Quiet in the San Luis Valley

A couple of weeks ago one would have thought spring was on its way. Not the case now; we're blanketed in snow more than 7" deep. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) of snow in the yard is 1.37". Mountains are getting snow as I type this. Bald eagles have been making more of an appearance in the area. A belted kingfisher has been seen & heard over by the Empire Canal, and the male red-winged blackbirds are making their territorial sounds over in the cattail area in the Rio Grande SWA. Our firewood supply is quickly dwindling, and soon we may have to ration fires. So, yeah, maybe spring really is on its way!

Deer leg

Went for a snowshoe around the Rio Grande & the state wildlife area; the dog found a tasty treat which she gnawed on the remainder of the night. Even missed her dinner for it.
We got 11" of snow overnight last Thursday; I skipped work to shovel, rake snow off the roof, split firewood, and go snowshoeing.

Beautiful winter & seed catalogs!

Blizzard warnings today, mostly in the mountains. Overnight last night it was very windy, and many drifts had appeared by morning. At 7AM it was 31 degrees, now at 1:30 PM it's about 28 degrees.

Bruce split a bunch of wood yesterday so we're now safe from freezing! We have this wood carrier thing that allows easy hauling of split wood. It also makes a handy dog carrier - poor Caddy is at Bruce's mercy!

I went snowshoe running over at the state wildlife area yesterday in the late afternoon - saw several hawks and many tracks in the snow. It was beautiful but cold; returned home with a frosted face.

Had to replenish the black oil sunflower seed and Niger thistle today at the local co-op---holy cow! Not (sort of) cheap like it used to be to buy that stuff for "wild" bird-feeding.

Picked up the mail today - four more seed catalogs arrived. Got one yesterday, and received a couple more several days before Christmas. I'd hate to think how many I'd be getting if I hadn't taken my name off a bunch of mailing lists! But it is making me think of seed-starting........

Snow in the forecast (finally)

Today is the day before Thanksgiving, and we are finally due for some snow, though it is predicted to be only about an inch or so here on the San Luis Valley floor. The eastern San Juan Mountains just to the west of us may receive 8-12 inches by Friday morning (36 hours from now). The past five nights have been single digits, and the birds have been ganging up on the four feeders set out for them. I finally took the time to find the birdbath water heater so now they don't have to deal with the block of ice every morning. Alas, I head out of town for four days, so they'll all be on their own for food until our return.

Splitting firewood can wait until our return, as can continued garden cleaning, leaf-collecting & raking, perennial watering, and more outdoor tasks. The firewood photo is from two or three years ago - yes, we manually split all of it! We pay anywhere from $120 to $130 per cord of wood; my sister told me that where she lives in Cape Cod, MA, a cord of split wood costs about $350! Our winter last year was a bit harder than the two previous winters, and I got tendonitis from too much wood splitting. This year I'm going to try to do better with using the left arm more.