The Sunday after Christmas a strong winter storm made it’s way across the Utah border and onto the the Uncompahgre Plateau (Un-come-pah-gray accent on the pah). We watched it slowly fill in the canyons and draws, skimming the tops of the mesas until it started to push it’s way into the Roubidoux Canyon. Once in the canyon it’s just a matter of a fast wind before it hits us. We are the first mesa after you leave the canyon…you can see the flat lands below us (we are the last farm on California Mesa – just before the flat lands which drop off into Roubidoux Canyon.)
Monday morning the kids headed back in a snow storm, leaving well before the storm stopped.
By afternoon the Uncompahgre Plateau was white and we had about an inch of snow. Today we we have about and 1 1/2 inches— not a lot of snow. But what we do have is COLD!
That typical cold, which freezes your skin the minute you head outside. Your air puffs white and steamy as you breathe in and out, in and out. With conditions just right you nose even freezes shut. Sure is a nasty feeling.
Boomer and I still go walking late at night. The moon is almost full now, which allows me to walk without a flashlight—-although I do take one with me.
The air is crisp and full of sounds. Sounds carry far in cold air…I can hear the coal train going through Delta on it’s way to Utah, I can hear the neighbors cows from over in the hollow, and the sound of cars and trucks passing way over there.
Boomer and I walk along …he smells all the news along the way, I see the foot prints…bunny, mice, birds, deer, Sammy the cat’s paw prints, and other canine prints…dog? Coyote? Wild dog packs? Cy-dogs? I don’t pause to decide what I’m looking upon. Lots of our neighbors allow their dogs to roam the farms (never a good idea–a dog chasing livestock is sure to be shot).
When the chill starts to be too much we head back toward the house and the heat of the wood fire. Boomer settles back down for a long winter nap. After filling the wood stove I like to sit by the window watching the frozen world full of white/silver moonlight; the cats sit with me–Sammy on top of the sofa and Monkey in the window. We all stare outside marveling at the mid-night beauty of ice, snow, and sparkling white moonlight.
Your friend on a very frozen farm in the western part of Colorado,
Linda
Fall’s golden flames shine forth from the brilliant trees to the bright blue of the sky
But winter…pale and cold and frigid.
Surrounds everything in the color and feel of snow
Wind relentless in its fury picks up the snow and flings it burning and biting into anything it touches
The colors of winter…blue, lavender, pink and white. The colors of silence, of waiting, of hunkering down, resting….
Life on a Colorado Farm 