Springtime in the Rocky Mountains

:o
Okay, I'll stop complaining about our late snow storms!  They look pretty piddly by comparison!  ;D

Holy Molly!! That was a lot of work! My hats off too you!!

The snow packs in the Sierras are good too this year. High elevation stations are reporting from 8 -24 feet today.

Seems you over there have got all the snow this winter. Here the ski resorts are afraid the snow won't last all the Easter ;)
We are heading for our mountain cabin on Monday and reports tell that it is very little snow there. Maybe we get problems finding some to ski on :o

Yep, that's a lotta snow! I do not envy you moving all that! How extensive is the area you actually have to keep clear all winter?
After the non-stop shovelling this year, I am thinking we need to try very hard to get a snow-blower for next winter, but the sort that would be really useful are rather beyond my budget...lol.. however, 5 months of shovelling ( so far) and getting firewood (okay, that's probably at least 8 months...) have me worn out! Not sure if I have anything left in me for digging gardens!!

cohan wrote:

Yep, that's a lotta snow! I do not envy you moving all that! How extensive is the area you actually have to keep clear all winter?
After the non-stop shovelling this year, I am thinking we need to try very hard to get a snow-blower for next winter, but the sort that would be really useful are rather beyond my budget...lol.. however, 5 months of shovelling ( so far) and getting firewood (okay, that's probably at least 8 months...) have me worn out! Not sure if I have anything left in me for digging gardens!!

Worn out, Cohan?? I thought you had developed huge shoveling and digging muscles ;D

Hoy wrote:

Worn out, Cohan?? I thought you had developed huge shoveling and digging muscles ;D

It doesn't seem so, just lots of sore tendons....lol..actually, a few days back I was shovelling wet half melted snow away from the edge of the driveway, so it would not feed the mud/puddles, and that was truly brutal.. so glad we have dry snow most of the year..

I have "huge" shoveling & digging muscles -- that is, for a gray-haired, 65-year-old gardener!  We could easily borrow our neighbor's snow thrower.  He's offered it several times.  However, Klaus likes to remove the snow from our driveway right down to the asphalt paving so the sun will melt any thin layer left behind and will also warm the driveway to aid in the melting of future increments of snow.

In the garden, which we don't open until mid-March or early April, the paths are narrow and winding.  It would be more difficult to wield a powered snow thrower through there than to shovel them by hand.  Also, I start at the the driveway in a berm of shoveled snow that's usually ten feet high.  I have to first break through that compacted berm and then the snow is a mere 4 to 5 feet deep in the rest of the garden.  No snow thrower could bust through that berm -- not even a plow blade mounted on a pickup truck!

A standard snow shovel isn't strong enough to bust through the hardpacked snow.  We each have a heavy, D-handled, flat-bladed, steel garden spade.  We started out with a traditional ice-chopper that looks like a hoe that's not bent at the end.  It didn't last through the first winter.  Of course, in the middle of a winter like ours, you can't get replacement implements like ice-choppers and even snow shovels -- all sold out!  So I grabbed gardening tools and tried each one until I settled on the flat-bladed spade.  It cuts through that hardpacked snow like a hot knife through butter!!

We have to be careful when clearing the garden paths because volunteers of desirable species like to set up camp in the gravel outside the safety of the rocked beds -- another reason why we shovel by hand.  The last reason is -- are you sitting down, Cohan? -- it's FUN!  The sky is cerulean blue, the air is crisp and cool,the only sounds are the birds singing in the trees, and hot coffee and tea are just steps away from the work site in a warm & cozy kitchen.  I get a complete workout and feel no guilt about finishing off my dinner with a bowl of chocolate ice cream!

Jane wrote:

I have "huge" shoveling & digging muscles -- that is, for a gray-haired, 65-year-old gardener!  We could easily borrow our neighbor's snow thrower. 

Good for you! I have a 60m drive I clear by hand and intend to continue as long as I can - we use what we call a "snøskuffe" (snow shover) http://www.bad.no/sitefiles/site54/shop/snorydder-stor-modell-nr-9088-fiskars4.jpg
Do you have these?

