T'was the Weekend Before Beltaine . . .

. . . Beltaine, the May cross-quarter day and the traditional beginning of summer in the old calendar. And here's what we awoke to . . .







Wet, windy snowfall on Friday morning . . .











Sunday morning, May 2, for crying out loud!
And the Cross-quarter is on Wednesday, May 5.

Maybe this year we will change the name of Sedillo Hill to "Never Summer Hill.











Snow on the rocks and the Agave.
I've seen it flurry here in May, and even June.
But stick?

It must be the Icelandic Volcano.

And maybe this is why although traditional summer begins in early May, meteorlogical summer does not begin until June 1.

That darn volcano--it put more stuff into the atmosphere in a few days than all the hippy-dippy yuppies and their Priuses and string grocery bags took out over the past 5.

Sigh. Anybody got any ideas for Volcano cap and tax?

Spring Doesn't Quite Begin in March . . .

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

. . . Or at least, March does not begin with spring. The Purim Full moon happened Sunday night to Monday morning, and with it came another round of snow. This time, light and fluffy.

The full moonset from the bedroom patio, while it was still fair dark . . .

















Later, I am barely in time to take a picture of the Adar Moon as it begins to slip behind the snow covered Pinyon and Juniper on Los Pecos Loop during the early morning dog walk.

Although it had snowed, the clouds hiding most of South Mountain in the pre-dawn twilight look like the rain-filled clouds of spring and summer. The snow covering the road is soft and slippery. It is barely below freezing and destined to be gone soon.










A February fog fills the Mountain Valley, even though March has just (barely) begun. The evidence of the changing season is subtly there for us, as we walk the meadow in the early morn.

Clouds lit by the sun that is still below the horizon have the look of spring rains rather than the late winter snow they had brought us.

It has been a long, snowy winter. The snow that came to cover the ground on December 7th melted back, but did not depart and we have had many a storm since then.

We have now had at least partial snow-cover for three months.

But on the new calendar, spring does begin in March. And today it is 50 degrees and the sky is blue, even though there is still a good 4-5 inches on the ground under the trees and in the north lee of the hills. The solar angle is perceptibly higher. Winter's grip must loosen at last, and the warmth will come again.

First Snows in October

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

In the flurry of preparations for voting and now for attending the Continental Congress 2009, I have neglected Nearly Wordless Wednesday terribly. This week, mother nature, courtesy of El Nino-Southern Oscillation has provided first snows, and early to boot!

The very first snowfall that actually stuck to the ground in Sedillo this year came on Monday morning.

Here, tree stump and century plant alike are decorated by the dusting of snow.

On our moring walk, we could see the house from Los Pecos Loop, likewise sprinkled on top with a powdering of the white stuff. The trees show a very light frosting as well.

It was all gone by mid-morning Monday, and the sun warmed the porch, but a chill north wind was the harbinger of the cold front to come.

Tuesday dawned clear and sunny, but a steady west wind carried the cold front through, and by late afternoon, the unsettled clouds came across the Sandia Front. Last night, we saw a ring around the moon.

Very early this morning, I took Lily out --poor thing had an unsettled stomach--and I saw a glow of white over the mountains, as the lights of Albuquerque reflected off the descending clouds. The snow started a few hours later, when we rose to begin the day. By 7:30 AM, the driveway was covered. The Engineering Geek barely got the truck up the drive. He drove the car into town, as it has new snow tires on the drive wheels.

As the large white flakes fell, quickly covering Sedillo with three inches of snow, the Boychick got a few rounds off as he practiced against the target with his new rifle.

The rule is no school until the snowplow comes. I have yet to see it. The county was probably caught unprepared this time, even though we heard yesterday that we could have snow. Our road to "Ye Olde 66" is both windy and has some relatively steep grades (5-6%) and is treacherous in the unplowed state. And Albuquerque drivers are problematic in the rain and positively dangerous in the snow. Mixed snow and rain does not bear even thinking about down there!

The clouds lifted a bit mid-morning, and currently we are seeing sprinkles of snow, but we expect to get two more inches of new snow by evening, bringing our total to 5 inches.

And now the question of the hour: Whatever happened to Global Warming?

This is a very early first significant snowstorm for our laditude even given our altitude!

The climate change gurus rely too heavily on climate models which currently cannot even predict the cyclical El Nino (ENSO), which changes our weather every four years approximately. In addition, those models do not take into account sunspot activity, which has a great influence on global weather.

Geologists tend to see things differently, taking into account what we know from paleoclimate reconstructions. The recent warming was a tiny blip on the graph of global temperature, lasting less than half the time of the Medieval Warm Period. And the Medieval Warm Period saw temperatures that were significantly higher than those we saw during the recent warming. The recent warming may not be climate change at all, and certainly does not of itself portend global disaster. Rather, it may be part and parcel of the North American 50-year drought cycle, or another oscillation in the Little Ice Age. It is almost certainly an affect of solar cycles as well.

