Monday, December 15, 2008

Sounds of Winter

This is how it has looked for days at my place.  The fog and snow from Berthoud Pass has come right down to my place.  Not only have we gotten quite a bit of snow already but two more storms are heading in.  Both of them are being touted as "two-three feet of snow" producers.  So was this last one and while they were right on the drop in temperatures, more than forty degrees, we didn't get two feet of snow on this side of the divide.

This morning I have been inundated by the sounds of winter.  The highway must be icy as I've heard one siren after another all morning.  The avalanche blasting has gone on for hours.  They need to get those cornices cleared out before those next two storms come in.  It's hard enough to get the roads reopened after a "normal" snow slide, let alone one that has gathered snow from several dumps.  As houses warm up here I can hear huge piles of snow sliding off the roofs.  The town plow has come down this road three times already in an attempt to get things cleared out.  My road is very steep and has only one outlet.  Often we are unable to get cars out of here when the rest of town is very accessible.

The neighbor's snow blower just kicked in, another winter sound.  The horses across the street are running around having a good time, blowing off some of that pre-storm energy.  The ravens who hang out in their barnyard repeatedly caw and take to the sky as the horses take yet another run around their area.  You can heard everything so easily when it is one of these icy cold days.  

The blasting just started again from the CDOT trucks and the sound of cars idling while they wait to get through the resulting snow drop just adds to the many sounds of winter.  You'd think it might be quiet on a day where the temperatures are beneath zero but you'd be wrong.

2 comments:

PBS said...
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PBS said...

Happy Holidays! Heard the weather there is even worse than ours--and we had freezing rain today!