the snow from 4 days ago brought down a large oak tree and staal and i (nick got a few licks in too) spent a few days tromping around in the melting snow getting it cut up and cleared away.
last night we got some heavy rain followed by a couple inches of light, powdery snowfall early this morning...
it's been a very dry winter. happy to have some snowfall overnight and this morning. we'll see what's down the road for spring.
raining today. going through some pictures i've taken recently. sharing some of the ones i like...
when we are very young
and first learning to walk
mostly we fall down
this is the best we can do
but
falling isn't failing
if
each time we fall
we get back up
and try again
and so we take another step
or two
and we fall again
and again
we get back up
and we grow
as we walk on
and sometimes
we stumble
and sometimes
the path is full of obstacles
that trip us up
and still
mostly we fall down
and still
this is the best we can do
and one day
we learn
that walking
is
falling
that with each step forward
we fall
and we catch ourselves
over and over
and this
is the best we can do
i didn't mean for the post i did recently regarding the mono wind event to sound like i was bemoaning some tragedy that had befallen us. i only meant to relate an experience. if anything, what came down in the mono wind was truly a windfall.
there will be a lot of work cutting up and clearing the fallen trees but we'll be getting a lot out of it...
those trees will provide us with firewood that will keep us warm for years.
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| photo taken 11/20/2019 |
since the trees that came down were live we can use some of the wood to grow more shiitake mushrooms.
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| a recent flush of our log grown shiitake mushrooms |
our local fire safe council has a free chipping program. they will come out and chip anything up to 3" diameter that is stacked appropriately and readily accessible to their equipment which means all the smaller branches can be made into wood chips and used to grow winecap mushrooms, mulch the gardens, and keep a clean, dry surface in the duck yard (which, after they "fertilize" it, gets composted and goes into the gardens to feed the fruits and vegetables that feed us).
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| bucket-o-winecaps harvested last september from a crop grown on wood chips that also serve as mulch for the raspberries |
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| wood chips keep a clean, healthy environment in the duck run by catching manure and soaking up the water from all the splashing around the ducks do just being ducks |
another benefit of fallen trees is that many of them, although living, were holding a lot of dead, dry wood that made for an inaccessible fire hazard while they were standing. now that they're on the ground we can clean things up and take some of the fuel out of our immediate area.
so, i don't see what happened due to the mono wind as a hardship or misfortune in any way. i think it was a pretty good deal and i'm grateful.
had a slight warm up and probably 48 hours of continuous, light rainfall which melted monday's snow and started the creeks running. cooled off a bit last night and we woke to another inch of snow (currently melting pretty quickly).
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| nice to see some water in the creek |
we've had a long stretch of dry weather and very mild temperatures. it's been pleasant but we always get a bit anxious when we go a long stretch without getting rain in the winter. yesterday it clouded up and cooled off considerably. we got 4-5 inches of snow overnight. it's finally looking and feeling like winter.
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| looking wintry |
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| don't think they even noticed |
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| love those branches |
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| "YAY, WINTER!...YAY, SNOW!...YAY, I AM SNOW!...YAAAAY!!!" |
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| garden gate |
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| "blech! insides me now, human!" |
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| monster oak felled by mono wind of last week |
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| majestic snow creature zane |
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| sweet puppy zane with a "snose" |
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| fig trees |
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| snow party! |
more wintry weather to come!
