Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pat's "snow mountain" and views

 The view off Pat's deck the other day. Looking across the flats toward Glenn Hwy. and the Eklutna/Eagle River area.

 Blowing snow, pretty much a ground blizzard, me thinks, had you needed to be out there trying to move around in it.


 Older shot to remind you what the view across normally looks like.

 On the other hand, I really cannot whine too loudly about my driveway. Pat has a mountain of snow over there alongside hers, much of which was a, uh, word that rhymes with witch to move cos it'd drifted overnight and "set."

 Got snow, Pat?  Fortunately, like me, she also has good neighbors, neighbors with plows and such who are willing to help out as needed. It's the Alaskan way.

And the wind returns and blows all that snow around

 The good news was that I chopped, er, shoveled through the snow mountain and found the steps to the deck again. The bad news is that the wind carried snow has long since pretty much covered them right up again. 

 Also had another moose visitor, tho' I'm thinking it's the same one from last time. Very nervous and spooked like crazy when I opened the garage door to try for a better photo. It was on the other side of the fence in the lot next door, so felt fairly safe opening the garage door.

 Click on this one to enlarge and you'll see some interesting patterns left by the winds in the snow out from. The dark spots are the shadows created by the narrow ridge of snow sorta bottom center. Not sure, but am thinking the sorta concentric circle shapes behind it and somewhat covered by the shadows may have been from the snow being blown but from slightly different directions and at slightly different intensities. Or, maybe I had a snow angel visit, who knows?

   Contrasted this one up a bit to show the same features talked about above. My snow angel does good work.
 This one, tho', I think, may have been left by the local snow aliens.  Just weird. Obviously had to be a clump of snow involved somewhere along the line but it's gone.  Tis a mystery to me but an interesting look.

 From the driveway, looking south. The bottom edge of the picture, where it seems to sorta shine, is doing exactly that.  Solid ice, with the sunlight reflecting off it.

 Inside, Zach is on Moose Watch.

 Or, maybe not. Maybe a nap sounds better than watching for nervous moose.

 More funky snow sculptures. This one was at least started by me, tho'. The clump of snow you see was shoved there by the snow blower, which was a bit overwhelmed, and is still there, creating interesting shadows and patterns on the snow around it.

 Surf's up!  Well, sorta looks like it. The perpetual, seemingly neverending winds have created a wave look in the yard.

 For those on Facebook wondering why I'm obsessing about moving snow that drifts up in front of the garage door, this is why. This is just to the south of the garage and shows what uncleared snow looks like when allowed to pile up. Hard to tell from the pix but it's deeper than knee high.  How do I know?  Cos I went through the crust the other day and found out.  Sadly, my boots were only mid-calf high.  Ha

 And speaking of drifts....my driveway. Click on the pix. Normally the right edge of the driveway would be coming back in a relatively straight line from where you see the right side of the gate. Right now, tho', it's a hillside of snow that the wind has dropped there in a drift that came darn close to making the driveway impassable without some intervention. As it turned out, I was able to drive through it but much more wind or snow and I'm snowed in, literally, until I call my friendly neighborhood plow guy to move it. The problem with drifting snow is that it tends to "set," turning what might appear a pretty, soft, fluffy pile of snow into a mound of concrete, so to speak. Very hard to move with just the snow blower and I've already discovered that I'm pretty worthless with a shovel, not that a shovel would make a dent in this, either. My sympathy to those in places like Cordova and Valdez dealing with mountains of this kinda stuff.

 Looking out toward the same general area, tho' more at the top side of the driveway. All that snow sorta center is where driveway should be. I've moved it several times, more than I care to remember, but it keeps coming back.  Sigh.

A wider view of the wave look in the yard. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Now comes the cold (again)

 All dog trucks are obviously not at Copper Basin cos followed this one out Parks Hwy. briefly today. No clue who it was other than "not Karen".



 I don't really think it was this warm in most places but, like my house, this marquee seems to sit in a perennially warmer than everywhere else spot along Parks.

 That's a snow pile in front of the trees, not a little hill.




 




The sun was at just the right angle to light up the icicles at the end of the house. 

Friday, January 13, 2012

Snow Moose!!!

 I plopped down today around 2:40 to take a nap, laughingly telling the dogs that they were in charge of a 3:30 wake up call for me. Well, much to my astonishment, they started barking like they meant it at 3:25.  Kinda mumbling that they were early, I got up anyway cos their bark wasn't the usual "We're bored. Come entertain us" bark. I'm very glad I did as my eyes eventually found this visitor in the back.

 "You taking MY picture?"

 It was a bit jumpy, so didn't try to go out on the deck for any closer pix, but snapped away from all the back windows of the house for a bit as its hunger won out over its nervousness.

 Oh, those ears....

 The dogs had settled into just being entertained following me from one window to the other but, I swear, it was almost like Moosie knew we were watching.

 "Are you one of those Mooseratzzi I hear about?"

 Just an FYI, that chain link fence you see is 5' high.

 Peek-a-boo Moose

 Moose nose.... seriously, I got one of moose butt, too, but spared you. Ha

 Again, hunger wins over being watchful.




 It was at this point that the dogs got bored following me around and started barking from the back, sliding glass door again and Moosie heard them.

 Trying to figure out where the barking it's hearing is coming from.

 Love that snow nose.

 At this point, nerves won out over hunger and tho' I didn't know it at the time, it's on its way outta there.

The scary part for me was to discover that it exited THROUGH the back yard, not over the back pasture fence like most usually do, cos I caught this shot of it crossing the front yard and heading for the gate. I'm going to have to be extra careful about letting the dogs out if they seem to think they see or sense something out there since, sigh, this moose may be back and be using the backyard as a passageway to the more delicious back pasture.