A Different View

The view from our neighbors house.  Our road as it heads on up toward the main county 

road.  Neighbor's house is on top of hill.  His view of the surrounding countryside is 

much better than ours.  Still, when the weather is nasty and the wind is blowing,

I'm glad we're sheltered down in a hollow.

.

A Different View

First Snow in the Ozarks

Jo and I exhibited at an art fair down in Little Rock this past weekend. We returned home on Monday to find snow on the ground. The snow was fairly localized, extending only from the Marshall area over to Harrison. We left Little Rock mid-morning and made several stops on the way home. Driving conditions were not a problem by the time we encountered snow because the ground is still warm and the temperature had risen slightly above freezing.

Little snow melted on Monday or Tuesday. The sky remained overcast and daytime temps rose only a little above freezing. Nighttime temps dropped into the twenties. Sunshine appeared on Wednesday. By Friday afternoon when the photo above was taken, snow only remained lurking in northern shadows.

.

First Snow in the Ozarks

Tree and Fence

Tree and fence alongside our road out. Taken while on our afternoon walk. It was nice to see some blue sky after several days of overcast.

.

Tree and Fence

Shadow Shot: Cow Trails

Cow trails through the snow.

This is our driveway, which is around .8 of a mile long (1.3 km).  We are snowbound until the snow melts.  Three days of sunshine and daytime temperatures above freezing have melted a lot of the snow, but there's still much left to melt before we can make a trip out.

Please visit Hey Harriet to join in the Shadow Shot Sunday fun.

.

Shadow Shot: Cow Trails

Melting: Snow Removal the Old Fashioned Way

Sunshine and temperatures in the upper forties lead to much snow melting on Friday.  Above is the worst section of our driveway.  It never receives any sunshine.  With a little weight in the rear of the bed of our little pickup truck, I'm pretty sure we could make a trip out, but since we have no where we need to go, we didn't try.

With the low angle of winter's sun, even a slight change in the road's tilt or direction can make a big difference in whether or not it receives sunshine and melts the snow.  Above is the beginning of the section shown in the top photo.

.

Melting: Snow Removal the Old Fashioned Way

SkyWatch: Blue Sky Over A Bad Road

The unusually cold temperatures that put the Ozark Mountain region into a deep freeze for a couple of weeks have moderated. On Wednesday I made a trip into town and re-provisioned for the first time in a couple of weeks. All is now back to normal.

The photos below were taken while we were still debating when we'd be able to make a trip out. We live a couple of miles off the blacktop and the last three-quarters of a mile of dirt road is a dead end down to our house, though parts of our "driveway" are used by our neighbor when checking his cows, cutting firewood, etc. We did not receive much snow and ice during the deep freeze -- only about an inch of snow. The problem was that our temperatures stayed so cold, the little bit of snow received would not melt.

The snow on sections of road receiving full sunshine on clear days melted fairly quickly. (I know this looks more like a dry creek bed, but it is a road. Trust me on this.)

Other sections of road stayed mostly in the shadows. The snow compacted and glazed becoming almost as slick as ice. Not negotiable by our 2WD vehicles with street tire, especially when trying to drive uphill.

We have many winter seeps. When they empty in to the road, an ice flow forms. One must be careful getting around these even when walking, especially when they're hidden under a dusting of new snow.

On the other hand, the red clay sections of road can become even more difficult to climb after they thaw.

.

SkyWatch: Blue Sky Over A Bad Road

SkyWatch Friday: A Rare Day With Sunshine

It's been a very wet October here in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Heavy rain is falling as I write. Today's rainfall will bring our monthly total to well over ten inches. Many days filled with mist, fog and/or overcast also occurred. The photo above was taken on one of the recent, rare sunny days. This is the view from our road out -- up to the main county rain and "civilization".

Last January a severe ice storm caused considerable damage to the trees in our area. It was supposedly one of those once-in-a-hundred-years events. It's no exaggeration to say the woods around our place will never look the same within our lifetime. When the trees leafed out in spring, those leaves helped hide some of the damage. Now that the leaves are falling, the full extent of the damage is becoming visible again. At least these trees survived. Many others either snapped or fell over.

Click the logo above to participate and/or find more SkyWatch photos from all over the world.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

.

SkyWatch Friday: A Rare Day With Sunshine

Early Morning Fog (by Jo)

It was foggy early this morning. I'm glad Jo and the dogs didn't meet up with a bear while on their morning walk.

.

Early Morning Fog (by Jo)

Snow Hiding from the Sunshine

We received a light snowfall Saturday, not quite enough to cover the ground.  Only snow able to hide in the shadows remained after Sunday's abundant sunshine.

(One of the fallen, broken trees chainsawed short enough not to protrude into the road.) 

.

Snow Hiding from the Sunshine

Echinacea and Ice

 

                                                                                 Photo by Jo

Everything -- including the purple cone flowers that hadn't been deadheaded -- picked up a thin coating of ice and/or freezing fog over the past couple of days. Most of the wintry mix fell as sleet, so the trees and power lines did not get badly weighted down with ice. We would not have been able to navigate our road out, though.

.

Echinacea and Ice

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Caterpillar

I don't know what kind of construction/destruction my neighbor has in mind. No work has been done yet, but a bulldozer belonging to a local heavy equipment operator was parked alongside the road this afternoon.

.

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Caterpillar

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Deer

Several does were at the edge of the power line easement when we took our afternoon walk. This location is an often used road crossing point for the deer and can be seen from the house. Rusty checks the window several time per day to see if there are any deer for him to bark at.

.

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Deer

Sunday Walk

Jo and I (and the dogs) usually take our afternoon walk around four o'clock. With the end of Daylight Savings Time, our Sunday walk was actually taken an hour later than Saturday's. There was a dramatic diffenence in the sun's intensity and the length of shadows. The photo above is our road out -- our driveway -- about three quarters of a mile from the house. It is up near the gate, which is normally open, and is our "turn around" point where we reverse course and head back to the house. This is one of the best sections of our road because it's relatively flat and isn't prone to washing out.

Our driveway is technically a county road. It runs through land owned by our closest neighbor. Most of it is wooded, although he's partially cleared a few sections like this one where his horse, Pretty Boy, is grazing.

.

Sunday Walk