Oh my God it’s the middle of August and it seems like fall already. We did have summer…it was last week! Apart from that, and a few hot days scattered here and there, its been a rainy pattern like the Pacific Northwest. It is sunny till noon, then cloudy and rainy the rest of the day.
This morning there was frost on the back of my pick-up. Last weekend I went to the end of my dirt road. It ends just 5 or 7 walking miles from the Yellowstone border. It was 37 degrees at 7:30 am when we started. The road soon became impassable in anything but an ATV. Several years ago I drove to the end in my Jeep, but with all the rain and snow over the last 2 years, the road is overgrown, the streams can be dangerous, and fallen trees have been cut by ATVer’s so only ATVs can get through.
Its so wet this summer it looks like the Northwest
About 70-80% of the conifers back there are dead. All the wet weather and more trees are going to fall, making for good fire material. We drove almost up to the glacier, or at least what’s left of it before it melts completely.
View from near the end of the dirt road in my valley
Last week my son was in town and we went to the Park. On the way home, a hailstorm began that lasted for over an hour. The visibility was so bad, the hail was so hard, that we had to stop the car and sit for 15 minutes. I felt like I was inside a popcorn machine. A motorcyclist stopped with us. I looked at the size of those hailstones and felt sorry for him.
The gathering storm
When we got home, the road was covered with inches of hail. An eerie calm fell over the landscape. A monotone light saturated the air.
The light is eerie
Koda sits in hail
UFO?! Just kidding. The strange ambient light reflecting the inside lamp
I’m not ready for fall just yet. I’m still hoping for a bit of summer to begin.
Filed under: Cody Environs |
Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces 
In the early 90s we had a summer like this, even worse–I don’t think it ever got over 70 a single day in Butte. Still, that’s life in the N Rockies, and this summer is probably a lot like weather was before global warming started kicking in c. 1880 or so. Sure is an anomaly now, though.
We camped last weekend and at least it didn’t snow (we expected it).
Thanks for the great post about sedge grass lawns. I think of sedge as a wet meadow grass, but I guess compared to our English grass lawns, it’s positively xeric.
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