Blizzard in April

I mentioned in my last post that we had several more inches of snow predicted for the following weekend. We got that, all right, and then some. It became a full-fledged, record-setting blizzard... on the 14th of April! We got around 18 inches, with wind gusting up to 50 mph. Ugh.

I'm posting these photos just for posterity. It's not like I'll ever want to look back and see them myself. As a matter of fact, I'd be quite content to never see snow again! 

The mini lilac bush in front of the house:

The backyard got more snow than we've ever had there before!

The top of the drifts were higher than the bottoms of the kitchen windows!

Grandpa finally gave up with his snowblower and got the tractor and loader out to push the snow out of the way so he could get out of here.

Such fun. NOT. The good news, however, is that it's been melting very fast. We still have some left, but here's a comparison from yesterday.

That's it. Enough reminders. It's spring now, hopefully to stay. The birds, who've had a really tough time the last couple of months, are busy singing and nest-building, and the rhubarb is peeking out. Hopefully the farmers can get into the fields in a week or so, which is very late, but better late than never, right?

Enough. The end.

After the blizzard

These photos are from after last week's blizzard. We had another one this past Sunday night. Such fun. Ha. But all the snow does make for beautiful scenery and photos.

The "golden hour" is just the best for taking pictures. Look at those lovely long shadows and the golden tint on the snow.

We had quite the nice path from the house to the yard. It made feeding cats so much easier when I didn't have to climb drifts or sink to my knees on the way out and back. It was nice. Was. It's all blown in again now. Prairie winds will do that. Often.

We've really had some glorious sunsets this winter.

So peaceful, though, right? After it's all said and done, that is.

Signs of spring

Spring. Really? Such crazy insane weather we've been having! On Monday, it actually got up to 70° for just a bit, then the temperature quickly started plummeting... all the way down to 17° that night, with a dusting of snow!!! A drop of 53° - unbelievable - but true!

This was the view from my sewing room window late Sunday afternoon:

Sure beats that snowbank that totally blocked my view for so long! Here's the other end of it, in front of the deck:

The snow has really been dirty, thanks to all that WIND we've had, blowing the soil off the fields along with the snow. Look what's left behind on the deck after its snowbank melted:

Yuck.

I discovered this little doorway(?) in some snow under an evergreen tree. I wonder what was living in there:

The good news is, the snow has been melting very fast, on those few warm days we have had. That bank in front of the deck is now 99% gone - hurray!

Look what I found in the garden:

The rhubarb is peeking out!

My tulips are making progress, too, despite some very cold nights. They haven't gotten much taller, but the leaves are opening up:

I've seen a few robins on the ground now, though not very many. The ground is still too cold for the worms to be accessible.

Blackbirds are hanging around now, too, although not a lot of them yet:

Soooo.... I think spring is here. Now why, oh why do we have to have another Winter Storm Watch for tomorrow, with a possible 5" or more of snow (with wind, of course)?????

AAAACCCKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just as a side note: I'm getting a new computer soon (tomorrow, weather permitting), so if I disappear for a while, it likely means I'm trying to get things figured out. Ugh... I dread it. But it'll be nice once I do get it the way I want it! And no hackers will get me via my old Windows XP! ;)

Who is it?

As I sat up from a little nap in my recliner Sunday afternoon, this is what I noticed out the living room window and beyond the deck:

A little closer:

He even has an ear:

Look like anybody you know?

Golden hour snowbanks

On Friday I showed you my view from inside the house. Saturday evening it was so pretty out just before sunset that I thought I'd see what kind of photos I could get from outside, since there was no wind for a change, and the the temperature felt halfway decent at 24°. I donned my fingerless gloves and snapped away.

