Busy Season

It has been a very busy month for me as summer has begun.  I have had the usual rounds of weeding in the garden and general upkeep on things around the house.  I have also been doing a bit of traveling and sight seeing so I have not had the time to post updates here.  Even so, there is still garden happenings going on here.  My first harvests of peas and broccoli have started to come in.  I have harvested my garlic and am curing it in my back room.  I have started digging up my volunteer potatoes one by one and having them with breakfast or dinner.  I have also harvested a few of the smaller onions to add to my meals here and there.

Slowly but surely things are moving along in the garden.  The late arrival of summer has delayed the growth of my warm season plants, but now that things are starting to heat up I can see that things have been making progress.  After a couple of replantings, my melon seeds finally germinated.  I am hoping they have enough summer to produce mature fruit since they seem to love the hotter weather so much.  My squash needed to be replanted too, so they are off to a slow start as well.  The cucumbers are looking like a crop failure this year.  I replanted the cucumber bed three times this year and all I have to show for it is one tiny, sickly seedling.  I'm not terribly sad about the cucumbers though, because last year they were so productive that I probably canned enough pickles to last for the next three years.

My indoor started seedlings were off to a rough start also.  I think they went through an extended post transplanting shock phase because the weather stayed cooler for much longer than I had expected.  (Heck, in some areas around the valley, there was snow at the higher elevations on the first day of summer!)  They are starting to recover well in the warmer weather that has moved in and now I just need to make sure that everything stays nice and watered.

I know that summer is just beginning but the garden feels like it is off to an extremely slow start this year.  All the plants seem to be far behind in their growth compared to what I have seen in years past.  There are still a couple of months of hot weather ahead of us, so I hope that things will catch up in the next few weeks.  The real test will be seeing how long it takes to get the first harvest from each crop.  I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I will still have a productive garden this year.

Post Planting Cold Snap

The weather in the mountains never ceases to amaze me.  I thought we had wild temperature swings when I lived in the midwest, but once the weather got warm out there, it generally stayed that way until fall.  Here in the mountains we can have a few weeks of beautiful weather and temps in the 80's followed by days of wind, cold rain, and at some elevations, snow.  This year this cold snap came around just a week after the last average frost date for my area.  I know that the average frost date is just an average, but the warm temps that had been teasing me for the couple of weeks before the frost date lulled me into a false sense of security.  My garden was planted the week after mother's day.  This week I am crossing my fingers that the squash, cucumbers and beans don't germinate until things warm back up again.  I am also praying that the temps don't actually dip below freezing, or I will likely lose my corn, tomatillos, peppers and tomatoes.

The peppers and the tomatoes have been covered by a makeshift green house that will hopefully keep them alive through the cold snap.  The corn and the tomatillos will have to fend for themselves as I don't have enough hoops and rebar stakes to construct the low tunnels that could protect them.  Depending on how cold it gets over the next couple nights, things could get rough out in the garden. 

If I need to replant corn it shouldn't be a big deal, but the ones that have already come up have grown two inches tall and had a great head start on the growing season. 

The tomatillos seem to grow pretty fast so if I do need to replant them, they shouldn't be too far behind by the time summer reaches full force.  In a few days I will know what made it and what didn't.  In the mean time I will try to think positive.  Plants can be hardier than you expect and while this cold snap may stress some of them, if they make it through they will probably go on to become really good producers.

Tibetan Purple Barley

When I went to the food and farm forum this past winter they give out an information bag to everyone that participates.  In the bag there are various pamphlets explaining various farm related organizations that are active in this area and a breakdown of the day's scheduled events.  They always throw in a few surprises every year and this year I was happily surprised to find a packet of Tibetan Purple Barley seeds in my bag.

I hadn't given much thought as to what I would do with these particular seeds.  There were only about forty seeds in the packet so it wouldn't cover much ground.  I didn't want to loose the seeds in the sea of weeds that my yard becomes in the summertime and I didn't want to set them out to be free snacks for the local birds.  I decided to plant them in a long shallow planter this year which solved all of my issue quite simply.  By planting them in the planter I could be sure that the only thing growing there was this barley and I wouldn't lose them in the jungle of my yard.  I could also cover the planter with a screen until the seeds germinated to prevent birds from snatching them all up.

