Gettin' Ready for Winter

Mike has been on the roof a lot lately.

He replaced screws that last winters snow load removed.

He fiddled around with the chimney, cleaned the stovepipe and such

and he added 'snow-brakes' to the dormers to hold the snow on the roof

for insulation and mostly because when the snow builds up on the dormers

it holds there a long time and then when it comes off it damages the lower roof

And feels like an earthquake.

This way, perhaps it will just melt.

The fun thing is that Fajoul, the kitty, loves to join him on the roof!

She climbs that ladder and gets onto the roof and then climbs the roof ladder and walks about.

He tries to keep her off, but she just loves it.

Bright in the Blizzard

So, yeah!

How do you like my outfit?

I won first place in the costume contest for this "get-up".

I was in charge of Crazy Days, I kept hearing people say,

"if Michelle is on charge, why isn't she here today"?

Then I would speak and they would recognize my voice....

it was hilarious.

We had a snaffu with lift operations late in the day and had to evacuate the passengers, I was wearing this while belaying people from the chairlift!

Noone seemed concerned.

Anyone out there recognize where this fine ensemble may have come from?

January Thaw

 This foto does not capture the magnitude of the icy-ness of the road.

Not only was it glare ice, but it had just a trickle of water on top so that walking was an amazing feat.

 I was gone to Seattle for the week, so I missed the sub-zero temps and then the nice fluffy snow.

I came home to the thaw.

It warmed up and rained and rained and rained and rained.

It was a hard pelting rain, not just some winter drizzle, turning snow into soft sloppiness

 and the packed snow into ice.

It apparently warmed up enough to make this bear think it was spring.

 His trackes were spotted all over the neighborhood, but he stopped for quite awhile at the BarbErics.

He nosed around the suet that they had out for the birds and he nosed around the chicken coop.

When Barb walked down to borrow the phone to call Fish and Game, Eric was having a stand-off with him near the chicken house, whacking him on the nose with a ski pole.

He mostly just seemed like he wanted to take a nap.

He was VERY lethargic.

By the time FW&P arrived, he had wandered off,

hopefully to a new den where he could nap in peace.