Sidetracked Charley

I seems to happen every spring and fall here - during mud and flood season. Everyone gets in what can only be called "negative speaking." I used to blame it on the mud. But with the drought there hasn't been a lot of that for four years. The locals that can afford to leave in April or November or both are gone. Those of us that cannot stay behind and pet sit or property watch or do the little minor jobs like painting the living room when the owners are away. The owners call back from time to time to check on Pookie or the Puce they picked for the bedroom. They begin by asking how the weather is. "Been raining for five days. We had two and half inches on one day." "So the road is a sheet of mud, right?" "The grass is very green." "Will it need mowed before we return?" "The creek is bank to bank." "So muddy paw prints all inside the house, right?" I am not taking care of a pet for them so obviou...

My Road Woke up yesterday to five inches of snow. Before what passed for dawn came the level was to almost eight inches. It snowed all day but temps for such it melted all day creating muddy messes on the roads. Mud and Flood And very wet and muddy dogs. They just love the snow. Mardi Gras I like spring snow even if it seems rude when I want to garden. Spring snow does not hang around. It melts into the ground and leaves green grass behind. Meanwhile the cows are having their calves and ranchers are having to check up on their herds. Cows in the Meadow Checking up on the stock The snow this morning is down to about a couple inches. Temperatures will be up today and the sun is out. All of the white will be gone before noon.

Spring Snow by J. Binford-Bell I wasted another day on the computer yesterday watching NetFlix stream videos and playing Spider Solitaire. A friend, who does not live here, suggested it could be Spring Fever. No, I told her, it is snow mold. I learned about snow mold when I was on the golf course maintenance staff. I mowed fairways and greens. I love big machines. But I digress. We were discussing snow mold. Snow mold is something which grows on greens under the snow in the winter. It can kill off a green. Every fall when the course was preparing for closure various methods to prevent it were tried including covering the greens with canvas, spraying with newest anti-fungal preparations, paying someone to shovel off the greens periodically through the winter, etc. Or there is just replacing the green come spring. Long winters were of course the worst on grass roots. And even if the roots were not destroyed by the mold it just took a long time for the green to recover. ...

My Own Kind of Hat My rather extensive collection of hats is neglected during the winter because it does not make sense to wear anything with a brim in the wind or anything that is not a ski cap in the cold. I miss my hats so I decided to record them in pixels. Where they are hanging used to be a closet and I turned into an alcove complete with bench so I could take off snow boots in the mud room. I noticed today while taking this picture that the bench was buried in various coats and hats and gloves because I ran out of room on the coat hooks on the side wall. The weather has been so unpredictable even my rain jacket is still hanging there and used just last week. That is it there on the right. in the picture below. And on the far left are the Carhart insulated coveralls used just yesterday while blowing snow. The cuffs are dripping melting snow on to a door mat under them. The gardening hat is hanging on top of my L.L. Bean all weather jacket. When we were having -36 F weath...

Winter Forest by J. Binford-Bell  Winter returned this week in measured doses. It shared time with spring. Yesterday it snowed about six inches and melted by afternoon. It did that about five times. Snow then what locals fondly call Mud and Flood. It seemed a good time to do taxes. I hate doing taxes. Even though I pay someone to do them for me I have to prepare the year to take in. I can generally get the that done in under four hours even counting clearing off the library table to have a place to sort the receipts. My disgust with the process last year resulted in a desk top box with very visible folders to sort things into as received. That helped. A couple years before I had developed a spread sheet with all the necessary categories listed. That is also a great help. This year, however, I still hated it. I had an epiphany though. I think what I hate is reviewing the year on a monetary level. I have mastered cash flow but not cash stay. And it always amazes me in hindsig...

The day time temperatures have been above freezing and to a good ten degrees some days. This on top of three feet of wet snow in a week and something has to give. Obviously you would say the snow, but if you were to look out my window it would seem that just as much is there as was before. Snow melts funny. It seems to do it from the bottom up. The moonlight shining on the snow fields this morning indicates that there is a glaze on the snow so some melting must happen where exposed to the sun, but all the melted snow is under it. It seeps out on to any area that has been cleared of snow by graders or shovel and forms puddles, and on our improved dirt roads - mud. And where you cannot see this dissolving of snow into water it sneaks downhill toward streams and bar ditches and culverts and, oh yes, Lake Coyote! It is no doubt expanding under its blanket of snow. It is this slow seeping of moisture under the snow pack that is so beneficial to our forests. It increases the moisture in...