Hope Rises As Snow Starts To Melt

We had three warm days last week before the cold weather came back.  Today it is sunny, which really helps, though this week promises more sub-zero temperatures.  Here are some snapshots from this past week.

The snow melted off the gnome and he is getting some fresh air again.  This gnome is a toad house, so maybe something is hibernating underneath it.

The snow has melted off the compost pile, so I was able to chuck my kitchen scraps in again.

This was how high the snow was on Tuesday morning.

This is the same shot three days later.  There is quite a bit of ice under the snow so it is taking a while to melt.

Very near our home is a former mining pit that is now a lake.  It is owned by the army corps or engineers and so is off limits to local traffic.  Still the chain link fence has a big opening used by locals and the deer.  The lake looks pretty frozen.  Every fall and spring, if I have time, I join some volunteers in going in and cleaning up trash from all the illegal visitors, many of whom are fishing here.  It is a good way to explore this off limits area, which provides a natural habitat for a lot of wildlife in the area, including some swans.  The corps wanted to dumps dredged material from the canal in this pit, but it has been disputed for many years, while they try to find an alternate location for the dredgings, which contain pollutants that could harm the ground water in this heavily populated neighborhood.

Nearby was a huge old oak.

Winter oak leaves and a blue sky.

Sea gull in the winter sky.

Well there is nothing green in the garden to take pictures of except for the moss, which seems very green poking out of the melting snow.  But I could be seeing daffodils in a month, if spring is not too late this year.