It has taken a few weeks, but they seem to be germinating little by little.  If I can coax these tiny shoots into growing more seeds for me I will be able to plant a larger area next year.  I am hoping they will thrive in my climate and I will be able to help continue a rare line of barley for generations to come.

Growing My Own Sweet Potato Slips

Last year was the first year that I had ever grown sweet potatoes in my garden.  I had one that had started to sprout new growth over the winter, so I decided that once the weather warmed I would tuck it into an empty spot in my garden.  I planted the whole potato, not knowing that there was a better way.  It still produced a couple small potatoes, so I ate one and saved the other for the next growing season.  Over the winter the single potato has sprouted several new vines.  Each vine has the potential to become a new plant in the right conditions, so I am setting out to do it a better way this year.

Starting with the single sweet potato, I stuck three toothpicks into the root so I could soak it in water without submerging the whole thing.  After a few weeks in water the sweet potato started to grow new roots into the water and it sent new shoots up into the air.  Sweet potatoes don't grow exactly like regular potatoes.  The part we eat is actually the root of the plant as opposed to regular potatoes which are tubers that grow off the stems of a plant.  Regular potatoes will send up new stems and the tubers form at the base of the stems that are underground.  Sweet potatoes can be cuttings of new growth that have the opportunity to form new roots (and therefore new sweet potatoes).  To make the slips I waited until the new vines were several inches long and then I broke them off of the rooted sweet potato and stuck them in their own jar of water.  I am hoping that they will develop a strong enough root system of their own in a few weeks.  Once they seem like they are off to a good start and the weather is staying generally warmer, they will be introduced to the summer garden where they can grow to their hearts content.

The Garden is Coming to Life

It has barely been a month since the official beginning of Spring, but the signs of life returning to the world are everywhere.  The trees are leafing out, the flowers are blooming, the grass is growing lush and green.  In the garden things are starting to emerge too.

The onion sets that I planted a few weeks ago have made their way through the mulch with their tender green spears.  I am always amazed by how quickly onions grow.  In only a few short months I will again have fresh onions for my kitchen.  I still have a few onions left from last year's harvest and if they can keep for a few more months I will have been able to grow enough onions to last me a year in only sixty square feet of growing space.

The potatoes are pushing their way up through the leaves and straw that covered their bed, forming little mounds before finally pushing through.  They will hopefully fill in this bed in short order and I will be well on my way to having fresh potatoes to eat soon.  This year one of my goals is to dehydrate more potatoes for easy dried backpacking meals for my camping adventures.

The peas and radishes have made an appearance in their bed where the wind stripped off the straw mulch that I had put down.  Once things get tall enough to hold the straw in place I will go back and re-mulch this bed.  The carrots that I planted in the row with the radishes should take a bit longer to germinate, but they will be able to fill in the gaps left by the radishes when I harvest them.

In the next bed I have a few turnip or rutabaga seedlings finding their way to the sunlight through the thin layer of straw covering them.  I expect that the lettuce and spinach I also planted there will find their way to the sun in the next few days.  I have been finding an abundance of lettuce volunteers scattered throughout the beds.  They are growing nicely with little help from me.  Because of these volunteers I will be able to have a good harvest of lettuce with literally no work on my part aside from cutting the leaves when they are big enough.

The garlic are growing taller each day.  It might be another month or so before they send up scapes, but by the looks of things, I am expecting a pretty nice harvest.  It looks as though most of the garlic are quite happy and I expect to have some good sized heads by June.

In a few more weeks the weather should be warm enough to start planting my warm weather crops.  It won't long until my garden becomes a regular contributor to my pantry again.  I am looking forward to enjoying the fruits of my labor in the months to come.

Transplanting Broccoli and Cabbage

The last frost is still a few weeks away, but my cold hardy broccoli and cabbage were more than ready to stretch their legs in something bigger than a three inch pot.  They were starting to gain in size and the roots had begun to grow out of the bottom of the pots, so I knew they were ready to go out into the real world.  They have been hardened off over the past several weeks.  At first it was only for a few hours on nice days at the end of March, but as they grew stronger I started leaving them out for the whole day. The overnight temps have also begun to creep up over the past couple of weeks, so I started to leave them outside through the night, even if the temps might dip near freezing.  Brassicas can tolerate some fairly cool temps, in fact they seem to thrive in cooler weather.

