Weather | The Road Home

Posts from the ‘Weather’ category

Sun, snow, banana bread and asiago rolls

It doesn’t look sunny, but it was early. It was clearly going to become sunny and it was warm AND it was my first morning coffee on the front porch.

The next morning we woke to a dusting of snow. I juiced the last of this year’s Meyer Lemons, fed my sourdough starter and enjoyed a snow squally morning.

I’m not sure the chairs enjoyed the snow…

… and the morning coffee routine was much cooler!

The remainder of the week went back and forth between sun and snow … sometimes multiple times during the day!

Today, Sunday, we woke to snow and it has snowed, rained, snowed and now is doing a bit of a wintry mix as I write.

A fragrant brown butter cardamom banana bread (baked as mini-loaves) from Andrea Bemis’ blog: Dishing up the dirt warmed up the morning. (The three loaves with the dried cherries on top have some crystallized ginger bits as a trial addition. Ok but did not add enough to use them again. The recipe as written is wonderful.)

Andrea’s book, also ‘Dishing up the Dirt’ has become a favorite. I’m not a cookbook buyer usually, but the photos and the memoir aspect enticed me to buy this one. I have no regrets. It is a beautiful book with wonderful recipes and I liked it so much that I bought the Kindle version as well so I always have the recipes with me to refer to.

Almost two weeks ago, I saw Mel’s Kitchen Cafe recipe for asiago bubble bread . Mel’s recipe is based on her own french bread roll recipe . I’ve made those rolls and they are very good, but I looked at the King Arthur flour recipe that Mel said inspired her adaptation and decided to make the King Arthur version adapted to use my wild yeast (sourdough) starter and some discard starter.

It worked very well!

Both the rolls and the buns are soft with asiago cheese in them and a crunchy asiago herb top.

Auggie says: “More sun, less snow, please!”

Meltdown

So.

10 days ago it snowed like it meant it.

And then it warmed up.

And it stayed above freezing…

Gradually, the dry land appeared!

It was a miracle :) !!!

After snow on the ground for three solid months, it seemed like we might never see ground again.

And even with the warm, it was days. It was drippy and slushy and gray. It took a long time for bits of ground to appear. But once things got to ground, the ground increased rapidly.

The snowshoe paths I made and maintained for the past three months are the last to melt and now are bridges of ice between snow patches.

Meltdown!

A real Winter

My first Winters in Northwest Montana – 1994-1997 – had plenty of snow and cold, but even then the locals often commented that it was warmer and less snow than years past.

Since that time we’ve had a number of mild winters. Some started promising with a significant snow and then it warmed – blech! The first two winters in this house (’06/07 and ’07/08) were good winters with plenty of snow and cold. Since then, Winter has been a bit puny give or take a storm or cold spell.

But, this Winter!! It has been wonderful. We’ve had plenty of snow on the ground since mid-December and mostly below freezing temperatures. It might not be the kind of Winter Montana had in many years past but compared to the mild winters of the recent past, this has been a real Winter.

It is March, though and we begin our typical stop-start process towards Spring.

After the snow that did the artwork on the motorhome, we had 2 warm days.

… and the usual lake(s) developed on the driveway as the ground is frozen hard and there is nowhere for melting snow to go.

After a trip to the grocery, I backed the Jeep up the walkway to avoid carrying groceries through icy puddles. The novelty of the Jeep in a “new” spot always intrigues Auggie and he had a fun time playing while I unloaded.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of my tomatoes, avocado and tomatillos – they looked so pretty together. A bit of an eating disappointment as that giant heirloom tomato did NOT taste as good as it looked. It was from Mexico and I hoped it was a sun-ripened tomato but now I think a hothouse and for whatever reason they are pretty tasteless with a mushy texture. Oh, well.

And then…

Yikes!

Bear and I were walking when it started.

My hat after our walk.

Bear after our walk.

My favorite little tree – actually a lilac bush.

Auggie and Bear knew what to do.

Take a nap!

Snow Status

We’ve had a week of melting with some gray skies, some slushy-snow-rain squalls and today beautiful sunshine and blue sky!

A perfect day for a parlay in the snow…

… or a walk!

We’ve been having fun being out despite the occasional challenges of ice and slush. It is supposed to get colder with more snow on the way. I will be happy to have a few fresh inches … hopefully not a major amount again – just enough to freshen up our paths and cover the icy spots. That is the order I put in … we’ll see what we get!