Snow Big Deal

It's a Snow Day in Austin - just these few inches of large fluffy flakes have sent the town into a tizzy and sent me to the photo archives... snow makes me nostalgic and it triggers my record-keeping instincts.
This is what we called snow in Illinois! I liked shoveling smaller snowfalls, but it was tough clearing 20" from our drive and walk in January 1999
Then we moved to our first house in Texas where this February 25, .. sifting was also called snow
We might have missed the few inches that fell in the middle of the night on February 14, .. but a 2AM phone call took us out on the roads...slushy snow, steep hills and road surfaces built for warm weather combined to give us an exciting ride
In December .. a thin layer covered the drive, grass and car - enough to make Sleetman a hit on Twitter!
Look fast and you might think you're looking at snow... look close and you'll see it was the destructive March 25, .. hail - resulting in billions over $160 Million dollars in damage (and a new roof for Annie & Philo).
Can the 16th largest city in the US can handle today's snowfall without too many problems? I sure hope so - want to enjoy these decorative February flakes without guilt

Here are 14 seconds of the fountain in the snow - listen for the birds!

Goodbye Teacup Header

As much as I loved my tea cup header, I felt that it was time for spring to show up, so I changed my header photo to apple blossoms. I took this image last year in our fruit orchard. This year the trees have already bloomed and leafed out. We've had an early spring. Good thing we didn't get a late killing frost. It would have wiped out all fruit for this year.
We have several varieties of apples and peaches, a fig tree, two pear trees, a plum tree (maybe two), and a row of blueberry bushes. And there's raspberries next to the blueberries.
Around the property we also have muscadine grapes, persimmons, blackberries, crabapples, a mulberry tree, and lots of pecan trees. We are blessed to live in a place where the growing season is almost year round. I'll try to remember that this summer when it's 102 degrees in the shade and 100% humidity!

Diggin' the Windy Grasses...

"When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred simplicity." Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis."
- Robert Fulghum, From Beginning to End
IknowsIknows - sounds a bit pious, but hiking in the hills around my pad is a religious experience heheh!
Guess there's a trade-off fer livin' where we has so many places in the hills fer doggehs like moi to hike. We live in pretty close quarters (house-house) in the valleys between 'em! Upper left is one view from my back yard of the ridge loop I just loves. Lower left is the entrance to the Open Space here. And, duh, "Mom, hurray!"
We don't have to climb far before we run into a golden I shouldda met eons ago! It's Maggie! The lady from Norcal Golden Retriever Rescue who put me and my peeps together, put Maggie and her peeps together too! We finally come nose to nose here on this ridge! Pawsome!
That lizard got away... but I promises you, I'll get 'im on the way back - WOOF!
Here we be at the top of the loop and I be scentin' sumpin serious. Mayhap it be a squirrel??!!! It was furry windy and I gots a movie to show you how breezy it was. Love the grasses!

If the movie buffers too much try here and I hopes that will work.
See - tol' ya! So... took a little time to check out the overlook. Mt. Tam on a clear day!
Pawsome!
And... distracted!
Cause there's gophers effurywhere. And I'm a sucker for those lil' teefy ground rodents!
And here we are on the loop back and there's MORE lizards! The nerve of 'em bein' so fassssst!
HEY! Wait up, Ma! Comin'! HEY! I'm taaahrrrd!
Aaaaahhhhhhh sluuurrrrrpppp. Thanks fur remembrin'. That was grrrrrrawsome zzzzzzz. From Ma: Yes... sacred simplicity!

Vietnam Veteran's Day

"Welcome Home" brothers and sisters.

Picture Perfect day for a paddle!

Yesterday Jessica and I spent the morning paddling the shoreline of Esther Lake up the Arrowhead Trail in northeast Minnesota. It was a spectacular morning to be on the water and as we were making our way back to the boat ramp these postcard-perfect clouds were rolling in, making for some beautiful scenes to photograph.

Water features

From the same garden as the pictures of last week. Four views of a fountain:




A daisy bath among white iris.

Another fountain.

A small waterfall. I believe this was a new feature in the garden.

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I very brilliantly strained my back while lifting some 50-pound pails of soapmaking oils (without using my back brace). Sitting bothers it the most, so I may not post as much or visit other blogs as much as normal for a little while.

The Jaunt to Jerusalem

A simply stunning weekend was had in Mt Jerusalem National Park, immediately to the North of Mullumbimby. And yet there is still much to explore in this region. I didn't find the cave paintings that I had been told were in the area, but there may be another lead on those in the Koonyum Ranges. Something to explore for another day perhaps.

The ride to the campsite was relatively uneventful to start with. I got the usual late start that seems to be a common theme in weekend tours, and took the now usual route south via Urliup. When I crested that range I could see that there was rain sweeping across the Tweed Valley from the South. I had no idea that it was going to stay with me for the rest of the morning. The rain started soon after I passed through Murwillumbah and simply did not stop, at all.

The climb up the range toward the campsite was treacherous, partially because of the condition of the road, but mostly because of at least two complete idiots careering out of control in the opposite direction. I have no idea how (if) they survived, and I can only hope that they don't take any innocent people with them when their time inevitably comes. For my part, I continued across the top of the range, before the descent to the campground that I am now christening Leech City, in honour of the creatures who were encouraged by the continuing rain.

I actually considered going home and abandoning the whole idea at one stage, but I decided to stick it out, on the basis that a leech-infested rainforest campsite in the wet is still a million times better than another weekend of suburbia. I crawled into the tent, had lunch and slept for an hour, by which time the rain had stopped, and the sun had made a rare appearance. It was time to explore the area immediately surrounding the campsite. I had my own swimming hole and waterfall.



Later in the day I decided to undertake the climb up to Hell's Hole. I had seen this last September of course, but I wanted to see how it looked after the rain we've had recently. The climb to get there is still as hard as it was back then, although that particular dirt road didn't suffer too badly in the rain it seemed. The track off the road to the falls was extremely muddy, and I hid the bike half way down and walked the remainder of the distance, while picking off some more leeches. Whatever I had to do, it was worth the effort.





Hell's Hole is a chain of swimming holes linked by little watefalls, culminating in one BIG waterfall at the bottom end. I'm still trying to find a way to access the BIG waterfall. Perhaps I'll consider a return visit in April. By the time I finished here, it was getting late, so I headed back to my campsite (which was virtually all downhill from here) and retired for the evening. I managed to filter some water from the creek to keep me going, and now it was time to rest after what had been a memorable day.
* * * * * * * * *

I really seemed to be plagued by laziness the next morning for some irrational reason. I did head for the top of South Chowan Road (some of which was unrideable on this bike) and did get a magical ride through the rainforest, as well as some lovely views through the trees at the top of a ridge. The problem is that I didn't bother to come up with any particular plan of attack, and ended up heading down a side road that led nowhere, before deciding to head back to the campsite and make preparations for the ride home.

On a drier day I'll return and explore the South Chowan Fire Trail, albeit I think I can guess where it might go. I returned to Uki for lunch, and commenced what turned into a surprisingly easy ride home. Even the climb over Tomewin didn't trouble me at all. Maybe all the blood lost to the leeches lightened the load a little! I simply mopped up the remaining kilometres, and pondered what I can take from this trip (apart from probably a few too many pictures).

The Mt Jerusalem National Park has emerged as the great unknown among all the places I now regularly visit. A google search on it turns up surprisingly little, and much of that content is either incomplete or just inaccurate. Consequently, I have no idea what to expect in some of the other areas of the Park. I have a feeling I'll need to set aside some other weekends to explore those fully.