Stephenb wrote:

we use what we call a "snøskuffe" (snow shover) http://www.bad.no/sitefiles/site54/shop/snorydder-stor-modell-nr-9088-fiskars4.jpg
Do you have these?

Oh, yes, that is standard equipment across the Canadian prairies!  (In the city, though, sidewalks are supposed to be cleaned down to the concrete - snow shovel work - so the big scoop is not so useful for us.)

I've seen that implement but it wouldn't work for us because even if we could push our snow across our driveway, when we would get to the edge, we would have no place to store the snow after the first storm.  The driveway would become narrower as our 8-month winter progressed.  In fact, the worst part about hand-shoveling for us is when the storage piles get so high that new snow thrown upon them rolls back down at us and hits us in the back, on the head or falls into our nicely-cleared path!  Part of the shoveling process ultimately entails carrying each shoveful up to 75 linear feet where there may still be a place to dump more snow.  And repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat.  After 6 hours of this type of shoveling, interrupted only by an hour for lunch, I not only have achieved my "aerobic exercise" quota for the week but also my "strength training" and I will have "hiked" the equivalent of several miles, albeit on level ground.

In snow years like this one, I have to climb up to the top of the 10-foot-high snow piles and cut off several feet at their tops so we can throw up more snow from forecast future snowstorms.

No snowblower here either, although that's not saying much.  We had ninety inches of snow this winter, I think the sixth snowiest on record, and I too walk shoveled snow down the road.  However, it's not because I have to: no man-made  10 foot piles here.  I do it so I don't have high piles that cause drifting of more snow that I would need to remove. 

I can't imagine the drifting you must get, Jane!

Very impressive, Jane! A 6 hour day I hope is only during your opening up season? With two of us shovelling like mad people (my friend refuses to do anything at a reasonable pace, and I have to keep up!), we  usually wrap up in 90 minutes to a couple of hours, and after that I hardly want to go to work..lol
I actually don't mind shovelling snow,normally,  it has just seemed very relentless this year--not huge amounts at a time, but we need to shovel whenever there are a few inches, or it will get packed and rutted and be much worse..
I've never measured the distance we keep clear, would be interesting to do-- a wild guess maybe 100m of driveway ( I could be over or under) though about 1/3 we don't clear every time (nearly though) as its less used.. that includes parking area, which is extra wide with room for turning around, also extra wide at the mouth of the gravel road for turning in.. then a dog run area for my mom's dog, a half dozen paths to various parts of the property, from 10 to maybe 50 metres long, a couple of areas where woodcutting is done, the area around the mailbox on the road, so the mail carrier can pull in and out without getting stuck! and occasionally my mother's roof..
Now that there is melting, we have to go back and do extra shovelling around the driveway to reduce melting onto the drive causing mud troubles.. We are just about exactly at the 5 month mark for lasting snow this winter...
5cm forecast for tonight-- I'm hoping it stays under the shovelling threshold  ;D Now if it would warm up enough that I don't have to cut firewood...lol (I should be doing that in the summer, but then there'd be no time for gardening at all!)

These shots show part of the driveway, and part of one of the paths in early january..interesting how low the snowpiles look compared to now...lol.. still nothing like Jane's, fortunately :)

Cohan, you get mail delivery?  Wow!  No one in the Breckenridge area has the "luxury" of mail delivery.  Everyone has to go to the post office in town and get it from his or her post office box.  It's a 10-mile round trip for us down a steep, winding road.  We alternate with our neighbor.  We have her PO Box key and she has ours.  We usually make just one trip a week to town to resupply with groceries (fresh stuff).  Our neighbor goes to church on Sunday and sometimes makes a second trip during the week so we might get our mail 3 times a week if we're lucky.  During this month, our neighbor is on vacation so we are picking up her mail and getting ours just once a week.