This past week I had time to clean up the garden bed that would become home for these plants and I set up the drip irrigation lines for the bed as well.  I laid out the seedlings on the bed to find the right spacing, then dug them in with my little trowel.  I felt like the middle of the bed still had some usable garden space, so I planted a row of parsnips down the middle of the rows of broccoli and cabbage.  This year I am growing six broccoli, three green cabbages and three red cabbages.  The red cabbages were still fairly small seedlings when they were transplanted outside.  They were off to a late start because the first round of red cabbage seeds that I planted never germinated.  Hopefully they will catch up to the bigger seedlings before too long.

Other Things That Grow Here

I have a deep love for all living things and one of my fondest loves is plants.  I find them fascinating.  The variety of ways that they grow is astonishing.  In addition to all of the edible plants that I grow in the garden, I host a number of plants in my living space.  Most of them have a story and some of them were gifts.  A few are experiments that turned out well and at least one was a rescue from a discount grocery store shelf.

My indoor plant collection began with a lovely little creature named Clyde the Cactus, a name bestowed upon him by my mother.  Clyde was a single "finger" of a cactus wearing a top hat and glued on googly eyes that I bought from a grocery store when I was 15.  I never figured out what kind of cactus Clyde was, but over the years he has grown many extra "fingers".  Clyde has never once flowered, and seems to do well no matter where in the country I am living (Clyde has multiple cross country moves under his belt).  I call him the friendly cactus because his "thorns" curve back on themselves and don't poke like most cacti.

I have several Christmas Cactus as well.  One of them in particular is very sentimental to me.  It belonged to my grandmother and I am certain it is much older than I am.  It still flowers every year, sometimes multiple times a year and is a lovely explosion of color in my house during the dreary winter months.

Another very old plant that I have is this Jerusalem Rope.  It belonged to the mother of a friend and was something of a family heirloom.  I asked for just a cutting, but she decided to give me the whole plant.  It's vining growth habit is very long and heavy and I didn't want to break it's branches so it currently lives with it's long vines wound around it's pot on the shelf.

I have a  Rosemary plant that I rescued from a gift basket that was being neglected where I worked.  This lovely creature has grown nicely over the years and is my most successful attempt at keeping rosemary alive. (I may have accidentally killed a couple of these over the years)

One of my experiments that is turning out well is my Pineapple plant.  I saw online that you can grow a pineapple from a pineapple top, so I followed the instructions and lo and behold it works.  I think I will need a fairly large pot for this plant eventually, but for right now it is slowly growing in a sunny window in my kitchen.

An experiment I am continuing is growing sweet potatoes.  I had an extra sweet potato left over from my thanksgiving meal prep a few years ago and it sat around so long that it started to grow new vines.  Last year I found an extra space in the garden and planted it for the summer.  It only ended up producing a couple of edible potatoes, but I decided to keep the experiment going and let one of those potatoes grow again for planting this year.  If I can get enough slips to make a decent crop, I may start devoting one of my garden beds to sweet potatoes.

I have several plants that were given to me by various friends.  There is a Jade plant, a Ficus, a Philodendron, and an Aloe plant.  All of them are thriving and some of them are starting to need more space.

 

I also have a couple of Orchids that were both rescued that also seem to be thriving in their sunny spots in my windows.

There is an English Ivy that is taking over the top shelf in this sunny window and it seems as though it is telling me that I need to find another place for some of my other plants to live.

Finally, I have a Norfolk Pine that is beginning to dominate the west side of my living room.  This is my Christmas tree substitute and I decorate it every winter.  Eventually I think it will outgrow my home.  Hopefully I will be able to find it a good place to live when it gets to that point.

Little Chickens Big Outdoor Adventure

The baby chickens are just over a month old now and they were quickly outgrowing their temporary living space in the spare room.  I started to acclimate them to cooler temperatures for the past couple of weeks by turning off the heat lamp during the day, then finally leaving it off all the time.  They seemed to adjust pretty quickly.  I usually wait to put them outdoors until they are fully feathered.  The last place on their body to loose the cute chick fluff is the head.  Once their heads are feathered in, they are ready to go outside.  I try to keep an eye on the weather when I decide when to put them out for the first time.  I wait for a stretch of nice warm days and mild nights, so they can have a gentle introduction to outdoor life.

