Snow Update and. Skateboard Mural

Yesterday I wrote about the snowstorm which produced much less snow than predicted. It turned into icy rain, producing three inches of ice on top of five inches of fresh snow. I could have shoveled the snow, but the hard layer of ice was more than I could remove.

I thought I was prepared because I had contacted the man who usually cuts my grass and clears snow if I need it. Well, late this morning I got a text from him saying that his truck had broken down so he couldn’t come until he got it fixed. By mid-afternoon, I was getting concerned because that ice was getting harder in the frigid temperatures.

I heard a truck and looked out to see if it was Lawrence, but it was a man who tromped through the snow to a neighbor’s door to see if she wanted her driveway cleared. She had already arranged for someone else to do it. He saw me watching him from my porch and asked if I wanted my driveway cleared. His price seemed reasonable, considering that there was ice to cut through, so I told him to please go ahead.

He did not use a plow or snowblower, but cleared the driveway with a shovel. It took over an hour because ice is heavy and has to be chopped with the edge of the shovel before it’s lifted. The plow zone along the street was the worst part, where the town’s machines had piled snow in now-frozen ridges.

I was glad to get the driveway cleared but I did not attempt to drive anywhere. The main streets in town were okay by then, but could easily get icy patches as the sun got low in the sky. I remember living in the mountains just west of here and how the roads would get icy around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. 

Okay, I have a mural for you. I took photos of it last week in Strasburg. This is the half wall at the parking lot of a skateboard shop.

The shop is named Yobbo’s, and they sell skateboarding equipment and clothing, plus bicycles and guitars. The skateboards are popular because Strasburg now has a skateboarding park.

This same wall was previously painted with flowers and a picture of a ram, which is the town high school’s team symbol. The store used to be a flower shop. 

Mosaic Monday / Murals

Prepping for Snow

Before I start talking about the weather, I'll share a nice sunset picture from Friday evening. You can see the contrails left by the jet planes. We are under a major flight path from Dulles Airport.

The forecast for a snow storm this weekend started well in advance. I went to two supermarkets on Thursday and both were crowded, with some items already sold out. There was talk about two feet of snow, but the forecast kept changing, as it usually does in the mountain-valley region. With a mountain range separating us from West Virginia, that state often gets snow that doesn’t cross the mountains to Virginia. 

As it turned out, our snow was only slightly more than ankle deep today, but covered with layers of sleet. Temperatures have been very cold and are not expected to go above freezing for a week.

I made efforts to prepare. On Saturday, I searched for the hose bib covers that I used a couple of years ago, but did not find them. I improvised, loosely following instructions seen on a plumbing advice page. I used a fleece neck gaiter that I never wore, banding it around the spigot, then doubling it back and securing it with duct tape. I had an insulated foil bag that I had saved, so I cut that and wrapped it around the fleece, securing it with duct tape also. This should do the job, and it’s on the back of the house so the lack of beauty doesn’t matter.

 

I moved the snow shovel to a convenient spot, likewise the pet-safe ice melt crystals. I had extra food and water. There was a chance that our electricity would go out, and likelihood that we would not be able to drive to a store, so everyone shopped ahead of time. Oh, and I filled the car with gas.  

The snow started last night before I went to bed. The sound of heavy equipment plowing snow on the street woke me up a couple of times. This morning, I put on boots and warm clothing to try to clear a path for Charlie to walk, but the ice was hard to shovel so I only cleared the steps and doormats. One of the mats is heated to stay above freezing. I noticed that about a third of it was not working well enough to melt the snow, but at least there was a nice clear section. 

Neighbors across the street were clearing their cars and driveway. My lawn care guy is supposed to come to clear my driveway, but I think he decided to wait until the snow and sleet stopped falling, so I hope he comes tomorrow morning.

Oh, my ice melt product had caked up into a hard block like a rock, so I couldn’t use it. I banged it around a little bit and put a desiccant packet into the container. I might be able to salvage some of it.

