to the drop in temperature.
We had a reading of 10°(F) before the sun came up. With the fresh coating of snow on the ground from Friday night’s storm, there is cold in the air, as well as radiating from the ground.
We’re not laughing.
It seems like the forest animals weren’t much interested in facing the cold, either. In a search for tracks around the full perimeter of our property, there were surprisingly few foot prints revealing activity. Based on the evidence we collected, a rabbit was the only critter moving around.
At least we know that it didn’t have any problems with dodging predators.
The cougar that growled near Cyndie and Delilah last week is likely long gone after its journey past our home. We did a search in the neighboring woods where the eery sounds came from last week, but did not find any hint of a foot print or disturbed snow where the drama played out.
In a long shot reaction, I mounted our trail camera to observe the trail closest to the area, but it only provided added evidence that nothing was moving around after the snow, except Delilah and me.
Yesterday, Cyndie unleashed a great weapon against cold and snow. She filled the house with the smells of fresh-baked buns and whipped together a couple of egg bakes for a family brunch today.
No foolin’.
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Feathered Friends
The new chicks are growing into chickens already! They are sprouting feathers and flapping around in the brooder like the little adolescents they are. The downy, peeping hatchlings that arrived in the mail are gone but for the memories.
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If they keep up at this pace, and the weather continues to pretend it’s still winter, these guys are going to have a shocking move to the coop and the great outdoors. The landscape is under a two-and-a-half inch blanket of white stuff this morning. Based on the forecast I read for the coming week, with more snow and cold temperatures due, it’s as if spring has forgotten to sprung!
Yesterday, the three adult hens were busy aerating the forest floor.
Looks like they are going to have to put that project on hold for a while now.
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Her Story
This is what she said: “If we were in the tropics, I would swear the sound we heard came from a tiger.”
When I got home from work yesterday, Cyndie described a morning adventure she and Delilah had. Due to a morning breakfast date with her dad in St. Paul, Cyndie rousted Delilah a little earlier than usual for a morning walk.
When they stepped out the front door into the pre-dawn light, the “tiger” unleashed a roar that stopped them in their tracks.
Cyndie said Delilah looked back at her as if for instruction, or possibly to check if maybe they could go back inside. They stood there, frozen and then the cat snarled again. Amid the sound of breaking sticks, Cyndie noted there were also unhappy sounds from an unwilling critter victim.
Delilah took a step forward, as Cyndie described it, as if her instinct was leading her to chase, but then quickly thought better and looked back again for direction. The sounds of the fracas started and stopped a few times while they stood there, but Cyndie could not make out any sign of where in the woods the action was occurring.
Deciding it felt prudent to put more space between themselves and the wild cat, Cyndie directed Delilah to turn around and head for the driveway, instead of down the trail in the woods.
“Raawwwoooooowwwrrr…”
It’s a good thing our chickens aren’t out roaming around when it’s dark. At the same time, I sure hope this predator continues to find enough meals in the hours when our hens are safely roosting in their coop, so it won’t need to do any supplementary hunting during the day.
Oh my.
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Flowing Water
Our drainage swales are finally flowing!
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The largest ditch along our southern border was a babbling brook yesterday.
Eventually, the ditch narrows and meanders away from our property, wandering its way through our neighbor’s cow pasture.
The snow is leaving, and it will travel to rivers that travel to the Mississippi that flows to the Gulf of Mexico.
B’ bye.
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Slow Fade
Lately, my return trips from the day-job have been providing a mystery surprise ending. Each day, I get to discover how much change there has been in the snow-melt, or whether there are signs of water flowing in the drainage ditches. The big white blanket has been making a slow retreat from our hills and valleys this year.
The good result of that slow fade is a distinct lack of flooding problems. The less desirable result is the prolonged chill radiating off the snow base, not to mention the bothersome, sometimes hazardous footing on our trails.
Even though there is a lot of ground finally exposed, there is still a lot of snow cover remaining.
It’ll take a couple of days of real sunshine to finish off this lingering snowpack. It’s possible that today and tomorrow could do the trick, if the skies clear as predicted, but I won’t be surprised if that doesn’t pan out.
Of course, then we have new snow forecast for the weekend, so it’s not like there’s any expectation of being completely done with the white stuff yet. We’ve learned not to claim that possibility until some time in June.
At least the new snows of spring are much quicker to fade away when the sun comes out after a storm.
It’s almost time to rearrange the storage areas to put the shovels to the rear and bring up the rakes and lawn mowers.
Aaahhh, spring. So close, we can feel it.
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