The O-Zone

Weird weather to some degree. It warms up and the snow melts, a bit more falls, and then it warms up. We only have about 1/2 inch on the ground now, and nothing in the forecast for another week or so. Interesting. This morning it was cold, 9F. Now it is obvious how much of a difference fixing the windows and door made in terms of heat retention.  The house seems easier to heat this winter.

Our friend, Jack, is an expert woodturner, and this bowl is one he made for us, out of black walnut.

Turning it around slightly shows an entirely different view of the grain.

Part of the grain glows. I just love this beautiful piece of art.

The finish is still not quite set and so for now the bowl lives in the kitchen where the temperature in the house has the lowest swings in highs and lows.

December 1st, the month started off with a beautiful sunset.

The sun is creeping ever further south along the western horizon.  I decided to collect sunset pictures this month.

Ice crystals high in the air caught the sun and a bright ray streaks straight up in the sky.

I love this shade of blue right before the colors fade away into darkness.

December 4th, a pastel sunset instead of fires in the sky. The bird feeder is glowing again.

December 5th the sunset stretched all across the sky. This is looking to the south west horizon.

And this is looking towards the north. The colors fade away the farther north from where the sun is actually going down. In the summer the sun sets at the far right edge of this picture. The arc of travel is impressive.

December 6th, roiling clouds were a fiery orange and then they disbursed and clear skies and cold air came in.

Solar panels got a good workout today, lots of sunshine.  And this weather pattern is supposed to stay around for at least the next week.  We might see some below zero temperatures out of this.  Nice!

I know what that means, and in the summer if I was having to use a wood cookstove everyday I wouldn’t like it so much.  We’d be eating a lot of salads!!  But this time of year, it’s so nice!  With two stoves going the house gets nice and comfortable in no time at all.

View from my seat at the island.

Happily watching banana pancakes cook.  It’s much faster than watching aspen trees change color!  The kettle is on the next-to-hot-spot, for a pot of tea when breakfast is over.  The view out the window above the stove tells the story.  The peak of the garage roof is completely white.

Winter is here.

Another half inch of snow fell on the sidewalk after Dan shoveled. We now have about five inches of snow on the ground.

We moved the Polaris Ranger, with the snowplow in place, out of the garage.  It is a ground hog, in that it hogs a mess of ground in the garage, and makes driving past it a little more tedious than necessary.  Without it’s presence, the garage is so roomy and getting in and out is very simple.  Dan plowed the driveway yesterday, the first time this winter.  The snow is light and fluffy because it has been cold.  Dan put a tarp over the top to keep more of the snow out of the seat.  We could buy a cabin enclosure for this machine with a plastic windshield, but the cost is pretty high and a tarp with bungee cords is cheap!

Definitely a winter sky, the clouds are a flat gray which promises snow. Or threatens, I suppose. Depends on whether or not you like snow.

Can’t see very far to the west and north; it’s snowing up there or the clouds are lower, it’s hard to say which it is; probably both.  Cold air is going to come down out of Canada tonight.  Tonight they are forecasting below zero in Farenheit which is cold no matter what thermometer you’re using.  We’ll probably have to make something else on the cookstove tomorrow morning since it will be back in service.  Maybe apple pancakes just for a change of pace.  And we’ll roast some vegetables in the oven.  It’s such a versatile appliance, can’t imagine living without it.  Except in the summer.

Don’t you hate when that happens?  I wouldn’t have complained a bit if they had missed the mark entirely and we woke up to 70F and sunshine.

A good two inches of snow fell overnight and is still falling as I am writing this post.

Ponderosa Pine needles really capture and hold snowflakes.

We are in the clouds this morning, or a combination of fog and snowflakes.  In any event, we can’t see very far this morning.  The pass will have a lot more snow and it’s a good thing we have winter tires since we get to go driving over it today.  Poor Dan, no cinnamon rolls on the first snowfall of the season.  We are going to my physical therapy appointment and no doubt I won’t feel like doing any cooking when we are home again.

Happiness is a warm head.

Mish has been sprawled on the floor in front of the wood stove all morning, rolling around from time to time and stretching out.  He is the picture of contented kitty.  He doesn’t know anything about weather forecasts, good or bad, and couldn’t care less.

The last load of firewood was delivered on Sunday evening, and we stacked it. Theoretically we have nine cords for the winter, but we purchased six cords, so maybe it just isn’t stacked so well as we would like. Or this is new math. I can’t add to 13 so this shouldn’t be a surprise.

