Not much in the way of sunny skies around here, which means the solar panels don’t have a lot of work today. Right now they are completely covered with snow, in any event, so the fact it’s completely foggy/cloudy is somewhat irrelevant.
Last fall the plum tree held up several hundred pounds of rowdy black bear, and now it’s holding at least that much weight in accumulated snow flakes.
![Conifer trees down the hill from our house are once again holding a lot of snow. Just last week it got warm enough to melt almost all the snow off the trees. It sure changes fast!](http://redmeadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/011318-snow2.jpg)
Conifer trees down the hill from our house are once again holding a lot of snow. Just last week it got warm enough to melt almost all the snow off the trees. It sure changes fast!
The snow storm on Thursday and Friday gave us an additional four inches of snow. We have roughly two feet of snow on the ground at the moment. Once it settles a bit, it won’t look like so much. The warm weather last week during the day, and below freezing temperatures overnight, gave the snow a good firm crust and the red squirrels were enjoying it immensely as they could run as fast as they wanted, pretty much anywhere they wanted. The deer weren’t having as much fun. Their feet would hold up on top of the snow until they put all their weight on the foot, and then they would break through into deep snow. The youngsters, in particular, were having a rough time getting around. This new snowfall is going to make it even harder to move around quickly.
Love the new roof!! Snow stays put and doesn’t come crashing down scaring everybody in the house and making a mess on the sidewalks.
![The snow piled up on the stove pipe on the garage looks funny. A top hat!](http://redmeadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/011318-snow-garage.jpg)
The snow piled up on the stove pipe on the garage looks funny. A top hat! You can see it at the back of the garage, right hand side of the garage above the farthest right window.
We’ve only gone through two full pallets, plus a couple rows of bags on the third pallet of our wood pellets so far this winter. This stove seems to be a lot more efficient than the wood stove, and much easier to deal with, except for the electric use aspect. We definitely won’t need to buy more pellets for next winter – yay!
![A lot of snow piled up on the edges of the sidewalk, and another inch of snow fell after Dan shoveled it yesterday.](http://redmeadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/011318-snow-frontdoor1.jpg)
A lot of snow piled up on the edges of the sidewalk, and another inch of snow fell after Dan shoveled it yesterday.
The picture is kind of dark because there’s no sunshine. Perhaps this afternoon, in which case we’ll have to go remove the snow from the solar panels. Dan asked me who is this “we” I’m talking about. 🙂