{"id":886,"date":"2018-04-04T16:38:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T23:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/?p=886"},"modified":"2018-04-22T16:38:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T23:38:31","slug":"marching-through-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/2018\/04\/04\/marching-through-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Marching Through Winter…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although we had hoped to have the structural design of the house finished by the end of the month, we were not that lucky.\u00a0 But still March did provide several big deliveries — specifically in terms of weather.<\/p>\n

It was almost as if the one in charge of these things suddenly realized that Winter was running late and Spring was already queued up. Suddenly there was a big rush to deliver both Winter and Spring together, all in the same month.<\/p>\n

We had several cycles of rain and snow — big rains, which often melted most, if not all of the snow.\u00a0 The two largest snow events came at the beginning of the month (March 2) and in the middle (March 16). By the end of the month the total precipitation since last July 1st had reached 25 inches, with March alone bringing us 13 of them!<\/p>\n

This is what the month looked like from the perspective of our weather station:<\/p>\n

\"Charts
Note that snow doesn’t show up here as rain until after<\/strong> it melts!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And this is what the first wave (March 2nd) looked like from a more human perspective:<\/p>\n

\"Image
Short on time, I stopped plowing the driveway about 50 ft above the Trestlewood Chalet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This storm left about 8 inches of snow on the ground and was the first time this season where I really needed<\/strong> the snowblower. The equipment worked well; the only unexpected problem was that first I had to dig the Bobcat and its attachments out of the snow,\u00a0 which took me an extra 45 minutes or so. Before the fire I had always kept the equipment inside the garage at the Logger’s Retreat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It made me really appreciate what a luxury that garage had been!<\/p>\n

You can see from the charts above that the majority of this storm came first as rain (about 3 inches).\u00a0 A good rule of thumb around here is that 1 inch of rainfall usually translates to about 1 foot of snow.\u00a0 So if that the storm had been just a little bit colder,\u00a0 instead of 8 inches we would have had nearly 4 feet<\/strong> of snow on the ground!<\/p>\n

After I finished plowing I was not particularly interested in digging the Bobcat out again. So I left it in the garage instead of outside under a tarp.<\/p>\n

\"Image
There were no guests scheduled for the entire month. So I was able to leave the Bobcat in the garage, ready for the next weather wave.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This turned out to have an unexpected, added benefit.\u00a0 Shortly after we headed back down to our Southern California home,\u00a0 a friend of ours asked to borrow it so that he could clear the driveway of a neighbor who lives a few hundred feet up the road.\u00a0 Her husband had passed away early this year and the storm caught her by surprise, leaving her snowbound.\u00a0 Thanks to his thoughtful kindness, a few hours later her driveway too was clear of snow, and the Bobcat was back in our garage, ready to go again. (Incidentally it was cleaner than I had left it, too!)<\/p>\n

The Second Wave<\/h6>\n

The middle of the month brought another storm, also starting as rain and then followed by two days of snow.\u00a0 We arrived late Thursday night, just before the rain turned to snow.\u00a0 We woke Friday morning to cloudy skies and about 4 or 5 inches of snow on the ground.<\/p>\n

For a special treat our daughter was able to join us on this trip. She and my wife went up the hill exploring while I cleared the lower driveway.<\/p>\n

\"Image
New snow on the driveway above the Trestlewood Chalet. Photo courtesy of H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n
\"Image
Trees that were stripped clean by the fire are actually quite beautiful when frosted with fresh snow.\u00a0 Photo courtesy H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
The view south with more fresh snow on burned trees. Photo courtesy H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
The Bobcat at work on the driveway. Photo courtesy H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
This time I tried plowing uphill<\/strong> — and actually made it all the way to the top! I could not have done that had the snow been any deeper. Photo courtesy H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After I finished plowing it continued to snow on and off all day.\u00a0 But the temperature was warm enough so that the new snow did not stick.<\/p>\n

We awoke on Saturday morning to a few more inches of new snow, bright sunshine and a beautiful blue sky.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Last fall many oaks did not drop the leaves that were singed by firel. I am anxious to find out whether or not those trees will\u00a0 sprout new leaves this coming Spring.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
You can see here the total amount of snow that fell over the two day storm.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
This Jay seemed to be guarding a nearby feeder with its new stash of sunflower seeds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
Only one day before this, I had cleared the driveway of snow, all the way to the top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
But this time the warm sun did most of the plowing for me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
And yet only a few hundred feet up the driveway, the snow\u00a0 there was still cold and fresh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
By now I must have a hundred pictures of these iconic reminders of the old Logger’s Retreat.\u00a0 They are like old friends to me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
I find it difficult to describe the beauty of that morning; perhaps this photo helps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
That day’s menu featured toasted Manzanita with snow and sky. Photo courtesy of H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
A friend tries to thread a needle with a snowball.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of H. Holland-Moritz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
And Then Came Spring<\/h6>\n

Shortly after we got back home, California was hit by another “Pineapple Express” atmospheric river.\u00a0 In the chart above you can’t miss it — it’s that spike of nearly 2 inches<\/strong> of rain, followed by another 3.5 inches<\/strong> the very next day.<\/p>\n

That was a lot of rain!\u00a0 I’ll share the photos and details of that with you in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although we had hoped to have the structural design of the house finished by the end of the month, we were not that lucky.\u00a0 But still March did provide several big deliveries — specifically in terms of weather. It was almost as if the one in charge of these things suddenly realized that Winter was … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Marching Through Winter…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-status","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-status"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SnowyTreesLookingSouth.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9iwY6-ei","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}