The weather report for my area on my computer says it is minus 14 degrees outside. My own temp gauge says it is 5 degrees, balmy by comparison, I suppose. The snow from earlier in the week covers everything, big clumps of it hanging like old white jowls from the juniper trees. The birdbath outside the window where I sit has a foot of snow on it. I filled up all four of our bird feeders yesterday so the little guys have plenty of seed to eat. A small cement statue of St. Francis, patron saint of birds, sits under one of the piñon pines and has white hair.
Yesterday the doors to my wife’s car were frozen shut and it took us a bit of effort to get her off to work. Two things that I would kill for these days: a garage, and tickets to Sanibel Island, Florida.
The limbs of juniper trees are pretty supple but each winter we lose a few. The weight of the accumulated snow, especially if the end of the limb gets “attached” to the ground from the build- up, will occasionally cause the limb to snap. It sounds like a gunshot whenever that occurs. I often will put on my snow boots and trudge around outside with a heavy walking stick, whopping the limbs so that snow falls off and they can spring back up closer to their natural position.
Icicles are weird things. They hang down from the eaves in various shapes and sometimes curve like question marks. The snow on the metal roof will slide down as it warms during the day and every so often I hear a loud WHUMP! as some slips off and falls to the ground. I fear for the cats when this happens, as they often go outside even in this weather to explore.
The garbage gets picked up today so in a little while I shall don my warmest winter coat and tote the last of it down our driveway, a distance of approximately two city blocks. There will be cat tracks in the snow from the ferals that come to eat at the cat feeding station my wife has created about halfway down. The plywood roof eventually bows down from the weight of the snow each winter and every other spring or so I flip it over so that the convex side faces up.
In the brief time that it has taken me to write this post, the temperature outside has increased to SIX degrees. Once the sun rises over the bench, it will begin to warm up, possibly all the way to around forty degrees this afternoon. Yesterday’s high was 32 but it’s supposed to be higher today. Nothing like a white Christmas, eh?