Changing Seasons

For several days near the end of January it was warm and balmy. The daffodils were budded out, the yellow shrub by the back door in full bloom. It felt like spring.

On Saturday afternoon, Jan. 30, we took a drive up into the hills above us. It was such a nice day and we were tired of working... the pleasant weather had allowed us to do a lot of outdoor clean up work. We decided to drive to South Lake, about 16 miles from our farm. We were surprised to see snow along the side of the road as we started upwards. When we reached South Lake, it was snowing. So much for spring.

The snow had just started, but there was enough for Johnny to make a tiny snow person.

We drove on the few miles to North Lake. More snow. And sunshine on snowy trees.

Johnny made another snow person, slightly bigger.

We started to drive up to Mt. Hebo but we did not have snow tires and there was more and more snow. So we turned around and headed back down the 14 road to the 2283, where we had found a massive landslide and tree blockage on our Upper Nestucca Christmas Bird Count. We hiked in the .3 miles to see if the road was still blocked. It was.

We did the rest of our touring inside the warm van. I wanted to see the area of the East Creek fire so we drove up that way. We found lots of blackened trunks and dead trees.

As we drove home, we could see the hills to the south of our farm that had been bare and balmy when we left... now covered with snow. In a few short hours, an early spring had turned back into winter.