Posts Tagged ‘melting snow’
Melting Swiftly
The warmth we enjoyed yesterday contributed to some satisfying progress on several fronts. Getting the blankets off the horses in the morning was a good start. Mia has become our new inspiration, having transformed from the most timid and least confident to a master of her domain.
She clearly proved she didn’t need the extra protection of a blanket through the snowstorm. I’m hoping that I may have earned a new level of respect from her for having never forced my wishes during my many attempts to entice her cooperation in being covered.
As the afternoon grew warmer and warmer, we got outside to give the horses some extra attention. Cyndie gave the automatic waterer a much-needed thorough cleaning after months of only partial cleanings in the cold. She was also able to detangle the manes of Mix and Swings.
I opened the door of the shop garage and easily started the Grizzly ATV after two days of unsuccessful attempts. A fresh example that sometimes trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results can actually work out.
Back in the house, we succeeded in completing our taxes and electronically filing our returns.
The melting snow on the back deck took on a fascinating texture we aren’t seeing anywhere else. We have no idea what is causing that. It looks like someone spilled a load of marshmallows.
The strangely shaped drift off the roof outside our bathroom window continues to grab our attention. I took a few pictures to show the changes over time.
While water appeared to be flowing everywhere, we didn’t see any obvious flow in all the drainage ditches on our property yet.
I’m guessing that will change today.
It’s getting hard to pick what boots to wear, due to the depth of remaining snow that is now mostly saturated with liquid water. My best wet boots are not tall enough, and my tall boots aren’t the best for being submerged in water.
The meltwater draining off the roof yesterday changed from drips to constant streams by mid-afternoon. Even though there was at least a foot of snow here from that storm, I don’t think it will last very long against the high angle of the sun and the warm temperatures.
That’s just fine with me. The sooner it all disappears, the sooner I can begin cutting up the trees that the storm brought down across our trails in the woods.
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Melting Begins
After all that fussing we did about covering Mia, and her not wanting our help, it appears our fears over her fragility were unfounded. She has fared the storm looking totally in control. Through wet snow, then blown snow, and finally, bitter cold, Mia coped just fine and looks no worse for wear.
A toppled and snow-packed birdhouse currently out of service.
Our ATV, on the other hand, has failed to start since I parked it in the middle of the storm after clearing a rudimentary path from the road to Cyndie’s side of our house garage. I will try again when it has warmed up significantly to see if anything changes.
I have never enjoyed battling gas engines, and as a result, my troubleshooting skills are minimal when they fail. My primary methods involve trying the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.
Without that to plow, and my resistance to cranking up the big diesel tractor to clear a little snow that will soon melt, we have resorted to hand shoveling a large amount of snow, while leaving other significant areas to (hopefully) melt quickly in the coming days.
Yesterday, Cyndie took a heroic turn clearing the snow from in front of my side of the house garage while I worked to shovel a wide path to the propane tank. The level has dropped below the trigger point to order a fill, and the dispatcher put us on the schedule for the next time a truck is in the area. Based on past occurrences, it won’t be a long wait.
The forecast teases that temperatures will be above freezing today and stay there for four consecutive days, ultimately reaching the low 60s (F) by Saturday. It is our hope that further shoveling will be unnecessary as a result.
Those rain sheets will come off the three horses today, and we will prepare for the paddocks to become mud-sasters for the foreseeable future. It has become obvious that to regain the solid base we had years ago, a new layer of lime screenings should be applied.
That’s a project that requires more oomph than either of us is feeling inspired to muster at this time. As long as there remain a few spots where the horses can get relief from standing in deep mud, we can get away with delaying doing anything about the issue. It becomes a mental health exercise for me to practice not constantly ruminating about it in the meantime.
Here’s to a quick meltdown across the land. It’s time for the snow to go.
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Mia Wins
Looks like Mia won that round. We awoke to a moderate blanket of snow covering most everything, with temperatures hovering in the upper 30s (F). Mia was a little wet, but not soaking, and showed no sign of being too cold.
