Thank God that January is over.

I think January was (almost) more than I could take.  With more snow than I have ever lived through, temps down to -15F and day time temps not much better.  How about the sunny days we had?  Forget about it.  I don't think we had more than a couple of days where the sun peeked from behind the clouds.  Dark, gloomy, cold, and snow.  Reminds me why I don't like winter.

Is there a bright side to this?...YES!  There always is, and sometimes it comes in the month of February.  Of course it is still a winter month, but the days constantly get more hours of day light, the avg. temps are much warmer, and it comes without the relentless winds that March can bring.

The pics start from bad, to worse, to maybe there's hope.

This is when I thought it had gotten bad. 

Showing signs of "normal burn"

You can still see the curve of the "dry" creek.

Look at this cactus near the end of the blog.

And now things start getting worse.

This is the same "dry" creek.  Hard to tell where it is. 

And then there was hope.

Started digging out the plant I can get to.

So glad I covered many of my smaller plants.  I even covered a few I normally don't. 

Bigger yuccas do fine out in the open.  Yuccas unlike some cactus don't like to be snow covered all winter.

These cactus are 5 feet or taller.

Wildlife tracks (partridge).  Can't help but feel the struggle of the wildlife in such conditions.

I always try and help them out with some bird seed.    

Dug over to the pump-house today. 

Keep your plants high and dry for the more touchy desert ones

Makes a difference.

Runoff from the road to the "dry" creek, this creek drains the yard, house and goes to a big seasonal pond I dug out years ago.  I was going to share a pic of when it fills up in the winter/spring but could not find my past pic.  It was made for aquifer recharge and drainage.

I see that some of my plants are not doing well, and only time will tell for the others (most covered under snow).

Nice too see some plant high up and out of the snow.

I think I will try something new and post a pic from the year before.

A blast from the past, garden pic from Feb. 2016