Life at 5,500'

 7:54 am - Saturday - January 10th - TWW - 20° F, humidity 37%, cloud cover 0%, wind 7 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast   high of 44° F.  the view this morning......

....the snow is beginning to melt.  This will be our third day with snow on the ground.

Thursday night got cold quickly.....27° F by 7 pm, and it got down to 19° F before the sun rose Friday morning.  After a below freezing night any melted snow freezes, and the ground becomes more firm making it easy, and less messy to walk around TWW.  While our greenhouse interior got into the high 20's overnight it did not hurt the plants at all.  The reason for that is there is no overnight dew on the plants inside the greenhouse, so there is no frost to damage them.  We're kind of on a learning curve here, horticulturally, and it never occurred to me that below freezing temperatures won't necessarily hurt many plants, unless there is frost on them.  Even TLE's geraniums are doing great....it's the frost that has killed them in the past, not the cold.  Doh!

We had 'wall to wall' sun all day long, however, that was not enough to melt much of the snow as the temp never got above 36° F.  As we edge toward Monday we'll see high temps in the 50's again, and actually reach 62° F on Wednesday and Thursday.  Here's hoping the snow on the ground is gone by then as it is really difficult to do much outdoors when the ground is muddy, and it is really difficult to go in and out of the Newell and not track the mud, and other debris inside.  The result of that is we spend the majority of the day inside, and that is kind of frustrating.  Well, that is life living above 5,500' elevation in the winter.  It could be worse, like the winter we spent at the Grand Canyon when it never got above 17° F for a few weeks, and the wind blew at 25-30 mph all of that time.  Compared to that this is easy.

We spent the day reading, napping, and enjoying the winter wonderland from afar, with occasional forays outdoors just to get outside for a while.  TLE prepared tacos for dinner, and paired them with a Margarita.  I've continually told her for over 54 years that if we had tacos for dinner every night I would never be one bit unhappy.  Of course, that would be kind of boring for her, but not for me....lol!

For our evening entertainment we watched the second semi final NCAA Football playoff game between the Oregon Ducks and the Indiana Hoosiers.  The Ducks turned the ball over three times (1 INT, and 2 fumbles) in the first half resulting in 21 points.  The score at half time was 35-7, and even though they still had another half to play the game was over.  In the second half Indiana blocked a Oregon punt, for another 7 points.  The final score was 56 to 22, and it really wasn't that close. Indiana is playing football at a whole different level than everyone else right now.  Their quarterback (also the Heisman Trophy winner this year) has thrown ONLY 4, or 5 incomplete passes in the last two games, and they have not lost the ball due to a fumble in over 1,100 plays.  So, the Championship Game will be played on January 19th in Florida giving the Hurricanes the 'home field advantage', but I really don't know what kind of an advantage that is when you're opponent is Indiana.  But you never know, do you?  That is why they play the games.

Thanks for stopping by!