I couldn’t help sensing a bit of cockiness in her attitude, but I suspect that is pure projection on my part. She adamantly demonstrated she did not want to be covered, and the weather ended up being much less severe than what I had expected.
Touché.
The other thing I didn’t expect yesterday was for the sky to clear so completely and the sunshine to make the snow disappear from everywhere but the shadows.
Wednesday is the day we roll our trash and recycling bins down to the end of the driveway, so I collected all the trash I could find in the house and barely came up with half a bag. With Cyndie out of town for the previous week, there hasn’t been much activity in the kitchen. I haven’t made any purchases of packaged products. Didn’t need to replace the furnace filter.
I don’t know what we usually produce for garbage in a week, but it’s rarely less than a couple of bags. I took it as an opportunity to seek out some worthy items lying around that deserved to be jettisoned. Might as well take advantage of the available space.
The thought crossed my mind that I should contact the trash hauler to seek a discount for being conscientious customers who strive to minimize what we put into the waste stream. Figuring they would be unlikely to humor me and honor such a request, I went the other direction, digging up odd miscellany to fill the bin and make the driver’s trip worthy.
I found an old, practically ancient bicycle helmet with styrofoam so long out of date it was not safe. I emptied the trash container in the shop and also the one in the barn.
Leaving the bin by the road, I had mixed feelings. The decluttering urge was rekindled and gave me a sense of satisfaction to be getting things tossed that don’t warrant being kept. At the same time, it did feel like a loss to be arbitrarily increasing trash that goes into the waste stream just because there was space in the bin.
It would sure help if the trash hauler charged less for those of us who hardly fill the bin.
This morning, I plan to offer Mia a chance to wear a rain sheet before the next round of predicted precipitation starts to fall later in the day. If she accepts, I’ll take it as a sign she understands the coming weather better than I do.
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Just Behave
It’s been a lot of days in a row with temperatures above freezing. I’ve lost count at this point, but there has been enough melting that the labyrinth is now half uncovered.
The melting also finally exposed the dead raccoon that Asher buried in the snow down by the road long ago. Cyndie has been wanting to get rid of it, but was mistaken about its location and couldn’t find it when she brought me down there with a shovel a few weeks back, as things first started to melt.
It’s all bagged up now. When Asher originally caught the raccoon, Cyndie wondered why the critter was out during the middle of the day. I’m wondering why no other roaming predators had taken interest in the carcass when it started to be exposed by the melt. Maybe it was sick, and that’s why nothing was messing with it.
When I walked Asher past that spot with the telltale striped hide peeking through the snow earlier in the day, he was very good about obeying my “LEAVE IT!” command.
He was also very good when we made our way down there again in the high heat of the afternoon and happened upon a neighbor walking her two dogs along the road. We have no confidence about whether Asher will react aggressively with unknown dogs or not, so we do our best to avoid coming into contact with them.
I was able to have a brief long-distance conversation on the subject with the neighbor, Heather. She politely checked to see if Asher would be okay with her dogs, and I was able to express that we just don’t know for sure. Happily, the dogs all behaved while coming within maybe 10-15 feet of each other, and followed commands to focus/refocus on each of their owners every time we asked.
It was comforting that the mere sight of the dogs didn’t send Asher into a tizzy. Heather understood that Asher might be protective of his property and possibly of me, as well. It was the second close encounter in two days with them without incident, so there’s hope it could become a non-issue in time.
Speaking of protection, we are happy that the Visa credit card company contacted Cyndie yesterday by both a phone message and a text with a fraud alert of $8759.00. Always wary of phishing scams, she responded by calling the phone number on the back of her card.
Sure enough, it was a fraudulent transaction. Cyndie had just used her card earlier in the day at a restaurant in Woodbury for lunch. She called the manager to alert them of the unauthorized transaction, in case there was any connection. She had been seated at the bar, so they didn’t even have a server other than the bartender.
