Because I'm Sure You Don't Know What Snow Looks Like

WARNING:  what follows is a series of pictures of snow.  Like everyone else on the interwebs, I'm posting pictures of snow because my snow is special.  No one has snow that looks like mine.  No one is in the same snowy boat.  You must read my post and see my amazing pictures of snow. 

Or maybe because I know you're nosy and you'll bother to look!

They called it Snowmageddon.   This storm was going to go in the history books!  Get to the store quickly for all the bread and milk!!

And we New Englanders kept one eyebrow raised as we skeptically took it all in, got a little extra gas, milk and supplies and wondered who was telling the truth.

Ok, maybe I didn't get the gas I meant to.  But I had gone to the grocery a few days before and was hard pressed to find the half gallons of milk I wanted.  And unbelievably, in a house where sometimes the milk turns before it's gone, during the 3 days of the storm, we went through both quarts of milk that I bought!

Much to my delight, they cancelled school Monday night, assuming it would be bad on Tuesday, so I went to bed with no plans and got up to this.

Whenever I can't see outside from my bed because of snow,  my first thought is ALWAYS back to the Little House On the Prairie books that I read.  I think in almost every book there would be a terrible storm where the snow was up to the roofline and Pa would have to string a line from the barn to the house so they could feed the animals and not get lost in the storm.

That is one of the most vivid images I have ever had while reading a book.  We had a barn that was just far enough from the house that if we were in that situation, a rope would have been necessary and I could just see Michael Landon walking in that storm, holding onto the rope as he walked between the giant walls of snow that he'd shoveled through.

Into our thoroughly modern house where we had electricity and indoor plumbing, but I could see it.

I read those books 30 years ago and STILL, that's my first thought!

My second thought nowadays is "thank God we don't have farm animals to go feed, water and worry about!"

It snowed, the wind howled and all morning I wondered what would come of it, wondering if school would be cancelled Wednesday too.

No school day #2 and it's amazing what you can get done when a) you didn't make plans for the snowday so it's really a free day and b) you know you don't have to be anywhere the next day.

There's something very different between snowdays and vacation days.  Whether I mean to or not, I end up planning out my vacation days and fill them with things I never get done during the regular week.  But when I think we will have a snowday, I don't give a lot of thought to what I will get done the next day.  Afraid to get my hopes up.

It's amazing the freedom you have when you can't drive anywhere and you didn't have any real plans.  And you aren't sure if the power will go out, so you can't do laundry or lengthy cooking.

I didn't even step outside Tuesday.  A VERY unusual thing for me.  I stayed inside and got caught up on a lot of things and then I spent a good portion of the afternoon working on these.

I figured I'd work until the power went out and then leave it alone.

The power never went out so I got a bunch done and surprised myself by cutting out the next size down.

The storm stopped some time during the night and I was greeted with this site when I was eating breakfast.  That's a 10 wheel dumptruck STUCK in the driveway between my parents' house and mine.  This driveway has been plowed thousands of times but the drifts were such that this truck was stuck like a matchbox car.

So the big guns were brought in and it was truly a loader job. 

 

I knew I wouldn't attempt to go anywhere because I couldn't even get out of my driveway.  I thought about putting on my snow pants and laying in the hammock.  The hammock that was supposed to be brought in many months ago.

The snow had left a nice empty patch right in the middle where you see bare dirt, but both ends were high and blocked with plowed snow.

The patio was interesting because there were completely bare parts where the wind swirled the snow but the shower and table were full of drifts.

After k-ster left to snowblow, I got to work on the door.  The back door had blown completely clear of snow thanks to Mother Nature but this one couldn't open with the drift.  It's a light snow but there's so much of it that every shovelful gets really heavy!

One of my secrets is to do laundry so I can use the dryer and melt a lot of the snow on the path.  See the dryer vent right under the window?  Genius.

I went to my parents' house to attempt to clear a path to the front door.  Theirs was also block with a huge drift.  The driveway had been plowed straight to the garage so I was able to walk into the driveway, but cutting the path over to the door took about 2 hours.

Technically, it didn't need to be done because the garage door opened just fine and they could get in that way.  But it's what I do and I couldn't break with tradition even if I thought it might break my back!

By the time I was done with that, some joker had plowed the one end of my driveway that was somewhat open and blocked me in, so I had to get my shovel and get to work on that.  I saved it for later in case yet another plow went by and pushed it in even more.

The greenhouse always stands firm in these crazy wind storms we get and this time was no exception.  That thing amazes me with hits sturdiness every time.  The heat from the sun will probably melt a lot of what's in front of that door so I won't bother shoveling.  Little is growing in there right now thanks to the frigid frigidity of early January.

No gardening this week.  I have some Brussels sprouts out there that seem thrilled after the crazy cold snap we had at the beginning of the month.  I'm curious to see what they think of this heavy snow blanket!

 The guys normally plow out the driveway as they go out to sand and plow but not this time.  In addition to being happy we don't have a farm this week, it's  also the time of year that I am so glad we are not open year round. I can't even imagine how we'd clear out the roads to each trailer!  And the danger of being trapped in those trailers or having the heat go out.

No thank you.

 No one was washing their cars.  I wonder why?

There's something about the crazy amount of white, the depth of the tire tracks and the quiet that really tickles me when we have a storm like this.

And the cool drifts that happen and then push back from houses so it looks like crazy frozen surf.

3 snowdays and this place looks like another planet, with more predicted this weekend.  It's all fun and games until you really have to be somewhere or have an emergency, neither of which were the case for me.

So it really was all fun and games!

And more productivity than I can explain.

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