Who's the Optimist at NOAA?

For the past week, the weather has been stormy over the mountains in the afternoons, in spite of consistent NOAA weather predictions, as of that morning, of only a 20% chance of rain. On Sunday, with the prediction again for 20% chance of rain, we hoped we'd hit the 80% that was supposed to be rain-free. We trailered up the Elkhorn Loop and then to the Chepeta Lake trailhead.

About 11, we got started on a ride on the trail toward Whitereocks Lake. We saw some hikers and a group on mules just as we crossed the Whiterocks River, but had no company after that.

Near the creek and in meadows, we saw lots of what we think is a Grey-leaf willow (right), and some mountain harebells. Much of the trail wound through spruce trees and was very rocky. We’d started out without our Easyboot Bares, but soon decided to put them on.
Unfortunately, NOAA had mis-underestimated (in Bush-speak) their forecast again. The sky clouded up by 12, and by 1, we were having lightning and loud claps of thunder every couple of minutes. The rain came down. Not hard, but enough to get us damp in spite of our dusters and other gear. The temperature dropped, too, making it fairly unpleasant. With no sign of clearing, we decided the better part of valor was to head for the trailer. Fortunately, most of our trek was through trees, so we had good cover.
This photo shows a tree that had been struck by lightning recently, maybe in the past week. It literally exploded into shards (I'm holding one of the pieces) and splinters that were splattered over the ground for a 150 foot radius. Pretty impressive force. Maybe riding in the trees wasn’t such good protection from the storm after all.

Pigeon Water Spring

NOAA predicted a 60% chance of rain up high today, so Steve planned a ride between 8000 and 9000 feet to try to avoid the showers.
From Roosevelt, we went through Bluebell, turned northwest at Mountain Home toward Granddaddy Lake, then turned north off of that road toward Pigeon Water Spring. We crossed tribal lands and parked right after passing over a cattle gap at the Forest Service boundary. The total drive was about 45 minutes.
A few clouds were building over the mountains, but nothing impressive. We rode a few hundred yards to Pigeon Water Spring, marked by a tractor tire filled with water and a hose coming out of the ground running water.
The spring is pictured above. Note the storm-free sky in the background.
The area was marshy, with lush grass, ripe serviceberries, which Steve could not resist tasting. They're pretty bland in flavor, he reports.

Birch-leaf mountain mahogany was awash in silvery plumes.
Wildflowers included lupine, yarrow, red rocket flowers, and wooly mullein, n tall-stalked invasive with yellow blossoms:

Romans and Greeks dipped these stalks in tallow and used them for funeral torches. Medieval Europe called the plant the Hag Taper because witches were believed to use them for light.
We also saw lavender thistle blooms. Mischief ate a few. Steve took a photo of a colorful bumblebee on one of the blooms:
Traveling east, sans trail, over a rocky hill for a mile or so, we reached a two track we hoped to follow up to Dry Ridge.

We came to Gooseberry Spring, again with a tractor tire trough. The spring’s vicinity was lush with ripe serviceberries and gooseberries, shown here. Gooseberries taste much better than serviceberry. These were very tart, almost like a lemon, very flavorful. When we returned home, we tried to use the picture to figure out the genus species, but found that without the flower and more careful observation, we couldn't distinguish among the types of currant and gooseberry that have black berries. Our Uinta Basin Flora book shows about 10 different species in Utah. So, it's complicated. We'll have to look more carefully next time.

While savoring the berry flavors, we heard thunder in the distance and noticed that the sky had grown quite dark. We decided to go up into the nearest aspen grove,where we took a break and watched the storm clouds. We ate granola bars. Daisy made herself comfortable resting against one of Boss's rear legs. Talk about Hi-Lee trusting!
At first, the time lapse between lightning and associated thunder indicated about a 5 mile distance. A few minutes later, the distance was only about a mile up the mountain. We considered staying in the trees and riding on, but we thought we might end up in a bad storm and unable to come down through the open areas. Not worth the risk of coming in close personal contact with a lightning strike, we decided. On down we went.
Daisy found a special treat as we neared the trailer. She dragged her delish deer leg into the truck.

Here’s a picture of how the sky looked by the time we reached the trailer. Turning back was a good decision, eh?

Our ride ended up being 3.5 miles and 850 feet elevation gain. Not a bad workout for a stormy day.

Hay Down

With plenty of fertilizer and water, our alfalfa/grass meadow grew three feet tall. Our horses have only been able to keep up with about an acre, so our neighbors offered to cut a little under 2.5 acres so we’d have something to put up for winter hay. (We saved a little bit of the tall stuff for the horses to eat until the rest of the pasture grows out after cutting.)
Yesterday, with the NOAA weather report showing sun for the next 7 days, 16 year old Todd came over with his dad’s big mo-co (mower-conditioner) hay mower. (Too bad Lucas wasn’t here to see. He would have loved that BIG truck!) Todd’s little brother Caleb, only 7, came along to “help.” We had to pull T-posts in several places to widen the gaps for the machine’s 15 foot, 10 inch swath. (We’d prepared for a 14 foot wide machine, but that turned out to be the measurement on their old haymaker.)
Todd managed that machine like he’d been doing it all his life – he’s probably been involved and practicing since he was Caleb’s age. The grass was down in neat rows in just over an hour.
However, no sooner did we get the machine back through the gaps and returned to the house than the sky started to darken. We went in, checked NOAA again, and sure enough, now they were calling for 20% chance of rain. Duh. After they looked at the sky, they must have decided 100% sunny just wasn’t realistic, same as we did. So much for accurate weather predictions.
The wind blew, the temperature dropped, but it didn’t rain yesterday. This afternoon, more thunderstorms moved through. The wind blew, the temperature dropped, and some raindrops fell. Not too many, though. So far, the hay’s probably all right.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed for good weather through Friday or Saturday, when we should be good to bale.
Next project: doing something with the produce from veggie garden and fruit trees. They're coming along.