The manager was very helpful and looked up her receipt, offered to review the surveillance video, and volunteered to cooperate with any police investigation. Adding intrigue, the $8759 was charged to a cookware supply company. Hmm.
Cyndie chose to contact the Woodbury police by email with all the details. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
It’s kind of sad when dogs behave better than people do.
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Recent Images
It was a quiet but beautiful Sunday yesterday at Wintervale. Between watching Olympic Curling and Hockey, I got outside for a midday walk with Asher and, back indoors, tweaked some leaf photo files in my library from the previous week.
That last one was notable for the surprising amount of shredded leaf matter beneath a large oak that had no leaves in its branches to shred. It was baffling. The mess appeared one morning and continued to intensify over several days, just beneath this particular tree. Did a squirrel that was nesting in the tree decide it no longer needed as much insulation?
Ya got me.
By early afternoon, the meltwater was flowing down the drainage swale that passes across our fields. It’s an unsettling reality in February. I haven’t seen any news reporting the crazy weather occurring in the UK lately, but our friend, Ian Rowcliffe, in Portugal, informed me of their ongoing doses of heavy rain causing flooding.
The region is receiving strong storms because of the warmer atmosphere holding more moisture, and the jet stream positioning is holding the high and low pressure systems in place for the moment. The weather is swinging between drought and flooding from one year to the next.
It has me not wanting to think about what’s in store for us next in the Midwest of the US. Hopefully, the summer of ’26 won’t bring down as many large trees as we were forced to deal with last year.
I’m afraid we are just going to have to hang on and find ways to cope with whatever outcome is delivered. It’s hard because weather is one of the few things that sending love doesn’t seem to influence.
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Watching Changes
Each afternoon that I have been up at the lake has brought melting temperatures, and yesterday was the warmest so far. It climbed to 58°F and turned the surface of the lake from white to wet.
That buoy I photographed the day before took on a whole new appearance.
Taking advantage of the mild conditions, I worked on a wood sculpting project on the deck in the bright sunlight. When it came time for a break, I laid down and faded into a nap on the deck boards, waking with my face in a puddle of drool that signaled a good sleep was had.
I stayed down on my back on the deck and listened to every sound I could detect, including the faint hum inside my head. Blood flow? A version of tinnitus, maybe. When I finally stood up and surveyed the surroundings, it became clear that I was watching the swift change from winter’s snow cover to exposed ground that was heralding the coming of spring.
Most of all, I was immersing myself fully in the pleasures of not needing to do anything by any specific time.
Mission accomplished.
Eventually, I will need to wash some dishes. I’m going to take advantage of staying in this lazy mode for one more day. Tomorrow, I will set things in order here to leave no trace and drive home to Cyndie and the animals. She leaves for Florida on Thursday and I will be in charge of the dog and horses for the week she is away, following their daily schedule of needs.
Having had these few days away on my own will go a long way toward making Cyndie’s next absence less daunting, especially since I love the routine of animal care just as much as I love these little breaks from it. When we finally end up at home together for a stretch of time again, it will be like a bonus.
Luckily, I love my time alone just as much as I love living together with Cyndie.
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B’bye Snow
After two days of 50°F temperatures during this final week of February, the snow has performed a quick disappearing act. Just four days ago, the American Birkebeiner ski race was held for the full distance in Hayward, WI. They lucked out with a couple of periods of snow falling in the nick of time so they didn’t need to shorten the race. Then, on the day after the main races, the warm weather moved in.
Our hay field at home now looks like it did back in November. Afternoons are becoming a muddy mess in the paddocks. At least I won’t get my quilt-lined Carhartt overalls dirty. No need to climb into our space suits this week. Heck, I haven’t even needed a coat in the middle of the last two days.
