Bad News & Good News

First, the bad news: Last Wednesday, Eric had some near misses with some trees a couple of times on his way down our driveway and road for his morning commute.  We had had freezing rain and then snow on top over night and it made for slippery dog walks, even with my "treads" which seemed to accumulate snow and detritus.  But Khan didn't hit any trees or go in any ditches and neither the Beastie Grrrlz nor I fell.

It turns out that a couple of inches of new powder on top of ice is a recipe for clogging up my treads. Luckily that didn't seem to effect their gripping abilities.

However, when we had firewood delivered that afternoon, the Death Luge Ice Driveway claimed a victim.  On his way out, the firewood man skid and hit a tree.  No people or trees were hurt, but the truck got kind of munched. I'd warned him that it was slick before he headed over, but I think he thought I was just a greenhorn and overreacting.  I'm really bummed for him; he's a mechanic in the warm weather and I hope he knows a good body guy or gal who can help him out quickly and inexpensively.

Before he left, he said he'd call me before noon the next day and bring our our final cord, but that did not happen. We did get it early the next week, though.

Now, the good news: Wednesday night and most of Thursday it snowed!  Now this was when the Polar Vortex was wreaking some havoc in other parts of the country and snow was not welcome, but we were not snowy at all and it was kind of bumming us out.  We didn't move to the Rockies to be practically snow free right in the middle of winter for crying out loud!*

Looking west towards Idaho in the National Forest.

I'm grateful that I am still in awe of how the property and forest look covered in snow.  I hope I never take it for granted.

My new Bigfoot Crossing sign looking even cooler with the snow.

So here I will just bombard you with more photos of snow taken around the property.

I love how the snow here sticks to just any little twig or bit of wire, at least until we get a little wind.  This "fence" is around the garden part of the yard and those dead plants are what happens to asparagus that you didn't know was planted in your garden until it was too late.

The roof line of the ATV-port. At the time this was taken, it was the biggest icicle we'd had to date; that is far from the case now. I want to get shots of those on the house eaves, but it's hard for me to capture them adequately. 

I missed my chance to capture this last time, so was pretty excited to get another chance this year.  This is the "roof" over part of the chicken yard.  Pine needles hang up in it all year, but the snow building up on the chicken wire and letting sunlight filter through is pretty neato.

We can't play Pine Cone when they're buried in the snow, so Santa brought Betty these brightly colored fetching toys for her daily romp time.  She likes to catch her breath and cool off on the deck for a few minutes before coming back in to lay by the fire.

*I started writing this post over a week ago, before Portland was hit with their Snowmageddon. Now it all seems less Bitterroot-specific, but dang it!  I am still in love with our snow and I still feel like a kid when I look out and see it falling or see it covering our yard and forest!  And here we can usually get around in it, so there's that, too.  One final note: we have gotten a few more inches since I took these shots and I'll probably be sharing more, ya' lucky dogs.