It's stacked as high as I can reach, and then some. We split some of the larger pieces so that we could put them higher.

Dan got the winter studless snowtires on the Outback, and we are all set for traveling this winter.  Which, if the weather reports are accurate will be on Thursday.

The snow is about halfway down the mountain where the ski resort lives. I bet they are dancing around over there. The snowline is above the larch trees which are a beautiful gold color in swatches on the mountain sides.

These clouds look like they mean business, and there is quite a bit of wind to go along with them. It feels like the weather is changing again. Another notch of coldness.

Mainly they just blocked the sun from charging the batteries.  Changing the angle on the solar panel array really improved the output.

I think we’re ready for snow – so bring it on!  I am ready to make cinnamon rolls as soon as we see the first real flakes.

Last night we were treated to a really spectacular sunset, just as the firewood guy brought up a load of firewood.  Which reminds me, we need to stack that away today.  Just one more full load of firewood and we’ll have the woodshed stocked up for the coming winter.

It was funny, we drove to town yesterday to do some shopping and didn’t notice any hunters driving around in their pickup trucks “hunting” for deer.  We’re sure that isn’t a particularly successful way to go about doing that, but it is a good way to get out of the house all way and drink beer while driving, which is what most of those guys are doing.  We remarked on the lack of orange clad drivers, but then found out hunting season ended on Friday.   We are so up on current events – not!  It’s nice that is now safer to go for a walk in the woods and safer to drive on the roads.

Intense color stretched all the way across the sky, horizontal and vertical.

The color of the sky is reflected in the birdfeeder globe cover. It makes an ethereal glowing spot against the dark black of the mountains.

The sun is now setting in a notch a bit farther south than our house's latitude along the western horizon. Each day that spot creeps farther south. It is a fiery glow.

We are going to put snowtires on the winter vehicle, our Outback, this weekend.  This means we’ll be parking the sedan for the duration, and being able to take it out for a drive again next spring will be something to look forward to all winter long.

We bought a stationary bike this week, and got it put together.  This will be our source of aerobic non-impact exercises all winter long, instead of buying insultated winter boots and risking life and limb walking on the road.  It will help a lot in rehab for my knees and by next spring I should be able to dance.  If I ever could dance, that is.

"I don't get it. How do I reach the pedals? What are pedals?"

No doubt Mishkin will be trying to participate by getting in the way when we are using this.  The seat slides forward and back, a useful feature given that Dan and I are 10 inches difference in height.  We can see out the windows in the sunroom from the seat, and it is so quiet, non-electric, it won’t interfere with watching television.  It does use batteries for an electronic readout.

We also need to get a funnel to facilitate changing the oil in the generator, and we are going to change the angle on the solar panel arrays today since the sun is already much lower in the sky.  The days are noticeably shorter and we need to take advantage of every bit of sunlight that we can get.

The next time we see moisture out of the sky, it promises to be solid.

Thus concludes this season of Aspen Watch.

The sky says it all. Those look seriously like snow clouds.

Wind yesterday and almost all trees lost their leaves, just a few remaining on the western edge of the grove where the winds didn’t catch them.

Bare trees.

Looking west… see? That’s snow falling!!! That’s not very far away, and it’s not here, but we can see it from here.

Snow flurries are predicted in the mountains. Oh, wait... we live in the mountains.

So I turned around and looked to the east instead.

Oh good. Still fall. Whew.

In a month from now, it will be white outside our house.  Perhaps by then I’ll be used to the idea!

Fun with beads, Celtic Hare pendant with dark brown crystal and sterling silver beads.

The Aspen trees still hang on to the majority of their leaves, but some are starting to fall on the gravel driveway.

The first leaves on the driveway.

One pale yellow leaf is holding onto the rain drops that fell this morning.

Rain drops on an Iris leaf, having a race to reach the ground.

Behind and above the house, golden Aspen leafs twittering in the breeze.

We drove down to the river today, to see how the fall colors are coming along.

Cottonwoods reflected in a deep pool on a bend in the river.

More reflected colors in the river shallows.

Back to a knitting project I started a while ago, and then promptly got distracted by something else.

This one is going to take months to complete.  Much fun!

The other thing we did today is lots of cooking ahead for next week.  The cookstove got a good work out fixing breakfast and then baking things to put into the fridge.