Posts Tagged ‘spring snow’
Wintery Spring
After what seemed like an almost summery winter, we are now experiencing a very wintery spring. Did I mention the meteorologists were referring to this storm as a long-duration event? It rained hard almost the whole night before turning to snow again yesterday morning.
Now on top of the inch or two of standing water that was covered by about 7 inches of saturated snow, we were receiving oodles of new, dryer snow. It made for some really laborious trudging while accompanying Asher on one of his daily rounds.
The drainage swale that cuts across our back pasture was clearly visible as the rainwater made its way from the fields to enter the creeks that run to the rivers that eventually make their way to the mighty Mississippi for the journey to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s all downhill from here.
When I took these pictures, I was standing on the footbridge I built that allows for ease of travel across the spot where our swale meets the ditch along the south border of our property. That ditch was filled with more flowing water than I have seen in a very long time.
It is dry 98% of the time. It channels runoff during spring melts and occasional flash-flooding rain storms.
As Asher and I reached the far corner of our property on the trail we call the North Loop, a bald eagle swooped up out of the field as if we’d disturbed it from some activity. The very top of the tallest pine tree in our neighbor’s front yard became the eagles’ perch.
If there was a carcass the beautiful bird had been involved with, I didn’t want Asher to find it so we trudged onward to finish the property border walk and get back to the safe confines of the house. The conditions outside were teetering uncomfortably close to the category of being unfit for man or beast.
I’m looking forward to the end of this long-overdue smattering of winter so we can return to some much more spring-like conditions. We’ve certainly got a good head start on “April showers.”
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Saturated Snow
The weather played out just like the forecasters predicted. Overnight Sunday into Monday the snowflakes flew with an unrelenting intensity. I woke in the middle of the night and saw it was piling up to an impressive depth on the deck railing out back.
It started to change over to a mixture of rain and snow a couple of hours before sunrise. I knew the moment I stepped outside yesterday morning the snow was the consistency of wet cement.
Two of the horses stayed totally dry. The other two looked totally wet. They all appeared to be coping just fine.
I grabbed a shovel and headed down toward the road. I wanted to see how deep the snow was on the driveway and check on the mailbox that usually gets blasted by snow shooting off the blade of the township plow truck.
Just as I stepped out of the barn, I heard the truck coming. I was not going to get there in time to save the mailbox. Luckily, it wasn’t an issue. The driver was working at a controlled speed to push the slop to the side, not throw it well off into the ditches. The mailbox was fine.
The snow depth on the driveway was borderline worth plowing. The challenge would be all the water saturating the bottom couple of inches.
I decided to try running the Grizzly ATV up and down the driveway to disrupt the sloppy covering of snow, half hoping it might be enough to make it easily navigable by cars.
The ATV tracks made it look easy enough to plow so I went for it and lowered the blade at its sharpest angle. I don’t know that it made it any easier but the pavement cleaned up nicely in just a handful of slip-sliding passes.
I wasn’t going to even try the plow blade around the hay shed. I made multiple passes to break up the snow and called it good enough. When we went down to feed the horses at dinner time, there was standing water in many of those tire tracks.
Based on evidence on the ground in the paddocks, several, if not all of the horses, did some lying down in that soaking wet mess with their blankets on. Well, blankets mostly on. Swings managed to fold hers over off her butt.
You can see her back foot standing on the dragging blanket making it hard to move forward. That area just beyond the overhang is even more like wet cement with the combination of sand and saturated snow. The back corner of Swings’ blanket is a mud-saster.
Too bad she’s not one to stand out in the rain. Some precipitation might help rinse off all the muck.
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Temporary Reprieve
Yesterday morning’s wintery start was a bitter pill to swallow but the afternoon arrived with just enough sunshine to make the snow nothing but a memory.
We get a day or two of reprieve from a threat of more snow until the chances go up again by Friday. Ooh, I can’t wait… said no one ever about more snow in April.
Last week I pulled the inserts out of my insulated work boots and transferred them to my non-insulated boots. I didn’t switch them back just because of one little snowstorm and wore my summer boots to feed the horses at the start of the day. It proved to me how well my insulated boots work in keeping my feet warm. It didn’t take long for me to get cold feet in the non-insulated boots.
If you look closely at the fence in the image above there are clues of a spring project that is high on my priority list. The fence in the foreground is leaning from what I fear may be the weight of horses leaning into it to scratch their itches. In the board fence near Light in the distance, there is a high post that needs to get pounded down. Actually, there are a lot of posts that deserve to be pounded down. They get pushed up by the freezing and thawing cycle.
