Well, we still have only had that one day of snow I posted about a couple weeks ago. Easy winter. Our crocuses are six inches high already. Maybe I should plant the garden. I had the house windows open all afternoon today.

It’s been a dreary couple of weeks before today though with a bunch of inversion days and a few rainy days. Inversions are when cooler air in the valleys gets trapped/capped by warmer air above. Usually accompanied by heavy fog. It happens every winter here for a couple weeks (common in Salt Lake City too). Yakima will be in the 30s and overcast and the skiers up in the mountains will be in t-shirts and sunshine.

Here’s an example what it looks like from above (photo taken from my usual drive to field work):

And what it looks like driving into it. I guess the nice part about a valley inversion versus a big regional winter storm system is that you can drive twenty minutes down the road if the gloom gets to be too much. And look, $1.65 gas!

Small website redesign. It might need a reload (to refresh a cached style sheet) if things look goofy. I changed the header area, switched fonts to a couple of Google open-source web fonts (Open Sans and Pacifico [for the title]), updated the archive page, and cleaned up a lot of behind-the-scenes code.

There’s a lot of code that’s still kind of a mess. And someday I really need to update the photos section. I’ll probably be tinkering around with the site a little for the next few days.

Also, while I’m posting about boring things, I changed the Corolla’s oil yesterday while we had some sun on the driveway, so noting the stats below for reference for the next one.

Mileage: 233,866
Oil: Castrol GTX High Mileage 10w-30, 3.5 qts
Filter: Fram PH4967 Extra Guard

Our first snow of the winter! Yup, been a dry year so far. Last year, February was our snowiest month, so maybe that’ll happen again. I almost miss it.

Here’s the view out back. And a window I’m in the process of installing in the old garage (needs trim still). It looks a little low from the outside because the interior floor is below grade.

Here’s our belated family Christmas card I guess. We took the all the dogs hiking in Waterworks Canyon on Christmas morning. Even hobbled-Taylor made it up the ridge with us (with some carrying and some pushing). Shorts weather on Christmas! I’ll add more photos when I get a chance (maybe next weekend).

Hiking with Parko at Waterworks Canyon last weekend. Twenty minute drive from our house, all afternoon in shorts on the first official day of winter, nice! Lots of stuff for Parko to sniff, but he mostly stayed on trail trotting along right behind me.

Neat rock formations. Parko making sure the coast is clear ahead.

Oregon grape in fall color. Rock outcrop with talus field, we climbed to the top of the ridge in the distance. Parko negotiated the rocks fine, but I also carried him across the cobble in places to make sure he didn’t overwork his paws on the sharp edges.

Looking back down the canyon. Looking out over Yakima from a ridge of Mt Clemen. We climbed about 3,000 ft up from the trailhead, on trail through the canyon, then mucking through muddy slopes on game trails and through the bunch grass. We didn’t stay on the ridge very long as it looked like dark clouds were moving in from the west.

Parko on the longest section of rocks. Beautiful sunny afternoon, the dark clouds held off.

My buddy. All tired out on the ride home.