The O-Zone

What is better than caffeine for jolting a person awake?  Stepping out on a deck and taking a deep breath at -7F (-21.66C).  Actually, it feels wonderful!  Dan started both wood stoves this morning and heated the whole house very quickly.

The sky has such a neat pastel blue color at this temperature.  The following pictures are a panoramic view from our deck.  It’s hard to capture this in tiny pictures, but doing my best.

South view.

Our house is on the edge of the trees, on a bench with a hill to the east, going up to another bench.  All our views are to the west, over 180 degrees from the front deck.  There are a lot of trees to the south of us, but the hill curves around and drops, so they seem farther away from the house than they actually are.

View more directly west from south to north

The moon is still high overhead in the pale blue sky.  It will set to the north of Mount Baldy.

View from Mount Baldy farther towards the north

A fairly large Douglas Fir tree near the house partially blocks the view to the north.  Our solar panels are completely in shadow at this time of day.  The sun doesn’t start to hit them until near 10 a.m.  The colder the air temperature, the more efficient the solar panels are at producing power; they will produce enough power to max out the controller, and will completely charge our batteries in less than 4 hours.

View looking due north

The view directly north from the covered front deck looks across a snow covered upper deck.  Maybe next year we’ll get around to installing railings on this deck, which will make it more comfortable for sitting and admiring the view.  During the spring and fall this would be a nice place to sit, or early summer mornings.  In the afternoon and evenings, during the summer, the west facing side of our house is HOT!   It makes a person appreciate the cold.

The really strange thing to think about is that our hummingbirds will be back in only four months.   Wow!

The outside temperature this morning was -5F, and the snow squeaks when you walk on it with a distinctive sound.  Mishkin hasn’t ever felt winter; he was born in the spring and has been an indoor kitty since he was rescued.  I took him outside to sniff the cold, and he froze very still in my arms until the Red Squirrel under the bird feeders started yelling at us.

Mid-winter moonset coincides with sunrise

The Winter Solstice approaches, and the best moonset/sunrise views are this time of year.  The view from the front deck warms our spirits.

The ski resort on Mount Baldy is, no doubt, happy about the recent snowfall.  We’re happy as the snow turns pink when the sun comes up.

Mount Baldy, 40 miles to the west

The promised snowfall didn’t materialize yesterday (drat!), but the cold temperatures did make an appearance. This morning it was +3F and has warmed up to almost +10F. The sun is low over the horizon this time of year, and it is dark before 4 PM.

We took a drive down the road to the mailbox. The road is in the best condition in the winter; all the washboard has been smoothed out with packed snow and ice. There are two corners on the county road with a drop off on the right side as you head down the mountain. The snow plow has created a berm of snow a couple of feet high, protecting cars from sliding off the road.

The dropoff on the upper corner is at least 100 feet straight down

The second corner has a more gradual drop off and people use this slope for sliding down on sleds. The main road switches back and forth and you can see the lower portion of the road at the bottom of the picture.

Sledding hill for adrenalin junkies

The river is freezing over now. Another few days of these temperatures, and it will freeze completely across. The power of the river’s current never allows it to freeze completely, there are always holes here and there for American Dippers and Common Mergansers to ply their trade. The larger holes, such as this one, allow the Bald Eagles which congregate along the river corridor to take advantage of the Whitefish which live in the river. The holes will close up and the Eagles will have to move south for a couple of months.

Bald Eagle fishing hole, looking north from the bridge

Another view of the fishing hole.

Bald Eagle fishing hole

The snowfall accumulated on patches of ice in the river, making some interesting ridges and textures in the ice.

Snowy ridges, the start of a new glacier?

Granite mountains overlook the river, and Bighorn Sheep have been reintroduced in these mountains.  A herd of 30-40 are seen regularly on this hillside.

Bighorn Sheep frequent this hillside

There is always something to see within a couple of miles drive from our house.  On the way home we saw a Pine Grosbeak enjoying some frozen berries at the top of a large bush.

I’ve noticed something. whenever there is an interesting celestial event like a full moon closer to the earth than normal, we have cloudy weather.  We do get interesting weather during celestial events, however.  Yesterday was no exception, but on the good side we did get a good fluffy five inches of snow for the first installment of two weather systems colliding over the top of our mountain.

Chickadees decorate our snow covered trees

Forecast is for heavy snowfall today, and a serious drop in temperatures.  The Canadian air mass is strong and already heading our way.  Yesterday, we occupied our time splitting enough firewood to fill the rack on the front deck, and getting the snowplow attached to the front of our Polaris Ranger.  We took care of grocery shopping the day before.  The main county road won’t be plowed until some time on Monday.  I will be able to pretend I’m snowed in until mid Monday morning.

Grey clouds heavy with moisture, awaiting cold air

Dan’s first question when he saw the snow accumulation was two words:  “Cinnamon Rolls?”  Perhaps today, if we get the foot of snow predicted.  Praying for snow here!

We have had a lot of building projects on our place, but the two biggest ones were a bedroom addition and a garage. The addition went onto the back of the old log part of the house and gave us a much cooler place to sleep. The previous bedroom was on the west side of the house and got a really good shot of sunshine late into the summer evenings. Now we sleep on the east side of the house and it has turned out to be much cooler indeed.

Our new garage was built where we had an old guest cabin/storage shed. Mostly it was used by various rodents and insects and wasn’t a very nice place at all. We now have a nice 2 car garage with lots of extra space for a shop area and storage. We extended one of the eaves to cover enough space to stack eight cords of firewood; keeping it nice and dry.

This summer we finished the painting and had seamless gutters installed. These projects were the last of our big projects. We still hope to build a deck on the back of the bedroom and put in a garden, but they will have to wait for next year.

It is hard to believe, but this is already the start of our third winter on the mountain.  It is the first time we’ve had freezing rain up here.  Truly, that is one of our least favorite weather patterns.  It is so pretty but makes outside chores, such as splitting firewood, a little more interesting.

Frozen rosehips outside the front door

This past November saw the start of our real winter weather.  We have had snow on the ground since the middle of the month.  We aren’t seeing much sunny weather, a lot of fog and overcast instead.  It makes the world feel dreamy and reality far away.

Freezing fog outlines everything with ice

As usual, for the first real snowfall of the winter, I made cinnamon rolls to celebrate.  It is as good an excuse as any for making cinnamon rolls, and better than some.

Looking north, this is the view from our front porch

Our new  kitten is named Prince Mishkin, after a famous “idiot”, which seems like a very good name for a cat, don’t you think? He is almost eight months old and already weighs over ten pounds, so he will likely be a large cat.

Now for the questions. Why does the cat get under the bag?

Why?

Well, I guess because he was fighting the good fight with the bag (oh, oh, another why question!) and that is where he was when he needed a rest.

He also has a toy lion that sometimes gets attention. Karen was helping him play with it and his expression is one that we often see. I think it means he is a little crazy?

Look out!

Needless to say, we have a good time with the little monster.