MEMORIES

       Today is a day for us to remember those who fought in the second world war and other wars and remember  the many who died.

      I was born in 1939, a few days after the war started. I have a few memories. We were close to an air training facility. As little kids we saw many airplanes fly over every day. It's surprising how many airmen lost their lives while training at that base. 

      My brother and I would listen to the news which was all about the Germans. We would turn to each other and say, "German, German, German". That was the height of our understanding of the war. 

     We helped Mom wrap parcels to send to our uncles. 

     At the end of the war we listened as ships were loaded with soldiers who were coming home and wondered if our uncles where on the ship. 

    So on this day of remembrance I share a few thoughts from a small child.

    I had four uncles in the war. One was killed in a freak accident. 

     They were all brave in volunteering to fight for freedom. 

     An old vet friend I had would start talking about his experience in the war in September. He flew bombers . He didn't cover anything up. He told about picking up bodies. He was one of the few who told of his experiences. When he came back he was not in very good condition. His father suggested that he take up wood carving. His health improved and he made many wonderful carvings.  He also helped to make memories for me. 

OPEN FALL

     My last four posts have been about winter weather that came calling. Nov. 2 is when the snow and cold hit us.

     However until that time we've had great fall weather. Temperatures have been above normal. It's been dry. It's been nice to be out every day.

     So I think back to what my Dad used to call "an open fall". Dad was a farmer. He bought his first land in 1935 and struggled like most farmers at that time. He did manage to farm and make a living all his life until he retired in 1973. 

     My title refers to what Dad would say about the type of weather we've had this fall. He would call this an open fall. This would mean that he had time to do all the farm  work that needed to be done. Harvest was one of the things that required warm dry weather. He had 10-15 cattle. An open fall would mean that the cattle stayed out longer and ate grass. This also meant that the feed supplies he had could last longer. The cattle would be allowed to leave the farm and find the best forage. .We would collect them every night. 

     I also liked this time of year as it was good weather to wander all over the place. 

     Has anybody else heard of the term "open fall"? I don't remember anyone else using the term. 

     

NEW SNOW

       We just had about 12 in of snow over four days. For us that's a lot of snow. 

      In my chinook post someone asked if there was flooding if the snow melted so quickly. Our snow is dry and powdery because of the temperature. 10 in of our snow equals one inch of water. So you see there's not much water for flooding. 

     However, where I was going with this post is that new snow is brilliant and white. It's pretty. So yesterday it was clear and sunny. It was bright. You needed your sunglasses. Well, you don't need sunglasses for my photos. With white snow and full sun it's bright. 

     I was out for three hours yesterday cleaning up the snow. Numerous flocks of geese flew over. 

    Now I enjoyed the bright new snow. I hope you do too.  

    I put out the fat in my bird feeder. An hour later this white breasted nuthatch appeared.  He/she would not cooperate and pose in the light. 

       This is my street. Roads were in rough shape but most people got where they wanted to go. 

    This is the juniper in my yard.

    The neighbors mountain ash.

    This is a snow cone on top of a fence post. 

SUNRISE

       On Oct 29 , when I took the chinook photos , I was half looking for sunrise photos. I checked and there was good color in the east. Now being lazy I took a few shots out of the window. I told myself that if I got dressed to go out , the color could be gone. Shooting in that direction there's a lot of junk in the way.

      However , it's the best I could get. That bright streetlight doesn't help anything.

      Then I looked west and that's when I got the chinook arch. 

       Today we got another 10 cm of snow. That's three days of 10 cm a day snow. Am I tired of shoveling?

Chinook

          The photos I'm showing today were from Oct. 29. My intention was to use them for my next post. But you know what got in the way. I had to show the snow photos from Nov. 2. 

         Oct 29 was a very nice day. We had a high of 15. The reason for the pleasant weather was that we had a chinook. We are fortunate to live in an area where we have chinooks as they brings very warm weather.

       We live on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. The prevailing wind blows up on the western side of the mountains and dumps most of it's moisture. When the air moves over the peaks and down down on the eastern slopes it warms up. That gives us warm windy weather. In some areas and at times the air temperature will rise 50 Degrees F in an hour. 

     So what I intended to show with my photos is the chinook arch. A chinook arch is formed when air is forced up over the mountains and  cools . Cold air not able to hold as much moisture forms the cloud and chinook arch. There are other places in the world with a similar weather phenomenon but different names.

      If you look through the trees you can see a straight line showing the division between clear skies and cloud. 

   

WINTER'S HERE!

       Winter hit us today with a wallop. We are in the midst of a blizzard with white out conditions. We've had abut 10 cm of snow and lots of wind.

      So guess what the old boy had to try to do day all day. That's right! I shoveled snow. It was miserable because we've had warm weather until last night. So the snow came down on ground that was above freezing and melted just enough to make things miserable. So the snow stuck to my shovel. Think about it this way. 10 lbs. of snow stuck to my shovel while I shoveled one lb. of snow. I had to shovel things twice today. 

     So I'm a chicken. I took all these photos through my window. 

LITTLE BROTHERS

         Everybody needs a little brother.

   

       So my little brother is on the left. The little old guy with white hair is me!

      So little brothers are good for playing, pushing, shoving and generally being a nuisance with the assistance of their older brother. 

      They also kept you warm at night. When we were little we had a very small two bedroom house. All the kids slept in one bed. Did I say the house was could? Yes , so we slept in one pile and kept each other warm. 

      We had lots of good fights with rhubarb stalks. We would each find the biggest rhubarb stalk we could find and then we'd start wailing on each other. Usually the soft leafy part would breakoff and then we just had the heavy stalk to beat one another. 

     Now you look at the difference in size and you may be wondering about the little brother stuff. No, we weren't adopted. We always said our Mom was 4 ft. nothing even though she was about 5 ft. . Our dad was over 6 ft tall. Two of us were tall and two of us were small. 

     Just for the record I was the biggest until we hit puberty. I quit growing  and my brother had a growth spurt. 

     Now we are 82 and 83. We don't do these things anymore but I look back at the fun we had growing up.