You have a long driveway to maintain.  90 minutes to a couple of hours times two isn't too bad but working that hard under pressure could have a negative impact on you.  Klaus and I work steadily but we don't push ourselves to exhaustion.  The 6-hour day is one of several of that duration in order to open the garden paths for the first time.  Then, when it snows on those shoveled paths, it's been taking me about an hour to reestablish them.  Klaus takes care of our two decks, the stairs, the driveway, the walkway to the utility box and the roof.  It takes him between one and two hours to reshovel the driveway when we get 10 inches or more of new snow. 

I still have two more garden areas to open up but today we decided to take a break from snow shoveling and have our first cookout of 2011 -- a hotdog roast.  It was sunny as a got things ready in the kitchen but then the clouds rolled in.  Below are photos of Klaus and me cooking hot dogs over our first fire of the year.  The green house is our next door neighbor's.  You can usually see the 12,000-foot-plus snow-covered peaks of the Tenmile Range behind that house but the cloud cover was low this afternoon.

In the last photo, Klaus is finishing his last hot dog as the snow is starting to come down.  It was about +32F (0C) at 1 p.m. today.  After we ate, I went snowshoeing and cut down an 8-inch-diameter dead spruce tree that was blocking one of our trails.  Also saw pine marten and red fox tracks in our back yard.

Jane, I really am impressed by your "snow-work"! When we are at our cabin in the mountains wintertime I have to clear snow from the entrance and make paths to use when we move around the cabin. And I really like it! - for a short while. I have found garden spades to be useful when the snow is hardpacked but use a broad bladed light spade when the snow is light and dry.

The type Stephen showed I use when I remove snow from the roof!

Have you made your fireplace that tall so you don't need to bend or is it to find it in the deep snow?
We often cook outdoors in winter - more often when our daughters were younger but we usually do it when we are away from the cabin on a hike.

LOL Jane, for many years, I had to pay to not get my mail delivered, too.  (For those who don't know, you are still forced to pay for a post office box!)

That's exactly right, Trond.  It's uncomfortable to crouch down around a fire while cooking meat on a hot dog stick.  People do it when camping because they usually have no other option.  Klaus built that fireplace from leftover rock that I had collected for my raised beds.  And, yes, being several feet above the ground does make it easy to find in the deep snow of April when it's usually pleasant enough to have our first hot dog roast.

There is a shovel like one you pictured at a public cross-country ski cabin about a mile from our house.  Neither Klaus nor I would be able to handle that shovel when it's loaded with snow.  It just holds too much, and, in our enthusiasm to be as efficient as possible when shoveling our areas, we would tend to load the shovel with more weight than it would be prudent for either of us to handle.  So we use a lightweight, plastic-blade shovel -- and mine holds even less than Klaus's (so I can't "kill" myself).  But sometimes we dislodge large blocks of compacted snow and then we just pick them up with our hands and carry them to a snow deposition area.  If our winter were longer than it is (Heaven forbid!), we could build an igloo from those snow blocks!

Rick, we could have a free post office box if we asked for one.  Because our whole area doesn't have home delivery, the U. S. Post Office must provide a free box to each residence.  The free box is the smallest size unless none is available.  Then the post office has to give you the next larger size for free.  If the mail you get exceeds the capacity of your box (whether you pay for your box or not) 20 days out of 30, you will have to pick up the excess mail at the counter and pay a "counter fee" of $800 per year!!!  Outrageous!  Since we don't get to town that often, to avoid that penalty, both we and our neighbor have larger boxes that we pay for.

It's not easy to pick up our mail.  Our post office is small and it shares the lot with a grocery and liquor store.  There are only about 15 parking spaces and they are used by customers of those two stores as well as by post office patrons.  During ski season (November through April), our 3,000-person town swells to 25,000.  It is often not possible to find a parking space anywhere near the post office, not just in front of it.  Sometimes I get out and pick up our and the neighbor's mail while Klaus circles the block.  I have to look through both stacks of mail before I leave the post office because very often there is misdirected mail and, if I don't leave it at the post office, the correct recipient won't get it until our next trip down to town -- in another week. Also, there may be a "pink slip" in either of the two stacks, which means I have to stand in line at the counter to retrieve a package that won't fit in our post office boxes.  Meanwhile, Klaus is still circling the block, wondering if I've been kidnapped!

