Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Be Careful What You Wish For

In the category of," Be careful what you wish for," is today's storm. It has varied greatly around southeastern Vermont, depending, it seems, on elevation. We are high enough that today's precipitation has been all snow - about 27 inches, although it has been so heavy and wet that it bent my snow gauge (a 3 foot plaster ruler) - At the moment the gauge is almost completely buried. There was about 8" before it started snowing.


Early this morning I cleared the platform of snow, and repeated the task at about 2 hour intervals. The Mourning Doves are always wary and ready to take flight, so the snow on the back of this gives an idea of how fast it was falling ...


From the kitchen window, this is a mid-morning view of our solar clothes dryer, before it collapsed beneath the weight of the snow ...


Our home has a metal roof, which I consider almost a necessity on an old house in a normally very snowy area. The metal roof sheds the snow quickly, keeping weight and stress off the roof. However, that means that piles form right next to the house. This thistle feeder hangs on the side of the house outside the kitchen window ...

 
More doves on the platform. The fuzziness along the bottom of the photograph is from the piled snow that slid off the roof. Even so, inside I had to stand on tiptoe. The platform has been crowded all day, with many face-offs among the birds.

 
The goldfinch was one of the few spots of color on an otherwise very white day ...

12 comments:

Chris said...

Wow that's incredible Chris the amount of snow you got. Is that kind of normal or is it a lot this year... It is now coming here today. Has been kind of snowing for few hours, but the flakes are so small that we hardly have a cm on the ground!! But should be more tomorrow.... Nice pictures you got ;-)

Kelly said...

...I heard about your snowstorm on the radio today. Incredible amounts of snow! Stay warm and dry...

Angie Moore said...

You do have some snow. WOW! Keep warm and put plenty of food out for those birds! Take care.

Anonymous said...

That is quite the storm!

Tina said...

Those lucky birds...to have such a dedicated person to keep them fed as they try and keep warm and dry in all the stormy weather. I'm glad they have someone who cares.. Hang in there spring is somewhere ...and hopefully not too far away!
..says the crying girl who is looking at another 12 to 18 inches of snow tonight into tomorrow..sniff sniff..hang in there.

Debbie Miller @HooootOwl said...

My new motto in anticipation of a long awaited spring is 'SAY NO TO SNOW!' Beautiful photos from this wintry madness in your neck of the woods.

Bill S. said...

That is a huge snowstorm in anyones book. But spring is just around the corner. Hope you have places for all the water to go to.

Richard said...

I remember a few posts back when you were kind of wishing for snow. At the time, I was almost ready to load some up and send it to you. We've had around 55 inches so far and hope we don't get any more.

Unknown said...

Great pictures, though! We got nothing but rain here. I'm glad I don't have to deal with the snow, but it is much prettier there than here!

cindyzlogic said...

Wow! That must have been heavy snow...it looks like it! Fantastic photography, Chris! I really like the one with the single Mourning Dove peeking out of the snow!

Erica Houskeeper said...

Really nice photos. I especially love the top image and the doves on the platform photo. The storm was unbelievable -- it just snowed so much! Wow -- 27 inches! I think we got about 22 up here. It was incredible.

Larry said...

I wasn't aware that you had such a huge snowstorm up your way.Our snowstorms in CT keep fizzling out. I like the close up photo of the finch-very nice.

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