Blizzard!

Snow has fallen for the last four days! The whiteout conditions were so bad today that many towns and the Maine DOT pulled their plows off the roads because it was too dangerous to be out there with zero visibility.

It's supposed to snow more tonight, so it's not over yet!


Update: 14 February 2017 (Valentine's Day!)

When I pulled my car out of the snowbank, this is what was left.

See the streak marks around the inside of the snowbank? That's how dirty my car was! It left a car-print on the snow. The banks here are mid-thigh to waist high. We got somewhere around 20 inches of snow during the last storm, but the high winds created very deep drifts. Not fun shoveling, that's for sure. More snow due tomorrow (Wed) into Thursday. I need to get the snow off the roof (since the ice dams are already thick), but I don't know where to dump it. <sigh>

Early (Wimpy) Winter

Up until about ten days ago, I thought we might not have a real winter. It looked like we would have some cold, and LOTS of ice, but not much snow. When the temperatures were unseasonably warm, we had lots of rain and, then, when the temperatures dropped, everything was coated in ice. Normally in winter, the river ice is white. This winter, though, we had had so much rain that the ice on the river looked smooth and clear.

One day, I even saw an eagle fishing through the broken ice.

The JayBee had ice formations s l o w l y sliding off the roof.

When the outside world is this coated in ice...

...I can feel miserable and housebound pretty quickly. Luckily, I have crampons to wear outside so I can still get around. The ice didn't slow the cats down much.

Then, snow fell, and the world was white again.

Sunny days quickly melted the snow on the hillside that faces south.

But the snow revealed that what I think of as quiet winter existence really is a world full of activity.

Cat tracks, of course.

Deer tracks and fox tracks.

A bounding hare's tracks.

Lots of turkey tracks.

And, then, lots of turkeys.