Snow!

 At 17 inches right now, this is the biggest single snow event we've had since we moved here almost 15 months ago.  It started Monday night and will continue, according to winter storm warning, through mid-morning tomorrow.  Beautiful, stunning, glorious, awesome, think of all the adjectives you can.  These pictures are from yesterday afternoon when we were at about eight inches.

Yesterday afternoon was tough for Mineral Farms Laners.   Because the road from Camp Bird to the VRBO hadn't been plowed, Chimene (2) got stuck at the bottom of the hill.  Mike found her as he was returning home from an excellent ski day at Telluride.  Joining the party there were Ross, Catherine, and James (20).  Mke finally had to follow her into town to leave her truck at her friend's house, and then he brought her home.

Ross in the meantime had come up our hill to get something from home, and as he was going back, he ended up stuck in front of our house.  He and I tried and tried to push him out, but there is a layer of ice under the snow.  Once Mike got up, we were able to get him on his way.

This morning, our snowblower isn't working once again, but I was able to get in contact with the VRBO managers who have a guy up snowblowing, Sam.  Mike was able to reach him, and we're going to pay him to dig us all out.  We are grateful to the managers for their help.  Now that we have Sam's direct phone number, we will hire him to come up whenever needed.  Problem solved!

Our new BFF

Chimene and Arnold found mountain lion tracks at their house, and then Mike and I found some more in our driveway and across the road beside the Whites' house (18).  Chimene sent me a really good photo of the footprint they captured in the snow.  Is it possible someone else is as crazy about animal prints as I am?  Impossible!  Unfortunately, my download of her photo wasn't acceptable to the tech gods, so here are a couple that I took.

in our driveway