It snowed last night!
To see more pictures of the snow, mostly from the cemetery, CLICK HERE.
It's not the most snow ever, but after last winter of there mostly being no snow on the ground, and how early in the year it is, and frankly me being very very ready for snow it turned out very exciting.
At the beginning of the week the weather reports were for chance of snow late in the week. But for the most part, unless the weather report says "too damn much sun" it's usually wrong. Predictions of rain and snow are more common than the actual rain or snow.
It snowed Thursday during the day. Pretty slow falling flakes, but nothing very heavy, and nothing with any chance to stick. Last night Mrs. Nivose was down in Loveland at another student's house making crafts for the BugZoo sale and when she was coming home it had started snowing and collecting some. And by this morning it was fairly clearly snow.
Like, for serious snow.
At this late point in the day a lot of it has melted already. There's still too much on my car to drive it with out clearing it, but chances are at this rate I won't need to clear it in the morning. On the other hand, it may snow more tonight.
Because it's so early a number of trees have dumped leaves on top of the snow, as you can see in the pictures. Many of the pictures being stones or other cemetery items I enjoy with or without the snow. One of the pictures shows the main car entrance to the cemetery and actually shows a mile long road lined with trees, though it's hard to make out.
I am certainly ready for snow. And I've certainly been happier today than I have been in some time. On the other hand, it's October and I would hate to miss the leaves changing and falling or have snow botch my Halloween. Our plan had been to go to the farm today to see the pumpkins that Mrs. Nivose's lab is growing. And while I would like to see them lightly covered in snow we were concerned about getting the car stuck in the mud at the farm. That's a common concern in the dry months, but the snow adds both water and cover to the mud holes.
We had a handful of other minor plans as well, but have instead elected to take it as a snow day. We have played some board games, and we sat on the couch for a while with blankets, hot cocoa, and a Magus (kitty) laying between my legs while we read. Mrs. Nivose read a book by Patrick McManus which is a collection of his humor articles from various outdoors magazines (beyond the 10 other books she is currently in the middle of) and I greatly recommend his writing (on Snowy days or otherwise), while I read Manchild in the Promised Land (which most of you wouldn't enjoy).
The roads are still a little snow packed. There was no plowing, just sanding. We may still venture out for the pumpkins, but likely as not we won't. It has been an excellent day of relaxing and walking in the snow. When we got back to the building we looked over the neighbor's fence for the pigs (previously unmentioned here I believe) but I did not see them. If this means they've gone away, were inside from the snow, or are currently ham and bacon (which I guess would incorporate the first 2 options really) I don't know.
Some of the pictures include the creek, which is really an irrigation ditch. In fact, most of the pictures I took were of the creek, but they looked the same. And some are of the small foot bridge that goes over it. As the ditch passes along the cemetery there are about 6 bridges over it of various sizes. But this little wooden one is the one we stop to kiss on.
-Mr. Nivose
Mrs. Nivose says: It started snowing last night while I was in Loveland crafting away with some of the other members of the entomology club. By the time I headed home, the roads had collected a coating of snow, but it wasn't very slippery. It was a slow drive home though, because there aren't many lights on the road between Loveland and Fort Collins and there was also a noticeable lack of roadside reflectors. So, I aimed at keeping the grasses a few feet to the right of the car, and that worked out pretty well. Once I got home, Mr. Nivose and I stepped outside for a few minutes to enjoy the snow together.
I really didn't expect it to be snowing this morning. It seems that Fort Collins really likes to play tricks with the snow. It'll start snowing really hard and I'll be excited about lots and lots of snow, then it stops after an hour. That's how things seemed to go last winter. This time it kept snowing into the afternoon, and that has made for a very pleasant day. Mr. Nivose stepped out onto the porch this morning to take pictures, then, when he came back inside, asked if I'd like to go for a walk in the cemetery and take pictures. I was off the couch in a second, getting dressed for the walk. (It turned out that I should have been a little more dressed than I was. An extra layer of pants and mittens instead of gloves would have made for a warmer walk.)
Fall has just started here, so many of the trees still have leaves, and many of those are still green. I think the leaves half covered in snow are quite pretty, so I took a few pictures of them.
I also saw a fox run along the irrigation ditch. It was a little jumpy about the traffic and kept looking back over its shoulder. Thin fox legs always strike me as an interesting contrast to the thick, bushy tail. Mr. Nivose missed the fox since he had wandered in the other direction to take pictures. I tried to get a picture of the fox, but it was too far away for my camera.
We saw several little birds on and under the pine trees in this area of the cemetery. I'm not sure what they were. Chickadees? Nuthatches? The were cute and made funny little bird peeps.
The cottonwoods in the field to the west of out apartment are still turning yellow. They look very sparkly when the sun sets and their leaves flutter in the breeze.
Mr. Nivose and I spent the rest of the day playing board games, and cooking up tasty things to eat and drink. Mom and Dad were supposed to be arriving sometime yesterday to pick up Heidi and Steve at the airport. I haven't heard anything, so I assume everything is going well for the travellers. I think they're all going to be very cold at the football game tomorrow.
-Mrs. Nivose
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