Posts Tagged ‘snow’
Accurate Forecast
The winter storm proved to be just like the weather service predicted, dumping snow in two waves and totaling somewhere in the range of 15-20 inches at our place. It’s hard to measure with the wind creating a variety of depths across our land. I took a walk with my yardstick and found a drift of over 20 inches in one spot.
I make a habit of cleaning off the lid of our food compost bin every time I walk past it so I can use it as a reference of how much new snow falls since the last time I cleaned it. Yesterday morning, there were spots where the dark cover had no snow on it at all yet the ground beside it was covered by 16 inches of powder.
I found a spot in the yard with only 3 inches but the driveway, which I plowed in the middle of the pause between the two waves, had gained 9 inches of new snow overnight.
Based on the frame of our roof rake, I was wrestling to bring down over 18 inches of new snow on the roof of our house. Much of that ended up hitting me in the face as I worked.
The snow was over knee-deep as I made my way toward the barn to feed horses first thing in the morning.
Mia had a new cut on one of her hind legs. It looked like one of the other horses probably kicked her. Cyndie rallied to gingerly make her way down to tend to the wound while I held Mia in place. I took a picture of Mia that ended up looking like she was standing on two legs.
That’s a weird view, isn’t it? If you don’t think about it, she looks normal but once you let your mind see it as only two legs, it gets hard to unsee.
I also took a picture of a rare moment when all four horses decided it was okay to stand together under one side of the overhang. Most often one or more of the horses will demand a wider bubble of personal space and chase others away.
Today we plan to drive up to Hayward to spend the weekend with friends at the cabin and take in the excitement of the American Birkebeiner ski race. I’m hoping the weather will be as perfect over the next two days as the meteorologists are predicting. Before we head out, I just need to finish a little more plowing and shoveling.
After that, I’m actually looking forward to just sitting in a car for two and a half hours. My muscles deserve a rest.
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Slow Slide
Life for me on the ranch is slowly moving away from needing to be Cyndie’s primary caretaker toward our usual partnership in life’s adventures. Her recent advances in regaining independence, by way of driving again, allowed her to attend a gathering of some of her friends and to spend an overnight with another which granted me a little time on my own.
I found an entirely forgettable shoot-’em-up cowboy movie to watch last night that she wouldn’t have enjoyed.
It was the first time I have been truly alone in the house for over a decade because we no longer have any indoor pets. Of course, I miss Delilah and Pequenita but it would be misleading to imply I don’t love the freedom from the responsibilities of tending to them.
The warm February weather has restarted the snowpack’s slow slide from the shop/garage roof. In the shadow of late afternoon yesterday, I saw that a chunk had fallen to the concrete apron below.
This morning, the crust on the snow was frozen enough to support my weight as I pulled broken branches out of the pine tree that suffered the most damage from one of the heavy snowfalls. There were a LOT more branches than I realized.
The tree looks a little worse for the wear but not as bad as I feared. I plan to trim the remains of the broken limbs back to the main trunk. Don’t know if that will make it look any better, or not.
Yesterday afternoon there were hunting dogs roaming our woods and howling off and on between scrambling around with their noses to the ground. These are from the coyote hunters that patrol the area and as such, are always a welcome sight. From my vantage point, it looked like they were roughly following the usual traffic pattern of the elusive fox that roams this area. That doesn’t mean the coyotes don’t travel the same pathways, but I’ve yet to catch sight of those ghostly predators.
At least I’ve seen and have pictures of the fox.
Never did hear any gunshots so their level of success yesterday is unknown.
It feels like we are on a slow slide toward the end of winter. Knowing full well that doesn’t mean we won’t experience more winter weather in March or April, I am holding back on any wild plans for our landscape post-snow.
I’m just going to lean back and enjoy riding the slide.
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Every Step
I spotted an impressive phenomenon of nature after heading down to the barn yesterday morning.
