Snow Art

Over-hanging snow sculpture

While doing some Sunday shovelling, I noticed this snow blanket hanging down just above our front door area. It was created during a minor winter storm. We'll have to see what happens after we get our first full-fledged blizzard of the winter, which is predicted for Tuesday night into Wednesday (Leap Day).

On Deck

In the aftermath of the 2009 Christmas Blizzard, our deck needed some serious attention. With part of it done, Kit snapped this photo to celebrate that we could once again open our sliding glass door.

It's amazing how much snow can accumulate one flake at a time. Let's not even talk about how heavy it is.

Blizzard Warning

Today is Christmas Day! Up in the North Country, we are now experiencing a full-fledged blizzard. The official forecast is for a Blizzard Warning from this morning until tomorrow around noon. If you want to see what it looks like outside here right now (in the Fargo area), just look at a blank sheet of white paper. I decided to look back at photos from exactly four month ago to see some non-winter pictures of our back yard.

Under our deck, instead of snow, we had some pots that were hanging down and morning glories that were climbing up. We had zinnias surrounding our vegarden. Beyond that, a rock and flower garden with verbena & friends.

Here, instead of snow, we see some Sweet Peas in the foreground, with butterflied zinnias in the middle ground, and the verbena bed bringing up the rear.

Maybe the reason I'm reminiscing about August is because now it seems it was much easier to sprinkle & mow than it's going to be to shovel out after this Blizzard Warning storms itself out. Maybe we should start naming blizzards. Let's call this first one: Al Gore 1.

Remembering Winter

It's been so mild here during the month of November, I had to look back at pictures of last winter to remember what it was like.

If memory serves, this was a very cold winter morning. Just as the driveway got shoveled clear, the plows came by clearing our street, and left behind a huge hard-packed snownami ridge. Besides building character, our North Dakotan winters do help keep out the Riff-Raff.
I still like to do it the old-fashioned way: with a big shovel and a hot cup of chocolate milk coffee.