I watched a broadcast of the Minnesota Wild hockey game last night, and the commercials for Northland Ford and Toyota all-wheel drive vehicles to combat the snowy winter conditions looked rather comical, given the reality outside now. They could have been selling more motorcycles than trucks and SUVs.
Even the natural world is looking confused by this warm spell.
This furry little woolly bear caterpillar was slowly making its way across the driveway. I guess hibernation ended early this year.
It’s almost like the climate is undergoing a change or something. Ya think?
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Random Snippets
Oh my gosh, we must have a large wolf traipsing across our property! Wait. No, that’s Asher’s pawprint. Never mind.
The ground is thawing during the day, and what little snow is left is getting pretty soft. It refreezes overnight and leaves some perfect prints in the morning.
The fields are almost clear of snow now.
The warm weather has triggered some fresh raccoon activity, and Asher has figured out a family is living in a tree just beyond the edge of the yard that he can see out the bedroom door to the deck. Shortly after the sun drops below the horizon, he starts barking in protest of their existence. It goes on for a good half-hour while they busy themselves in full view on the branches up high doing whatever it is they do before setting out for their regular overnight routine. Fixing their masks, maybe.
I haven’t figured out where I put my new pruning saw yet. It wasn’t in the next place I thought to look.
In the category of things I can’t seem to finish after starting, I got out the trail cam recently and then brought it in because there were no new tracks, and the temperature dropped to insanely cold levels for days. Since then, there have been a lot of new tracks, and the weather has warmed dramatically, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to set the camera back up.
Maybe that’s because I figure I’ll just get a bunch of pictures of the raccoons, and I’d rather not see how many there really are. Ignorance is bliss.
That bitter cold delivered the first significant crack in our once pristine new asphalt driveway that isn’t so new anymore.
It’s like getting the first scratch in a new car. You wish it would never happen, but you know it will eventually. Unfortunately, as soon as we got the first one, a second appeared closer to the house within a day or two. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Snippets, all of them. Random, too. Take that, Universe. It might even make sense if one keeps the bigger picture in mind. I don’t actually know. I just write ‘em.
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Special Communication
The mess of melting leftover snow didn’t go through the usual overnight pause last night because the temperature never dropped below freezing. I read yesterday that the blanket of white covering the ground melts from the bottom up. When the air gets cold enough overnight, it is easy to walk on the old snow because a frozen crust is created. It wasn’t easy this morning.
The wash of chunks that rolled off the plow blade beside the driveway is melting in its own interesting ways.
…I enjoyed a special interaction with Light in the paddock this morning. After I had filled their hay nets and the horses finished gobbling up all the feed from their buckets, I still had some housekeeping to finish. Light approached and pushed her nose toward my shoulder. I chatted with her while continuing to look down toward my task on the ground.
Light made a little “chomp” at the air by me and I questioned her about her intentions.
“Were you thinking about biting me?” I asked without changing my energy or activity.
I expressed my disapproval of such craziness as Light wandered up to the overhang.
Then I experienced an insight about a possible different motivation behind Light’s original gesture. Maybe it was a “love nip.” Maybe Light was indicating her appreciation for my efforts.
I vocalized, “You’re welcome,” to the air in her absence.
Then I heard Light pooping up under the overhang.
You may draw your own conclusion, but I smiled a special smile as I scooped up behind her in finishing my efforts tending to the mares for the morning.
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Cracking Cones
With spring-like weather showing up way too soon, we have changes going on that are very un-February-like.
The moisture of the melting snow rises in the morning to create a mystical haze in front of the pines in the distance.
The remains of the melting plowed snow on the edge of the driveway are smeared with the dirt that got scraped up by the blade.
Most uncharacteristic of February is the clicking sounds of pine cones popping open in the warm sunshine.
My poor brain is wrestling over reveling in the luxury of the gentle weather at the same time as fretting over the complications this odd warmth could bring about.
In the moments between mental wrangling, the craziness offers plenty of opportunities for me to busy myself taking pictures of scenes that catch my eye.
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Relative Something 