Posts Tagged ‘weather’
Snowy Stones
We have been on the roller coaster of spring weather lately, mixing beautiful warm days with blasts of wintery cold. We wake up to snow and it melts by the time the sun gets high. It feels a little crazy-making, but I love the way it looks.
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Harsh Winds
It didn’t rain last night and we got away with leaving the horses outside. That makes clean up much simpler. However, we didn’t expect the degree of wild weather we are getting in place of rain this morning.
Overnight we got snow, and then in the wee hours of the morning, the wind hit with a vengeance. It is a gusting wind, around 40 mph according to reports, making the house audibly stress at every joint. I discovered a stack of wood in the woodshed had toppled over, and in my dismay, I didn’t even consider the more significant fact that the shed itself is still standing.
Apparently the anchors work. It helped to have the hands-on assistance of my friend Mike Wilkus, who happens to be an architect, to rebuild the shed after winds toppled my first version. I had tightly packed this first stack of new wood in hopes of keeping the pile up until the next one over was finished, but the wood shrinks as it dries, and I’m sure the shed was flexing in these gusts, so it isn’t a big surprise things tumbled.
As we turned the corner toward the paddock from our walk through the woods with Delilah, we could see the horses were calm and collected in the relative protection from the worst gusts of wind. I am so happy for the wise placement of our barn. While the house sits on the high point of our land, where it suffers the brunt of the worst weather that arrives from the west and north, the barn is located below enough that it is generally spared.
The horses perked up when we arrived and got a bit rambunctious to warm themselves up before we served their morning feed. While we were cleaning up manure prior to putting the feed pans down, the horses did a few rounds of running, kicking, and flailing about.
Cyndie warned me that she was uncomfortable about my proximity to Legacy’s hind end, in case he decided to kick. It wasn’t him I was concerned about. The others are a lot less predictable. In fact, as Hunter approached in a frenzy, Legacy adjusted his position to protect me from the antics. What I didn’t expect was for Dezirea to decide to bustle through the narrow space between Legacy and me from the other side, because we were by the fence.
She did it anyway and landed a glancing brush of her hoof on my side as she passed through. I’m hoping she kicked the shingles out of me.
Cyndie got her “told you so” moment, and I got my lesson without suffering seriously.
I endured a lot worse abuse when I walked Delilah down to the mailbox and had to face the wind over the first rise on the way back. I think I would rather have been kicked, than beat by these frigid gale force gusts.
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Lacking Sunshine
This past Sunday dawned soaking wet and drizzly. By mid-morning, the rain had stopped, but the day remained gray and chilly. All afternoon I was watching for the clouds to disperse, hoping for some sunshine to bathe us in warmth.
It wasn’t until the sun was dropping below our horizon that the golden solar glow began to appear.
Better late than never, I guess.
It made for some fantastic visuals. Even though we couldn’t see the sun, there were a few brief minutes where the rays lit up treetops in the distance beyond us to the east.
It was too late to do anything about warming us up, so I resorted to a campfire out back. Cyndie had cleaned out the barn and delivered a pile of the lumber scraps left over from the hay boxes I built for the stalls.
I decided it would make good fuel for a fire.
It did..
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Spring Storm
Sometimes our spring storms involve rain, but it’s not strange when they come as all snow. Last night, we got the all snow variety.
Let’s review. Last weekend I was adding a bedding of manure around the base of some of our pine trees. It looked like this:
Just days later, a spectacularly defined winter snow storm spread out across the middle of our country and rode right over the top of us.
When I left work in the afternoon, there were hints of snowflake flurries, but nothing showing on the ground. Driving across the metro area, I arrived in the thick of falling flakes, but the roads remained snow-free. It was wet, and my windshield wipers struggled to smear aside the salty spray blowing up from the vehicles around me.
As I came up the driveway, I spotted Dezirea standing in the wet blowing snow, but the other three horses were wisely tucked under the overhang of the barn. Cyndie moved them all inside to their stalls when the snow began to accumulate.
We stoked the fireplace and dined on a gourmet spread of coconut chicken and rice with lentils, barley, and quoting Cyndie’s description, “a whole bunch of other stuff” that she whipped up with her typical professional flair. We watched a fascinating documentary film, “Finding Vivian Maier” that arrived in our mail from Netflix. We stayed cozy and warm while the definitive spring snow storm blustered its beautiful best outside.
This time of year, it is always a laugh to think back to whether a ground-hog saw its shadow, or how long winter would really last. Winter comes and goes in fits. It has been 70° (F) here already, and we’ve had days of greening grass and drying soil. We also have enough snow to look like it’s been here forever and the previous days were simply a dream.
I’ll venture out this morning in the darkness of the early hour, and traverse the miles that go from almost a foot of snow, across several counties to the day-job where it will still look like spring.
