August arrives with snow

It must be time for my annual snow pictures.

Snow

These were taken here at our place a week ago. It was pretty crisp.

Types of snow

Wikipedia list the following "types of snow on the ground". If you really must you can look up what they all mean here. I made up one of them. In fact, bearing in mind that it's Wikipedia, maybe all of them are made up.

Artificial snow
Blowing snow
Chopped powder
Corn
Cornice
Crud
Crust
Depth hoar
Finger Drift
Heavy crud
Ice
Firn
Packed Powder
Packing snow
Penitentes
Pillow Drift
Powder
Quinsy
Slush
Snirt (not to be confused with snert)
Snowdrift
Surface Hoar
Watermelon snow
Wind slab

Tardy funsters make do with ice mush

We had a big dump of snow on the mountain on Friday night. Elf and I tried to get the boys out early on Saturday to go up and play in it, but by the time we got there it was all pretty trampled. The road was closed at The Springs, so we squeezed into the carpark there and did a bit of a mild romp in the same tennis-court-sized patch of snow as about 30 other funsters of all ages.

Last night the weather was appalling. Neither Elf or I got any sleep. The wind was constant, it basically sounded like someone was vacuuming our bedroom. The boys slept through it with no problems at all.

We hoped that at least some more snow would have fallen, so we could take advantage of being awake and be the first ones up there this morning. But no. Marcus and I went up anyway for a look, and threw some loosely packed ice-mush-balls at each other.

Then we went for a walk up a track and found the University of Tasmania's Cosmic Rays Observatory. Sounds very impressive doesn't it? It is very small green A-frame shed. Yet they keep an eye on the Earth's bombardment by stuff from beyond our galaxy.

Walk in the snow

Tuesday was a big snow day, and by the evening it was settling on our deck. Elf and I stood out in the snow and let it go "paff" quietly on our faces. The sky behind the house was illuminated in an odd way - so I rugged up and went for a walk to investigate. It was just the lights from Wellesly Park soccer ground glowing on the falling snow - I had never even realised that they had lights.

It was beautiful up there. The snow had settled on the flat part of the park, and especially on the soft piles of bark around the play equipment - I walked through it and left black footprints in the white. The smell of malt from the brewery wafted through the falling snow, and it was so quiet.

Chonk pops the question

Elf's brother Chonk (Edwin) has finally proposed to Irma, the Swiss-Texan, and she has accepted! We may be on our way to a wedding in Switzerland! Or Texas. Next year! Or the one after. When the fog in the crystal ball clears we will be able to plan something. Hopefully the boys will be pulling in $$ as child models or chess prodigies or something by then.

In further news, the house that was our home will be rent asunder and trucked away on Thursday morning, 23rd November. We are going to be in position to watch some of it I hope. Will it scar the boys mentally? I really hope not.

And my mum and dad and my niece Pip will be arriving tomorrow to stay the weekend with us, which should be fantastic. As long as the snow stays away.

Boronia Beach

It's been a strange day. Repeated showers of hail all over town, and snow on the mountain in mid November. Its was 5° when Marcus and I drove past The Mercury on our way to swim (indoor, heated) at about 3.30. It's tentatively fined up this evening but still cold like the frozen-pizza-and-icecream aisle.

I've just been for a light post-dinner walk to the beach - Boronia Beach. Its beautiful! Very very small, hemmed in between rocky headlands. It is not far at all (I was there and back in 20 minutes) but there are a lot of steps down and, regrettably, back up. It takes some finding too, as you need to go down what seems to be a driveway for a ways before the gate and a sign appear on your right.

It is reputed to be a nude beach. I can honestly say I saw no clothes at all, but then I was the only one there. Hopefully if I continue taking walks on my own there I won't be arrested for lurking. I'll try to take a photo next visit.

Sunscreen and snow

It was a beaut morning, and I thought we should go for a walk on Mt Wellington. I recommnded the top of the ZigZag Track, because the views are excellent and its flattish. What I forgot was that it blows a gale up there. Michael was asleep by the time we got up there, so Elf stayed in the car while Marcus and I did a few laps around the pinnacle, in very strong and cold winds.

The peaks in the western distance still wear a thick cone of snow, and the wind felt like it had done a few laps around those icy parts before it blew through us. I had foolishly dressed myself and the boys in just a t-shirt and polar fleece, when perhaps two or three polar fleeces and a parka would have made more sense. Marcus didn't care, he thought the whole wind thing was a hoot. There were blobs of snow around and about, not enough for snowballs, snowmen or snow angels though. Its only about a week since it last snowed I suppose.

At risk of having it blown out of my hands, I took a map of southern Tasmania up to the pinnacle to show him how the shapes on the map matched the shapes down there in the view. I think he thought that was interesting, but we couldn't really hear anything each the other said.

We could see our house from up there too - not exactly it but our immediate neighbourhood at least. I always feel lucky to be among tourists from all over, looking down on this beautiful place, knowing that they must move on while I will come back down and live here for as long as I want to stay, with a wild mountain there waiting for whenever I feel the urge to go up to explore it.

Back home we spent a while in the backyard. It got pretty hot, and I was looking around for shade, of which we have none. I was putting sunscreen on the boys and feeling like this had been a fairly extreme kind of day. No wonder I feel so tired now.

Marcus invented a magnificent water pump in the bath tonight. A funnel, that fit snugly into a plastic cylinder, pumped water out of its spout as he plunged it up and down. Excellent hydraulic sausage that he is.