February 13, 2006 - More Fun in the Snow
Even though today was a Monday and I had to work all
day, I was able to get out a little this morning and later in the
evening to take some more pictures of the snow. It was very hard to work
today given all the beauty outside the office window.
As any junior scientist knows, for an
accurate measurement of anything you must take a large
sampling of measurements and average out the results,
excluding any aberrant readings. This sample measurement was
right on our official measurement of 19 inches of
snow. It's been a while since we've had a good deep
snow, the last one was 22 inches in
December 2003.
Anyway on to some picture taking...
The house is all snug and warm this morning...
...Sugar and Bandit are looking out of the
dinning room windows. A drift is almost up to the bottom of
the window.
The limber Hemlock's limbs are weighted down to the
ground creating a cozy little tee pee under the each tree.
Snow is piled on the house too.
This is the view out of my loft windows over
the back porch. About a 2 1/2 foot deep drift as built up on the
porch roof right outside the window.
Oh well, I have to to quit taking pictures
and to get to work...
Well... the afternoon has rolled around. The snow storm
has
blown away leaving a crisp,
clear, 17 degree afternoon.
It's time to leave the house and get out and
play!!...
As I go up my driveway, the snow
has drifted back over the road since I was on it yesterday.
Here's it's about 3 feet deep on one side of the road and goes
down to only a couple of inches at the fence line.
On up the road the snow hasn't drifted, just 5 inches
more has fallen since I plowed my way through here
yesterday looking for Bandit. Here the truck can run in the
tracks it made yesterday...
... the snow is a lot of fun to play in...
... the truck is still dragging snow a
little...
... the rear differential is plowing a trench as I go.
Here's a place where a drift gets a little
deep. But I want to keep on going so I can make it up to where I can...
...get a
view of the sun as it sets over the Smokies. I'm just in
time to watch it go down.
Behind me, the setting sun makes the hoar
frosted trees glow orange. The whole forest is glowing
brilliant orange. I don't know which way to look.
A spectacular scene...
...as the sun sets, clouds are moving in
from the west.
They are slowly creeping up the western
mountain sides, then pouring through passes and mountain
gaps and down in to the valleys below.
My HD video camera has been recording the whole thing.
I'm sure this footage will make it into some future video on
the site.
Well time to head back to the house...
A stop by the corral shows another
spectacular scene...
...where the deep, crisp snow takes on
the blue hues of the crystal clear twilight
skies.
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