Recovery

After the last two days of crazy weather, I was glad to see the sun for a moment yesterday evening (around 6:30) as it was setting. Even though it doesn't get dark till a bit later, because we are in a valley, the sun "sets" earlier over the mountains. Once we'd had dinner last night I looked out the window and realized that I could actually see BLUE sky.... well, where there were still dark snow clouds here and there, but there was some significant blue around the valley. It had snowed again beginning at noon yesterday and dropped another 4+ inches of snow - all told, we probably got 8 inches that actually stuck.

Looking East, the setting sun lit up the willow tree beautifully. I'm sure it was rather shocked to be covered in snow after spending the last week pushing out delicate little green leaf buds:

I meandered around the back of the house to get a better look at the sunset and saw this ice sickle hanging from the roof of the neighbor's shed, right above the fence:

The back field looked cold and uninhabitable. I know the cows are still out there but they were hiding:

In the time that it took me to get clear around the back of the house, the sun had all but disappeared behind a few dark clouds... There were clearly still some left to blow through before this was over.

Spring had tried to come out a few days ago, and was now covered in an icy blanket.

Even the apple tree, which sends out leaves later than most, had been fooled into showing some green already.

Today was lacking in snowfall and rain, and actually had some intermittent sunshine - enough to get a good start at melting off the snow. Spring was still hiding... I wanted to help, so I made a cake.