fire & ice

It has been quite a while since I last posted. I’m sorry…. wintertime is when I like to work on projects like knitting or hand-quilting. Doesn’t always work out that way, especially this time of year when the snow starts to melt off in patches, seed catalogs arrive, the gardening itch flares up and you want to get outdoors. But the white stuff falls from the sky or the wind blows down off the mountains and kills that idea pretty quick.

But a day off here & there from work allowed me a chance to go out for a ride and see what’s changing around the ranch. There are 4 eagles in the tree out in the long pasture. Wonder if they have a little one or working on one, the crows are starting to show up, a couple of deer have shown up (they mostly migrate towards the river for the winter, except for the freeloaders), the trees haven’t shown much in just buds just yet and no blackbird scouts. There aren’t a lot of blackbirds south, yet, either but I would guess it may be soon. Lots of waterfowl on the reservoir down that direction so the weather is turning towards spring. More ducks, too. There are some that stay throughout the winter but more of their buddies are arriving.

A trip to the back 40 revealed contrasts in color – black, white, gray and browns. The remnants of the Woodhead Fire made for an interesting landscape. The weather has been fickle… very cold but thankfully no subzero temps (yet) but we’ve come close. We’ve had fog, snow, rain, fog, sleet, more snow, more rain, brief moments of sunshine, fog, some more snow, more rain on top of the snow, a few days of warm temperatures which caused some flooding, then freezing temperatures and snow… did I mention fog? Oh, yes, I did. Before I took these photos we’re predicted to receive around 7″ of snow. Today we’ve got a mess of about ~~4+ inches~~ 10 inches of snow, more in the spots it drifted and as I type more is falling. Threats of more snow, wind and rain. Nice…. I can’t wait.

But here’s a few photos to browse through.

**if you remember in an earlier post, or two, this section of fence was on the ground due to the Woodhead Fire**

haven’t seen the fence and gate up right for several weeks since the fire and it would not have been possible without the unexpected gifts from many of you… Again we THANK YOU for help with the fence posts and feed. More work to be done but at least the fence is not laying on the ground 🙂

Leaves still on the trees because the fire went through so fast and hot it singed them. They never fell off in autumn. We’ll see how many of the trees recover this spring. If not, we’ll have firewood for winter. We cleaned up a lot of deadwood in this area and the wood that was down went up in smoke.

the photo doesn’t do justice to the colors of black, gray, white and blue…. it was pretty interesting

Well, hope you enjoyed the photos. Got to run.

Until next time…
~Karen

2 thoughts on “fire & ice”

Toirdhealbheach Beucail says:

January 30, 2021 at 9:26 am

What gaunt and yet lovely photos Hobo. I do hope many of the trees will recover.

In the event they do not, is it the kind of thing that they could be replanted? Perhaps you would not see them in your lifetime, but perhaps your children’s.

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1. 1hobo1 says:
  
  February 4, 2021 at 7:15 am
  
  TB, those trees were mostly what we call ‘weed trees’… poplar, chokecherry, hawthorn and willow. They’ll most likely come back up without any difficulty. At least now they’ve been thinned and the grasses should come back as long as it did not burn so hot to kill everything. We have some volunteer trees that we dug out of the garden – black locust, black walnut and elm. I’ve been wondering where to plant them, now I’ve got lots of choices 😉
  
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