Changes!

Three days of temperatures in the 60's this past week - and I had to be at work. I took an extra hour off so I could shovel up some mulched leaves, grass, and wood chips from the schoolyard into my pickup, and add them to my compost pile, mixing in some spoiled hay and horse poop, throwing it all together with the remains in my initial compost heap. I soaked it all down and got it working again.

Even though it was in the 60's for several days, we still have a few frozen 'glaciers' on the property. Most of the snow and ice melted from the front yard, but in the back along the pasture fences, there are still slick and frozen-solid white mounds.

Yesterday the temps dropped back into the 20's again, with blowing snow flurries. Today it is breathless, windless, as the snow clouds gather overhead, and flurries whisper and wander down. It is supposed to snow all weekend and into Monday. No blizzard this time - just soft flakes piling up in silence. No violence. Peaceful.

The principal and I promised to stay in touch this weekend, to cancel school on Monday if need be. It is such an iffy thing - most of the time the roads stay clear even in snowstorms, because of the blowing snow everywhere that doesn't stick, and only piles up against the windbreaks of trees. Sometimes the snow piles up so high near those windbreaks that the nearby fences are covered in gently sloping drifts, that the cattle and horses can walk over and out with impunity. Note to self - plant windbreaks well away from fencing... Not a problem on my property, of course; most of it does not meet the road, and the way it is situated, windbreaks on the hill don't have to be near the bottom slope where the fences are. Now if I could just keep Lake the horse from scratching her belly on the short trees...

New friends keep asking me if I still like the Nebraska winter. I am puzzled. Of course! In it's raging violence or it's silent encroachment, it is beautiful; living breathing nature.