Forest Living: Snow Scenes

Snow started falling Sunday evening December 6 and we woke to a cold white world.  This storm brought more snow and colder weather (23 F) than we've experienced since living here (or when building).  Judging by the snow depth in the upper garden, it brought us 8-10 inches of snow.  On Monday this was a fluffy wonderful powder.  Tuesday was crunchy.  Wednesday and Thursday were treacherous ice.  The last of the snow is dispersing today in the rain (and a much warmer low, 37 F). 

As seems to be the norm, this unusual storm caused power outages throughout California; we were without power Monday day and Tuesday day.  The house performed very well, and I learned to heat some things (tea, cider, chocolate, scrambled eggs) on a wood stove.  My "free" time was spent taking pictures (too many), frolicking with pets, turning off water systems outside (learning), tending the wood stove, and catching up on filing and reading.  The fantastic light in our pop-up (quilt room) also allowed me to do some quilting. We limped along with kerosene and battery lanterns from about 4 pm on, which became tedious. 

I limited the number of pictures in this post, which was hard to do. I think I have over 200 after discarding about 50. Previous snow storms have quickly melted away, so I started taking pictures during the storm.  There is a second post (earlier today) with some of the pet shots; this post is more-so focused on the beauty.

These are mostly sequential, and mostly from Monday.

From below our house on our forest path.  You can sort-of see our cat Homer on the right side, and that is the south elevation of our house up there.  It was still snowing when I snapped this one.

Our north elevation, taken a few minutes after the other shot.

Looking down our driveway from the house.

Candidate for our Christmas Card; looking up the driveway toward the house.

Looking back at our house, from a little further up the driveway versus the last shot.

Walking down our road.

That little orange-brown bump on Ron's left is Homer-Kitty.  He loves it when we include him in dog activities and thinks he should get whatever the dogs get (except car rides).

Snowy house front (north elevation).

The greenhouse and upper garden.  The brown to the left of the tool shed is the top of a retaining wall.  The green bumps to the right of the greenhouse, well, they were tomato plants.  I kept them longer than was practical, but they were still slowly producing some tomatoes.  Guess what I'll be doing this weekend!

Lilac bushes, above the large turnaround retaining wall.

What good is snow without some frolicking?

A Manzanita that was just too artistic to remove when we cleared this area.

The Forest King

Uphill from the house, our former cabin is now a workshop.

This was taken late Tuesday.

Sunset, Monday, December 7, 2009

(partial view from our living room - taken standing outside on the deck)

Sunset, Tuesday, December 8, 2009

(much of the snow was still there; from the living room again)

Just Photos: Gardens, Cats

Sharing pictures from this weekend.

Behind the house (south side); the garden here is primarily roses, but a few petunias and others. We walk past these in the mornings and evenings when we're here, along with the dogs and often the cats -- we walk in the forest at dawn and in the evening.





One of my favorite roses is Fragrant Cloud. I bought my first one years ago in Morgan Hill, and it spent about 8 years in a pot. It survived the move here and is doing very well. This is a picture of a rose from my second bush -- I love this rose – great color, lots of blooms, and an intense scent. The other is right outside our bedroom window and sometimes I can smell the roses at night -- making it easy to stop and smell them. :-)




Behind the house again, SW corner garden -- and that cat is BCOS (Black Cloud Over Snow) -- he's taking advantage of the nice breeze to cool his tummy.




WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get), in the shade on that same porch.




Homer-Kitty in the driveway yesterday. He is the stray who showed up at our building site about two years ago. He is a superb rodent hunter -- has managed all my gopher problems. I attended a master gardener session yesterday morning and one question was about gophers. The response? The best solution is a cat.




A few shots from the upper garden, or orchard? Most of our fruit/nut trees are up there as well as blueberries, rhubarb, onions, tomatoes, cantaloupe, squash (several kinds), beets, cucumbers, corn, beans, peas, peppers. That sounds like a lot, but it isn't all producing. I was late getting it in and I'm learning a lot about gardening here this year. The onions have been great. The others are just coming in so we'll see.

Today I planted some carrots for the fall, as well as more beets. The garden is a long narrow bench above the garage. The trees are all very young -- new this year -- we have cherry, apricot, apple (3), peach (2), plum (2), nectarine, and walnut. The walnut and one of the apples are not in this garden -- they're behind the house.



That's what it looked like here this sunny late summer weekend. Weather here has been in the low eighties with a mild breeze. Almost feels like a touch of fall in the air, but I know we have many long summer days ahead of us.

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