I’ve heard of April showers bringing May flowers, but what do April snows bring? On Friday, I awoke to a white world with about an inch of snow covering everything. It was kind of a shock considering only a week before, there were promising signs of Spring. Of course, after the snow, the temperatures are back up and the weekend’s forecast is quite pleasant.
It’s hard to imagine what America’s prairies looked like when they were unspoiled. Today, more than 95% of our prairies and grasslands have been repurposed for agriculture. The last remnants are so highly fragmented that it’s a fight to keep non-native invasive species from taking over. Prairies and grasslands were once thought to be ecological wastelands, a monoculture of grass with not much productivity. From a distance, the prairie might seem like a boring place. But up close, prairies have the capacity to harbor more diversity than some forests. To really appreciate all that these grasslands have to offer, it’s…
Every summer at early-mid August, we enter a portion of the solar system rife with meteors, and ever year around this time, many of those chunks of rock and debris hit our atmosphere and burn up, giving us the Perseoid meteor shower. This year, the shower did not occur during a full moon, and so the skies were dark and the stars were bright. Some of the photo club folks wanted to have a camping trip this weekend, and that devolved into a fire and star photography night at our place. The meteor shower was pretty good Saturday night. There…
Snowstorm, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. After last week’s post about the snowstorm that welcomed us in to March, I took a few photos of the snow banks to illustrate how much we had. So here’s one of those photos, from Tuesdsay, March 1. Now, to be fair, the total snowfall over the few days was anywhere between a foot and a foot and a half. What you see out the window is the snow that piled up as the accumulation from the roof slid off. But even previous storms that dropped a foot of snow or more did not…
We’ve gotten a lot of snow this winter. And then it got cold. Like, really cold. Night time lows below zero, and daytime highs hovering around 20. Â So the only thing to do with this kind of weather is go swimming. Last year, we took Clara to a developed hot spring near McCall and she loved it. This year we decided to give the undeveloped hot spring a try. Spoiler: She had a blast. Our biggest concern was keeping her warm during the one-mile hike to and from the springs. She did fine in her little blue down suit, but…
First Snow, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. On Friday, I woke up to find a light layer of white on everything. At first, I thought it was a heavy frost, but when I put my glasses on, the truth was revealed. We had our first snowfall. It wasn’t much, less than an inch, and by late afternoon, all was gone. It wasn’t the first snow of the season either, but it was the first to stick on the ground, especially at our elevation. But Sunday night, it began to snow some more, and the accumulation was greater. It still wasn’t…
When you live somewhere long enough and see the same scenery day after day, you sort of become numb to it. It no longer thrills you the way it did when you first moved in. That’s sort of how I feel. Don’t get me wrong, I love my house and its location, but it feels like I could have better scenery out my window living somewhere else. The scenery here is never actually dull. I’ve got a great view of Spud Hill, Deary’s local “mountain” that stands over 1000 feet above the town, and most evenings, we get…
