Snow! I can hardly keep up with how many times it is snowing this winter. Let’s see: I posted Tuesday morning. There was another hour or so that morning when we had snow coming down, but it melted off quite quickly as the temperatures were going up into the high 30s even as the snow was coming down. So my mud prediction came true that afternoon, and we have all been skidding around (or off!) the roads ever since. (More on that in a moment...)
Then Wednesday morning it snowed again, just an inch or so, very pretty — and that melted off later in the day. Fortunately, overnight Wednesday to Thursday was cold, so the mud all froze, which allowed us here at Happy Camp to go into town without any difficulties yesterday morning. Getting back in the the late afternoon was another matter, however.
Yesterday evening a light rain started up, and sometime overnight that turned into snow. Right now it is steadily snowing, alternating between big fat pretty flakes and smaller flakes that come down faster. But the temperature is exactly 32°, and Alan discovered that the mud under the snow is not frozen at all. It makes an interesting combination of squeaky and slippery. The forecast is for warming and rain today, so more mud coming right up.
About our roads: most of the roads had dried out before this latest snowfall. But there are some spots that are either on the north side of slopes or protected by trees and terrain that have never dried out. And this week those spots have just been chewed up into deep muddy ruts. So we can drive along quite merrily nearly everywhere, and then we have to proceed with extreme caution for 50 or 100 feet — and even then we are sliding nearly off the road. One neighbor did slide off the road here on Jumano Trail near our driveway. It makes a simple trip into town an exciting proposition, and trips that can be delayed for a day or two are skipped altogether. Happily, we are well stocked in hot cocoa essentials, the better for enjoying the wintry scenes outside.