Finally we are having decent weather.  For the last three days it has not only been fairly sunny, it has also been comparatively warm.  About -13C at night, and around freezing during the day.

It has been a winter of storms.  Warm storms in January with rain and massive thaws, and cold storms with more snow this last 2 weeks.  I have had to have the road ploughed a third time.  It will be the most expensive plough bill I have ever had – usually once is enough, sometimes twice.

It is not as though we have a lot of snow pack.  It is about knee deep on the ground, which is average for here.  But most years, the majority of the snow falls in late November and December.  This winter it all came after the new year in several substantial falls.  Some of them thawed almost completely away – but not before the plough came!

When the days are colder, I do my snowshoeing in the afternoon.  Now, when there is fresh snow on the ground, I must  go out in the morning, otherwise Harry looks like this:

This morning I snowshoed up the south bluffs.  The trail I had broken out before was half hidden with drifts so it was hard work but very beautiful.

At the bottom is the frozen McClinchy River.  I have not seen this part of it since the big floods we had last fall.  I wonder what evidence there will be of the floods when the snow melts.  Highway 20 runs through the middle distance.