November 18, 2011



Tree blown across road
in windstorm





Dogs on North ridge


There are no sounds during a windless snowfall.  Only the quiet ringing in your ears.  It is as though each snowflake gently sighs as it lands atop the softness of others already on the ground.  A cup of cocoa.  A seat by the window.  And it is pure bliss.

Winter has arrived a bit early this year.  Our first stay-for-the-season snow started falling at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday.  About 4:00 p.m., after our afternoon walk and having fed the dogs, I was out shoveling snow and wondering, "And we built such a large deck because. . .?!"  By then we had two inches of powder snow and the deck seemed the size of a football field.  Shoveling the deck is my new winter chore, as JB does all the snow blowing.  Hmmm.  I wonder if one of those leaf blowers would work as a snow blower. . . . 

By Thursday morning we had 3-4 inches, depending upon where we measured.  The wind had been blowing most of the night and I was surprised there was no drifting.  More snow is forecast for each of the next few days, so it was definitely time to drive my Jeep down to its winter parking place.  I'll admit I was a bit nervous about this "adventure", never having driven our road with that much snow.  But then we have both had a lot of "firsts" Up Here.  It's not so much the road I was concerned about, but rather that 500 ft drop-off on the right hand side.  Wasn't sure I'd get all the way down with dry pants or not.  MAX doesn't have his tracks on, but JB drove him around a bit Up Here with no problems.  I started out first and he followed me.  There was no drifting on the road, and, as it turned out, driving my Jeep down in the snow was easier than in the mud.  (Sandy remembers a drive like that.)  However, driving MAX back up the road was a little slippy, slidey, but we made it just fine.

This is almost a month early for having to move the Jeep.  I can usually drive to town til the first or second week in December.  If I don't go Down There with JB in MAX, I'll be Up Here for at least five months.  That would certainly be my record. But it was a good decision to move it today, as about an hour after we got back home, it started snowing again.

One of the photos above is of a tree that the windstorm took down right across the road at one of our year-round neighbor's place.  Had it fallen in the opposite direction, it would have landed right on top of their house!  And that is one big tree! They live down in the canyon and the wind can really go whipping down through there much faster than it does up at Rose Camp.  It turns out the Larry and Elsie didn't get through the storm unscathed either.  The wind flipped the glass-topped table on their deck and broke it, also taking out some wood on one of their doors.  At least the roof stayed on their chicken coup this time.

Thought for the day:  I'm retired.  I don't have time to work.