WARM WEATHER IN MONTANA

While the northeast US might be cold and snowy, western Montana is in a heat wave.  It was 60 degrees here today.  Although the official weather stations may not have had it that high, two of our thermometers had it pegged at 60.  A little breezy, but what a nice day. 

Connie is doing well.  She is starting to leave her walker upstairs and just limps around when she comes downstairs to eat or whatever.  She continues to do her exercises every hour and a half.  Her knee is hurting her a bit tonight, but that is to be expected.

Turned the horses out into the meadow today and they were really glad to get out of the corrals.  Don't blame them as they were pretty muddy.  Just about all the snow has melted away.  There are still a few piles from where we pushed it after the snows in December, but for the most part, we are bare ground and the frost is about all gone out.  With the breeze today, it started to dry out on the roads. 

A pic of one of the thermometers.

 Can't believe we have violas still blooming by the fire pit.

Bright green moss on the rocks.

CONNIE'S 2nd KNEE SURGERY

Connie went in Monday morning for her other knee replacement.  So she now has both of them replaced this winter.  The bionic woman of Willow Creek!  As with the first one, she is doing really well and was the star pupil of the physical therapy team.  Maybe next year she will be hiking and skiing without any pain.  Brought her home from the hospital today, and I could not tell who was more excited about her being home - her or her dog Zeus.  They are a pair that is for sure.  He just lays on the couch by her all the time.

When she first got back to her room after surgery.

Home on the couch watching TV with her favorite guy Zeus.

SOME MORE SNOW AND GOOD SKIING

We have received some new snow around here although not much in the valley.  Down here the moisture was mostly in the form of rain.  Got to ski some powder on Thursday, and today got to ski over 12 inches of the new stuff.  First tracks on the Lightning run Thursday as well as today.  But today there was a crowd at the resort.  I got there early and did not realize how many people showed up to ski the new powder.  And of course it is a weekend so the weekend crowd was there.  It sounds like they set a record for the number of people today.  I left around noon because the line over on chair 4 was just to long.  But I did get to ski some great powder while I skied.  When I left, they were parking clear out on Highway 93!!  Never seen so many cars!!!

We have been getting a lot of wet snow/rain down in the valley the last few days.  Snow in the mountains though.  This was taken on my walk yesterday.

The groomer was pushing snow away from the lodge entrance because the snow was higher than the entrance.  We have over a 100 inches at the top now.

 The ridge line at the top of chair 4.  Some nice powder up there today.

The line at the bottom of chair 4, and there is one just as long on the other side.  I have never seen lines like this at chair 4 before. 

SKIING IN WET SNOW!!

Went up skiing today with Ike and Brenda.  It was the wettest snow I have skied on in many, many years.  It was like spring skiing at Aleyeska near Anchorage.  Temperature was just at freezing or maybe a little above.  And it was really wet stuff falling out of the sky.  The powder areas were crusted up and any old track was really settled.  Suffice it to say that a couple of runs ate my lunch!!  We only skied until noon and headed in, had a leisurely lunch then headed home.  A couple of pictures.  Click to enlarge.

BITTERROOTS COMING UP

Went looking for the state flower the Bitterroot to start making it's way out of the ground today.  I did find them in the same sandy area to the west of hay-shed that I have found them early before.  We have had such a change in weather with all the warm temperatures and rain.  The snow and ice are just about gone so it was the first chance to see the little shoots just starting to come up.  What is amazing is that I found Bitterroots coming up on 16 January 2009 also.  Next year will start looking a few days or weeks earlier.


Had Ike, Brenda, Doug, and Rita over last night for a lasagna dinner.  Connie uses Gramma Ramacelli's recipe to make her sauce, and it is the best.  It comes from her friend Shelly's Great Grandmother actually.  Anyway, it always gets rave reviews when she uses it for spaghetti or lasagna.  Had a good visit with them as the Bitterroot Social Club had not been active in months.

