March 30th And Time For A Tour Of Our Snowdrifts

When I dropped off our spring newsletters at the Ovando Post Office last Wednesday, our postmaster joked that we should call this edition the "extended winter" issue.  As you'll see from these photos I took today, there's a reason!  We've had a couple more snowstorms blow through in the past few days, adding a few more inches to the existing snowdrifts scattered around the ranch.  It's hard to believe it really is springtime. 

Now, don't get me wrong, we are actually delighted with the snowpack because of the drought-like conditions Montana has had over the past several years.  The longer the snow sticks around, the better it is for the pastures, for the aquifer, for irrigation, for fish in the rivers, and for fire suppression.  But mentally, we are really ready to see bare ground again ... especially when it seems like everyone else within 10 miles of here actually does have bare ground!

So for a blog bonus feature, I thought I'd take you on a brief tour of the ranch snowdrifts today.  Some of these are rather amazing snow sculptures.  The photo at the top is outside our front door on the west side of the house. 

Here's the drift outside the wood shed:

This is the view down the lane towards the sighted horse corral.  We're going to fire up the snowblower on the tractor this afternoon and try to bust this thing open:

And here is blind Bridger, munching on breakfast ... you can see how tall that drift is on the west side of his shed, at least four feet deep:

In this next shot you're looking at the west side of Widget's House.  That's blind Cedar standing on top of the drift on the other side of the fence back there, with blind Patti down below.  Fortunately Cedar doesn't realize that he could just step over the fence and walk on out to the front yard:

Finally, here's a close-up of the same drift.  The tracks across the top belong to either Zephyr, Gloria's dog, or deaf Tyler, both of whom are able to see that they can just walk across the fences!

Comments

[Mary Young]

Wow! It's beautiful to look at but, I know it must hard to manage all your chores in that much snow! Makes our March snow in Alabama look like nothing!(we were so proud of our sprinkle of snow!)Creighton is sooooo precious!God Bless you all!

[Shirley & James, Portland, OR]

Beautiful and very white!

[Nina]

Lovely tour of snowdrifts.....but I too am waiting for the stuff to melt and for grass to start growing!!