Here's the other side of that 7-8' drift I mentioned in my last post:

A little closer, enhanced by the soon-to-set sun:

There's been a huge drift out by the cattle shed for a long time. It just keeps growing. The cattle yard (to the left) is buried. One day Courtney and I walked across the top of that drift, over the fence and into the cattle yard. We discussed whether or not there were any cows under us. There weren't. :)

Here it is, closer. You can see the layers of how it grew each time we had another 'blow':

It did some melting that day, though. See how the dark areas shrank back away from the lighter stuff? The sun has power these days.

This shot was just pretty... kind of like sand dunes. I like the contrasting colors:

This is the path I take out to feed my cats. Every time it gets blown out by the snowblower, the wind comes up and fills it back in again. Sometimes it's just easier to walk on the snow alongside the path, because it's very hard.

Here's Courtney's and Grandpa's snow fort that they built last Tuesday. It looks like it needs a little housekeeping, since some snow also blew into there after they built it.

We have plenty of snow in front of the house, too, including that huge drift hiding the deck:

But do notice the new garage doors that our carpenter managed to get installed in between snow'blows'. He also insulated the garage, and the walk-in doors will be replaced eventually, too.

One final shot... this is what it looks like as you come up our driveway at sunset:

So there you have it... and I hope it changes fast. We hit 46° yesterday, and today should be similar - yay!

I took some fun experimental camera-practice photos yesterday, plus I have another sewing finish, so I should have enough blog fodder for the week. I hope you come back to see!

This morning

It's COLD, folks. Like 10° below zero, 33° below zero wind chill COLD. And it's not expected to get much warmer than that today. We had a raging blizzard again yesterday. School is closed for the day today.

The good news is... the sun is out! It's created some beauty... sundogs. Here's the north side:

And the south side:

I couldn't get them both in the same shot, and I wasn't about to go outside to do it. But then after I uploaded those shots to post here, I thought I should've made them into a collage of sorts, so you could see them both at once. So I did. Just imagine the sun in between them. :) And click on any photo to enlarge it for a better effect.

Thankfully, we haven't gotten a lot of snow with our blizzards. Probably only around an inch or less at a time. It's just that the strong winds (how strong? a gust of 56 mph yesterday!!) pick it up to make for zero visibility, and then it drifts into less-open areas... like our yard. This is the view below the sundogs:

It makes for nice photos (especially enlarged), if nothing else. Nothing else... photos are all I can think of that it's good for at the moment.

Sounds like a good sewing day, to me. I already have my next project cut out!

From the sewing room window

It did it again. It wasn't predicted, but it did it anyway. We had another blizzard yesterday. The forecast said it was going to snow a little and blow some... but it got to rip roaring a lot stronger than they'd said it was going to, so they upgraded it to a 'blizzard warning'. It didn't start early enough to cancel school, so the kids went... and then left for home again at 9:00 a.m. Aargh. And it's now well below zero again.

Meanwhile, I've been getting some sewing done. Heaven knows, it's better than looking out the window. Here's what I see from my sewing room, and I had to scrunch down a little to get the trees in there. 

It's a pretty gloomy view, isn't it?

BUT... look closer! There's a garden growing up from the bottom of the window!

(Click to enlarge... they're much prettier that way!)

Hey, a person has to look for the bright side, right?

A rerun? Not really. But sorta.

Am I showing you last year's pics? Nope. But it looks the same, anyway.

I wasn't even going to take more snow pics to show you. Instead I was just going to tell you to go back a year in my posts to see how it looks again now. But then, some of the drifts are even higher, so here are a few shots, taken from INSIDE the house, because it's been TOO COLD to take any outside! (And besides, somebody requested pics... but I won't say who, Dale.)

Below is what our deck looks like. Is it any wonder Josie faces away from the window?!

It was even a little deeper at the west end:

And our back yard to the north... remember the LP tank in front of the left tree? It's still there, but buried:

I took these below this morning, when the wind is now filling in everything (that Nate cleaned out so nicely yesterday) from the southwest.

See that hump in the center of the next pic? That's a buried evergreen tree.

Blech.

(Click any photo to enlarge. I'm not gonna. I'd like to shrink it all!)