Charlie refused to walk in the snow and sleet. We went outside three or four times, but he never got farther than three feet off the heated mat. Then he looked around at me as if horrified, and came running back in the house.

He has walked in snow before, but it wasn’t this cold, Last winter, we only had a light snow that melted off the driveway within a few hours. 

I’ll close with a picture of a bird in a tree.

Winter Weather and Charlie’s Critter Report

Note: We’re getting snow tonight and tomorrow, and possibly ice. Ice can cause his power outages As well as other inconveniences, so I hope that doesn’t happen. Temperatures are going to be below freezing for several days. Right now, it’s 14°F (-10°) and when I got up this morning, it was only 7°. 

Now back to our regularly scheduled Saturday program: Charlie’s Report.

<< It got cold this week so we didn’t take many walks in the parks. We did go to the state park on Monday. Mom took a box of food and stuff to a truck that was collecting things for Martin Luther Day of Service. 

We walked along the river, but there was a branch across the trail.

Then I got a little sick and Mom got worried so she called the vet. I guess I ate something that wasn’t too good. I like to sniff everything and sometimes I eat grass and leaves and stuff.

The next morning we went to the vet, but I was feeling much better. The vet said I was fine. 

Here’s the unfriendly cat in our yard again. I watched it from inside the door. 

Here’s an artified picture of the cat. It looks better in yellow, doesn’t it?

We put out extra birdseed today. I think this one eats it all. She is there most of the time.

My friend Sadie is feeling much better and I went to see her again today. That’s a fun thing to do when it’s too cold to go exploring outside.

I hope you have a good place to play and a warm place to sleep.

Trees Reflected in Black and White

North Fork of the Shenandoah

 

This view is along a trail on the Hollingsworth Road side of Seven Bends State Park, Woodstock. 

Our park was just voted the town’s Tourism Business of the Year! 

Drive-by Pictures

Most of these pictures are from three weeks ago.

The first one shows a sign at the Family Drive-in in Stephens City. When it closed for the season in late November, it closed permanently. Movies were shown there for 69 years!

Next, we have a motorbike that was parked outside a dollar store. Stickers reveal the owner’s xenophobic feelings.

Not everyone agrees. In fact, demonstrators in our rural county have been out twice a week to make their feelings known.

The lighted towers were part of a December attraction at the fairgrounds in Woodstock. It was basically a drive-through show of holiday lights. I took the picture from a nearby parking lot because I didn’t want to buy a ticket to go by myself. It’s the sort of thing that children would enjoy.

Bird Post #1280

According to Blogger Stats, this is Post #1,280 that is labeled "Birds." I have 9,350 posts total. I keep an eye on those statistics because they amaze me, or maybe they appall me. Have I really been doing this that long? Well yes, I started in 2005. 

Virginia is now seeing winter weather. Mornings have been well below freezing, and snow is predicted for this weekend, possibly 20 inches. Then again, the storm could go to the north and miss us again. In the meantime, here’s take a look at the birds that have been visiting my feeders this week. These are motion-activated pictures from the Birdfy camera.

We’ll start with the cardinal. The male is brilliant red. The female is subtle olive with touches of red.
 

The male house finch has some red feathers too. 

The slate-colored junco is gray and white but a charming bird. It’s also called a dark-eyed junco. This one appears to be starting to land. 

And just for fun, here’s a junco coming in from the other side. 

Both Forks in January

 Yesterday on the North Fork

Today on the South Fork

Wordless / Mosaic

Sunflowers Mural in Sperryville

Sperryville is a small town that has become a center for art, like its neighbor Little Washington. 

I was able to find a signature on this mural, the name Scarbrough. I found the artist’s page and I see he has done a number of murals in Culpeper. That’s a longer drive for me, but it’s near some historic attractions so I’d like to make a day trip there before too long.

Monday Murals / Garden Affair

The Miller House on Cougill Road

 Middletown, VA

I put the name of the road in the title of the post because Miller House is a common place name, plus I have forgotten the name of the road several times when I was trying to find this historic site. It is mentioned in written accounts of the Battle of Cedar Creek (1864). This property is on the corner of Mineral Road and faces a railroad track.

