Sidetracked Charley

A foot of snow when three inches was forecast. No power. No internet. No cell phone service. Grateful I still have my land line. But I can reach nobody who has a cell phone, even those out of the area, because I deleted the long distance option with Century Link because of the expense. This is like being on Lake Powell in a house boat totally cut off from the world but today it is the snow and not the high canyon walls limiting my access to the world. Because of the heavy spring snow on the hoop house I am having to go out every hour or so and shake or brush it off the covering plastic to avoid total collapse. Note: if it weren’t for the solid ends it would have collapsed already. We are looking at three more days of this. Currently I have a fire going and am thankful I took the extra effort yesterday to bring in an ample supply of firewood. But I am wet and tired and frustrated. At least, before the power went out at 4:35 a.m, I had my coffee made, and had cooked and eaten br...

Replenished Wood Shed I think it was around the 17th or 18th of February when everyone started talking about snow . You will note in the photo above there is lots of uncovered grass. The January thaw which began in December right after a minimalist white Christmas continued all through January and half of February. Oh, not that there wasn't talk of snow. The weather channels and sites always seemed to threaten snow. And there was a small, slight chance here and there that issued an inch or less which because of temps instantly melted. Snow became something which happened in Boston or Maine, and all but the ski areas here seemed rather grateful. So when the talk of a major storm heading our way first started we all rolled our eyes and said, Oh, yeah, sure in unison. I was nursing the last of two cords of wood (October and November called for more fires). I was looking at the garden beds and planning for spring but there was just something about the wind or lack there of. Or...

Country Lane with Snow Living in the mountains I always watch the weather sites. I say sites because nobody ever gets it right so I monitor three or more and draw my own conclusions. For weeks now it has been sliding snowflakes . This is that weather forecast where a slight chance for snow  drifts across the week always beginning tomorrow but never quite showing up. Friday they dared drop the slight and go with chance for snow - up to 1" over night.  Pardon me NOAA but living in the mountains of New Mexico let me say one inch is not snow. It is flurries . We did get the one inch, perhaps a bit more so I paid a bit more attention to the forecast for Saturday day. Three to five which we didn't get but overnight Saturday into Sunday the prediction went up to five or eight. Yeah, we'll see, I thought as I checked outside before heading to bed Saturday night with just a hint of a flake here and there in the dark skies. The Corolla Entombed  Sometime in the middle...