Bare Mtn Farm

Second Day of Spring is a Snow Day

How does Bare Mtn Farm spend a snow day, not inside by the fire but outside scrapping down the hoop houses and low tunnels.  Our day started at 4:07 a.m. when I awoke to a snap of a tree branch coming down. Damn, it really was snowing and on the second day of spring.  Tony raced outside to check on the hoop houses and low tunnels and didn't come back in until 6:45.  He spent the early dark hours squeeging the plastic tunnels. Me, recovering from dental surgery and it a bit too cold, tried to capture the snow around the house.

 

At this point there is only a couple of inches on things but it is very rare to have a snow event like this in March and even rarer that it is so wet and heavy and stick to even small branches and wire.

It is weighing down all the branches, the daffodils and taking down the deer fencing.

 

Here is a shot before sunrise(yea sure, sun), Tony has all the tunnels cleared of snow.  But it is STILL Snowing!

After a quick breakfast and a lot of hot coffee we head out to clear the plastic again.  Here are some photos of the snow piling up.

We have discovered the some of the low tunnels are collapsing from the very wet snow.  This has never been an issue for us in the past seasons but now we feel we made need to change the hoops from poly tubing to metal hoops.  

The rest of the morning is  spent clearing the big hoop houses.  The heavy snow is sagging the plastic in the center and so we spend much energy trying to bounce the snow off.  It is hard on the shoulders, neck and back and some of us are just not tall enough to get the whole job done.

                            The ranunculus is just starting to bloom, doesn't  that  just figure.

 

The snow is really piling up along the sides of the hoops which will probably become another issue to deal with, when it warms up(If).

If you can get the snow to move it slides off pretty well, the problem is when you finish one hoop, the other hoop house needs to be re-swept again.  And back and forth between tunnels and hoops.

Flowers are still coming along, ranunculus are budding, the lilies have germinated and the anemones hopefully will keep blooming.

The rose arbor to our veggie garden collapsed under the weight of the big rose and the snow.  Another project in our future to clean up.  There is always a hundred things to do.

It was only a few days ago, since  we finished pruning our fruit trees and enjoyed a cup of coffee during a sunny day.  It doesn't seem right.  I loved snow as a kid but now, it seems to be a headache( or backache).  We can hear the neighbor kids having a great time playing in the snow.  But we can also hear an old rooster crowing since 4:00, he doesn't sound happy.  Maybe he, like us is just getting too old for this stuff.  

Lunch is over, warmed back up and it is still snowing, we are at the 6 inch mark,  guess where we are heading to.  Now can we all start the chant, "We want Spring!".....