I’d love to have the ease of simply pressing on the posts with the weight of the loader bucket on the diesel tractor but the ground is too soft for driving that heavy machine around. It would do more damage than good. That leaves the task of hand-pounding with the tool I customized for just this purpose. All I need is a yardstick, a step ladder, and a spotter to read the pounding progress on the ruler.
As long as the post keeps moving, I keep pounding until we reach a target height. If it stops moving beneath my pounding, I need to save my energy and not waste effort that isn’t producing results. Some posts have moved easily in the past and others not so much.
Upper body workout ahead. Arms day is a-comin’.
It’s a great feeling when fence posts are all re-seated before the ground dries out and becomes rock hard again. Not that different from how it feels to have growing things trimmed and shaped prior to the spring growth spurts.
Everything in its time.
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Weather Whiplash
We had been warned but I just didn’t want to believe the weather would swing as far as forecasts suggested. From almost 90°F to a blizzard of blowing snow in a matter of days. It was bad enough that the snow finally began to get the upper hand and cover everything white yesterday but the startling blasts of intense wind gusts last night had us flinching even though we were witnessing it from the comfort of being tucked under blankets in our bed.
At least the drizzly rain we received on Saturday was quickly bringing our green grass to life before it got covered in snow.
The white stuff started to stick in the woods first.
When it gets hot, it gets too hot. When it gets cold, it gets too cold. When it rains, it rains too hard. Every day we aren’t being pushed up against one of these extremes is a day we should celebrate and cherish. With abusive weather getting more oppressive, there is an increased importance for us to take full advantage of calm days when we have that chance.
Especially, when the swings between extremes are happening more often and with shorter pauses between.
There wasn’t a lot of good news to be had in the two PBS Nova episodes we watched last night about extreme weather and Arctic sinkholes. Ruh-roh.
No melting permafrost feedback cycles happening at our house. The structure suffered some scary creaking under the gusts of wind overnight though. I’ll need to do an inventory of the deck furniture that I recently put out on the deck when it was as hot as a day in July last week.
My brain feels whiplashed just thinking about the quick weather switches between extremes. I will wholeheartedly welcome the next span of boring weather days that arrive after this latest wintery blast. Bah, humbug.
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Tree Scenes
After Friday’s overnight blast of rain and thunder that swiftly transitioned into a heavy blizzard dropping 1-to-2-inch per hour of snow, Saturday delivered a blue sky with enough sunshine to reduce the snow cover by half.
I was getting pelted by snow and ice chunks falling from the branches as I wandered around taking pictures of the after-effects of the spring storm. The icy tree branches caught most of my attention.
The gaping wound on this ornamental maple tree at the top of our driveway exposes the harsh reality of the toll these kinds of weather events dish out on the greatest assets we have on our land.
Similar to the way some trees hold the leaves at the very top in the fall after the lower branches have become bare, several of our trees had crowns of ice reflecting the sunlight.
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I’ll conclude with a tree that showed no sign of life last year, failing to sprout a single green needle yet still has enough structure to support the snow like a healthy tree.
There will be a lot of branch-collecting to be done across our acres after the snow finally melts away this year. I’m looking ahead to the days when our tree scenes return to their green best.
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Not Fooled
April. Really?
Fool me once…
I thought I was going to shovel snow. APRIL FOOLS!
It was more like cement. Maybe stucco. Plaster?
Just to add to the ruse, nature makes it look gorgeous.
I fear this mess will be un-plowable. How fast will it melt? I’m going to clean up around the edges and see how conditions change after the sun shines on it for an hour or two.
I don’t think the horses see much humor in this kind of practical joke. Our trees don’t think it’s very funny, either.
My new zero-turn mower is due to arrive on Tuesday.
Happy April everyone!
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Newest Ramp
Chicken ramp is now up to version three. I’ve given up on the cutesy woven willow branch ramps because they don’t hold up to the abuse of the elements and the apparent urges of critters and/or chickens to pull them apart.
It feels a little sad to be getting around to fixing this just days after the loss of five hens, but there are still three birds who are going in and out of the coop and I have decided to remedy the design flaw of passing through the drop zone for snow sliding off the slanted roof.
The new design approaches the chicken access door from the side, keeping it just inside the drip line off the roof.
Cyndie said the first chicken to exit the coop this morning after the door was opened had to stop abruptly to figure out the turn, but then walked right down.
I watched the Wyandotte who is becoming broody approach the new ramp from the ground yesterday, driven by her strong urge to get back inside and park in an empty nest box. She stopped where the bottom of the old ramp would have been and stretched her neck up as tall as she could with a look of incredulity as she inspected the strange alteration.
Then she flapped her wings and hopped halfway up from the side and scrambled up through the opening.
