Shaken, Not Stirred

It’s been a long cold snowy winter. Feels like we’ve been cooped up for months and months,  and more months. It probably hasn’t been that long but it sure seems like it. So if you are having winter where you’re at and it’s been way too long you’ve probably heard your share of griping about winter, so I’m going to try not to do that. But there are things that go along with the ending of winter. Warmer weather, that’s a good one, we like that. But that means all this snow and ice turns to water, and that means ice dams, flooding and damage.

A couple weeks ago, hubby and I needed to get out of the house. My Mama used to say “get out and blow the stink off”. So we took a drive. Mi Darling (that’s hubby…Bob) has learned over the years to become a great photographering chauffeur, and he takes some pretty awesome photos too. I’ll have to do a post on some of his photos sometime. So we took off on our adventure, heading south towards The Palouse, which is a beautiful farming area, with rolling hills, old farms and lots of history.  This day we were looking for ice dams on the rivers and creeks. Unfortunately we were a couple days late for that, but there are always opportunities for interesting shots. 

The ice had melted enough that the ice dams were gone, but the ice remained. In some areas it was pushed up on the banks of the rivers, left to melt and fade away until next years freezing temps start the process again. But it was fascinating seeing some of these ice chunks. Some were just that, chunks, but let me tell you, some were as big as  sheds, 12×12 or so, and 18″-30″ thick! And some of these ‘chunks’ were 40 feet from the river bank. Can you imagine the force it took to move that chunk of ice and then leave it there? That brings a whole new meaning to the words “shaken, not stirred” my friend.

There were areas where the water had been over the roads, but we were lucky that on this day it was not. It was right up to the edge in places, trees standing in water up to their bottom limbs. And the next week we heard that this area was definitely flooded. 

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and in some places there was not much snow left. But as we drove, I looked up this hill (with no snow) and there was a line of trees with a very thick coating of snow or frost. Talk about micro-climates. The photo that I took is a little blurry as it’s a long zoom but it was so strange, snow/no snow that I wanted you to see it anyway. I think probably that the wind blows up the draw right on the edge of this ridge leaving this perfect line of demarcation between the snow/no snow. That’s my (un)professional weatherman opinion.

As we rounded out our 150 mile drive, we were lucky enough to end the day with a few elk grazing in the warm sunshine. At first we thought there were only 3, but as we watched we could see there were as many as 16-20 laying and hanging out in the timber. What a beautiful way to end our Sunday drive.

We always enjoy our Sunday drives, even when they’re taken on Saturday. We get to spend the day together and rarely do we come home without some great photos. It doesn’t have to be life changing or earth shattering, but sometime it might just be…