Wind and Snow

My property looks like a mountain slope in winter, shaped by wind and snow. In reality it's just a ridge, topping out at around 1,000 feet, barely in the Cascade foothills. 

Here the snow has been blown out from around the south side of the house, piled up into drifts.

Ursa taking a break before braving more exploring. She traversed some of these drifts to get there.

Thankfully none of the dogs in this area are eager to escape, as the snow makes a nice step to the top of the fence.

The snow at the front of the house (east side) is packed down from human, canine, and poultry feet. It doesn't look deep. However, that bucket is about 12" tall, and is standing on the ground.

Just down the slope are windswept areas, bare of all but crusty ice.

This snow is very noisy. It has a thick crust of ice and makes loud crunchy noises as I walk through it. I also quickly learned to follow Charlie paths. He seems to have an uncanny ability to sense deep snow and avoid it. My usual path put me knee deep into snow, while 10 feet away Charlie's side path was only a few inches deep.