Each and every small animal footprint through the snow had captured a fallen oak leaf.
The latest air mass of bitterly cold temperatures has left us for the east coast. At noon today, I plan to give the horses a break from wearing blankets again. Other than the off-and-on annoying sounds of snowmobile engines passing by, it is calm and quiet under the hazy sunshine in our valley.
As the air warms it becomes obvious that the thick snowpack becomes its own refrigerant, radiating cold from below. Even though the daily high temperatures are forecast to rise above freezing, it doesn’t guarantee it will feel as warm as thermometers indicate.
However, with all things being relative, any above-zero temperatures offer welcome relief after extreme cold spells like we endured Thursday night/Friday morning. The horses seemed to begrudgingly tolerate the pain, gritting their teeth and standing still in a meditative state that hid any spark of life in their eyes.
This morning, they looked much more alive and were a smidge more active. I think they will be as happy as me to be granted several days of ease, free of the brutal grip of dramatically cold air masses.
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Mostly Fine
For the most part, we are good for now. The driveway is plowed, including the circle around the hay shed, allowing vehicle traffic. The weather looks to be settled for a few days of gray skies and temperatures below freezing. The thing that nags at me is that a change in either direction will produce complications I would prefer to avoid.
Here is a shot revealing the amount of pavement that has been lost to the mounds on the sides of the driveway that have gotten too high for my plow blade to be effective:
Ideally, I would plow the snow one blade width beyond the pavement to have room for the next big snowstorm.
Conversely, when temperatures climb above freezing and our snowpack begins to melt, I will be faced with a long period of water draining across the slope of pavement by the shop garage because I gave in and left a large amount of snow on the asphalt.
Water draining across that slope re-freezes most nights and becomes a real nuisance.
I suppose I could crank up the diesel tractor, scoop up the snow in the loader, and dump it on the downhill side of the pavement. I’m a little wary about the chains on the tires abusing our new asphalt. It’s like not wanting to see the first scratch in a new car’s paint.
More in the moment, this morning’s session with the horses was a delight in the magical frosty calm of a perfect winter day. After making it through the last storm without blankets, the herd seems content with their situation. They are all (mostly) dry and the footing is reasonable –not icy, not too deep or sticky.
When no vehicles were traveling past our place it was particularly calm and quiet. Not even a single neighboring dog could be heard making its usual announcement of existence.
“I’m here! It’s ME! Can you hear me barking over and over?”
After devouring their feed, the horses showed zero urgencies about switching to munching hay. There was nothing except a powerful sense of contentment.
I stood silently observing them for a few minutes before quietly making my departure toward the house for my breakfast.
For now, everything is perfectly fine.
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Roof Raking
It’s a dose of preventive medicine. I pull snow off the edges of the roof of our house to avert possible ice dams that can cause water leaks. It is a project that looms ominously before I can get to it, as icicles grow to incredible lengths. The work is strenuous to execute, requiring extended time with my arms overhead wrestling the rake into position and pulling it back down full of snow. That effort creates a mess below that needs to be shoveled away after it has compacted into a hard and heavy pile. But when completed, it offers a pleasing psychological reward every time I walk toward the house and spot the cleaned eaves.
I cleared the valley over the front door a day earlier and since then, plenty of evaporation has already occurred.
The toughest part of the whole project is that it only lasts until the next snowstorm.
In the meantime, the absence of concern about out-of-sight water problems is a deeply satisfying reward for the hassles associated with raking snow off the roof.
Since today happens to be January 7th, 2023, I would like to give a shout-out to anyone who happens to become old enough on this date to qualify for collecting their social security funds. Happy Birthday, DRH! Hope you don’t have mountains of snow on your roof up in the northland.
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Day One
‘Twas the first day of the new year and all through the house
the possibilities are endless like the droppings from that dang mouse.
