I thought 'Snowmageddon' was a catchier name, but the media used that one back in 2008. So 'Snowpocalypse' it was. And like most media events, it was more hype than follow through, at least where we live. Yes, I have seen the pictures of 800 abandoned cars on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, and all the people posting shots of their front doors being blocked in by giant snow drifts... but that's not us. I would say we maybe got six inches, which is still a lot for this neck of the woods. Liam LOVED the anticipation of a good snowstorm, and was out as the snow began to fall on Tuesday night, keeping the sidewalk clear as best he could.
We were supposed to get the worst of it overnight, and around 2 a.m. the quiet snow turned into noisy sleet being driven by the wind straight into our bedroom window. I got up at that point to look outside, and there was some accumulation, but still not as bad as the weatherman had said. By morning it didn't look much different. Here's a shot of the front of our house that I took when we got home from work Wednesday night. The snow is heaped along the driveway, but a manageable depth everywhere else; still well below our main floor window ledges.
Well, *I* can say manageable, because *I* was not outside shovelling it. Chad may beg to differ. Chad was up early on Wednesday and cleared one half of the driveway - we thought we would carpool to work, and clear the other side of the drive Wednesday night. Then, our neighbour with a snow removal business on the side cleared the other side of our drive with his tractor... I expect as a favour to us. Except that he cut the top of our water main valve off, and it's probably buried somewhere under all that snow. Chad called the city and they came out and installed a new one right away, so the crisis was not long lasting.
We've seen a lot of people ploughing snow with a blade attached to the front of their ATVs, so Liam decided to try the same thing. Chad said at one point he was driving with one hand and trying to shovel with the other. I missed that and I don't think he lasted at it long - by the time I got outside to take this picture of him, he was just zipping around in the snow, admiring the tracks he was leaving behind.
The kids had spent a few hours playing outside in the snow at Cindy's house, so it was no surprise that Mallory fell asleep on the drive home, and missed out on the shovelling adventures altogether (not that she would likely want to go out for them, anyway.) We skipped out on her skating lesson last night - partly because it was the ONLY activity in the city that was not on the cancellation list, which I figured must be some sort of mistake; partly because even if we took her to her lesson, she would have been practising the routine for the ice show, which we are not participating in; partly because I didn't want to have to drive back across town for it when the roads were bad; and partly because she was just too exhausted from being outside, and said she didn't want to go.
I am very thankful that the groundhog did not see his shadow (and a little bit puzzled about how he got out of his tunnel at all, given that he must have been snowed in). Work has been nuts this week and all of our weather services are pointing to another deep freeze next week, meaning more of the same. Spring cannot get here soon enough for me.
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