The Snow Blows

by Pa Rock
Farmer in Winter

When I arrived at The Roost in early March of 2014 I had to spend some time breaking ice off of the cement back porch so that I could make it safely into the house with the items that had been crammed in the car with me all the way from Arizona.  There was still snow on the ground from a fairly substantial snowstorm, snow that had chased me out of Texas and forced to spend a couple days in Kansas City before making it on to my new home in the Ozarks.  

The Ozarks did not experience any significant snowfall for the next seven years - until today.  Last Thursday the temperatures slid into the freezing range, and  the sleet which fell most of that day formed a hard and very slick shield over everything.    It wasn't until yesterday that the roads cleared enough to where I felt that I could safely make it into town to visit the ATM and pick up a couple of prescriptions at the Walgreen's drive-up window.  My windshield wipers were frozen solid and it took most of the trip before they finally broke loose.  My windows were also frozen closed, a fact I did not realize until I pulled up at the ATM.  I had to park out of the way and then walk back to the banking machine to do my business.  I assumed I would have to put on a mask and walk into Walgreen's, but the driver's side window broke loose as I was pulling into the store's parking lot.

Then I headed for home and waited on the snow which started falling that afternoon.  It was light, but what fell stayed and slowly began to accumulate.  (The temperature since Thursday has been single digits, positive and negative, always havering near zero.)   Forecasts a couple of days ago called for as much as two-feet of the white stuff, but those numbers kept coming down as the winter blast got closer.  Today we have about two inches of snow on the ground with drifts up to a foot in depth, and a blowing light snow in the air.  The temperature is still right at zero, so what hits the ground blows around but does not melt.  

The snow, it blows!

The bird feeders in my front yard are hoping with cardinals, woodpeckers, finches, and sparrows.  One hungry squirrel stopped by but soon decided to get back to the warmth of wherever he was sleeping - perhaps in a snug corner of my old red barn.  At some point fairly soon I will have to traipse out into the wind and snow to refill the feeders.

This winter storm appears to be everywhere.  I heard on the radio that every county in Texas is suffering a winter "emergency" and that President Biden is sending federal relief to the state.  My daughter in Oregon sent photos to me of the mammoth evergreen trees that surround her house and are now bent to the ground under the weight of ice.  She said that power has been out in much of her city - Salem (Oregon's capital) - for the past couple of days and that many residents have moved into motels.  (The power at Molly's house was just out for a couple of hours, so she and hr family were able to remain at home.)    Chainsaws and tree-trimming are apparently the order of the day in Salem, Oregon.

When Google Snoop Mail saw that Molly had included photos, Gmail assumed they were of grandkids, or perhaps pets, and gave me three automatic replies:  "Very Nice!"  "Love it!"  and  "So Cute!"  So Molly, your wintermageddon is very nice and so cute!  I love it!   Well, I may not actually love it, but apparently some soulless algorithm at Google does!

But love it or lump it, winter is here and it's a blast . . .  from the Arctic!