Spring Melt

The snow is melting quick and hopefully the roads will be clear soon. As you can see from the first picture the unplowed roads on north slopes still have about 6" of hard packed ice, slush and snow on them. The warm day we had yesterday melted a lot of snow and the creeks are running full. The second picture shows Buck Run a small creek in front of our house with the water running quickly. The sound of the water running this time of year is so loud it sound like a rainstorm.

The last two pictures shows the contrast between South facing slopes with no snow and North facing slopes with as much as a foot of snow still on the
ground. In places the snow has melted on the dirt roads the ground is heaving and it is common to run over large dips that come up suddenly. The ground is also soft during the day when it is above freezing and makes for slippery driving and muddy cars.

The migrating birds are coming back as I have seen more Red Tail Hawks, blackbirds, geese and robins. Soon the vultures will return as well and some of the other songbirds. Most highs this coming week will be above freezing. I am giving the groundhog a failing grade for predicting an early Spring as we also have snow showers in the Thursday forecast.
I am hoping we don't get a late frost this year as the animals really suffered through the winter with lack of acorns and many layers of snow and ice to dig through.

Word to wise roads still tricky at best coming up from Cedar Run. I would wait for another week to make drive.

There is definitely, a feeling of Spring about in the air and it has not come a moment to soon for the mountain girls. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.