Winter 2/10 Country Road - January 2006

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Road2006.jp

This poor little guy - a sparrow - ended up dead on Mile Drive. He wasn't hit by a car, it looks like he just died. I hadn't seen any other sparrows around.

Here is the view of Bluebird Treeline from across field #5.

The sun and sky were unusual this day, so I photographed them. The left-most picture is just as I start walking down Mile Drive, the right-most picture is from just under the Power Lines.

Gene made an appearance on his tractor. He is most likely dumping off some manure. He has seen me out walking on the gravel road enough times so that he waves whenever I am within hailing distance. I could use an editing program to lighten these pictures, but I am going to leave them as the camera made them because you get the feeling of an overcast winter day.

It's snowing out. January has not been very snowy to date. The left-most picture is the view as I come from suburbia out to the gravel road. I have to walk about 50 yards along the paved country road to reach Mile Drive. The right-most picture shows the Mound in Field #9. The snow confuses the camera and makes the hue of the sky of some of the photos head toward blue.

Here is the view as it lightly snows and I continue to walk along Bailey Road to Mile Drive.

It's 48 degrees out - very sunny and warm for a January day during a Minnesota winter.

Here is the little miracle that allows Minnesotan's to get around on the roads in the winter - rock salt. Road crews dump a mix of rock salt and gravel on the paved roads. Gravel helps keep vehicles from skidding off the road when the brakes are applied or the car is steered slightly off course then corrected, while rock salt lowers the melting point of snow and ice. Water is less dangerous to drive on than either snow or ice. Rock salt helps keep the road wet rather than frozen.

Down the gravel road on a glorious winter day.

In the brush in the picture at the far right a pheasant jumped up and flew toward the gravel pit. In the picture on the left are tracks it left along the side of the road. At the top of the picture are rabbit tracks.

The Two Oaks have some sort of ugly fungus on them. Its seems worse on the north side of the trees, like moss, forming farthest away from the sun in the summer.