Snow day in March

We got about 5 inches of snow last night

not much fun to drive in, but beautiful to look at!

I love how lacey these snow covered branches look.

tagged by the Sass

My daughter tagged me---

So here is the meme:

Post your 4th picture from your 4th file. Say a little about it, then tag 4 other people.

Here is my pic......

It is one of about a million I took last winter when we had so much snow and winter seemed endless (winter seems endless to me every year, though).

This pic features my hill billy homemade bird feeder (yeah, it IS an old shoe box w/ aluminum foil on it, Holy Homemade Craziness, Batman!)

Don't you love the aesthetically pleasing evergreen branches on the side?

OK, it will be easy to top this dorky pic, so I am tagging:

PJ at Sleeping Late on Saturday

Barbara at Motherof8

Lynne at her Somewhat Invented Life

and anybody else who wants to do something random.

So, how much snow do we have?

We have so much snow that I am surprised the mailman will still deliver our mail. We had to dig out the mailbox, as you can see. Everybody in the neighborhood is dealing with this problem.
I've seen a few people who have put a five gallon bucket out for the newspaper. One solution for the mail that I really like is this one -

This neighbor just bought a new mail box and set it on top of the snow. Their 'real' mailbox is about 3 feet closer to the house, buried in the snow.

We have so much snow that our projected water needs should be met for the summer, and then some. We have so much snow that we are wondering if our roof will collapse. You can see the ice dams in this pic.

We have so much snow that we are trying to figure out where to shovel the snow.

We have so much snow that it looks like a drunken cake decorator overdid it when frosting the pine trees. ( you can see the top of the railing on our back porch in the left corner of the picture)

We have so much snow that the neighbors are meeting in the street (when we need to take a break from shovelling our driveways and walks) and wishing we all lived in Mesa, or other points south. Sunday's snow totalled about 24 inches, after you count the 6 new inches that were on the ground when we woke up on Monday morning.

I'm trying to be a good sport, but really.....

Today's snow storm (the 3rd in a week) has dumped 12 plus inches on us. Church was cancelled.
I am quite tired of this stuff. Could we have a vote and have spring come next week?
You can see in this pic that myDH is shoveling snow up and over his height (he is 5-11).
This next shot shows the front yard, you may remember our yard stick that has been measuring snow. Good thing it is a four foot long yardstick. You can see that a regular 3 foot one would not be showing up anymore!

Endless snow !

I've mentioned before that we've lived here in Utah (on the 'bench' at 5,000 feet) for 7 years. We've seen some pretty good snows. We need the snow so we have enough spring run-off for the reservoirs, Utah is a desert, after all. However, we've been blessed with plenty of snow these past few weeks. This first picture was taken on Christmas day, when we had a total of 12 inches of snow, over a period of a few days. (the ruler that you can see sticking out here is still out there, buried somewhere in the snow-we'll find it in the spring.) So we put a yard stick in the yard. It actually measures 48 inches instead of the usual 36. Although it is hard to see, by January 6th we had a net measurement of 14 inches. The snow tends to compact somewhat, so even though we got more than 2 inches, that is our measurement for Sunday.

We actually got about 6 inches or so that day, trust me, my achin' back knows, after two sessions of shovelling that day.

This is the yard stick showing the new snow we got this morning. At 8 a.m., we had gotten 11 inches on the driveway.

This is the birdfeeder, such as it is. I cleared it off twice today so our little finches and chickadees could get to the food.

Yeah, I can't read this, either.

Let's get in a little closer. Oh, it reads at 30 inches!!!!! Bottom line, it has snowed all day, I've never seen it snow this much here before. We spent a lot of the day shovelling the driveway, and the sides of the driveway are piled so high, we can barely throw the snow up there. We estimate we got 24 inches today. Crazy...

Here is the 12 year old, trying to knock some of the snow off of the tree.

Lots of effort, as you can see.

Happy Winter, everyone! We are hoping they are just kidding about the additional 2 - 3 inches we are s'posed to get tonight.

More backyard birds

We see these Stellar jays around the neighborhood from time to time. This guy made quite a few pit stops at the (decaying) birdfeeder today, between storms.
This is not the best photo, but this little bird is a fast one. We think it is a mountain chickadee. Again, anyone with more bird knowledge, please let me know if I've got the names wrong.

Stocking up before the storm...and bird I.D.'s

Today we have had temperatures above freezing for the first time since before Christmas, I think. The weather forecasters tell us it is 'the warm before the storm' that is blowing in from California. My daughter and I set up this redneck birdfeeder, a few days ago,which hasn't seen much action before today. I am italicizing my added remarks. We went to the library and checked out a few bird identifying books, and so I think this first bird is a housefinch (with the lovely red markings). You can see it is a creatively styled birdfeeder made from a shoebox and aluminum foil. The pine branches are supposed to protect the food from snow, but are more decorative than useful.

I'll try and find out what kind of birds (finches??) have been visiting, the little red headed one is a favorite of mine. My best guess on this bird with the black head, is that it is an oregon sparrow. If anyone has some better ideas, please let me know! We are not experienced 'birders' here, by any means.

At any rate, they were coming and going at a fast pace, while I tried to snap pictures through the back door (you can see the window frames in the first pic).

After I had taken a lot of pics of the birdfeeder and birds, I heard the familiar scrawtch of pheasants. They weren't about to get up on the back deck to reach the bird food, but they were out and about! I often see them in the yard.

Today I saw two (only got a pic of one), and was also lucky enough to get a photo of that one pheasant flying away.

Maybe I'll put some food out for the pheasants, too. They really are lovely birds.

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY - rosemary

This little rosemary plant stayed in the 3" pot I bought it in. I don't know if it will make it thru the winter, but so far, so good. It is a nice surprise to have it bloom! When we lived in CA, we had some type of trailing rosemary that always bloomed, but I haven't had a rosemary bloom (or live) here in Utah before.

This is the view from our driveway, east towards the mountains. We have had snow fall almost every day since Christmas Eve, so there is quite a bit more, now. We are at 5, 000 feet on the 'bench', so if the valley gets 3 inches and the mountains get 2 feet, we get somewhere in between those two numbers. It is lovely. Maybe we'll go sledding today (I don't ski, unfortunately).

End of winter?

Winter is not my favorite season; I am at the point now that I am hungry for flowers again. I hate the cold, the snow is a mess, and I don't ski( although I do still go sledding with my daughter ).

We are getting the second snowstorm of the week here (after an admittedly 'low snow' winter) and I know that March is just a week away, and will bring the beginnings of spring, and flowers again.

I was just thinking this over when I saw Heather's entry at MormonMommyWars:

http://www.mormonmommywars.com/?p=592

Anybody else out there ready for spring (I guess the skiiers are on the slopes, not on the computer!)