Snow Fun (and a little work, too!)

What a great weekend it has been! Thanks to the snow day we had on Thursday, I enjoyed four days off of school! Pretty awesome. Even though the temperatures were pretty chilly most of the past four days, Jeff and I still managed to get outside and have some fun recreating in the snow. Today, the warmest day, has made it up to 16 degrees at my house with NO WIND and the first SUNSHINE we've had in a while! I tell you what, the flat light and cloudiness has been a downer. I would struggle to live west of the mountains where that's the norm this time of year. So nice to see the SUN today! :)

This weekend's adventures included snowshoeing the tree rows in my yard (Thursday), cross-country skiing the ditches with Jeff (Friday and Saturday), and a brisk jog on the snow-covered gravel road today. I took a few photos here and there.

Twice I also helped Jeff with cow-feeding chores over at Tom and Carol's place. So, there's just a few photos of that too.

 The first group of photos are from my snowshoeing adventure. The sun peeked out for just a bit that afternoon, so I did nab a silhouette photo:

Where we live, we don't get nearly as much snow as other parts of the state. When we do get snow, it typically blows sideways and doesn't make much ground cover. It's only thanks to our tree rows that I'm ever able to snowshoe at my house. The trees catch the snow and keep it from blowing away. When the wind is blowing, as it was on Thursday, this is the place to be anyway because you're more protected. 

Walking in my own snowshoe tracks among the carigana.

I basically just made laps up and down in the tree rows for about a half hour. It was pretty cold-- single digits-- and pretty windy. Half an hour was plenty, but still so great to get out and get the heart pumping! 

 One of my favorite things about fresh snow is that you can see all the animal tracks and signs. Grouse have been numerous in our yard since it got cold. Their tracks are everywhere! I also noticed what looks like markings made by their wings in the snow. From takeoff? or landing? Pretty cool!

 I love this old thresher! It sits protected from the wind behind some grain bins.

 Harvey had a great time tromping through the snow with me, too! He sniffed and tracked a whole bunch of grouse and really seemed to enjoy himself! Even with his short coat, he moves so much and runs and plays so he seems to stay warm enough.

Harvey, taking my path instead of creating his own. :)

I didn't take any photos of our skiing adventures in the ditch for several reasons. I'm not the world's greatest Nordic skier so I was concentrating mightily on simply staying upright. The snow surface of the ditch was pretty icy. There certainly wasn't a nice two-track or anything, and we couldn't cut one because it was crusted over. Again, it was pretty cold but we were bundled up and moving around so it didn't seem too bad. We did about two miles on Friday and probably 3.5 on Saturday. The light was so flat that it was really hard to see the surface of the snow we were skiing on to notice the dips and rolls of the crusted surface. Tough going, but still lots of fun!

 Finally this morning the sun came out! 

 When I helped Jeff with chores it was again in single digits but with the sunshine and no wind, it felt so much warmer!!! I never did get cold outside!

When I took this next photo, I was just focused on the pattern of the tractor tire track in the snow. It wasn't until now that I noticed the bunny track within the tire track! Happy accidents. :)  I like the juxtaposition of scale between the bunny tracks and the tire markings. Also interesting to note that one track was created by man and machine, while the other by an animal.

Harvey "helped" with chores!

 Jeff operated the tractor while I swung gates and cut twine outside. I like this picture because it shows how the snow drifts up and the tractor cuts tracks through the drifts. You can see how deep it was in places.

Cows munching on some fresh straw! Gotta love a red cow in the sunshine! :)

 Jeff unrolls the bales with the tractor and the cows fill in behind him and start eating. We fed two hay bales and also brought two straw bales into the pen; one was for bedding and the other we put in the feeder for them to munch on. Also, a "peak" (harhar!) of the Sweetgrass Hills in the background!

On to today's run! I actually haven't run in two weeks, which is the longest I've gone without running in quite some time. With travel to Glacier and my family's visit, followed by feeling pretty down and out with fever and a nasty cold, I just haven't been out to run. I decided to test the waters today with an easy two mile jog, accompanied by Harvey and Abby, of course! It would have been so easy to hop on the treadmill today, but with the sun shining and no wind, it was so much better to head outside!

 The run went well. I felt like could have done more.  I'm excited the days are getting longer again and looking forward to some evening jogs after work, hopefully soon!

Another shot of animal tracks! After my jog, I walked out to our grain bins to take a look at the traffic patterns. No person has been over here since it snowed, so what you're seeing is entirely created by animals! Mostly grouse and jackrabbits. They come into the yard because it's protected, and also because they can eat grain that spills ever so slightly out of the bins. Just look at all those tracks! Also, can you spot Harvey?

This week is supposed to be warmer and warmer every day. I'm looking forward to jogging outside at least once. And, even though it was nice to have extra time off of school and to ease back in last week with an abbreviated week, I'm also looking forward to getting back into routine and spending time with the kids I work with.

How was your weekend? Did you get outside?!?