Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Snow continues to fall. Straight down, like rain, not sideways as in many Minnesota storms. It gathers, soft and pillowy over stumps, rocks, steps, decks and driveways. This is wet, heavy snow and it weighs down the ponderosa branches.
In the Denver area many trees have already leafed out and the heavy snow will be hard on them. Up here though the aspen have no buds yet. The willows I mentioned the other day are in the valleys, not this high.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Word from my doc today on the PSA. 6.3. Put that together with the physical finding and my dad’s prostate cancer. The picture is becoming clearer. On the 27th I’ll have time with a urologist whose specialty is prostate cancer. My internist recommended him.
I have no particular image of where things will go from here. Lots more information to gather. But, the PSA number did knock me back on my heels for a bit. Better now.
Just finished arranging the removal of the tree that destroyed the grandkids playhouse.
Now we wait. The snow has fallen hard on and off since morning. The winter storm warning itself doesn’t begin until this evening. They’re still predicting 1-3 feet of snow with Conifer in the middle of the high impact zone.
We need the snow for the snowpack and to up the moisture levels in the forests. So, we’re looking forward to a reclusive day or two. Might mean I don’t make the first event of the Rodeo All-Stars which is tomorrow night, but the Saturday rodeos should be fine.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
The mountain spring moon is a sliver, 7% of full, close to a transition to new moon. And what do we have? A snowstorm that may produce 1-3 feet, that’s FEET, of snow. Based on what it’s doing right now that might be a low estimate since, according to the forecast, the snow has until tomorrow evening to fall.
And, in other news. I had a distracted day yesterday but today I’m back to normal. Slept fine both nights. Whatever comes, comes. Kate’s a great source of support.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
This morning, as I walked up the stairs to the loft, the full Mountain Spring Moon sat atop Black Mountain. It’s silvered white contrasted with the bulky green of the mountain. Birds chirruped, a cool breeze blew through the Ponderosas. And it was otherwise quiet here on Shadow Mountain.
The snow has uncovered emerald patches of moss against the tan-pink rocky soil underneath the pines. Small tufts of grass have begun to green and the Bearberry, an evergreen groundcover, has toned up its color. All around us the Rockies announce, in ways still subtle and nuanced, that wonder of the temperate zones, spring.
Yes, there are the more metaphorical announcements, pesach (Friday and Saturday) and Easter (today), and they do remind us, in their convoluted way, of new life, life saved by the turning of the Great Wheel and the power of the true god, Sol.
This is the moment promised in the barren days of deep cold when the Winter Solstice gave notice that once again light would triumph over darkness. Then the days began their gradual lengthening, a process about halfway done at the equinox, but done enough that Sol’s waxing power shakes the slumbering plants and animals. Grow, move, live.
The Great Wheel turns, turns, turns. It will keep on rolling through the sky until at the Summer Solstice, when light reaches its moment of greatest advance, the balance will change again, the days growing shorter, the night beginning to expand.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Drive down the mountain to Aspen Park, get on Hwy 285 to Denver, get just past the ring road, Highway 470, and suddenly you’ve located spring. Pastures in the horse enclosures are green. Lawns on the houses tucked into the eastern facing slope of the foothills. Green.
In Denver itself, on residential streets, gay daffodils and colored hyacinths add yellows and pinks and blues and whites to the green. Nature’s most festive season is underway. At 5280 feet. Not so much at 8,800. Here the snow lingers, what lawns there are, not many, remain brown. There is not the earth shaking itself awake after a long winter’s slumber here. Not yet. No mountain spring for now. But the season can be visited not far away.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
This weather. When I came up to the loft at 6 am, it was cool, but clear. When I went downstairs for breakfast at about 7:15, there was about an inch of snow on the deck. It’s thick, white light flakes falling now, coating the branches of the Ponderosas and collecting, again, on the deck. I cleared it about 15 minutes ago.
Whatever happens will not be a problem because the temps will rebound into the 50’s and 60’s starting tomorrow. When I asked Kate what were the things she liked most about living here so far, among them she said, “The weather.” The weather, which I also like, has surprised me the most.
