Contentment by design - Living - Places photo #1127

We just experienced a major spring snowstorm. It was warm the day before it began, rained hard in the evening, then overnight a big amount of very wet, heavy snow fell, perhaps ten inches. (If that doesn't sound like a lot, then try shoveling a steep, U-shaped, 150-yard driveway by hand, only to have a snow plow blast past after you've just finished, blocking both entrances with huge boulders of snow!) The next night, we received perhaps another eight inches of wet snow. Then it warmed back up, and within a couple days, most of the snow had melted away again, just stunningly fast. There are three things I'd like to remember about this weather event, one unfortunate, two really nice.

The first thing, the unfortunate one, is that the incredible weight of the snow broke off big branches in several of our Ponderosa pine trees. These are trees that are well adapted to this winter climate, so this is extraordinary, the first time in the 24 years we've lived here that we've seen this happen. And most unfortunate of all is that the snow took down an enormous branch of the most wonderful grandmother tree in our yard, a tree that is perhaps 300 years old. When we first saw this tree, we knew we wanted to live here. Where it snapped, the limb was about a foot in diameter, and the amount of boughs and needles that came down was just stunning and heartbreaking (and back breaking … I just finished cutting it up and carrying it over next to our driveway so that our tree specialist friend can chip it up and cart it away).