In other noteworthy news, the lazy fat cat that lives with us (Catmay) has finally learned how to use the doggy door to go out of the house as well as in.  That is something we have been trying to teach her for at least 2 years.  She figured out how to come into the warm house and sleep by the fire, but could not figure out how to go out the door into the barn when she needed to go out.  She would usually find one of us and start meowing loudly saying she wanted out.  But this morning she went in and out by herself.  A threshold has been crossed.

AND this biggest "other" news is that we now have a new LCDHD TV with a DVR on our Dish Network system.  This is our Christmas present to each other and Connie will get a lot of use out of it next week when she has her other knee surgery on the 24th.

 Heading  out to feed the horses this morning.  These two photos taken with Connie's new Droid telephone.  We are learning how to use all this new technology and our old brains are having to work hard!

 

 Loading hay.

 A couple of Bitterroots just starting to come up through the ground.

Rain in the valley and snow in the mountains - wet snow.

GREAT POWDER DAY

12 inches of new snow at the ski resort this morning.  Roads were forecast to be bad with lots of black ice.  That helped keep a lot of people home I guess as there were not as many powder hounds up there as I would expect with that much snow.  It was raining pretty hard here at our place and for most of the way up the valley.  It started to change to snow about Conner.  Roads were then slushy, but I never saw much black ice if any.  But we had lots of powder powder to ski and it snowed all day.  Great day.  Skied with Dave for most of the morning and with Tim and George over on chair 4 in the sacjac area.  A little wind blown in open places, but really some great powder in the trees.

The kind of days I like - snowing 1/2 to 1 inch of snow per hour.

George skiing in sacjac.  You have to watch where you are going out there.

Dave coming down into Moose Creek.

UPDATE 12 JAN

We went up to Missoula for Connie's pre-op appointment yesterday and the temperature was below zero part of the way.  Today, it is 38 above and raining!  We will never get rid of all this ice if this keeps up as the rain is freezing on the cold ground.  I am planning on going skiing in the morning though - it is snowing at that elevation.  Connie's pre-op went well.  She is anxious to get her other knee fixed and will be the bionic woman of Willow Creek!

Gary and Margee are packing up their camper and will be headed to Arizona as soon as the weather permits.  They are hoping to leave Friday.  Don't know how long they will be gone. 

Also for anyone interested, Kiley Martinell wrote a great article in the "Working Ranch" magazine about their ranch.  This is the place where we used to work and still go over and help them.  There are a couple of pictures of mine in the article.  If you want to read the article you can find it at:  http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/8ce198f8#/8ce198f8/62

WEATHER HAS CHANGED

We have really had a January thaw around here.  It was in the 40's and the snow is melting fast.  But there is a lot of ice also.  One more day of above freezing and then they say we are going to get below zero again.  Sure hope the ice melts off.  Have not been skiing for over a week now as we have not had any new snow.

With the warmer temperatures the snow fleas or spring-tails have been out. I got the following from wikipedia:  "Snow fleas are deomposers and eat decaying organic matter as well as bacteria, fungi, algae, pollen, roundworms and rotifers. It has been assumed that they swarm on snow to feed on algae growing in the snow surface, though it is not clear that this is the case."  They are about 1 or 2 millimeters in length.  A few pictures I took while walking today.

 Here is what they look like floating on the water down the icy road.

 A closeup picture.  There are also two little brown bugs that I don't know what are.

Here is a lot of snow fleas stacked up in the water.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011 started out below zero around here.  It has been pretty cold the last few days.  Today it actually got up to 10 degrees above zero which was the high.  Now in Fairbanks that would be a warm day, but here in the Bitterroot that is quite cool.  We had our annual sledding party up at the sled hill.  Had a fire going in the fire pit and all the kids were riding sleds or toboggans down the hill.  Cocoa, marshmallows, hot dogs, chips, cookies, etc were all consumed.  I think everyone had a great time even if it was cold.  Could have used a few more inches of snow though.

Pictures from the day.

The morning started out feeding in the cold.

Teresa, CJ, Debra, and Rita

Ham

Jack and Alex

Riley

 Andrew

Angie with Elaina behind

A few of these were roasted during the day.

 Jack

The ashes of a paper cup floating through the air.

 Teresa and Tracy - sister and brother.

Ham