We haven’t had any significant snow since 2008 and it was a real treat to get about 4 – 5 inches of snow on New Year’s Eve.    It snowed all day and at least until about 1 am when we were driving home from a party.

Here you can see our adobe oven and hoophouse, but you can’t see the cliffs at all:

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The cliffs on New Year’s Day:

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Our horno

 

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Looking SE towards Diamond Bar road (the road to Grand Canyon West and the Skywalk)

Below are lots more pictures (click on the pictures for larger images) of the high desert and plants in beautiful snow::

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Looking south — the adobe meditation building is almost finished, still need to build our “desert living roof.”

 

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Looking out towards Diamond Bar.

 

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Looking out west at our recently acquired 5th wheel. Our mini orchard will be in the middle of the lot

 

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Looking south

 

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Our new carport / greenhouse. We’re currently finishing the rocket mass heater with the bench for seedling trays, please check our next post for pics of the RMH construction.

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Dried chive flowers with lots of seeds in the herb garden

 

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The cliffs to our east during the day

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The cliffs at sunset

 

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Cows’ tongues, a variety of prickly pear

 

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The French Garden — built and planted by our French WWOOFer Yael last spring with the help of several other WWOOFers.

 

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There’s an old bathtub with cattails, many different basils, chichiquelite, goji berries, some natives and a rose. The pallets provide protection from the ferocious spring winds.

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The hoophouse

 

 

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The hoophouse after the snow slid off

 

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Our first adobe project, an oven built in 2008

 

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The moon up high

 

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Bare Trees of Paradise (Stink Trees) on the right and the only remaining African Sumac on the left (sheltered by the greenhouse). It’s too cold for them here.

 

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The pyramid in front of the cliffs. Last November a couple of our WWOOFers hiked to the top and camped for the night.

 

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Arizona reeds in our upper garden

 

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Looking NE from the upper garden

 

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Our puppy Riley loves the snow

 

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Rosemary in our herb garden

 

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Volunteer calendula in the hoophouse.

 

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Ruby mustard — I’ve never seen seedlings grow slower and we’re considering various methods to heat the soil next winter.

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I can’t wait for the trees and bushes to leaf out again!

 

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Riley and Andy had a blast!

 

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The willow grew from a cutting through the pot into the ground. When the hoophouse plastic goes bad we will move it and turn this area into a garden.

It took about a week for all the snow to melt and I sure wish we had snow like this at least once every winter.

Happy New Year!