Deer Canyon Folks.org

I’m a tad late with this, but on Thursday we had actual weather! As in: snow. I know that comes as a tremendous surprise! It snowed nearly all day, like a constant drizzle of snow, and I think we may have had about 6 inches of accumulation. That’s a more uncertain estimate than usual, because in addition to being snowy, Thursday was windy, and the snow piled up in some places and cleared off others. Our usual estimating locations on the back deck were blown almost clean! But it seems like it left about an average of 6 inches, so that’s what I’m going with.

Yesterday it stayed cold (yes! no mud!) and today it is quite sunny and beautiful and still cold so far.

I just looked back at my weather reports since the fall, and it looks like we’ve received something like 32 inches of snow. No all at once, of course. Still, that exceeds any of the previous winters we’ve been here by a huge amount. ’06-’07 had a couple of 8-inch snows. The other winters had almost none (’05-’06) or a few small (1-3 inch) snows. This is our first winter with regular and significant precipitation. I’m curious to see if this turns into spring grasses; that would be a first for me here.

On the bird front, a couple of towhees have learned that if they hang out on the porch, eventually one of us (usually Alan) notices them and brings out a peanut. If we happen to see them through the hall window, they notice us and move from the bench or chair over to the front door. This is extremely reminiscent of Tibs’ behavior last summer. Although, their hanging out near the door may be driven by the fact that all the ground is covered in several inches of snow, so hunting for seed out there is of limited success. Anyway, now we have demanding towhees, and the scrub jays have learned to pay attention to the towhees to find out when we are in peanut-donation mode. “The house as oasis!” Also, the longhorns have taken some huge bites out of the four–wing saltbush out front, which is very pleasing since that’s what it’s there for.

Snow! I can hardly keep up with how many times it is snowing this winter. Let’s see: I posted Tuesday morning. There was another hour or so that morning when we had snow coming down, but it melted off quite quickly as the temperatures were going up into the high 30s even as the snow was coming down. So my mud prediction came true that afternoon, and we have all been skidding around (or off!) the roads ever since. (More on that in a moment...)

Then Wednesday morning it snowed again, just an inch or so, very pretty — and that melted off later in the day. Fortunately, overnight Wednesday to Thursday was cold, so the mud all froze, which allowed us here at Happy Camp to go into town without any difficulties yesterday morning. Getting back in the the late afternoon was another matter, however.

Yesterday evening a light rain started up, and sometime overnight that turned into snow. Right now it is steadily snowing, alternating between big fat pretty flakes and smaller flakes that come down faster. But the temperature is exactly 32°, and Alan discovered that the mud under the snow is not frozen at all. It makes an interesting combination of squeaky and slippery. The forecast is for warming and rain today, so more mud coming right up.

About our roads: most of the roads had dried out before this latest snowfall. But there are some spots that are either on the north side of slopes or protected by trees and terrain that have never dried out. And this week those spots have just been chewed up into deep muddy ruts. So we can drive along quite merrily nearly everywhere, and then we have to proceed with extreme caution for 50 or 100 feet — and even then we are sliding nearly off the road. One neighbor did slide off the road here on Jumano Trail near our driveway. It makes a simple trip into town an exciting proposition, and trips that can be delayed for a day or two are skipped altogether. Happily, we are well stocked in hot cocoa essentials, the better for enjoying the wintry scenes outside.

But not windy! and not precipitating either, unless you count the teensy bit of snow that pretends to swirl around occasionally.

On the other hand, all the trees were covered with a thick frost this morning; we were guessing from fog that had turned to ice. And although we haven’t had any snow since last week, what came down last week is still here. It just hasn’t been warm enough for long enough to melt it all away. Until today, each afternoon some snow would melt and then in the evening it froze again, so slippery spots, including on the roads, have been an issue, along with mud in the afternoons. But today it’s colder: 16° this morning and only 28° now. So no melting/freezing to contend with.

One of our regular towhee visitors has no tail! I have not been able to figure out whether the tail just never really grew in, or if the towhee had a close escape somehow and lost its tail feathers as a result. There are the beginnings of tail feathers, but they hardly reach beyond the bird’s rump. That doesn’t seem to slow the towhee down, however, and the towhee has no difficulties at all in arriving on the porch and demanding its peanut. The jays are so jealous of the towhees! And no matter how many times I point out to the jays that there are far more of them than towhees; and they get 3 peanuts to every one that a towhee gets (since I toss unshelled nuts to the jays); and they don’t come visit me on the porch, either — they still bear a grudge. Oh well!