a couple of pics

Yesterday, before it started snowing, I experimented with creating a stone pathway - meant to provide access to the garden bed (ala keyhole beds, sort of) and a water spigot if we ever re-plumb it.

The beds are currently being sheet mulched with kitchen scraps, sawdust and conifer boughs. The 2nd pic shows the dormant shrub rose at the corner of the house.

This was a quick experiment to see if I could make them fairly even and stable despite the stones varying widely in thicknesses - all the way from 2" to 8" and uneven on the bottom sides. We happen to have copious sand, which helps, too.

Right after I posted the snow pic this morning, Tim said folks would be interested in coming out as long as we didn't post pictures of the snow! Ha.

Tim said they had around 12" last night on the lab, compared to our 8-10".

Here's the quick sweeping job I did this morning. As long as it's not tamped down by loads of footsteps, this snow is such lovely, light, dry powder that a broom makes short work of clearing the porch and walkway.

And then the sun melts and then dries any remaining or missed little bits of snow and ice (even on a cold day) making a clean and safe path.

Winter sun with blue skies: a wonderous, beautiful thing right outside our front door.

Wow, those hugelkultur berms are really something.

I do hope I can come out some time this year and see how things have changed!

How lucky we are to have cool visitors like this. Sadie, the baby prairie hawk. (And her handlers/falconers Brian and Tasha.)

Oh, and here's the caldera of the hollowed out volcano with good submarine access a week ago. The whole volcano is "erupting" with arrowleaf balsamroot. I love this flower.

that looks like a lovely peaceful place to sit

It is, Julia! We sure enjoy it. It seems there are loads and loads of arrowleaf balsamroot flowers this year! Even more have bloomed since this picture a week ago. I would love to learn how to use them. (I keep saying that, maybe one of these times I'll actually act on it.)

Jocelyn, Many of my friends have cut up the roots and gently heated them in some raw honey. Here's an example of this: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.652955961402093.1073741826.158010274230000&type=3

You may also want to check out Michael Moore's Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West which also describes how to make this arrowleaf balsam honey. It's amazing for lung problems and colds. http://www.amazon.com/Medicinal-Plants-Mountain-Michael-Moore/dp/0890134545

Thank you Dennis!

Here's the start of raspberry rock.