Springtime in the Rocky Mountains

[RickR]

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!)

[Jane Hendrix]

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!

[Jane Hendrix]

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!

[cohan]

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....

[Hoy]

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.

[Jane Hendrix]

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

[RickR]

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!) 

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...

[IMYoung]

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. 
 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

[Hoy]

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

[Spiegel]

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

[Booker]

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

[cohan]

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......

[Jane Hendrix]

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

[Jane Hendrix]

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

[Jane Hendrix]

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