Thus is the nature of the narrow gradient of frozen precipitation on the north edge of a late winter/early spring storm in this part of the world.
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Horses Sense
The weather has been a little cantankerous lately, dishing out some horizontal precipitation in strong winds, with temperatures hovering uncomfortable close to the cold freeze-point. The kind of weather that a horse might not particularly appreciate.
I drove home from work on Thursday at a time between showers. The pavement was dry and the overcast sky looked less glum than the rest of the week. When I came over the hill to the first view of our place, there was no one in sight. Over the first rise of our driveway I discovered a distinct absence of horses.
Hmm. I whimsically asked myself if maybe Cyndie had sold them.
Why would they be inside the barn at this hour?
Sometimes the weather at home and the weather at work can be dramatically different, but all indications showed it to be equally dry. It occurred to me that the horses might be making up for the fact we had left them out the night before, when enough windy precipitation showed up that it exceeded their level of tolerance.
We had put them in the barn two nights ago, due to a cold rain, but Wednesday evening they were dry and seemed content with things, so I left them out. My sleep was disturbed later that night by the sound of blustery precipitation —I couldn’t tell if it was rain, sleet, or ice balls— hitting the bedroom window. My first thought was of the poor horses out there with their heads down, enduring the insult.
I asked Cyndie how they were in the morning and she reported a fairly normal routine and appearance. She said they weren’t necessarily dry, but they weren’t chilled-to-the-bone dripping wet, either.
At the same time, Cyndie did have a fascinating report to offer from that afternoon. She had left Delilah in the house and wandered down to be with the horses for the specific intent of listening to what they might have to offer. With a lot of concerns on her mind lately, she wanted to stand among the herd with no other cleaning or feeding agenda as distraction.
It was early in the afternoon, and like I described, not a bad day outside compared to the rest of the week. The message she got from the horses was insistent and unmistakable. They wanted to go inside their stalls. Now.
By the time I arrived home, it looked like nobody lived there. Cyndie was surprised they would ask to be inside so early, but gave them what they wanted.
A short time after I got home, the snow started flying. Sloppy, wet flakes that painted the deck with moisture. The kind of precipitation that a horse would probably be tired of enduring this week.
The kind of weather a horse would have enough sense to get out of if it had a barn for shelter.
All ours had to do was ask.
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Not March
This is not the weather I recognize as occurring in the month of March in the region where I am from. That’s no surprise, since we are breaking records for both highest overnight low temperature, as well as the daytime high for March 8th.
Our back yard looked almost summery in the afternoon sun.
No snow in sight. It felt unnatural. Thinking back just a few years, I was trying to carve drainage paths through the mounds of packed snow on the sides of our driveway in March, for water to drain away.
No such problem this year.
Just to keep us from getting too far ahead of ourselves, the landscape pond is available to remind us that spring doesn’t happen instantaneously, even when it seems like that is exactly what it is doing. There is a solid mass of ice filling the pond still.
Something tells me it won’t last much longer.
When I was a kid, the saying was, “April showers bring May flowers.” I wonder what the March showers will bring in this new climate reality.
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Between Season
Every day this week, on my way home from work, I’ve seen more and more exposed ground due to receding snow cover. Twice, on the way into work, I have driven through new falling snow. This time of year, those light snow showers don’t add much to the snow pack, so we have continued to lose more than we’ve gained.
Cyndie’s daytime view of melted snow
The days have only offered a spattering of minutes where the sun shone through enough to cast definable shadows. The rest of the time it has looked pretty gray outside, and not very conducive to melting much snow. It hasn’t mattered. Forces are at work to create a mystical disappearing act of our snow.
It feels very in-between seasons. We are certainly not getting anything that looks like the winters we have been known for, and we have yet to see enough sunshine to want to put the top down on the convertible and go for a joyride. The snow and ice is no good for winter sports. The dryer ground and inviting warm sunshine of springtime have yet to arrive.
So what are we going to do? We’re gonna head to the lake. One of our favorite house & pet sitters announced her availability for this weekend and we are taking advantage of it to make a rare visit to Big Round Lake. With friends Mike and Barb joining us, we will be exploring creative ways to enjoy the outdoors at a time of year when most of our usual activities are unavailable.
I guess it’s not all that unusual for me to be taking pictures, and that is something for which the ‘between-season’ actually offers extra opportunity. Around home, I keep seeing some amazing natural art where leaves and other dark debris laying on top of the snow will melt intricate outlines of their exact shapes as they make their way toward the ground, multiple times faster than the rest of the snow around them.
I have yet to capture any good photos of this phenomena, because the depth that is a huge feature of the visual is very difficult to convey in the limitations of a 2-dimensional image. The live perspective we get through actually seeing for ourselves is worlds beyond what a lens can offer. Of course, that makes it all the more enticing to want to try.
