Mr Skunky looks so sad
You are welcome to my entire ration of snow for the rest of my life! And I suspect my mother and husband will be happy to donate theirs too
@karen13 wow that sky!

Karen, so glad to hear from you. I’m imagining your having to enter and exit your house via second story windows. When we lived up there, a neighbor’s metal roof didn’t dump and their windows cracked! Your pics are gorgeous. Do you ski skate?

Bonnie, thank you. We get cold here (lowest we’ve noticed at our house this year is 8F) but it’s nothing like our Canadian friends experience, or our son in St Paul.

Suntiger, Mr S just doesn’t like getting his feet wiped off. Otherwise, he’s happy as a clam in the snow. We’ve had a drought for the past several years, so having precipitation in any form is pure awesomeness!

Your heron looks a bit like our green herons.
Yes, I also love how those shoes grip on ice. If their is any change of freezing after sundown, I always wear those shoes. I need to ask local cobblers if they can put that type of sole on my booties. It was supposed to be available last fall. I also have the lower tennis shoes for warmer weather walks where footing may be iffy. I used the boots you have for snow shoe hiking.

Beautiful scenery is the upside. YLF!

Joy, I think the herons are related. Their coloring is different, but the body shape is the same. You ought to have night herons too. See the maps from Peterson. When we were in San Diego years ago, the boats in the harbor were covered with night herons the way boats in SF would be covered with gulls. Interesting that the ice soles might be available to shoe repair shops. I need to look into that!

Rachy, yes, the scenery is beautiful. I don’t mind the snow a bit. It sure beats drought! Here are some pics from Friday when we were out birding on the edge of town. The snow was nearly over my Sorels.

Janet - Your town is very photogenic right now - I was down yesterday and love it when the surrounding mountains are snowy. We are hanging in there. I'm worried about a few windows right now. The snow is piled so high, part of our metal roof is no longer shedding on the one story side. They are calling for a lot of heavy wet snow for the next 3 days. We put Lexan (basically bullet proof plexiglass) over all our downstairs windows, but we have a couple at risk now - the lexan only goes half way up the sliders. When our roof dumps, it can be far too exciting.

I typically skate ski as I'm better at it and it is easier on me, but this has been a year for classic stride - better in snowy soft conditions - so I've been doing that as much as my poor body can bear - alternating between injuries! I can count the number of days I haven't skied since Thanksgiving far more easily the the number I have.

Suntiger- it is the beauty of the California mountains - lots of sunny glorious days. Today is remarkably different. I went out for a quick skate before the next major storm comes in (again) and it was howling. Just made it before the snow hit but I caught some crazy tailwinds. Winds are gusting over 100 mph. Anything not tied down at the xc area was long gone. Now it is dumping snow, near white out, and our power is flickering in and out. I may not leave the house for the next three days. Kind of hoping to be snowed in.....so my legs can rest:).

Karen, I just saw these pictures. I hope you don’t have any broken windows. Fingers crossed.