Connie in Ouray

 We had the loveliest day of rain on Wednesday, all day, slow, soaking rain, and then we've gotten three inches of snow over the last two nights.  Additionally, we had a hard freeze last night and another is forecast for tonight.  My little flowers aren't happy, but I'm ecstatic for the moisture. spiked squill before the storm the Ampitheater post-storm

 The snow is all but gone, and the pond is fully without ice.  I've started feeding the fish, and I'm fairly certain we are not going to have to buy fish for the upcoming season.  There are so many fish!  It's too warm, and it's too dry, and I'm too sad about all of it.

 Sadly, the last dump of snow, which put us at 60% of our normal, is mostly gone, and the mud is here...again.  Since most of MFL is dry, Pothole Mike is filling up drainage areas and potholes with gravel he finds.  He has also been filling potholes on Camp Bird Road, because he can.  He is obsessed with potholes.  Seriously obsessed. I think most of you know a ton of work is being done on figuring out our water system.   In the meantime, I recommend having water jugs in storage just in case. Mike and I were up at Ironton on Tuesday, and it is done for unless we get a huge snowfall. When I get back from Las Vegas on the 23rd, it will be time to feed the fish.  

 It's been two weeks since we had any snow, and boom, nine inches Thursday night into Friday.  The forecast now shows no precipitation for the foreseeable future.  We have experienced our fifth mud season on Mineral Farms Lane.  Total snow for the year:  78.5 inches, about four feet below average.

 It has been the oddest winter.  For example, from February 13 through the 20th, we received 17.5 inches of snow, and now there is nothing in the forecast except rain for the next few weeks.  It has been like this since early January - big dumps of snow then nothing.  I think we just started our 5th mud season.   Mike and I went to Ironton yesterday to cross-country ski - Mike - and snowshoe - me and Dempsey.  It was in the 20s, clear blue sky, and great snow conditions because of the cold.  The views never get old. One of the Red Mountains in the background If you have the opportunity, there is a fabulous article in this week's Ouray Plain dealer about the rescue/recovery effort last summer on Red Mountain Pass, where two people were killed and a girl was brought up and airlifted to Denver.  She lived.  The article is titled, "Helping the helpers:  The anatomy of a complex rescue."  Highly recommend. I snowshoed up our trail l...

 I think most of you know about the tragedy Thursday night when Marchelle and Aaron's two-year-old pup Red drowned in the upper pond.  There are no words. We are under a winter storm warning through Thursday early morning.  Telluride is looking at a foot of new snow, and we're somewhere in the mix.  Totals keep changing.  That said, with our latest three day total of nine inches, we now have 61 inches for the season.  I went up snowshoeing Saturday and today, and it's the usual gorgeousness. from our living room after the storm passed heavy, moisture-laden snow