Beautiful

Snowbank is actually getting smaller

Okay, I'd be the first one to admit, it's been a harsh winter.  Although we had no appreciable snowfall until late in January, Old Man Winter made up for that shortcoming in spades or in our case, truckloads!

It's been relentless.  Blizzard after blizzard seemingly every three days and cold temperatures, much cooler than the norm.  I felt like I barely dug ourselves out when we'd get yet another dump.  I counted one stretch of six days with no sign of a plow on our road.  In fact most of the winter when it was open, it was barely a lane wide.

Our backyard.

I have a snowmobile.  In fact much of my life I'd have a sled around or at the very least access to demo models from the dealerships I worked at.  I'll admit I'm not much for mountain sledding although I did some of that in the Rockies while living in Calgary.  I'm more interested in the scenery than high marking.  

Almost perfect snow conditions for the Indy Lite 340

Don't get much purdier than this!

This winter we've had such an abundance of snow that riding solo off trail was not very smart.  In fact during one of our lengthy snowed in days I fired up the Polaris so I could run out the Irishtown road and see if it was open.  I got about 100 feet from the house before I bogged down in what ultimately took me two days to extract myself from and even after digging down 4' I'd still not hit pay-dirt or at least in my case, grass.  That was no fun on top of the constant shoveling. blowing and plowing.

Well, it's now April fifth, we had another small snowfall last night, that I made short shrift of with the Big Bear.  even the two decks took barely a half hour to clear.  It's -7 officially but MSN tells me it feels like -19.

Crisp!

 By the time I had cleared the driveway the sun was out in full force and it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day.  I had planned on putting the Indy into its summer parking spot but with a hard crust covered in 6 inches of newly fallen 'fluff' I couldn't resist. 

Lots of tracks in snow other than mine.

IndyLite and myself tooled around the hood for an hour or so and I have to tell you, it put a smile back on my rosy cheeked face!  There is a reason I moved to the country from the city.  It's hard to convey the utter quiet and stillness on days like this.  Far from traffic noise, no one else about, very easy to see why I like riding my trail bike in Arizona or puttering around with the Indy on a sunny April spring day.

Local S/M shack

I checked out Hillbilly Heaven, one of many snowmobile cabins around the Island, this one just up the hill from my place and on the return saw one of our resident Bald Eagles circling overhead.  What a  magnificent bird of prey.

 

It's days like this when I am coming out of a snow covered wooded trail into bright sunshine or cresting a mountaintop in the Bradshaw mountains on my XT 350 that I truly am grateful and feel very much alive!  I wouldn't call myself a tree hugger (and certainly not a cactus hugger, Ouch!) however I am always amazed by the planet we live on.

First tracks

Makes for a nice view!

Look who I found waiting for me on the deck!

You have to wonder how this all happened, this little orb in our solar system that it barely 8000 miles across from pole to pole, somehow managed to create such a variety of life over its 4 billion year old existence and continues to sustain it. 

"Hi ya Dad. so where ya been?"

As I turned the key off for the last time today, my thought was, "I hope this beauty is still here 10,000 years from today... "