Winterish

      We managed to get through January without much snow, but February has been a different beast altogether. We have had two significant snowfalls this week, and there is another expected on Sunday night/Monday. Ah well. I don't care because I don't have to try to get out to go to work!
      This is the snow on the roof from the second snowfall - hub cleared the first one. Why do I care? Because the solar panels which heat our water are under there. If we want free hot water we have to remove it.

      This is after I got busy and scraped it off - it had blown hard from the NW so that front curl, especially, was hard as rocks! But I persevered, and once I got close to the surface of the panels, the snow came off in big chunks. I was on my snowshoes, so it was hard to get out of the way quickly! But no harm was done. The hard work requires I get a ladder and get up to clear the photo-voltaic panel above the left-hand water one, as it runs the pump. Until that's clear, the water doesn't run through the panels.

This final shot shows why the last snowbank to go in the yard is directly under the solar panels. 
      Because spring is in the offing, despite the snowfalls, I have been planting up some seeds. I did peppers (sweet and hot) indoors, and some hardy flowers in milk jugs for outdoors. I didn't do much winter sowing last year, but now I have the time I'm giving it another go.  I also had a lot of bulbs, which spent 10 or 12 weeks in the cold room, and are now sprouting, so I potted up a few to see how they do. I just put one per pot and I think they are hyacinths and tulips; if they bloom it will be a bonus, and if not I'll fertilize them and put them out in the garden somewhere - the hyacinths at least. I also had a LOT of tulips from last year's pots (they were done for the wedding) which I dried off in the summer and put into the vegetable plot in the fall - another if they bloom, great! If not, compost.