I am not trying to sell real estate when I say that this place is really beautiful even in the middle of winter. Temps hover between 25 and 32 pretty much all December. It snows several times per week – usually just a sprinkle of the white stuff to make everything look clean. It’s nice to sit by the fire, snuggle up with a cat and read a book. Still, it’s been cloudy much of the time. We are going into January which is the hardest month of the year (where in Chicago, it’s February). If we make it to March 15 without succumbing to cabin fever, we’ll survive.
The cats are making the best of it. Here’s Ethel peering at a fly that decided to come to life after we turned on the pellet stove and warmed up the room.
One thing I noticed last year but didn’t mention is how the winter weather moves down the elevation of the mountains. Here’s a shot of our house (arrow) and you’ll see by the dotted yellow line how the hard winter is hovering a few hundred feet above us on the mountain. It looks like there’s a shadow on the lower part of the mountian but it’s actually that snow is sticking to the trees more in the upper part. As winter moves forward the chill moves down and snow sticks to everything much more. It’s a very interesting for a guy who comes from Illinois which is very flat.
Also, since snow is so hard to photograph I thought I’d provide two pictures that show how dense the snow is. Here’s a before and after a snowstorm over the valley.
Snow plowing with the ATV has been going well. It is a lot of fun and work rolled into one. Some folks have wondered how much plowing we have to do. Here are three shots. 1) Our driveway 2) half way down the private drive from the driveway 3) the rest of the private drive down to the county road. In total, it’s over 1000 feet of road.