In the meantime, break out the skis! Looks like we'll have a good snowpack this year.

A Sculptured Landscape

WALK WITH ME WEDNESDAY

I haven't done a Walk With Me Wednesday in a very long time. Today is the perfect day. We had time for a long rambling walk in the snowy sunrise, and the snow and wind had done its work to make a sculptured landscape, sparkling like diamonds.

As we set out, the sun shone on the Sandia Mountain Front, but the clouds heralding the coming of the next storm were already coming across.

In the sunrise, the work of the wind and cold on the pristine snowfall was striking. The sharp cold overnight had preserved the wind's artistry on the new road.

The bare gravel on the edge of hill is contrasted by the deep snow at the bottom. The wind had playfully moved the snow from one place to another, and yesterday's footprints on the hillside were drifted in, but todays were already frozen in place on the road.

In the meadow, last summer's grass stands above the frozen drifts that sparkle in the sun and undulate as the blue shadows move in the morning sun. We are cold, but reluctant to leave this winter garden in which every turn gives new delight to the eye.










But breakfast awaits for the dogs, and coffee and hot chocolate are warming inside.


There is much to be done today, as the whispy harbingers of tomorrow's new storm are already drifting across the sky above the house.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

The night we missed the eclipse (for the most part), we took the dogs out for a walk and we could smell moisture in the air.
But it was 45 degrees. So we left the vehicles down the driveway, the boots on the porch, and we went to bed.

Imagine our surprise when we went outside yesterday morning.

The newspaper told the whole story.

A wet, snow about an inch deep over everything, and as we cleared the windows on the truck and car, it started snowing some more.

And of course, the wind was such that the boots and shoes left on the rug by the door were covered.

I walked the dogs in pink walking shoes, my jeans tucked inside my wool socks to keep the hems dry.

Before the walk, I put the step-stool in front of the pellet stove, and the boots were laid out on the step-stool so that the high tops were pointing directly toward the heating draft. Maybe I'd have dry boots for the noon walk.

It was a cold, blustery day, with winds and clouds and more snow showers off and on throughout the morning and afternoon.

Sometimes we got some week sunshine, as you can see on the Adirondack rockers.

They look so--well incongruous--covered in snow.

Our front porch looked like a resort cottage closed for the season.

The snow was beautiful, and we do need the precipitation. But is was hard, hard coming on the heels of a few warm days. Ah, well, February, I always say is a changeling.

Last night we got a light dusting as I was driving home from my late class, but the moon was shining by the time I went to bed.

This morning, the barometer was still low and the clouds were pink and moving swiftly in the dawn sky.

Now it is sleeting and snowing again, a sort of "frozen mix" of all that February can offer.

Just to remind us that it is not spring. Not yet. Winter has a few more tricks up her sleeve.

Well, it's a good night for a hot Shabbat bath.

Shabbat Shalom!

Winter is Coming!

Saturday as I was walking the dogs, I saw a Southern Rocky Mountain Junco sitting in the pine near the swingset. It was singing, "Winter is coming! Winter is coming!" These birds come down from Colorado at the beginning of the winter season. That evening, when I took the dogs for their pre-bedtime walk, there was a ring around the waxing moon. It was 55 degrees and warm. "What winter?" I wondered.

But this morning as the sun rose, altocumulous clouds blew rapidly across the sky. Definitely the sign of an upper level disturbance and weather coming in. It was 36 degrees just before dawn, but by 9 AM it was only 31. Today the temperature never rose above 36.

This afternoon, as MLC and drove over the mountain to Sandia Mountain Ranch to look at a house on the Parade of Homes, we noticed low cumulonimbus clouds sweeping across the plains of Estancia. "Looks like snow," we both said together. And it was. A few hours later, back home, I caught the picture above as the snow fell around the swing set.

It had been snowing rapidly as we looked through a house over on Sedillo Hill. As we drove home, we saw the deer heading for the woods.

And then one, two, and many white flakes came out from the clouds, feathering down past the still bright leaves on the scrub oak above the driveway.

I stepped out the french doors to the back patio to catch this picture on my camera. Here I used the sports photography setting to catch moving objects. The timing makes the snowflakes look like white threads falling past the clearstory window.

The Aspen tree, so gold last week and now faded to brown, is reflected in the glass.

A few more good days of wind and those leaves will be gone!

Funny thing, but the last time we had snow showers was in early May, at Lag b'Omer, when MLC ran the 5K Run for the Zoo race. She ran in a sweatshirt in May, on a blustery morning with clouds racing across the sky. We saw the last snow showers of the season that afternoon

Today she ran the Duke City Marathon on a blustery morning. And lo, and behold! The first snow showers of the season.

This evening, it snowed some more while we ate dinner. And when I took the dogs out for their last walk it was 31 degrees. A dusting of snow covered our metal roof, the car tops and the grill. There was a ring around the moon and to the west I saw more snow clouds making their way up the valley.

Winter is coming!