The melt was going so well!  Rivers of melt water were running past our cabin.

And then....
We had three new inches of snow added two nights ago, but yesterday's sunny afternoon managed to melt most of that.  Then upon waking up today, we discovered that another two inches of new snow lay on the ground.  It's currently snowing (ugh).  On average, the snow pack is at about two feet- the more snow we get, the longer it'll take for the road to open.  But as you've seen in earlier posts, it's melting very unevenly.  Our 'front yard' is mostly free of snow now, as is the slope down to the river.
I just checked the NOAA forecast: 5-9" today.  Yuck!!!

[T - it's also covering up our poor brown snow that is responsible for such a rapid melting.  The clean white snow will melt much slower.  Hopefully more dirt will blow in, or else we'll be stuck with snow forever.  Very disappointing...]

As for the shawl I'm working on, it's actually lace that needs a serious blocking.  It's nearly finished- just needs the addition of a border on one edge.

We haven't written in a while, but so many seasonal changes have taken place since our last post.  The snow is melting at a quick pace now, thanks to a light coating of some red-brown dirt that blew in with a storm. 

There's a big temporary stream full of snow melt opening up right in the middle of Gothic, next to our cabin.

The hill next to our porch is now bare.

And so is our porch (thanks to some shoveling on Thayer's part).

Animal life is quickly returning to and waking up in Gothic.  The robins are singing their hearts out to defend territory.  I've seen one marmot awake so far, and we're hoping more will wake up in the next few days.  A few ground squirrels and chipmunks have woken up, too.  Thankfully, the nuisance bear of the fall has yet to make an appearance.

I'm working on a new shawl- 'Courting Sophia' by Kat Coyle.

What do you get when you pour hot water down a rabbit burrow?

Hot cross bunnies!

And what do you get when you add dried fruit to enriched, spiced bread dough, make rolls, and top them with flour paste crosses and orange glaze?

Hot cross buns!  (recipe from here- although beware, it's in British- grams, celsius, etc.)  They are so delicious, especially hot out of the oven.  I used chopped dried cranberries in place of raisins, and made my glaze out of strained orange marmalade (with a little extra water and white sugar).

Here are my conversions, if you're interested in baking these: 1 and 1/3 cup milk, 5 Tbl sugar, slightly less than 5 cups of flour, 4 Tbl butter, finishing amounts for paste: ~half a cup of flour, 1/4 cup water)

Thayer and I will be joining Dave Hambright's lab at the University of Oklahoma this fall.  We're moving to Norman at the end of May.  I'll be sad to leave RMBL, but very very excited to start the PhD program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology!

The recent storm continues to bring snow our way.  We received 11" from the last round, and another 4" last night.  It's snowing pretty hard right now and we're expecting 3-7" today.  This stuff is really fluffy and it's coating all of the trees in a thick layer of fresh snow.

Happy Easter!  I made this bunny yesterday, but since I don't have any black embroidery floss on hand, he remains faceless.  Pattern available here.

The storm is hitting us hard.  Since I woke up, we've gotten about 4" of snow, with more expected throughout the day and night.  It's not too cold out (28 F), but the gusty winds are persisting.  Earlier this morning, I couldn't even make out Maroon from our living room window.

Thayer and I made some tasty cookies yesterday.  We used the leftover dough from our December sugar cookies that we had frozen.  Rolled the dough out, cut squares, and put a healthy dollop of jam (strawberry, grape, or orange marmalade) in the center.  After folding them up, they baked for 8 minutes before being cooled and eaten.

[T - they were really good, and almost as easy as plain sugar cookies]