Really cold weather

Guillermo's garden doesn't normally look like this, it is usually well-kept and full of beautiful vegetable plants! That is winter rye growing so tall in there! The purple martins wonder why their house is still down on the ground.

Here's what Guillermo wrote today:
We are now in El Chalten, but it seems our luck has run out as far as the weather is concerned. It looked promising as we left El Calafate, but as we got closer to this place it was more overcast, and from a distance, we saw the bottom part of those very impressive peaks, but as we came into town, the clouds rolled in and we couldn't see much at all. It started snowing then and it has been snowing all day, but mostly little tiny flakes that aren't sticking and it is colder here than in El Calafate, so I wore my gloves when we hiked a little.
When we were close to El Chalten, we saw about 10 condors and a bunch of cara caras along side of the road. When the bus stopped, they all flew except one; we got excellent views from up close, but the bus took off again right away and we couln't get any pictures. We did a lot of walking with all our stuff before we found a place to stay. Some of the places were closed, others full, etc. After we had lunch, we got our warm clothes on, walked to the other side of town and then hiked up a pretty big hill along a trail called los condores. As we approached the trailhead, we saw three condors fly over, but they were high and it was snowing pretty good, so again, no pictures. We ony saw a hawk up on top and on the way down, we thought there was another condor flying, but when we saw it better we saw it was a black chested buzzard eagle.
We had hoped to take a longer hike today, but the mountains wouldn't have been visible. So, we have some decisions to make. If it is really cloudy again, we can go see another glacier, larger, but not as famous as Perito Moreno. If it looks good, then we take either a 6 hour or am 8 hour hike, and I understand that both are tough with quite a bit of climbing and it will be very cold, but with spectacular views of a lake and the Fitz Roy and other peaks. My main worry are my feet that hurt pretty bad sometimes, but Fernando really wants to hike in this area. He has even said that if the weather is still bad tomorrow, we should perhaps stay around here a day or two longer and skip Ushuaia, so I don't know how it will turn out. Everyone in El Calafate and here says that these snows are a month and a half earlier than usual, so I imagine Torres del Paine and (The computers went off about 20 minutes ago and I have been waiting until they got them goimg again. Fortunately, there was a draft this time). Ushuaia are even worse. So, we will see what happens.

On the homefront, every last plant is finally out of the greenhouses. Our neighbor brought over a dolly which we used to help move the biggest plants. The trick is placing everything just right so that the wind doesn't blow them over. It has been really windy and humid here today, it feels just like being on the beach! There has also been an exciting, regular customer at our bird feeders - an American Goldfinch! He is bright yellow and black, looking quite striking among all the other birds.