Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate
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Spring                                                        Beltane Moon

We have significant snow on the ground with only 10 days to go until Beltane. Of course, temperatures will rise. Even with the temperatures in the mid-forties like the last couple of days our magical south facing driveway eliminated several inches of snow all by itself. As Jon says, sweet.

We have limited experience of mountain weather, but what we’ve seen so far we like. Snow against the ponderosa pines looks like the background of a book cover for a Zane Grey novel. The snow itself, until this last one, was mostly powder, light and fluffy, easy to remove when necessary. The fluctuation in temperatures from moderate lows (compared to Minnesota) to warm (compared to Minnesota) mean the cruel burdens of winter like long lasting ice, snow cover on roads, very cold temperatures and snow piled in huge mountains reducing the size of parking lots are mostly absent.

 

The West, Weather +Climate

Snow and Rodeo

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Spring                                                          New (Beltane) Moon

More snow this morning, maybe 2-3 inches. According to Weather5280 we had 24″ by midday yesterday. So, maybe 27″ now with more snow forecast for tonight, 1-3″. It’s not hard to see that we might reach 3 feet before the whole system moves out on Sunday. That’s a lot of snow. Moisture wise it amounts to something like 3 inches of rain. All needed and welcome.

Though. I do need to blow the driveway this morning. And this is heavy, wet snow. The kind that plugs up snowblowers and makes the task harder.

The Rodeo All-Stars event on the National Western Stockshow grounds started last night, but I missed the first round. Too much snow here. However, I don’t want to miss the whole event, which has another semi-final rodeo today at 2:30 pm and the finals at 7:00 pm.cub cadet

So I’ll push my little yellow Cadet out into the snow. It has a special tool for unplugging, an innovation which eliminates the need for wooden spoons or other makeshift devices. The manual and the safety stickers on the snowblower remind the user not to stick their hands into the auger while it’s running. Which common sense, too, would warn against.

 

 

 

Colorado, Mountains, Weather +Climate
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Spring                                                    Mountain Spring Moon

Snow continues, coming down in narrow linear columns like rain and floating down, too, like snow flakes gently drifting. The result is an odd mixture of lightly falling and pelting. We have a motion sensor on the light near our deck and it came on and stayed on during the storm, not sure why.

Now the day dawns, a grey-blue, snow still falling, forecast to continue until tonight at least. The ponderosas look like melted tapers. No paper this morning. Not surprising.

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Colorado, Mountains, Weather +Climate
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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.

 

Health, Weather +Climate

Waiting

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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.

Feelings, Health, Weather +Climate
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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.

 

Great Wheel, Mountains, Weather +Climate

A Mountain Spring

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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.

Great Wheel, Weather +Climate

Seasonal Visitation

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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.

Colorado, Mountains, Weather +Climate

Mountain Weather

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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.