Boy, using the internet today is an endurance event...lol--the connection I have (for laptop or pc) using smartphone networks, our fastest option out here, but can be spotty, usually not too bad, but horrible today--connect/disconnect, connect/disconnect.... if I weren't mostly editing photos, I'd have given up long ago-- in a couple of hours, I have sent one email, and read this one thread on the forum--we'll see how long it takes to send this....

Congrats on the first cook-out :)
After a long winter, we need some sign of change--longer days, bare ground, something!..lol Our day length is now 14hours, up from 7.5 at midwinter--which seems funny, since after fresh snow again last night, it still looks like mid-winter out there!!

We have always (in my remembered lifetime, so since early 70's at least) had mail delivery out here, mon-friday.. the mailboxes are dotted along all/most of the rural roads, though not everyone gets to put the box right in front of their place-- I guess the carriers don't go down some roads, so people have to put their mailbox at the nearest intersection..
Luckily we don't have to go to town for it, since our post office is in a small town 11 miles away (so would be a 22 mile round trip)--and we almost never have any reason to go to that town (we work and shop in completely different towns)! Occasionally there are parcels too big or delicate or requiring signature or something (though occasionally the carrier will drive into the yard to see if there is someone to sign!)  to leave in the box, and then we get a notice and have to go to town pick it up.. None of this costs us anything. If it's any consolation to you U.S. folks, your mailing costs seem very cheap! So I guess you pay less to send but more to receive.... I pay nothing to receive, but sending things is pricier...
The post office used to be in the even smaller town 5 miles away that is still the name in my address, but it was closed, as was everything else except the elementary school.. ironically, there are more people living there now, but most of the hamlets have lost what few businesses they had when I was little, as cars and roads have got better, and everyone goes to bigger towns to shop..

We have one wide plastic shovel meant for pushing, though we still do have to lift it to an extent, a smaller one mainly for scooping/throwing, and a huge heavy metal 'scoop shovel' (also used in farming days for shovelling manure!) which I use sometimes in spring for moving wet/heavy/icey snow that would break the plastic....

My mountains, not the Rockies!

This Easter I haven't needed to shovel any snow here at the cabin! Usually I have to dig down at least 1/2 - 1 meter to find the terrace where we put our chairs and table!

Although the Easter is late this year the snow usually covers all the hills in April. This is more like middle of May.

After a noisy thunderstorm on Sunday night June 19, I was expecting to find my gardens nicely watered in the morning.  But Mother Nature had other ideas.  On June 20 (one day before the official start of summer), I awoke to 4 inches (10cm) of wet snow that bent over my tulips, daffodils and our newly-leafed-out aspen trees.  The nighttime low was 32F (0 C.)and the high temperature yesterday reached only 48F (8.9 C.). Below are a few photos of that disheartening scene.

This morning (June 21) it was 39F (4 C.) and the snow was gone.  The tulips and daffodils straightened up.  The trees shed their snow.  What a difference a day makes in the Colorado Rockies!

Jane

Nice to see that everything has popped up again, including the trees (I assume). :)  The resilience is remarkable.

Oh Jane, what a delight it must be to be able to stroll out on your deck in the morning, in your pj's and coffee in hand, and satisfy yourself with the creations you made below! (and not to mention the mountain views!)  :o

Is that your native rock in your island gardens?  As I have demonstrated more than once on this forum, my knowledge of mountain geology is lacking, but I would have expected the rocks to be less rounded...

Glad to see that snow didn't linger, Jane.
The latest we've had snow here in Aberdeen, North East Scotland, in the time I've lived ,is 12th June.... too flippin' late! By that time all our tulips etc are over, of course... it would be the paeonias, meconopsis and lilies that got whacked.  :P
Each year when folks are talking of putting out summer plants I'm thinking that I'd wait till  the middle of June to be safe!
Just as well I've given up on annual plantings!

