Snow Pack

It is beginning to feel like last winter was a gentle welcome to lull me into thinking this cold and occasional snow isn't so bad. I can handle.

The first real snow last year was on December 6th. There had been some very real cold and a few dustings of sleet in November, but that was it. It all melted fairly quickly within a day or two.



This year winter is off to a much more ferocious start. The sleet was skipped altogether and we went straight to snow on October 28th. This last snow on November 16th was three to four inches and there have been a couple of morning lows at 20 degrees. The highs are kind when they get to the mid 40's and even more kind when the wind stops blowing, you wretched wind.



Another bout of snow is diagnosed for tonight and tomorrow with a high of 30 degrees for Friday and a low of 15 Saturday morning. It's not even officially winter yet. That starts a month from now. What's up this this early, deeply cold, winter weather?



It has been way too cold for the last snow to even melt half way and there is more a commin'. It sure won't be warm enough to melt any of it in the next few days.



There is snow in the weather diagnosis for Monday as well. More snow.



This stuff could really start to pile up. Is there supposed to be a snow pack in the southern Appalachian Mountains in the winter?



I did manage to get some cutting, measuring and marking done for the railings for the front porch and back stoop of the cozy cabin today because I shoveled all the snow off and they finished melting and dried. Tomorrow morning they may be covered again.



Waaaaaaaa!

Starlight

Done Froze

It's to darn cold



to do much of anything.



And I don't know how to just be inside.

Inside The Cozy Cabin

It's getting cold outside. Let's go in the cozy cabin and have a look around.

Standing at the front door looking in, on the right is the standard size bathroom and on the left is the galley style kitchen.



Here is looking up from the living room to the loft space. The loft covers the kitchen and bath space and is 10'8" long x 14' wide. The flat ceiling area in the loft is four feet wide and eight feet tall. It drops to a six foot head clearance two feet over on each side. You can see the cross tie beams in the loft that the flat part of the ceiling will attach to. In essence there is an eight foot wide area through the center of the loft with non-ducking head clearance.



This is the view from the window in the loft. When the Hemlocks are done dying and fall down, I will have more of a north view to a higher part of this mountain.



Now we are in the kitchen looking into the living room. You have to imagine it without those big bales of insulation. It will be roomier when those get put into the walls and a whole lot warmer inside too. Right now being inside the cozy cabin gets you out of the wind which is a huge help, but the roof is vented and there are all kind holes for electric wires, plumbing and deadbolts in the cabin that let the air in. It's still a might chilly inside.



This is up in the loft looking down into the living room and across to the smaller storage loft that is above the front door.



This is the window I will look out of when sitting at my computer desk while blogging.



This is round two of snow and frigid Arctic cold massing at the border right before sunset. To get this view I will have to go next door to the resident gardeners house. The cozy cabin was not blessed with quite the same view.



That is where I am now, in an insulated and heated house thank goodness, cause it's snowing again.

Finding Interest In Winter

Late afternoon sun on Sandymush Bald




Dying Hemlocks posing




The blue and white house




Frozen red apples and blue sky




Is this what they mean by winter interest?




Road Spikes




Ramp seed heads




Faint pink glow over dark blue mountains




Visions of Haleakala

Oh My

I think I will be needing a few more layers



Before I wander out there.

An Unfit Bloom Day

For man or beast.

It started out somewhat tolerable and rapidly deteriorated. The Hamamelis virginiana is still blooming and will have to put up with the oncoming onslaught. What could possibly be out to pollinate the Witch Hazel right now?



The chill winds kept picking up through the course of the day, bringing in spits of rain. As they approached gale force, the rain no longer splashes, it goes splat against the window and slowly oozes down. Not rain, not snow, not sleet, it's slush falling from the sky. A new kind precipitation for me. Oh joy.

Good luck Witch Hazel.



A few Ox-Eye Daisies, Leucanthemum vulgare, in the sunny front bed out by the road escaped the previous killing frosts. The next couple of days will rub them out. This is just the beginning of the cold punch packed in this front.



Random Symphyotrichum cordifolium, the Blue Wood Aster, linger in fewer and fewer spots. They are soon to be history.



Speaking of spots and beasts, the kitties are doing well. Their gaining, combined weight with a dash of moisture from the last rain was collapsing their cardboard cat house. I replaced it with an animal carrier as a way for them to get used to it for their eventual trip to see the anti-reproductive specialist.

The black and white female spotlet has a new name, Collar. She has a collar of white fur running completely around the back of her neck. I like Collar better than Spook. So now we have Spot, Crawford and Collar.



Yesterday while it was still warm and didn't really rain, I planned ahead for Bloom Days to come. Drawing lines in the leaves to begin laying out the shape of garden beds to come and then planting about eight big sacks of Daffodil bulbs.

A gardening service road that will only be used lightly turns right where the leaves begin to cover the bare earth. You can see the parallel lines in the leaves to the right that the road will follow. Mostly this road will be an ample garden path.

Towards the center of the picture on the uphill side of the line in the leaves for the road, you can see two lines marking a path that will connect to another path above that will run parallel to and at the bottom of the slope down from the highway. I planted at least a hundred Daffodil bulbs on the right of this connecting path in the curve formed by the edge of a future bed.



Looking further to the right, the service road will drop down between those trees to a turn around in the bottom of the sunny utility valley. The turn around will be the area on the right hand side of the big brown spot of frozen meadow between the front porch and the trees on the opposite side. Everything between the cozy cabin and the service road will be garden.



The vegetable garden got cleaned up on the last day of warm too. Just in the nick of time. There are actually lettuce, spinich, asian greens and turnips still in there. Maybe they will continue to survive and be harvestable after the onslaught. They haven't minded the snow and cold we've had so far. Maybe I can grow vegetables year round? Ha.



I did harvest the last of the potatoes and some turnips and have been enjoying a nice big vat of warm mashed turnips and taters while writing this post. It was yummy with garlic, plenty butter, pepper and cinnimon.

The Warm Before The Snow

I woke up to a hole in the rain and the high temperature for the day most likely. Within minutes fog encased the mountain in a thick misty cloak. The dreaded relentless wind has begun.

Will I be able to find any die hard blooms out there for Garden Bloggers Bloom day?