Woes of Wind and Wet

Wind-Stretched Clouds Over Elmira

Imploding Snow

Melt on the Pond

Cornice of Roof Snow

Water Like Pearls

Flashing blue lights taunt me. I'm resetting the HughesNet Satellite Internet with no such luck of service. Already I've trudged to the satellite dish twice, but see nothing amiss. Cables are all connected. Wireless system is a-okay. Computers rebooted. Third reset and the lights blink. I'm woefully disconnected.

It must be the wind and the tremendous melt it rushed across the northern Rockies. Water pours off the roof from beneath mounds of squishy snow. Elongated clouds stretched to almost breaking by western winds cast a kaleidoscope of light and shadow across puckered snow. It's melting so fast the snow is imploding where tracks create hollows.

Giving up on the electronics, I march across the southern pasture to Elmira Pond. Already I can see water pooling along the far edge. The ice is flexing, no longer solid.

My trouble is with the snow. It's still deep, but like walking in soft ice cream. My heavy boots clunk and my legs protest against the gait. Halfway back to the house a cramp seizes my hamstring from the back of my knee up to my left periformis muscle.

Stretching relieves the cramp until I try to step with my left leg again. After three spasms, I'm dragging my left leg walking sideways to the house. The wind blasts at my back and spray from melting snow splatters the lenses of my glasses. I think this is what it means to be on one's "last leg."

Side-stepping is easier across the driveway and I'm so relieved to make it up the wet steps beneath the mounding cornice of roof snow. Water drops like strings of crystal pearls and it sounds like summer rain.

Once inside I check the blue lights. Still flashing. So I watch the wind contort clouds and I gently stretch my leg.

Woes will pass.

Grenny the Mule

Grenny the Mule

Wood Sled

Breaking Trail

The Wood-Sled Trail

Would Rather Ride Than Work

Waiting to Unload

It's one of those sapphire-blue-sky days that electrifies all the white snow. From my rocking chair at the fire, I watch snow scatter in a great white gusts lifted from the pastures and pond by a swirling wind. Snow dust eddies like a current in a stream, flowing out the driveway to wash across the road and train tracks. It's the coldest day I've experienced in Elmira, but still 10 degrees above zero.

Grenny the Mule helps keep the house warm.

Todd has our big male GSP, Grendel, hitched to the wood sled. We admittedly grew lazy this winter and have used our truck, the Blue Goose, to haul wood from the horse barn to our west-side porch. But the battery is dead so we have to haul it by hand. Todd built the sled and Grenny becomes our mule to power it.

Walking alongside Grenny, Todd lifts up on his harness. Mostly this is to keep the nose of the sled up, so it doesn't become a snowplow. The dog-mule pulls the majority of the weight, managing several loads from the horse barn to the porch.

Working on the Ranch

The sled is a plow of sorts, packing a wide trail that curves across the pasture. Packed snow doesn't swirl with the wind, but it it makes a fine track for the wind to follow as it chases snow dust toward the house. It reminds me of the sort of tracks pioneers would have made on their ranches before modern machinery and Model-Ts. I feel like Ma Ingalls standing on the porch watching Pa and his mule work.

Bobo is having none of this old-fashioned business. After trotting down the trail after Grenny, she realizes that he's mule-minded. He's not interested in playing; he has a job to do. Bobo stands by the car as if to say, look if you guys aren't going to play, let's go for a ride. She's not into this pioneer work.

Grenny waits patiently while Todd unloads and stacks wood, which is not typical behavior from the dog. But in this moment he's a working mule and he waits. I wonder how many other chores we can devise for Grenny as he and Todd head back for another load.

Back inside the wood-warmed house, I settle into my own work and listen to the winds howl, knowing we have enough fuel to get through this cold snap.

Raining Branches and Eagles

Wind Blasts the Pines

Rain Melting Snow into Pools of Silver

Wind Overcomes Rain

Eagles Don't Fly Well in Wind Gusts

Branches Raining Down in Elmira

Branch as Big as a Hybrid Car

And Still He Shovels

Like a Burlington Northern freight train, wind blasts the house on Elmira Pond so hard that the foundation quivers. Wind blowing through pines is usually a succulent sound, but this is banshee-screaming, door-hinge ripping, pine-toppling wind.

After several storms rolled over the Cascades and pounded the Selkirks with a fist full of snow, our roof shed four-foot piles of drift-snow and our driveway became the tundra. Then rain swooshed over with warm, melting drops, pooling snow into swaths of silver puddles and heaping slush back onto the driveway.

Todd is pushing slush, unphased by 60 mph gusts.

Stepping outside, I'm attacked by the plastic chair crouching on the south porch. Untangling it from my legs before we both  trip over the edge, I see an eagle. Flinging the chair to the ground, it somersaults across slush in the mighty wind. The eagle bobs low beneath rain clouds. This is one of those moments where grace seems to disappear. I retreat inside the moaning, vibrating house.

Todd is a machine with a shovel; he doesn't even wobble in the wind.

Clouds break apart, scudding like sailboats attempting to break a world record for speed. The rain stops and I'm mesmerized by the roiling clouds and the return of blue sky like ever-changing swirls of finger paint. Winds screeches so loud at the south door, both dogs lift their heads momentarily before settling back into their nap. Sunshine flashes like lightening from behind bubbling clouds.

Todd is now swinging his shovel overhead.

The eagle that was bobbing in the wind is coursing out of control and Todd takes defensive action. I hustle out the door, fighting to close it when I hear a snap-pop. The eagle has managed to  fly off over the pond, heading to the stand of tamaracks, but now branches are breaking. Most are single boughs, but the 70-foot trio of Ponderosa pines in the front yard begin to rain down branches as big as hybrid-cars.

Two massive clusters, each big enough to be its own tree, crash to the ground. Smaller branches, twig-like in comparison begin pelting my legs like little whips. The wind is so crazy, it's silly. Who ever heard of it raining branches and eagles? Back into the house I scurry.

And Todd finishes moving slush off the driveway.

Join me in sharing a silly story on Sunday with blog host, Everything Susan.