The day they went outside was a mild sunny day with temps in the upper 60's and a gentle breeze.  The rest of the week looked about the same, so it seemed like an ideal time to get the little ones out of the house.  They will spend the next couple of months in this small enclosure where they will be safe from roaming predators.  Once they start to get close to being full sized chickens I will introduce them to the rest of the flock and they will get to enjoy the freedom of the chicken yard.  Until then I will have a front row seat to watch their antics from my kitchen window.

Potato Planting

The weather is going through an indecisive phase right now and has been swinging back and forth between warm sunny days and cloudy, cold wet days with a variety of snow and rain.  The warm days were nice enough that I decided to try to get a little spring planting in starting with my potatoes.  I still had quite a few potatoes left from last fall's harvest and a bunch of them were well on their way to becoming potato plants again.  The sprouting eyes were nearly a foot long in some cases and they were just begging to be planted so that they can grow again.

I had already started turning over some of the garden beds that the chickens had "tilled" for me this winter and this year's crop of potatoes was planted where last year's cucumbers had grown.  The dirt in this bed was nice and fluffy and I dug three trenches for this collection of seed potatoes.  Each trench received a different variety.  Yukon golds went down the middle.

 The Purple Vikings went down the east side and the Red Chieftains went down the west side.

Once I had all the spuds where I wanted them, I back filled the trenches and leveled out the bed with a rake.  The next stage was setting up the drip lines for this bed and then covering the whole thing with straw.  The straw will help insulate the potatoes from wild temperature swings and helps to hold precious moisture in the soil.  I expect to see sprouts appearing on the surface in a few weeks from now and am already looking forward to this year's potato harvest.  Potatoes have become a staple in my diet just because they are so easy to grow and store very well in the right conditions.

Spinning Luxurious Yarn

A few years ago I bought a pair of braids of some very soft, shimmery black roving.  When I touched it, it felt like I was petting a cloud.  I didn't have any particular project in mind when I bought them, but I knew that what ever I made with it would be silky soft and very warm.  They were a blend of alpaca and silk.  When I got a request for a special camping nightcap, I knew what material I wanted to use.  I could make a thin cap that would still be very warm with this blend, but first I had to turn it into yarn.

I made two skeins of this shimmery, soft double ply yarn and then proceeded to tun this yarn into a hat.

From start to finish it was many hours of work, but I love the final product.  A thin, but warm, soft hat that won't fall off when the wearer is cozy in their sleeping bag on a camping trip.

Late Winter Root Crop Harvest

Seeing as it is almost time to start planting my spring crops. I decided that it was time to finish harvesting last years crops from the garden.  The two things that I overwintered outside were my carrots and my parsnips.  The carrots were tucked in the middle of my pepper bed last year, and I mostly neglected them after planting.  I was more concerned about the pepper harvest at the end of fall, and I pretty much forgot the carrots were even growing there.  The parsnips were hidden among the celery crop, which died back months ago with the first of winter's frigid temperatures.  When the weather started warming up this spring, I noticed that the tops of the carrots and parsnips had started to grow again.  Now that I could easily see where they were growing, I could just dig them out where ever I saw a touch of new green growth.  I was impressed by the size of the carrots as many of them were huge!  There were a few that had split in the winter and those immediately became chicken treats when I found them.  The rest were washed and brought inside where I could further process them at my leisure.

Overwintered carrots are super sweet and tasty because the carrots store lots of sugar which acts like antifreeze to help them survive the really cold temperatures of winter.

The parsnip harvest wasn't nearly as impressive, but there were many good sized ones that had grown nice and straight in my hard clay soils.  I like this crop because it's taproot grows very deep into the soil and helps brings nutrients closer to the surface where other crops can utilize them.  It also helps to break up any compaction in the soil which can help any future crops grow by making it easier for them to spread their roots.

I will use some of these tasty roots for fresh eating, but the rest will be sliced or cubed and then dehydrated for long term food storage or backpacking meals.  This is another example of how I can grow a good amount of food with little extra work.  These crops shared garden beds with other crops that were unaffected by (or improved because of) their presence.  They were seeded in as an after thought and pretty much ignored for the rest of the growing season.  I left them in the ground outside for winter which also saves me storage space while the roots become sweeter.  In the end I wound up with several pounds of tasty fresh food that I can harvest at a time of year when there is very little growing outside yet.  A win win all around.