Maggi

When I lived in Oslo I experienced June snowfall once or twice but here at the west coast, never. That don't mean we can't have a night or two with below freezing temperatures when the sky is clear and the air is from north.

This year our latest night frost was March 31.
We have a proverb: "Mai kulde gjør bondens lader fulde" (Frost in May makes the farmer's stores full (or something like that)) meaning that a little freezing in May makes the plants bushier  with more flowers and hence cropping more. I think especially cereals benefit from a little frost ;)

Loved your "day later" picture, Jane.  What are the drifts of blue?

Super series of images Jane ... and a beautiful garden.

Lots of great colour there--once the snow is gone!
Amazingly we didn't have snow in May this year (or very early, if we did) often we get several, and a good dump late in May.. June snow has happened historically, though I don't remember any notable ones, personally.. this year there was snow in early June many places in Alberta, and we had a dusting that was gone by the time I got up...lol
We are, however having rain every day...... :rolleyes:

Rick,

I suppose it would be nice to stroll out on our deck in the morning in my PJ's with a cup of coffee but with a typical summer morning temperature in the high 30's to low 40's F., I prefer to look at my gardens and the snow-covered mountains from the inside of our house (with the heater running!).  I don't own even one pair of shorts or short-sleeved blouse or shirt or sandals.  In fact, I wear Ragg Wool heavy gray hiking socks and study leather boots every day when working in my garden, which give me excellent traction and support when I am balancing on the rocks of the walls and stepping stones besides keeping my feet warm.

Regarding the rocks of my constructed raised beds, yes, they are native to my area.  They are gneiss and have decorative, wavy bands of light and dark gray.  I believe they are glacial till and that's why they are so smooth and rounded.  I brought them up in our Ford Explorer (40 per trip-maximum) from a rock field at the bottom of our valley where they were deposited on the surface over 100 years ago as a result of hydraulic and dredging operations for the extraction of placer gold.  I decided to use this banded gneiss just in case my initial attempts at growing perennials at this altitude (10,000 feet) resulted in failure.  At least the rocks would make an attractive display!

Jane

Maggi,

I do hope we are through with snow for this past season.  Our total at our house this year is 275 inches (about 700cm).  The Breckenridge ski area, which is about 1,000 feet higher than our house, recorded 525 inches (1,333 cm).

Shaking the snow off the tulips and daffodils and the aspen trees very early in the morning (about 5:30 a.m.) saved the plants from stem and branch breakage.  It was still snowing at that hour and so I had to repeat that action about 6 hours later. 

Today it was sunny and pleasantly warm.  The red Darwin tulips were luminescent. surrounded by a sea of blue Muscari armeniacum.  Lewisias and Oxalis (adenophylla and enneaphylla) were the "blooms of the day".  Allium brevistylum from southern Wyoming are ready to pop open, while volunteers of Mertensia lanceolata are sporting nodding sprays of sky-blue flowers and the blood-red blossoms of our native Sedum integrifolium are catching the eye of passers-by.

In the wild behind our house, Caltha leptosepala and its "friend" Trollius laxus are waking up our wetlands while our most beloved woodland species, Calypso bulbosa, is in full flourish.

Jane

Trond,

Our last frost date is usually June 15 and our first frost date may occur in late August.  Fortunately, we usually don't have a "cold snap" that would shock the plants while in full summer flourish.  Withstanding our cold summer nights seems to harden my many native and non-native species to frost.  Some can withstand 15 degrees of frost without damage to their blossoms or buds!  So even though we have below-freezing nights before June 15 and after late August, I have flowers blooming undamaged in the garden from late March through October.  I also think the rocks help a great deal by radiating absorbed daytime heat to the air surrounding the plants on those frosty nights.

Jane

Thanks, Anne.  The blue drifts are Muscari armeniacum (Grape Hyacinth).

Jane

Thanks, Cliff.  I hope you get a chance to see it in person some day soon.

