But It Finally Got Here
The snow stayed spotty all day yesterday. The sky would darken up, and the snow would come down heavy for a bit. Then things would slack off, and sometimes even blue sky could be seen, before another round of snow would come through.
The wind, however, rarely let up. It was the highest winds I have seen since being here, and definitely the longest, sustained winds. There were times throughout the day when even around the cabin was windy, and again, those winds were the greatest I’ve so far experienced. I’m guessing it was the wind that kept the snow spotty, and didn’t let any one particular shower stick around. By the end of the day I had maybe accumulated 4 to 4.5 cm of snow.
Once night fell, the wind died down a bit. Just looking out the front door, in the porchlight, it didn’t look like it was snowing at all. Look again in 5 or 10 minutes, and things looked more filled in, edges were smoothed out. Outside you could feel the tiny flakes, more like pellets, but not ice. That kept up until I went to bed around midnight. It looks to have continued through most of the night. My tracks from the last pee of the night were completely filled in this morning.
Had a shower or two of snow this morning. I cleared the solar panels of the night’s snow. The sun came out not too long later, and it was cold -3c or so, but sunny most of the rest of the day. The sky was really clear, and I made 1.39kwH of power today. I saw 25 amps going into the batteries at one point, which I think is the highest I have noted. All together, I probably got 12-15 cm of snow, most of it coming last night. That’s about half of what I was expecting. Supposed to be warm the next couple of days, so hope some leaves on its own, but still will have some work over the next days so that I can get out of the driveway easily in Sparky.
Animalwise, the deer have taken to the mineral block, and it is showing signs of use. Feeding them out by the lick hasn’t kept them from coming in around the cabin, but they don’t seem to stick around as long, or poke around quite as much. They also like that 12% sweet feed. It wasn’t too expensive for a 50 pound bag. I’m going to get a critter container for the feed, and leave it out by the mineral lick. That will make feeding easier, and can also toss some out on the ground for grazing.