The Road Home

Inversion’s End

A low deck of stratus casting gloom over the valley = Inversion. It has both beauty and some ugly. An inversion keeps it cold and damp underneath, while above the sun is shining under a clear blue sky and the air is dry. But sometimes in the underneath we have freezing fog, hoar frost or some other such thing which can be beautiful. This weekend it was seeing Inversion’s End that made up for living under the clouds.

The inversion ended north of the valley and the sun tantalized those of us south by showing itself on a range of mountains not under the low deck. Saturday night, this same range glowed orangish-pink in glorious alpenglow.

This is one of those “you have to be there moments” – I don’t believe it is possible to capture the feeling of the entire valley being under low, gray clouds and then seeing a bit of mountain lit up as if by a giant spotlight. These photos are just a glimpse of the eery-beautiful light.

Inversion’s End.

Links to previous Inversion posts:
Road Home Inversion

On top of the Inversion

Frosted Farm

Keeping the peace

Now that we have snow…and enough that remnants from porch roof, sidewalk and driveway have created mounds here and there, Karl takes up position in a strategic spot that affords him the best view of his territory.

There is a herd of elk that stay in the area during the winter months as well as deer. Occassionally we see a coyote and even more rare are mountain lion tracks. Where the food is the predators will follow but primarily it is deer and elk that cross the property.

But all must be kept at a distance so the alarm sounds now and again.

There, that should do it!

Keeping the peace.

Morning sparkle

Wayfarer’s walk

From the top of the walk at Wayfarer’s Park by Flathead Lake.

Temperature was just above freezing at 33F, no wind.

And no one in the park but Karl and I.

The agony of defeat

That is the snowthrower in that trailer. It is going off to Big John’s.

The auger stopped augering on Thanksgiving Eve. I had a spare auger belt. The directions didn’t look bad and I have tools, can read, have done plenty of repairing/servicing of stuff. But, in recent years, Big John’s has been my go to place for home equipment as they pick up, service and deliver for a price so low it is hard to understand how they are making any money. But…it was Thanksgiving and snowing and forecast to snow more and I had all I needed so I began.

My first hurdle was getting the new belt on. I finally realized that at 15F, a rubber belt was going to have less give than normal and maybe warming it up would help. Also, it was getting dark. The belt spent the night in the house.

Friday, I got the belt on. I fired up the thrower. It started marching out of the garage on its own. I didn’t try the auger.

I have a work deadline to meet. I already had a couple of hours in the thrower. Discretion…valor, etc. – I made the call to Big John’s. Adding to the agony, I had to include a note about working on it. The good news is that it may be the source of amusement to whoever draws my thrower to work on. Laughter is good for the soul!

Meantime, the temperature rose above freezing. Three – four more inches of heavy wet snow has fallen. The snow and needles have come down off the trees in shuddering avalanches – sometimes on the roof of the house sounding a bit like the entire tree came with. It is a mess. It does this every year!…a VERY cold spell, a foot of snow and then a warm up.

Now, it is forecast to get cold again and more snow on top of slush that will freeze. Somehow it works out and looks beautiful again but at the moment not so much.

Although some long days this week on this project push, it has been a very good week. Hope yours has been as well – Happy Friday!