Seedlings are Progressing

Things are starting to look nice and green in the growing corner in my kitchen.  The seedlings that were planted in February have started to fill out a bit.  The fastest growers are my brassicas.  The first round of broccoli and cabbage starts have sized up quite a bit in the past month and I expect they will be good and ready to move outdoors once the weather warms up a little more.  I have started putting them outside for a couple hours here and there to get them used to the strong sunshine they will be growing in once they are transplanted.

The next biggest seedlings are the peppers.  They do take a long time to get going, but all of the seedlings look pretty happy so far.  It will still be weeks before the weather is even close to warm enough to start the hardening off process with these guys, so they still have plenty of time to size up.

The herbs and celery are still tiny, but they are growing.  They will be going outside around the same time as the peppers, so hopefully they will make a lot more progress by then.

Last but not least are my tomato and tomatillo seedlings.  These guys were planted only a couple of weeks ago, but I expect they will grow quickly.  They have already starting making their first true leaves.  I hope that I can get them outside before they get too big for my growing space in the kitchen.

Spring has Sprung

Everywhere I look signs of spring are peeking out.  From the crocus blooming and the daffodil greens reaching for the sun to the garlic shoots poking out of the garden soil.  There are huge flocks of Sandhill cranes making their noisy stops in the corn fields on their journey north.  Mixed among them are flocks of Canadian geese following the retreat of winter.  Soon the days will be filled with warm sunshine and the nights will lose their chill.

All of these signs mean that it is time to get to work in the garden and clean up the beds for the next growing season.  The chickens have had free run of half the garden this winter and they have done a good job tilling up the garden beds and (hopefully) removing weed seeds and insect pests.  Now that it is getting closer to planting time I will have to move them onto greener pastures so that my garden can grow undisturbed from their voracious beaks.  Moving the chickens is mostly just the task of taking down their electric fence and putting it up in a new location.  Once I have it where I want it I simply bribe them all with whole corn to get them into the new area.

Now begins the hard work of preparing the garden beds for this year's crops.  The first beds that I work on will hold the potatoes and onions.  Once those are done, I want to get other beds ready for early season crops like spinach, lettuce and peas.  The last beds to get worked on will be those that will hold the warm season crops.  These don't have to be ready until early May, but I bet April will be gone in the blink of an eye, so I will do my best to get things done while the weather is favorable.  In a few short months, my yard will become a lush green mess again and I can't wait!

Hatchlings!

Spring has sprung in my back room.  A small pile of chicks now sleep in the warm red glow of their heat lamp.  The first chick hatched early in the morning on the 7th.  By evening I had a total of six new additions to my flock.  I waited until they were all dry and then moved them into the "brooder" which is a good sized aquarium in my spare bedroom.  Here they will grow in the safety of the indoors until they are big enough to handle outdoor living.

These guys will be going outside in four to six weeks.  The timing will depend on how fast their feathers come in and how warm the weather is looking.  So far spring seems to want to take her sweet time in getting here, but we are getting plenty of rain instead of snow which means that the weather is warming.  Once things start to dry out, I expect spring will arrive with a flourish.

The Littlest Leprechaun

Recently a friend of mine sent me a picture of a leprechaun outfit that she wanted me to make for her little boy.  It was almost St. Patrick's Day and she wanted to dress him up like a leprechaun and get some cute pictures.  I looked up the pattern and adjusted it for size and got to work.  The hat and the pants were a good fit, though I may have overestimated the suspenders a bit.

The project was fun and went pretty quick since it only had to be big enough to fit a tiny human.  I find that I really enjoy being able to create something special and unique for the special people in my life.  Special requests always give the projects more purpose and I always learn something new when I try to make something I have never made before.

Stocking up on Stock

This winter has been a quiet one and I have spent some of my days off making batches of stock for my freezer.  I had a few chicken carcasses and a bag of pork bones from a while back that have been in my freezer long enough.  When I have the time I take out a bag or two and throw them in my stock pot and cover the bones with water.  If the bones had not been already cooked, I would roast them in the oven for a while to help release their savory flavor.  I add a couple of chopped up onions, carrots and celery to the pot to add flavor and color to the rich liquid as it simmers.  I also add a couple of cloves of garlic and a few bay leaves to enrich the stock.

