Low Snow -- 27 February 2011

It was predicted and it came -- snow on the ground at La Mansion Maybe Manana. It happened sometime between the time the paper deliverer brought the paper and the time I first looked out the window at daylight to see if there was any snow. Knowing that it would melt quickly, I got out and took some pictures.

It's not much snow, but it's just the second time we've had snow in the valleys and not just in the mountains in the 6 years we have lived here. And it's the first snow at our house, so that's a milestone. We definitely need the moisture and the birds were going crazy when I took Cisco out. I'm not sure what was up with the hummingbird that was buzzing our office window long after the snow was melted, but we were glad to see him.

So here's the address monument.

And the front entrance. It being on the east side of the house, the snow was already melting/melted when I got out to take the pictures. There is some visible on the tin porch roof.

This is the south side of the house from the road.

This is the SW side from the road. There's a good bit more snow as we head west. No sun has hit it yet.

Trout' shop looks very red in this early morning light.

This is the drain field just west of the house. Click on the picture to see the dusting on the twisted column that is visible.

This is from the back porch with one of those twisted columns.

This is the west side entrance to the shop.

This is on the north side with one of the rain barrels.

Here's a close up of one of our exterior lights.

Here are the stairs up to the viewing deck. The parapet cap kept most of the snow off the walls. The pueblo style houses in the neighborhood with the slightly angled walls up to their parapets all had snow down that little angle. It looked like Santa Fe in the winter.

Now for some vegetation. This is a tree on the north side of the house.

This is the west yard, most of which is Natural Open Space.

These are the mountains as seen from our west driveway. Our only good sized saguaro is in the bottom right of the picture.

This is the area I hope to eventually make into a Mexican garden. There used to be a very small and young barrel cactus here, but the javelina bit the top off of it and they or some other critters ate the insides out and finally pulled it out of the ground . It's been so dry here, they were probably both hungry and thirsty. The snow should help to plump up the prickly pear, their usual food.

Looking west from our back porch.

Looking south west from our back porch.

Looking south east from our back porch.

Cholla and prickly pear close up.

Our favorite mesquite tree from the back porch.

Butch's view from the front yard.

Butch with a snow coat.

We still have snow in the mountains and it seems to be continuing to snow in those to the west, but I doubt that we'll have any more here at the house for a long time. It's pretty, but we're happy to let it stay in the mountains where it belongs.