A little snow finally.

While winter isn't over around here until the end of April, it's nice to see the mountains blanketed in snow. There isn't much snow anywhere else but the peaks and in the trees. The light for this picture was really amazing, the entire area just seemed to have a glow about it.

Rock and I were hiking a lot, navigating the ice patches on the road until we got out in the open. He enjoyed the mud, I didn't enjoy cleaning him off every few hours. We had a good time, father in-laws dog is staying with us while we are determining what a good course of action will be. He is in a rehabilitation old folks type home right now. It's a nice place and it's safe, we are worried about him being back home and something happening but it's really going to be up to him.

What's it like in the trees?

Whatever snow lands out in the open blows across the valley, but it does like to stick around at home. The last few weeks have been windy, upwards of 120 mph gusts and sustained 60+ mph especially in the city. We had about 20k worth of damage at work from the wind and flying debris and my company car is missing a back window. Fences are broken and sections just missing all over the county but ours is perfect. I remember my first blogger post was about metal fence posts, and those saved us from not only fence work, but they fence kept everyone else's debris out of our yard.

It's a pretty incredible difference in/out of the tree's. I've driven in and had to shovel (especially the occasional drift) in order to get the door open but the valley looked clear like this photo. Even in the tree's the wind can blow hard enough to have dirt collect on the inside window sills of the old non-storm windows.

We really love living here, and while it might not be full time, we are starting to remodel and update a few things in 2017 so when we make the full time move, it's all set. We are even thinking of adding a 2 car garage and turning the attached 1 car garage into a regular home room. Unfortunately, watching how slow construction goes in the valley that might not be something we will do this year. If we can get a concrete pad put down without too much trouble, we will most likely get a tuff-shed type garage so at least we have a shell up fast and can go to work on the insulation and interior finish.
Something like this:

It will give us storage for 2 vehicles and room for the ATV's and other things. We don't need an upper level so perhaps just a nice pitched roof with a loft type area for storage.

Rock is as cute as the bear. I was loading up heading in for work while he tried to pull the ears off 'sir knottingham'. I also had to shovel the foot of snow that had fallen while we were sleeping. It was coming down hard and I'm sure we got close to 18 inches or more over the course of yesterday. In town there was maybe 1/4 inch but honestly it makes my job easier when we don't have to manage with weather. Work is nuts, as usual, and I'm heading to New Orleans next week. Yuck.