The blessings we are able to enjoy tend to feel somewhat diminished by the harsh realities being suffered by people around the world who live in war zones or are enduring other oppressions. Mice in our house seem like such a minor hassle in comparison.
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The morning frost highlighted horse hair snagged on the overhang support beam that gets used as a scratching post. It also made our evergreen trees look like the flocked white Christmas trees that I always thought were ridiculous when I was a kid. In my limited knowledge, trees weren’t white. Why would they make them that way?
Plenty of life lessons available in that example of limited perspective.
The weather service has put us under a winter storm watch for Tuesday. The first new snow of the year! The old snow we already have is starting to show its age.
The squirrels out our windows are going gangbusters after the acorns under the snowpack.
Sure wish there was a way to harness their energy and put it to good use. I wonder if they could be trained to ward off the mice that get into our house.
Happy New Year 2023!
Sad Outcome
After two days in a row of above-freezing temperatures, the trees have finally shed a majority of the giant globs of snow that were caught in their branches. Unfortunately, it has revealed some of the damage caused by the heavy loads of snow.
That is some ugly pruning. Those aren’t the branches I would have chosen to remove.
As sad as it is to find damage like this, it brings a feeling of admiration for the large number of other trees that survived the hazardous weather unscathed. I haven’t trekked through the woods to do a full assessment yet, but of the trees along the driveway, the one pictured above looked the worst and I noticed only one other tree sporting a single broken branch.
Meanwhile, I tested the camera down at the barn for picking up the WiFi signal from our house and got a not-so-sad result. It wasn’t a complete success but I learned the cameral worked outside the front door of the barn but not inside or under the overhang on the backside of the barn.
If we decide to follow through on the idea of adding a camera that will cover the paddocks, it will likely require the addition of a signal booster or repeater of some sort. Having a camera at the barn is not something we urgently need so the level of a priority compared to a few other projects will probably move this down on our list of things to do.
It’s nice to learn how far the functional WiFi signal from the house can reach, at least. Think about all the “How-To” videos I will be able to consult in the shop/garage during my impersonations of a person who works on power equipment.
It sure is great finally having the fiber-optic cable bringing us the connectivity we’ve been longing for over the past ten years.
It feels like we’ve joined the 21st century.
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Wind Chilled
On my way back to the house from the barn yesterday morning, I looked up and laughed at the sight of the evergreen trees still swallowed by almost two feet of snow. It’s hard to discern actual branches under those massive globs of snow stuck to them.
Even though the temperature made its way above zero and was expected to climb into the 20s(F), a sharp wind kept the “feels like” number in the minus range. I did not wear my face mask when I went out to feed the horses at dusk and regretted it. I walked down the driveway to the mailbox and my cheeks and nose let me know they were not happy with my decision to do so without protecting them.
My intention at the start of the day had been to remove the blankets from the horses after I fed them breakfast but after they gobbled up what was in the pans, all four of them walked off to the far side of the back pasture. Maybe that was their not-so-subtle way of telling me they didn’t want them off yet. They could tell the wind was counteracting the effects of the rising temperature.
On Monday, I plowed and shoveled away the snow drifts on the driveway and felt pretty pleased with myself. Yesterday, the new winds filled things right back to the point it looked like I hadn’t done any clearing the day before.
I’m not going to let the winds have the final say. After I feed the horses this morning I’m going to plow the edges another time. Tit for tat.
I finally got out to start shoveling the mountains of snow that poured onto the deck the last two times that I raked the roof. Much of it was over my knees in depth until I got to the corner where two roof slopes meet into one valley. That pile was about as tall as I am and as dense as snow can get. I forgot to take a picture before I started.
Now that I have it trimmed down to a reasonable size, finishing clearing the rest of the deck should be possible this afternoon. I’m feeling plenty of empathy for what the people of Buffalo, NY are dealing with after the paralyzing and deadly amount of snow they received.
The forecast predicts we will get above freezing today. If it does, I sure hope it feels like it’s above freezing.
