Digging into February

[thistlebloom]

Now that we're here in February I thought we could use a new weather thread to complain on. Haha.

@digitS' commented on what I was occupied with and he was pretty close, the animal chores in winter are more time consuming, but I haven't devoured anymore ex cords with the snowblower lately, thanks to there not being any fresh snow for a few weeks.
And yes @Gardening with Rabbits you can still see the top of the house!
Boy we sure got a lot of snow yesterday and today though, and last time I looked it was still snowing. We shoveled and blew and plowed for a couple of hours this morning and tomorrow will be a repeat performance. We've had over a foot at my house from this storm.

This what we look like today. That red thing is my summer sink, and on the right is my picket garden. The ladder is for getting up to clear the snow off the dish - our link to civilization.
My blueberry barrels are somewhere under the mountain of snow on the left.


Personally I'm enjoying the winter, and even all this extra new snow. I know a lot of folks struggle with it, and I feel for them, but spring will get here when it gets here and that will be the end of my leisure, and craziness will rule the day.

Out the back door.


What I've been doing along with some other projects. Big paint day next Saturday!


I picked these for winter reading. I've read 11 so far. @baymule would enjoy the one I'm currently reading "Crowded in the Middle of Nowhere" by Dr. Bo Brock, a vet in west Texas. I've had some good laughs from that one.

 

[lcertuche]

We are currently 41F with the high predicted of 61 today. It's suppose to be in the high 60's to low 70's all week. Time to start thinking about getting cole plants started. We had one snow a few weeks ago. A whole two inches, lol but then this is Arkansas.

 

[Carol Dee]

We have had VERY LITTLe in the way of snow this winter, fine by me. Kids are not as happy

 

[Ridgerunner]

So far I've seen snow once, about an inch that soon disappeared. It was gone before I had to drive in it, perfect. But winter is not over, I usually see more snow in February or March than earlier.

We've been on our usual roller coaster. Last weekend when I hatched a bunch of chicks the highs were in the 30's or 40's with lows below freezing. Then it was fairly nice outside, warming up so I
could work on the area I'll plant my cool-weather crops: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, peas, beets, carrots, turnips, and who knows what I'm forgetting. I still have a couple of days of work left to prepare the ground, I'll probably start those toward the end of this month. I have kale, chard, and celeriac started inside, those will go out as soon as they are big enough.

The last three days it's been raw outside, back in the 30's and 40's during the day with wind, the wind is what made it raw, and below freezing at night. The next few days will be in the 60's and 70's (possibly some rain), then it will cool back down. I still have six chickens from a late hatch that I need to put in the freezer, I plan to do that tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on whether possible thunderstorms hit. Then it cools back down some. I'm hoping for the rain, we've been unusually dry. I should not be able to get out in the garden this time of year, it should be too wet. It's not wet and that's worrying.

I have all my pruning done except for peach trees and one red maple cultivar in the front yard, I keep forgetting about that one. I need to cut the sprouts off from below the graft. With out warmer spells it's starting to look like I might have a repeat of last year where the plum and peach trees bloomed early and then got hit by a hard frost that wiped out the crop. The frost wasn't early, the warm weather that caused the trees to break dormancy was.

 

[so lucky]

We haven't had enough snow to cover the ground this season. Yet. Some of our biggest snow storms have happened in February, so I expect some rough weather yet. At least it's cold now, but now bitterly so.

 

[thistlebloom]

We are above 30 now but I'm not sure how much because my thermometers don't agree and I don't trust either of them.
But apparently it's raining because the roof is dripping madly and the paths in the snow are filling with mush. Oh joy.
Haven't been out yet, but I sure am glad we did all the clearing we could yesterday because now it's going to be a heavy soggy mess.

 

[Ridgerunner]

We are above 30 now but I'm not sure how much because my thermometers don't agree and I don't trust either of them.
But apparently it's raining because the roof is dripping madly and the paths in the snow are filling with mush. Oh joy.
Haven't been out yet, but I sure am glad we did all the clearing we could yesterday because now it's going to be a heavy soggy mess.

Ain't snow grand!!!!!

 

[thistlebloom]

Ain't snow grand!!!!!

Haha! Well yes it is Ridge, it's the blasted rain that messes things up.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Especially a freezing rain.

 

[digitS']

I somewhat enjoyed all the snow shoveling, yesterday. It sure is more interesting exercise than just walking around in the house! I was able to have conversations with 2 neighbors. The kids across the road were out with their parents and made quite a big deal outta the entire snow removal bit

The Weather Service had some information on the actual amount of weight a person removes from an average driveway with his or her shovel. It was literally a ton with the snow that had fallen.

If it warms and rains very much, we will have a terrible mess! A couple of weeks ago, we went thru something like that but it was so brief that, at least personally, I wasn't much inconvenienced. The cold weather came right back. At some point, we won't be so lucky . Flooding is a real possibility but it would be disappointing if there are strong winds and so much of the moisture is carried away. Selfish with the water? Yes. I don't want it to rush quickly out to sea or blow over the mountain! Fortunately, it snowed early enough and deep enough that the soil is just barely frozen under all that insulating snow. Here are ♪ ♫ your morning soil temperatures ♪ ♫ for much of North America from the Farm Bureau - link. I just looked specifically at WA State University Ag temperatures and at 8", not one station in the state was below 30°f. That's a good sign.

Steve