Flowers

That last snow melted off quickly and it is looking a lot more like Spring. Some of our early bulbs are starting to bloom. Here are a few shots of them. It's still pretty bare out there though.

heavy spring snow

We had a big heavy snow on Tuesday evening, a typical spring snow that broke bushes down and snapped branches .It stuck really well to everything, even wires like these tomato cages and to clotheslines. There were about eight inches or so and it was very wet - great for the yard. By Friday it was mostly melted again. I will be scaling back on this blog in the future so postings will be more scarce. There's lots to do now that Spring is near - gardening, taxes to work on, cleaning,  all sorts of other Spring -related things, all things that take up what was formerly blogging time. So maybe goodbye for a while.

in the shadows

Here are some sunset shots along the river. In the shadows there's still a lot of snow but where the sun hits it's all melted off. I like the contrast between the snowy shadowed river and the sunlit cliffs.

Wary Elk

Some roadside elk near Estes. She looked like she was moderately pregnant. She didn't trust us much.

Up to the Mountains

We drove up to Estes Park and took photos along the way. Here are a few snow and mountain pictures. That's longs Peak in the bottom shot.

Foggy

Sunday morning was foggy so I couldn't resist walking about and taking some pictures in the early morning before it burned off.

old time music duet

For a really nice old time fiddle/cello duet see this link on YouTube. I stumbled across it looking for some sheet music. Norman and Nancy Blake seem to be amazing musicians. 

Sunny morning Snow Pictures

The sun is back after our last storm. It always looks so beautiful in the morning. Look up or look down,  sky and snow are intensely blue.

Guess

Okay - I've cropped this and posterized it and done stuff  to it - so guess what it really is if you can.

more snow again

It seems like it's been a very long, snowy winter. But it's not like the East Coast with their record snowfalls so I guess I shouldn't complain. We had more snow last night again from a little storm, just a few inches, but it got cold again, and no sun all day. I didn't even want to go outside today. Here are some back yard pictures.

mini climate zones

We had another couple inches of snow on Sunday. It will snow off and on for a few days and then warm up for a few days. Some parts of the shaded back yard never see the sun and the result is a deep snowbank in back that tapers off to no snow at all the farther back you go. It looks cool, two different seasons at once. Many squirrel prints cross it going in all directions. Now it has my footprints too. It's crunchy, but then you suddenly sink into it as you step.

Prairie pictures

I went over to a local park this afternoon and took my painting stuff and my camera. The snow is mostly melted off. Taking pictures in the middle of a sunny day is a real challenge. Your eye sees a million shades of dark to light but the camera never seems to be able to get the true picture. Either the sky washes out or the ground is too dark. Or it all turns bluish because it's so bright. So I tried fooling with them to get the detail in both ground and sky. At any rate, here is a prairie picture.

looking for icicles

I went to take some photos of the icicles in the park that I saw the other day but they were gone - It got too warm yesterday and they all melted off. A missed opportunity.  But the water is starting to melt in the irrigation ditch so there were some interesting ice pictures there. Here are some of them.

Cold again

A storm came in yesterday and it snowed all day off and on, not much accumulation, but a lot of flakes off and on. I stayed inside, keeping warm. Today I took a walk at 7, and the temperature was around 3 or 4 degrees F. But it looked beautiful and the sun is back.

eating the fat

The birds have really been going through the peanut butter/fat/seed blocks we've been putting out. Here are two of them at work, a flicker and a woodpecker. How nicely that long flicker bill can reach in the cage. Notice how small the block is in the second picture.Not much left for the woodpecker.  This reminds me that I need to get out there and cut away that stick that obscures my view from the window.

Horses in the Fog

Some more pictures from yesterday morning, of horses in the fog.

Morning Fog

We woke this morning to a thick fog - a very rare occurrence around here. I had to drive west into the country a little ways this morning and the scenery was amazing. Here are some pictures from the trip. The fog began to lift as I stopped to take pictures.

on the way to the store

On a very early morning walk to the store - cloud banks anchored over the mountains with Long's Peak barely revealed.

snowmelt

Some scenes from an evening late last week - the snow and ice are finally starting to melt away. Where is spring when you need it? It's been getting into the 40's during the day now so that's an improvement.

On the Ice

It's been so cold for so long that the stream in the park has been frozen solid for days. I walked along it for a ways yesterday morning. The sun was barely up and hiding behind a bank of clouds, not the usual sunny winter morning. I could see the ice in place was about six inches thick and certainly hard enough to walk on, so I did, looking at the patterns and leaves embedded in the ice.

Finally

The white amarylis is finally blooming. It didn't catch up with the other two but is now open at last. It's nice to have flowers blooming indoors when it's so rotten outside.

More pictures

Scenes from along the diagonal road to Boulder.

Rabbit

While out taking pictures I spotted this bunny, munching on dried grasses in the melted patches of snow. He was relatively fearless, next to a parking lot. I guess he's used to cars and people.

cold morning

Here's a picture I took at 8 AM out the window. The temperature at the time was -10 F. It's since warmed up a bit.