Imbolc Mountain Spring Moon
5-8 inches of snow for elevations in the front range above 8000 feet. That’s us. One way they tailor weather forecasts out here is by elevation. Often we get a forecast for 6,000 to 9,000 feet. That’s basically foothills, but includes those of us who live further back and higher than most of the foothills. The forecasts then get further segmented by north, central and south. We’re in the central Front Range, and at 8,800 feet on a 9,000 plus mountain and in the company of others that are 10,000 plus we’re in the mountains.
Weather forecasting out here, especially when it concerns snow and other water related events, is a matter of tremendous moment. The weather impacts ski areas, a significant part of the state’s tourism budget, but more importantly it determines, in winter, the depth of the snowpack. Not only does the Colorado snowpack directly affect the state’s regional water availability, but it also decides the fate of the Colorado River which provides water to the thirsty southwest and southern California, especially L.A.
If we’re gonna get our 5-8 inches though it’s gonna have to scramble. The morning’s snow has already melted.
Imbolc Black Mountain Moon
Syntax: Physic Opera
The bar at Syntax: Physic Opera. This is a bar for working artists on South Broadway in Denver. A physic opera is a medicine show and Syntax says that everything in the place is medicine. This includes a rye whiskey, cinnamon and other spices drink called Tornado Juice and homemade Cucumber Gin. Other specialty drinks of the house are Pop Skull, Taos Lightning, Snake Oil and Brain Salt.
The guns you can see in the case to the right are works of art made by a graphic artist/welder who enjoyed making unique guns. They have a distinctly steampunk look to them. There are works by other Denver artists hanging on the walls.
The Weather5280 blog brought me to Syntax. It was a meetup of folks interested in the weather, meeting to talk weather then listen to three presentations by some of the folks responsible for the blog. I had an easy 30 years on everybody there. This was a young, hipster crowd with knit hats, blue jeans and retro dresses.
During the conversation before the presentations one guy said, “My wife and I have 5 or 6 quarters just over the line in Texas.” That’s as in 5 or 6 quarters of land, each quarter defined as a mile square or section has 640 acres. “We rent it out to our cousins. They run a few cattle, some sheep. We also just put up some wind towers.” A Chinese professor talked about the inadequacy of certain weather models. A tall blonde, beautiful, was eloquent on troughs and ridges.
Mostly I was out of my depth. These were weather geeks, many of whom had studied meteorology with Sam, the professor, and Matt, Brian and Brendan, the meteorologists who write Weather5280. Sam gave a mostly incomprehensible 20 minutes on snow banding, focusing on instabilities that cause it. Incomprehensible to me, that is. Others were nodding.
The most accessible presentation of the night was Brian, the longrange forecaster for Weather5280. He used analog years and maps focused on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PD) and the ENSO regions where El Nino and La Nina come into being. One thing he said had me nodding. “This is not a historic drought in California. Show me a drought that stretches 65 years, then I’ll call it historic. This is weather. It’s cyclical. The real problem is the number of people using the water. That’s what’s historic.”
(PDO is the blue blob between Japan and the US. The ENSO region stretches from Melanesia toward South America, most of it here is in orange.)
It was, overall, an interesting evening. After it was over, I headed out into the snow and navigated snowy roads all the way back to Shadow Mountain.
Imbolc Black Mountain Moon
And yet more snow. 6-10 inches here yesterday afternoon and last night. We’re heading into the two snowiest months, March and April, so this most recent snow storm might be a harbinger.
This was a stickier snow, heavier and the lodgepole pines have thick white clumps on their branches. That second fall of snow will happen as the day warms up. White clouds of snow mist follow the dropping of a branch’s burden, a storm in miniature.
Once more into the snow this morning with my trusty yellow cub cadet. Today the wind came against the direction in which I blew the snow, a fine shower of cold particles refreshing me as I moved back and forth across the driveway.
Imbolc Black Mountain Moon
Took the cub cadet for a spin this morning. The bright morning sun will melt the snow, but I have to help it along by removing the top layer. More snow coming tomorrow so had to get ahead of the next storm.
The snow blower is loud. It clanks on the ground, its engine has that small engine unmuffled roar and the augur whirs as it chews through white and gray icy matter. A mist of chilled particles sometimes blows back in my face when I put the blower chute into the wind. It’s a fine way to get active in the morning.