We're all shoveling out today. Some of it was done yesterday, but it was pretty wet, soggy snow that weighed a ton in every shovel-full.
The size of the snowbanks are beginning to look impressive.
Our Christmas tree has been moved to a pile of snow on the deck. We plan to hang some food for the birds but just haven't gotten around to that yet.
Snow, snow, and more snow.
The plum tree.
The snow is well over the top of my snowblower and it was like I was walking through sand on the beach on Thursday afternoon. The snowblower could not pick up all of the snow, which left plenty in the trails and paths to become part of our soggy mess the next day.
The heavy snow has come off the house roof but not the barn, although it is trying to slide off the barn today. At least for the time being it has stopped raining, the sun is shining and our high today is supposed to be 32. Tomorrow it will be a bit warmer so maybe we can actually clear some of this off.
Our neighbor, Garrett, was here yesterday to plow the driveway. What a mess it was.
I walked to my car through 8 inches of soggy slush, which was so bad it was difficult to walk in. I managed to get the car cleaned off and was very happy to have the driveway plowed since even the Forester with X-mode was having trouble pushing through the slush.
This morning there's a crust on the snow and Willie thinks he's king of the hill. He can walk on top of it, but not everywhere, which is a good thing. It will keep him from going off too far from the house.
Willie has a basket for his toys, but Jon has started to put some of them on top of his crate. Willie takes them off the crate and sometimes when he's finished with the toy, he puts it back on top of the crate. I swear I have not told him to put his toys away. He's a funny little dog.
He had a difficult time when the kids and grandkids were here for a couple of days. It's too many people in one small space and too much excitement for him. We all kept trying to get him to settle down, but for the most part, our efforts didn't work. He had to spend quite a bit of time in his crate because it was just too cold to be outside very long. Thankfully, we have two more puppy training sessions on the calendar as he still has a lot of manners to learn.
Our New Year's weekend was filled with lots of games, good food and for the first time since NYE 2019, we all sang The House of the Rising Sun at midnight. We also sang one of our favorites, If I Were A Rich Man, from Fiddler on the Roof.
There were some new games to play, Merchants and Marauders, Coup, The Oregon Trail Card Game (hardly anyone survivied), and we taught Collin to play poker. Since he was new to the game, of course he won all the money.
Our white elephant exchange was a lot of fun. Jon's old red hat was one of the gifts. There was a lot of bartering for it with Julie winning out in the end. Jon is not sure why anyone would want this hat.
NYE 2019, after our kids all pulled out of the driveway heading back home, we discovered the life-sized stuffed goose on one of our tree stumps in the driveway.
This year, it was a flamingo. With lights. They actually ran two extension cords through the snow about 100 feet to light it up.
The goose and the flamingo together "under" our tree.
Since we've taken down the tree, the flamingo has been moved to our front porch.
I still have my outdoor Christmas lights up on both the porch and the barn. I like to see them for the next couple of months. It seems a lot more cheery out there with them on when it gets dark so early.
I will admit to already looking at the seed catalogs and trying to decide which seeds to buy for spring planting.
Jon is ambitious and has brought our snowshoes up from their basement storage. He says if there's a good crust on the snow it will be good snowshoeing. I hope he's right.
It's time to go do some more shoveling.
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