They Don't Call it the Cold Desert for Nothin'!

I've had a request from a friend (hi, Pete!) to post some photos and information on winter here at the corner of No and Where. We live in the Great Basin, aka the Cold Desert. Hot and dry in the summer (though not as hot or dry as the Chihuahuan Desert we lived in before moving up here), cold and dry in the winter. We had our first snow about a week before Halloween, although it didn't amount to much and didn't hang around very long. We've had a couple more light snows, which melted off in a day or so. Then, in early December, we finally got The Real Thing:

This snow arrived on Christmas Eve. Some of it is still around, although it's compacted into ice in places, and has disappeared in others due to sublimation. When it snows, the first thing we have to do is check the solar panels. They don't provide any electricity in this condition:

Rosa the Desert Dog is not a happy camper, she prefers to lie in the sun when it's 110 degrees out, but Gypsy was born for snow.

She bounds through the drifts and buries her nose in it, probably in search of her pile of bones.

As the temperatures dropped toward zero, Greg built an airlock around the front door, "the Montello Way," using whatever he could lay his hands on at the time, including dog food bags to cover the gaps. It may not look like much, but it slows the wind down. Gypsy loves the snow, but prefers to not have it in her food bowl.

Two days after Christmas, we had another snow, which added six inches of white stuff to what was already there.



The sun came out, the snow started melting, and then the temperature dropped, resulting in some really interesting icicles and other effects:

We made the rounds at this point, knocking down the overhanging snow and ice so it wouldn't fall on anyone. We haven't had any more snow since December 27, but we've had about three weeks of freezing fog. Sometimes it looks like regular fog, making it difficult to see very far. Other times, it lifts or even burns off, but still leaves behind enough cold to crystallize any moisture in the air. I should mention that during that time we haven't had highs above freezing, and the overnight temperatures have been as low as -15 here. Some folks in town have reported as low as -28. I describe the crystalline air as living inside a snow globe. It's magical. I had hoped to get a picture, but the crystals are so small they don't photograph well. The crystals stick to the snow and icicles, though, and look like this:

The forecast is looking rosy for the next few days--lows above zero and highs above freezing! (That is, 33 or 34 degrees.) We're having a heat wave! Greg has been slowly working on the Bunny Barn, one or two boards at a time. First he has to dig them out of the snow, then cut them to length and attach them. By the time he's done that once or twice, he's too cold to work outside any more. My outdoor exercise has mainly consisted of chopping the compacted snow out of the various walkways to keep them from becoming solid ice. And, of course, pumping water and feeding the bunnies. Indoors, I carve wood, knit, surf the web and plan the location of the garden. We both read and watch Dr. Who DVDs. The two additional batteries we bought this month are keeping us in electricity, with a daily boost from the generator. And we're working on a "by next winter" list of improvements. Serenity has kept us warm enough, although condensation has been an ongoing battle. We've had to move clothes out of the closets and regularly wipe down the windows and the insides of the cabinets. Just one of those challenges (or, as our friend George would say, "opportunities") for improvement next winter.

Keep warm and stay safe.