Once everything goes into the pot, it is put on the stove to simmer for hours.  Every so often I would stir everything up and add a little water to it so it didn't cook down too far.  Stock can be ready to use after just a few hours of cooking, but I like to let mine cook all day to really loosen up all the nutrients locked away in the bones.  I even add a splash of apple cider vinegar to my stock to further demineralize the bones.  

When I feel the stock has cooked long enough, I strain the whole pot to remove all the bones and vegetable scraps.  If the bones had some meat on them, I would go through and pick off as much of the useable pieces as I could.  I generally find enough to be able to add it to another meal like a pot of soup or a chicken salad sandwich.  The liquid will go into the fridge overnight to cool down. This usually helps the fats to congeal on the top of the pot where I can easily skim them off.  After removing as much of the fat as possible, the stock will go back on the stove to cook for a few more hours to concentrate it a bit.  

A batch of stock generally yields around a gallon for me, give or take a few cups.  How much I make really depends on what I am using to make the stock.  For chicken stock I like to wait until I have two or three carcasses to fill the pot with.  More bones make for stronger flavor.  The pork bones were big enough that I just put all that would fit into the pot.  The result is a rich golden broth that I can use in my home cooked meals.  I usually freeze my stock in two cup batches to make it easy to use when I need it for a quick meal.  I have also canned quarts of stock in the past, but pressure canning is time consuming, so I usually stick to simply freezing it for long term storage.  

I use my stock in many things from cooking rice to making soup.  I have used it to make brine for the thanksgiving turkey and as the liquid when I make a crock pot meal.  It adds flavor and nutrition to everything I use it in and I have even drank it straight when I wasn't feeling well.  It is a very versatile ingredient in any kitchen and it is always nice to have some on hand when you want to make something rich and tasty.

Seedlings and More Planting

The first seedlings of the year have sprouted and many are well on their way to growing the first set of true leaves.  The broccoli and some of the cabbage were the first ones to appear only four days after planting.  They have made the most progress and I thinned them down to only one seedling per pot so they can get a good head start on growing before they go to their permanent place in the garden.  My red cabbage was a complete no show, so in the next round of planting I will probably throw in a few different types of cabbage seeds to take their place.

My peppers had excellent germination rates though they did take about two weeks to make their debut. These were also thinned down to one plant per pot.  They will likely grow more slowly than the broccoli and cabbage and they won't be going outside for at least eight more weeks.  I like my peppers to be nicely established when I transplant them so they transition easily to life in the garden.

The oregano and thyme came up fairly quickly but the cumin is looking like a no show after almost a month.  The celery had poor germination and I only have two healthy looking seedlings from all the seeds I planted.  I may try to replant another round of celery just to round things out, but I think I will have to buy new seed for next year as mine does not seem to be very good any more.

The next round of planting will coincide with the new moon again. It will include my tomatoes, tomatillos, a few basil to replace the cumin, and the replanting of celery and cabbage.  Everything else that will grow in my garden this year will be direct sown outside when the conditions are favorable.  The peas, potatoes, onions and shallots will be some of my earliest crops getting planted outside this spring as the ground begins to warm up.  It won't be long now until things start getting busy in the garden again.

Enjoying the Winter Wonderland

I am getting my first taste of what a real mountain winter is like out here in Colorado.  The past several years have apparently been drought winters as they were generally mild with very little snow.  This year the weather is holding nothing back.  Down in the valley where I live the snow has never been more than a couple inches deep, but the surrounding mountains are covered with feet of the powdery, cold, white stuff.  This weekend I had the treat of exploring the deep snow on the Grand Mesa.  There was a break in the storms that have been rolling through the west over the past several weeks and we had the small victory of blue bird skies and temperatures hovering in the 30's.  It was perfect for a couple hours of breaking trail through a pristine winter wonderland.

 The view of the Bookcliffs from the edge of the Mesa

 Looking down the valley towards Grand Junction.

I couldn't resist making a snow angel in this untouched meadow.  Where I fell back the hole was at least two feet deep.  I have never before traveled through snow this deep!

 My hiking buddy posing for the shot leading to the overlook.

 The view from the overlook was fantastic.

 A blank slate of snow filled this mountain meadow.

How deep was the snow?  Deep enough to bury road signs and taller than the roof of passing vehicles.  It was over my head by several inches in places.  I was very happy that I had snowshoes for a day like today.