Spring back to winter!

We had a couple of days when it felt almost like spring. Some sections of the trails were down to dirt although I still needed my snow bike for those nasty north-facing slopes. The birds were singing. And our Broad-tailed Hummingbirds had arrived. Yesterday, I heard the trill of their wings four times during my bike ride. The Mountain Bluebirds were staking out their nesting spots. Here was the male of a pair near us.

Some flowers were starting open. Spring Beauties... These blossoms are tiny, about a half inch across. They grow in meadows and even from under the pine needle cover, like this one.

Some bigger flowers, Pasqueflowers (wild crocuses) opened during the brief window between snow storms.

This morning, we were out early to beat the winter storm here. We got sunshine for our early start!

After an off day yesterday due to meeting a large group of off-leash dogs, Shyla was back in her normal form today.

She even shared today's yucky find with me - a deer jaw.

Although I don't love yucky stuff, it's wonderful when she wants to bring these animal parts to me rather than hiding while gnawing on them. It makes me think that all of our hard work is doing us some good.

Now it's snowing. The forecasters say it will snow almost all week, with possible big snow totals. Here's the sight of the elk antler Shyla found a couple of years ago with the snow coming down around it.

I'm sitting by a warm fire so I'm lucky. However, I am dreaming of the desert. Here's a star trail that I photographed at K's Rock on our last trip. It was during a full moon so only the brightest stars were visible, and a front was moving in from the west, as you can see from the clouds in the lower left.

Spring will be here before we know it! And it's already arrived at K's Rock! I'll just pretend that I'm there this afternoon!