Jane

Cohan,

When I lived in Chicago, Illinois (my birthplace), I mostly hated rain.  It was prolonged and the skies were gloomy for days on end.  Then I moved to Denver, Colorado where people watered their lawns 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the city imposed a 3-hour, every 3 days watering restriction.  A rain shower in Denver was cause for celebration. 

Now I'm in a mountainous climate that receives abundant snow (maybe "over-abundant" this year!) but not that much rain.  A brief thundershower after 1 p.m. is not uncommon which is why hikers are advised to summit the above-timberline peaks and be on their way down by 12 noon to avoid being struck by lightning.  But those showers are usually over in less than 30 minutes, after which the sky usually clears and the sun comes out again -- wonderful weather for visiting tourists but not for thirsty plants and trees.

This spring we had 3 days of real rain - that is, unfrozen precipitation.  Rain brings out the dark and light patterns of my rocks and seems to make all the flower colors more vibrant.  I welcome rain.  We never get enough up here.

Jane

Jane,as long as we are not actually flooding (not so far, though I'm glad I'm not near a river, many of those are high after a month of rain and snow still melting  in the mountains, and some farmers with soggy fields might disagree with me) I don't complain about moisture either--generally speaking more is better than not enough! This area is not usually prone to the most serious drought in the province, but it can be dry here, some years...

Jane, well do I remember the traditional afternoon thunderstorms in Colorado.  We would start very early in the morning and were always being chased down from above treeline by oncoming storms.  One minute it would be all blue sky, not a cloud in sight and then it would change so quickly.  In all the times we hiked in Colorado, I remember only one day when this didn't happen.  We were ridge-walking until almost 7 p.m., fabulous plants and not even a cloud.  A rare day.  Wish I had had the digital camera then.

Your garden looks wonderful, Jane!  I'm looking forward to seeing more through the season now that (I hope), the snow is safely past.  That last snowfall is awfully hard to take, isn't it?  I'm glad to see that it was brief! 
(In Calgary, we usually get a week of snow in late May-early June, when the tulips and daffodils (and worse, the martagons) all get knocked down, the pear blossoms are wiped out, etc..  As Cohan mentioned, we somehow got away unscathed this year... maybe we'll get extra hail to make up for it.  :rolleyes:)

Lori wrote:

As Cohan mentioned, we somehow got away unscathed this year... maybe we'll get extra hail to make up for it.  :rolleyes:)

lets hope not--so far so good! Rocky Mtn House got some significant hail the other day, lots of people talking about serious garden damage...luckily here we just had a suggestion of hail.... of course its scarcely been warm enough yet for severe storms!

You must be just on the edge of the hail belt, Cohan.  We haven't had a serious hail yet in the yard (i.e. damaging), but it has hailed 7-8 times already... pretty much every time a decent thunderhead builds up, which is the norm for here, it seems.   Love that Rocky Mountain(-influenced) weather!    ;D

Is hail a feature of your area too, Jane?  (Or are we just lucky here.  :rolleyes:)

Lori,

Fortunately, hail is usually nothing to worry about here.  We sometimes get a brief shower of graupel (pelleted snow) but that doesn't shred the plants.  If we do get hail, it's of very small size.  No tornadoes here, either.  Our "claim to fame" is seemingly unending snow.

Jane

We have had hail a number of times this year, also, Lori, but not big enough or long enough to cause damage, those ones don't merit much mention...lol.. last year we had a storm with small hail, but enough of it, in cool weather, that there was still hail on the ground in the shade for a couple of days--that did some damage--took a lot of the flowers off Philadelphus, Astilbe and others, thinned out some of my seedling pots-- made a mess of Corydalis nobilis seedlings especially--but they came back this year-- and even had a significant impact on native forest floor vegetation--usually natives are not visibly impacted...

Jane you are lucky to not have the more violent storms--though they make for pretty skies  ;D

Interesting to hear about your varying weather patterns! Here at my summerhouse, hail is very, very rare in summer but a little inland it is not uncommon. In fact, it was a hail and rainstorm Thursday last week and some damage was done but not her at the coast. The biggest hails I have experienced were bean-sized.