We live at about 15-1600 feet elevation, so we are lucky with a dusting of snow that melts in a few hours. But three days ago, at 11:00 pm, we looked out and it was snowing!!
I woke up at 7:30ish the next morning; it was still snowing and the power was out. The snow stopped at about 12:00 that afternoon, the sky cleared, and it got cold. It got near to zero that night; the pond down the road actually froze. Everything was beautiful.
But there was a down side to it all. Our neighbors had 30 plus trees down, the road was impassible and the electricity was out so our grandmother, who relies on electricity for her oxygen and heat, had to come to our house. Though all she had to cross was the back yard, it was icy enough to make it dangerous. A friend of Dads who has a four wheel drive truck brought some groceries and Dad got a call saying that he had the next day off of work. Things were looking up. From then on we had good old fashioned fun outside. Snow balling each other, clearing the road, building a snow man, clay pipe (made specifically for the purpose) and all, sledding and even skiing down the many hills on our property.
When we woke up the next morning there was a string of icicles along the roof and the power had come on at 5:00.
The snow is melting, turning to ice at night and then melting again, the forecast is for rain and this will soon be but a happy memory, but it has been fun, and we will all remember the December of 2009 for the rest of our lives. And there will be more snow sometime; maybe not this winter, maybe not next winter, but sometime. And, you know, rain is cool too.
Claire