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Meandering Paths
We wait all year long for Christmas to get here and just like that, it’s over. Happy December 26th. Today is my half-birthday. To keep me humble, the skin by my thumbnail has split so that it constantly stings. One of the ways I deal with painful cracks in the skin on the edge of my fingernails is to apply germ-killing New-Skin. It occurred to me that, as I was wincing at the stinging pain of that antiseptic feature, it wasn’t much different from the constant sting of the cracked skin.
Cyndie and I made two trips to Bloomington, MN for Christmas gatherings of her family over the weekend. Driving was entirely nerve-wracking on Saturday and a little less-so yesterday. It’s really unsettling to be rolling along on what looks to be dry pavement, traveling at posted speeds, and constantly coming upon vehicles that have recently spun into the ditches.
I have no idea what they were doing to end up in their predicaments, but not knowing made it a guessing game about what I could do differently to avoid a similar fate. (Can you say, “black ice?”) Luckily, we completed all our driving without incidents.
Yesterday, to join the family at her mom’s place, we decided to skip giving the horses the noon feeding they have become accustomed to receiving. As we pulled up the driveway when getting home around the time for the evening feeding, the horses gave a little show of their opinion on the matter. One might describe them as looking a little “hangry.” (Irritable or angry because of hunger.)
Upon making my way down to the barn, I was happy to find their gesticulation had been more dramatic than necessary. They were much less rambunctious than I expected them to be and barely fussed over my choice to do some housekeeping before serving pans of feed. Conditions in the paddocks and under the overhang are stabilizing now that wind and snowfall have abated for a couple of days.
It isn’t much, but having the temperature climb to single digits above zero is at least a psychological improvement over the brutal conditions we’ve been dealing with over the last… I’ve lost track of how many days. Feels like it’s been a month or two.
I always enjoy seeing evidence of the horses’ meanderings out into the fresh snow on the fields. You can almost visualize the four mares heading out in a parallel formation before making some loops. These tracks appear in the mornings which tells me they go on these adventures in the dark of night.
My nighttime adventures are all in the dream world but feel a lot like the way those meandering pathways look.
The Monday after Christmas on Sunday feels like we have to wait 364 more days to find out if we were naughty or nice enough to get our wishes wrapped up and delivered under the tree.
Now that’s a long meandering path.
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Ventured Out
Apparently, the horses were just waiting for nightfall to venture out into the deep snow covering the hay field. Their meandering trails made for an interesting pattern beneath the colorful dawn sky yesterday morning.
It was around -5°(F) but the horses appeared unperturbed by the cold, even though there was frost on some of their whiskers and eyelashes. By noon, it had warmed to the mid-teens and their attitude had noticeably changed.
They showed a much greater interest in stuffing themselves with hay at noon. That preoccupation was a helpful distraction, allowing me to put blankets on all of them in advance of extreme weather coming in the days ahead. I think they were wise to the threat and were stoking their furnaces in advance.
Probably why they were so accepting of my fumbling around to get the blankets on them. They seem to sense what lies ahead in the weather department.
I got the barn and hay shed loop plowed yesterday and it was just as tricky as I suspected because of the depth of the snow. By taking it slow and moving half-plow-blade amounts of snow at a time, I accomplished my goal. After parking the ATV back in the shop garage, I headed down to clean up the edges with a shovel and was surprised to find the feed delivery van parked at the barn, unloading bags.
They showed up a day early to avoid making deliveries in wild weather.
It’s a good thing I ventured out to plow when I did. This incident encourages me to not let things wait until the last minute. If I had waited any longer to get that part of the drive plowed, those 50 lb. bags of feed would be piled in the snow at the edge of the driveway and I would have been carrying them down to the barn by myself.
Sounds like winter is going to come in like a lion this year. There’ll be no worrying about whether or not it will be a white Christmas around these parts.
Ho, ho, ho.
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Relative Something 