Drew constructed a new bridge!

With my knee instability and Toby's blindness, Drew decided to construct a new bridge over the creek. Here, Drew is inspecting the old bridge that he put in place 15 years ago. The goal is to move that bridge to another location and replace it with a bridge that is 6" wider. In the foreground, you can see that Drew carried the boards from home using a firewood hauler.

Drew decided to construct the new bridge at the creek because it was to be made from super heavy, recycled, pressure treated wood from Ernie's old dock and our old front deck. Drew had to make several trips from home to the creek to haul all the materials there. By the way, the air was a frigid 15F feel-like temperature!

After watching big bridge construction over the years, Drew remembered that the old bridge would be moved off to the side and the new bridge would be installed in its place. So, that is what Drew did. He moved the old bridge to the left (and tested its capability of keeping stable,) hauled the new bridge up and slid it as far as he could across the gap. The end of the new bridge ended up in the water. But, Drew just walked across the old bridge, to get to the far side of the creek, and pulled the new bridge up into place. You can see him hauling the old bridge to its new location. Super genius!

And, voila! Both bridges are now in place and ready to use. Drew pounded a couple of rebar rods into the ground, and fashioned some wood stakes as well, to hold the bridges in place in high, rushing water. Now, we can keep our feet dry and neither Toby nor I will fall into the creek!

Longish walk in the woods

Whoooeee! I took the longest time yet to traverse the woods! We took 112 minutes (almost 2 hours) to walk 1.37ish miles. Poor Drew and Toby... I am such a slow poke.

But we had uneven trails to walk, mud to slog through, ice to navigate, a creek to cross, brush to remove from the trails, photos to take and Toby with his blind dog stand-up strikes because he didn't want to go where we wanted to go! 

Here is the old county road where water has iced over a bit in the tracks of the ATVs that traverse it.

I took a photo of the edge of the track where you can see the frost crystals that have formed.

Drew's bridge is still standing after all the rushing water from the rain, wind, and snow melt.  

You can see the rushing water under the bridge. It took me a few tries to cross it as I got a bit of vertigo from the motion of the water. But, I figured if Toby could do it, so could I! It is a bit skinny for the unsteady of foot, and for a blind dog. Toby fell off it several years ago, but was successful at crossing it today as he took it very slowly. Drew is so great at guiding him. 

Further up the trail, I found more crystals and ice to photograph. There were lots of wet areas and lots of drainage from all the melting. I love this photo as you can see layers of ice and crystallization patterns. And, the sun was hitting it in such a pretty way.

I also love this frosty ice on a tiny puddle. So pretty...

Happy Winter Solstice!

 

Snow Day # 1

The table shows the last 8" of snow in the afternoon as the snowfall was just about done.

 We got 15 inches of light, fluffy snow today! It was easy to shovel and was so pretty.

Here is a photo of the bird feeding area after the first 7" of snow had come down. There was double that amount at the end of the storm.

I love mourning doves, and this one spent a lot of time near the feeder station

Drew took the screen out of the guest room window so that I can have an unobstructed view of the outdoors for photo purposes. All I have to do is bundle up and open the window to the snowy world!

I took this photo through the kitchen window in the morning.

There were a lot of bluejays at the feeder today. This bluejay was patiently waiting his turn.

Once I went into the guest room, I could get closer to the birds.

It was nice to finally be able to photograph them without a dirty window between me and the birds, and they didn't get spooked.

First measurable snow of the season

 We got 7" of snow from this awful storm. First it rained, followed by snow, followed by rain, followed by snow. By the time we got around to shoveling it, it was hardened like a brick. This was by far the heaviest snow we have ever tried to move around.