It snowed today in Metro Denver. I took a few pictures in Boulder Colorado where I work and posted them on Flickr.

Over this past weekend my family drove to Colorado Springs. We stopped about mid-way. One of the things I love about Colorado is the variable weather. We've had tons of cold nights below freezing but the days still can get up into the 70's F (18-22 C). We've managed one snow on the high plains, but there has been a fair bit of snow up in the mountains.

I brought my camera along and took a few pictures. One of my favourites was a wild flower that, despite the crazy autumn weather, decided to battle the elements.

I wish I had been carrying my digital camera--I had to take the snap with my cell phone--because the road was flooded. I thought it was a broken main, but then found out on the news tonight that the rain had been SO heavy it created a lake on highway 36 at the Broomfield exit.

For some time now I have been working on a Folklorist's project for the Colorado Council on the Arts called, "The Ties That Bind". The project is getting very close to completion. You can get a preview of it at dogstar.org/ties.

The site brings folk arts to the classroom and is an update of a project started in the 1980's

The site was originally conceived to be a static site--very simple and straight forward. Through a series of twists and turns it has become deceptively more complicated that how it looks on the surface.

The site was put together using Drupal utilizing book and page for the most part. Four audio tapes were digitized using Audacity. In mid-sampling of some pretty old tapes--they were produced in the 1980's, my tape deck broke. I ended up getting a new deck from the local thrift shop for a little over $5. The cables to get it to connect to my iMac were more expensive! All told, seventy tracks were ripped as MP3s. A video, produced by the Colorado Council on the Arts, was digitized from an old VHS tape using a ReplayTV and DVArchive. These were resampled to provide a small and large version of the offering.

For the fourth week in a row it is snowing.  There won't be much more than a few inches this time round, probably because of the cold.  It is about 9:10 pm and 1 degree F/-17 degrees C.  The temperature is supposed to keep dropping throughout the night and we are supposed to be in a deep freeze for several days. 

The Drive Home Yesterday

Last week I spent about three hours digging us out of the snow. Now we have word another blizzard almost as big as this past one will hit us this afternoon.

So, here are two more videos of the mess we found ourselves in. First is the house before the dig out, the second shows two of the dogs having a fun time mucking about in the snow.

Before the Dig Out

Dogs Having Fun

On the 20th snow started to fall in the morning. All the schools closed and we hunkered down to see how much snow would fall. They were calling for one to two feet. By the end of it, it had become three feet with five foot drifts. All our doors were snowed in. The cars were snow bound. I shoveled outside twice--once on the 20th to try and get ahead of the snow and again for three hours on the 21st.

Today I filled the bird feeder and a flicker came to visit. Interestingly, this large bird did not do much to frighten off the sparrows that had come for a little meal.

It remains cold enough that the snow is not going to melt. We're going to have a white Christmas in Colorado this year.