The property was recently acquired by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, which will preserve it and possibly open it for tours. 

I’ve written about this place before (see the 2009 post about it). The ruins that are close to the road are sometimes referred to as a mill, but they are actually the ruins of a smaller house that was styled similar to the one that still stands. I photographed the smaller house in 1997, and it was still standing, but just barely. I suspect it predated the larger house, but I don’t know when they were built. 

I saw a photo of a lovely painting by artist John Chumley of the smaller house. I’ve seen an exhibit of Chumley’s work (see this post). He died in 1984.

I’ll spare you my rant about how the park service and others keep calling the ruins a mill when it was actually a brick house. Instead, allow me to complain about the update I just downloaded today on my iPad, OS 26.2. Things look different and I’m getting too stubborn to deal with changes all the time! The Photos app doesn’t have the parallax correction in the same way and I’m going to have to view a video to find out how to straighten lines. This probably doesn’t matter to most people, but I tend to take some photos a bit lopsided with my cell phone, partly because I’m trying to walk the dog and take a picture at the same time. So then I straighten them out on the iPad. I may have become picky when I was taking photo classes years ago, and we used medium format and leveled the camera with a bubble like a carpenter uses. It seems extreme now, but I learned a lot from that experience.

On the plus side, the Photos app now has a place to click to open the picture in “Extensions,” and one of them is SKRWT, which I downloaded some time ago. I can modify receding lines in that and then go right back to Photos. I like the ease of Apple’s Photos app, especially since I no longer subscribe to Photoshop. I don’t like paying for subscriptions. They add up, and my income doesn’t go up because I’m retired. Or maybe that’s an excuse and I’m just cheap!

Cat, Beagle, and More, for Saturday Critters

Let’s start with a picture for Caturday. I used PhotoEditor to add a filter and frame. The cat was available for adoption and we saw it in Petco.

I know Charlie’s fans like to hear his report so I’ll turn this over to him.

<<We went for a ride today. I saw people holding signs

But this post is about critters so here is a big one for you

Big cattle look scary. You know what else is scary? The mean cat! We came home from a walk at night and it was waiting for us on our front porch. I got up the courage to start up the steps and it hissed at me! I stopped and looked and then it ran off. I was glad to get safely inside.

Here’s a small animal that’s kind of funny. It’s a gray squirrel. They can move fast, but sometimes they just sit still and eat the birdseed.

Mostly, I had a good week. I went to visit Sadie a couple of times. Mom took me to different parks to walk and sniff. Yesterday we went to the state park, but it was really cold so we didn’t stay very long

When it’s cold, I had to curl up in my chair. I think I’ll do that now.

Reflection Intruding

I was taking a picture through a window and the sky was behind me.

This image reminds me of a double exposure.Years ago, I traveled to Florida to take a short course taught by Jerry Uelsmann, master of the double exposure. He did amazing things with photo manipulation, long before digital photography was invented.

Supermarket Skywatch

After physical therapy this morning, I stopped at Food Lion to pick up some vegetables. The cashier invited me to take some free flowers. They were past their prime, but still pretty. I got a bouquet for myself and one for Deborah, who was taking care of Charlie while I was gone.

The second picture shows a sunset from the same spot, but looking in a different direction. I took that photo in late December.

 

Birds in Trees, Birds on Feeder

Years ago, I went on a guided nature walk in Huntley Meadows. It was late winter, so the colors of the warmer seasons were not there to delight us. Our guide told us to look up at the trees in the winter. With the leaves gone, we could easily see birds and squirrels, and also the buds of leaves that would be coming out in spring.

I have remembered that, and found that bare trees can look especially nice at sunrise or sunset.

These pictures were not taken on the same day, but I took them both while I was walking Charlie. I think it’s the same tree.

The Birdfy camera continues to take automatic pictures of birds. Here we see a junco.