Snowed in at the bothy

Well, there should be some pithy phrase about March. Something along the lines of "in like a dove, out like a blizzard" or some such. Early March had me fooled, I'd even powered up the ride on mower and mowed the front lawn. The first cut of the year. We had guests arrive on saturday and the snow arrived on Saturday night - Sunday morning. No one was going anywhere Monday and even Tuesday the top road was blocked with drifting snow.

Today I woke up to clear skys and relatively clear roads. It was -9°C at 6am. I dread to think how cold it was at 2am. It doesn't actually feel that cold when there is no wind and you are lugging bales of hay around. I know that sound travels well in cold still air, but the din of the morning chorus was just that, a din. It sounded like someone had turned up the volume. I managed to drive out on to the main road, although the car sized gorge the snow plough had cut through 6ft high snow drifts were something to see.


pete

March madness

March is often a month of storms up here in north east Scotland. We had our worst snows in this month 2 years ago, but this month has been mostly wet and very windy.
Signs of spring are very evident despite the inclement weather. The dawn chorus is getting loader and earlier. This morning when I got up, it seemed like every bird was making its voice heard. Even the chickens were getting in on the act complaining that it'd been light for a while and I hadn't let them out.
As I fed the horses I noticed five or six deer in the clearing opposite. They were chasing each other around and generally enjoying themselves. And the hare was out on the road testing its acceleration against my car. It won, my car doesn't do acceleration up hill.

pete