More significantly, I haven’t gotten any good pictures yet because I have been finding them too late, after I have tromped all over the place and kicked snow on the potential candidates.
So maybe it will be a weekend of photography. That, on top of the always incredible good eating we enjoy, the lounging around a fireplace, and the playing of a few card games while listening to music.
I’m finding myself also between the season of wanting to dig into any real projects that produce worthy results. I’ll save that motivation for a warm and sunny spring day, just in case one of those finally shows up.
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Not Hot
This is one of the not hot compost piles in our paddock. Not much in the way of decomposition happening there. Maybe that will change this weekend when the mega-melt of February is expected to arrive.
The frozen compost piles aren’t hot, but the temperature of the air will be. Add a chance for some rain in the mix and our lawn may become visible by the end of the weekend.
Mud season!
I suppose I ought to think about getting the garden tractor tuned up and ready for battle.
This early warmup in interesting, but warmth at this time of year is a fickle thing. One moment it feels all summery and promising, and a day later we could be socked in by a foot or two of heavy, wet snow. Do. Not. Remove. Winter. Accessories. From. Your. Vehicles.
The odds of needing them stays high through the first week in May around here. I’m inclined to wait until June before finally choosing to store them someplace safe, where I will never remember to look the following November when I am desperate to scrape frost off a windshield again.
This past Monday, the horses were enjoying the last hour of our increasingly longer daylight while I was tending to the frozen manure pile closest to the barn. I have a sense that they are going to enjoy a warm spell, despite the messy footing it promises to provide.
With their coats still winter-thick, I expect it may feel downright hot to them.
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Too Warm
I was not entirely prepared in my mind for the temperature to be as warm as it was yesterday. It turned out to be the second day in a row with temperatures around 40° (F). Regardless, I decided to take a crack at pulling the groomer behind the ATV in the morning.
I did a little research to learn what time of day might be the best for grooming. Naturally, I found results for both early morning and end of the day. It hinged on how much trail use could be expected to occur afterward.
Basically, desired results require an overnight of sub-freezing temperatures for the groomed snow to achieve a firm set.
When the sun came up high enough to light the day, it revealed a thin glaze of ice on all the surfaces. I held half a hope that it might provide a crust on top of the snow that would help my cause.
I was much too late for that by the time I made it outside. In fact, the moment I finally stepped out the door, I bagged the idea of using the 4-wheeler, because that glaze had become nothing but wetness.
I took Delilah to the side yard and worked on splitting some wood.
Then Cyndie came out. With her support and encouragement, I changed my mind and decided to give the ATV a shot after all, while she occupied Delilah.
My suspicion that it was too warm was confirmed, but I forged ahead anyway. I was able to coax the ATV forward after I got stuck the first time, but not the second time. I unhooked the pallet/fence panel and turned the Grizzly around.
Hoping to break down a path to eliminate the stopping points, I revved my way back in the direction from which I’d just come, then turned around and covered the same ground a third time. Next, I hooked up the fence panel again and tried a grooming pass, one last time.
It was a mess, but I learned enough to be satisfied this will work nicely when done frequently, soon after snow falls, and doing so from the very beginning of the snow season.
Yesterday was too little, too late, and just plain too warm.
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Cyndie Returns
How smart are dogs? Ours picked up on my activity right away when I got home from work yesterday. Sure, I dropped a few verbal hints that Momma was coming home, but I think she could tell by the way I was putting furniture back in place and converting my temporary man-cave back to our shared living space.
Cyndie has actually returned a day earlier than her original plan, due to the winter storm that is expected to be in full swing this afternoon, around the time her flight was supposed to arrive. She moved it up 24 hours and arrived without hassle last night, making the drive from the cities on dry pavement.
At one point last night, I found Delilah standing with her nose up against the door to the garage, clearly expecting it to open any minute. Maybe she heard something. I don’t know about that, but Cyndie was still over an hour away at that point.
It was a pretty fun reunion when Cyndie stepped in the door. Delilah was incredibly happy, almost as much as Cyndie.
We have had enough warmth recently to melt most of the snow off our driveway. I took a picture to use as a comparison to what it will look like after the 8-12 inches of predicted new snow stops falling.
I’m going to stay at work as long as possible today, hoping to head home before snow accumulation begins to create traffic backups. Unfortunately, they have moved up the time that precipitation is expected to start to 9 a.m. today, so driving could be impacted long before the afternoon rush hour.
If the depth of snow and strong winds lives up to what is being forecast, there is a strong possibility that I will stay home from work on Wednesday.
All these possibilities are a lot less stressful for me now that Cyndie is home.
I think Delilah feels the same way.
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Relative Something 