At Last!

It’s our first snow of the season. It’s late by several weeks, but it’s a good one. It snowed all afternoon yesterday, melting into the ground for several hours. Such a blessing for the thirsty, powder-dry ground! As I write this, we have five or six inches of the white stuff, and it’s still coming down. The temperature is supposed to dip to 5° tonight, so it looks like the conditions might be ripe for an early morning cross-country ski tomorrow.

Up until now, we’ve had very little fall moisture—less than half-an-inch—so I’ve still been irrigating all of this year’s tree transplants. After the water was let out of the canal a month ago, I’ve had to use hoses, buckets, and a 150-gallon water tank in the pickup. Earlier this week, I watered them again and mulched them too. This heaven-sent moisture has a better pH than our well water, and the layer of snow on the mulch will help protect the trees from the bitter cold on the way.

 

 

The animals don’t seem to mind the snow, maybe because they’re so plump and well-insulated! The calves and heifers are playing instead of lounging around all day. Sugar, something of an equine Jillian, keeps galloping laps around the pasture, leading a less-than enthusiastic and somewhat overweight Solly. The goaties stayed indoors until this morning, when they finally got bored enough to brave the snow, even though a dozen sparrows had kept them company in the barn.

The only one that isn’t happy with the snow is the cat, who fancies himself a Terrible Tiger who roams an imaginary jungle, not a snow leopard who ranges in the Himalayas!



“Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of My mouth...do the work that I sent them to do...." ISAIAH 55:1--11