I’m anxious to see if the snow will drop just beyond this new ramp since that is the primary reason I changed to the side entry, but hopefully, that test won’t happen for many months.
Seven years ago today, the first spring after we had moved here, we received 18-inches of wet snow that wreaked havoc on trees and branches. I will always remember the sound of snapping limbs that resembled rifle reports cracking all around me within the otherwise sound-deadened thick blanket of white.
It was very distressing.
I will happily wait until next winter to see how the newest version of the chicken ramp works when melting snow drops off the roof overhang. By then, we should have round three of purchased chickens established, as Cyndie has already placed an order for all new breeds. Delivery is much delayed and breed selection was rather limited due to very high demand.
I guess a lot of people are in the market for the comfort of having their own source of eggs at a time when going out in public is being discouraged.
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Clean Driveway
One of the really great features of a spring snowstorm is when the snow melts on the driveway as fast as it falls. When Delilah and I set out on our first walk after I got home from work yesterday, there was no snow falling. After circling the majority of our acres, I parked her in the barn while I tended to chores at the chicken coop.
While I was down with a couple of egg-laying hens, the sky opened up and poured out a downburst of snow. It quickly became a mini-blizzard with little spinning snow-tornadoes that made my trek back to the barn into a heroic expedition. From the barn, Delilah and I hustled our way up to the protection of the house and turned our focus toward each of our respective dinners.
The next time I looked out the window, the cloudburst had ended. It went from everything to nothing in about ten minutes time.
But it wasn’t done yet.
Before dinner was over, flakes started flying again. This time, it lasted much longer. So long, in fact, I started to wonder if I was going to need to shovel. Delilah started getting antsy to make her obligatory after-dinner outing, but I kept delaying her in hope of waiting long enough for the snow to stop falling.
Not only did my plan succeed, but we were subsequently gifted with an outbreak of sunshine! The icing on the cake of this whole mini-drama was stepping out to the sight of a clean driveway. It was downright photogenic.
Take that, winter snowstorms…
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Snow Coming
I’m usually grateful to have advanced notice of coming weather, but sometimes I don’t like knowing we are about to receive large amounts of heavy, wet snow in April.
The snow is predicted to come in a narrow band, so it could shift a little, but we are located perilously close to the highest risk of seeing 6 or more inches of snowfall. Look to the right of the letter “e” in the word Moderate, just above Red Wing. Oh, joy.
I spent yesterday tinkering with the slowly developing berm we are constructing at the edge of our property where the neighboring cultivated farm field drains onto our land. It’s been 2-and-a-half years since we installed the latest version of erosion fencing and much of that has filled with so much topsoil the fabric is laying almost flat in some places.
Granted, the following photos were taken at different seasons, late summer vs. early spring, but the difference is rather striking.
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The bales obviously disintegrate. Progress that may not be evident can be found in the number of volunteer plants that have taken root and naturally help to hold soil in place. The thing is, though, that helps to hold our soil from eroding, but we still get large flows of the neighbor’s topsoil washing over our property.
If I can get the berm established enough to pool his runoff, it will serve as a natural replacement for the Polypropylene fabric and, most important to my sensibilities, be a less unsightly barrier.
I have found the use of gnarly dead branches that are too big for my chipper makes for great starter material in establishing a natural barrier. The highly fertilized runoff tends to fuel thick growth of tall grasses that ultimately create a tangled wall of live plants weaving through dead wood.
Looks like I’ll have a fresh opportunity Monday to see how my latest upgrade to the barrier yesterday will impact the drainage of many inches of melting snow.
Wouldn’t you know it, I changed the tires on the ATV yesterday to swap out the aggressive treaded winter tires for plowing snow, with the smoother treads of summer tires that are kinder to our land.
I could be in for a complex day tomorrow of clearing heavy, wet snow that will be a big problem for a day or two, and then melt. Then we can get on with spring, which is on the verge of swiftly getting sprung.
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Wintry Spring
The weather prank that would have fit nicely on April Fools’ Day happened two days late for that honor. Yesterday afternoon the flakes started flying and, beautiful as they can be, didn’t stop until there was an ugly couple of inches covering everything.
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Overnight last night, the temperature dropped to 22°(F) making it not only look like winter but feel like it, too.
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers. Well, April snow just might be an improvement on that because the snow tends to stay in place and soak the ground as it melts. If the forecasts are correct, this snow will disappear quickly.
The temperature shows signs of reaching 70 by Tuesday they are saying.
Growing things should find that enticing.
My reaction is to give the lawn tractor attention in preparation for the season ahead.
It is always startling when the number of days between putting away the snow shovel and getting out the lawnmower can be counted on the fingers of my two hands.
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Relative Something 