'Shoein' in the 'Hood, or the Blizzard of 2016
Baltimore officially broke the record for the most snowfall out of a single storm, so this was officially The Most Epic Snowstorm EverTM Or At Least Since Records of Such Have Been Kept Because I'm Pretty Sure More Epic Snowstorms Happened Before But Just Weren't Written Down. Here in Manchester, the National Weather Service tells us that we received 32 in/81 cm of white powdery goodness. However, I can speak from experience that snowfall numbers from this storm are going to be unreliable because of the wind. When I checked NWS snowfall totals yesterday, Lineboro--a town five minutes away that shares our zip code--supposedly had 4 in/10 cm more than we did, which is unlikely. The wind was just blowing it around, so an accurate measure was difficult to impossible.
Let's just settle for saying we got a lot of snow.
The snow started falling lightly Friday afternoon and, by Friday night, was coming down in earnest, along with a lot of wind. Bobby had a good fire going in the woodstove and we had plenty of food (including things we could cook on/in the woodstove, in case we lost power), so we were good to go.
This was Gwen's first major snowstorm, and she loved it! She has been quite annoying, asking to go outside and play every few minutes. Then, in a few minutes, she is cold and wants to come back in.
Yesterday, it was snowing hard and the wind was still fierce, but Bobby and I strapped on our snowshoes and took a turn around the neighborhood. Because we live in town limits [barely], the town clears our street, and since the town always does a better job than the county for the obvious reason of having far less to clear, then we are usually well taken care of. We saw the town plow immediately upon setting out but, otherwise, did not see any other vehicles besides the occasional guy getting a jump on his driveway with a snowblower. (No, I'm not being sexist ... it was all guys! My mom, my sister, and I always did most/all of the driveway, and Bobby and I work together to clear snow now, but I guess we are anomalies?) Despite the plow, there was a good several inches on the road. When we turned down Southwestern, we were walking into the wind-driven snow and going uphill most the way, which was rough.
When we returned, Bobby made us some delicious dark-chocolate hot chocolate to warm up. I am usually not a fan of posting pictures of food and drink on social media, but this was so pretty that I couldn't resist! (I also wanted to show off the mug that Erin got me for Christmas--Bobby has one too--that when I pulled it out of the box and saw Alex looking back at me, completely unmanned me and made me cry.
After sundown, the snow began to slow a bit. We descended into the basement to read Beowulf articles (me) and then watched the season premier of Black Sails and rewatched Wild with Reese Witherspoon (which I feel as strongly as ever was ROBBED last year at the Academy Awards and deserved a Best Picture nom). By the time we emerged again at around 1 AM, the snow had stopped, and the night was clear and calm with a nearly full moon that lit up the new-fallen snow and traced the shadows of the trees upon it. It was absolutely beautiful out, so we donned our snowshoes again and hiked up the gravel road to the highest point in the county, which looks west toward the mountains. Liberty was a spangled band of lights upon the mountain, and the moon was so bright that it was like daylight. Everything was so quiet. At one point, we heard a truck pass way down on Route 30 and both stopped walking and looked in the direction of the highway, offended at the intrusion. The departing storm clouds hung on the horizon, lit up pink by the lights from Westminster.
By this morning, the world was beginning to dig out. We actually ventured out, in hopes that Bobby might make it to Liberty, but we turned back in Westminster because, if the roads are iffy in Maryland, then they will straight up suck in Pennsylvania. The main roads were patchy but passable, but the side streets (outside of the town!) were pretty awful.
Looking down our street, toward the gravel road.
The massive snow pile at the end is the town-county line, where the town plow leaves the snow from our street. At least they didn't pile it up in front of the gravel road like last time! I felt really bad for the people on the county side then. That was a pretty cruddy thing to do.
The bright green is Bobby unloading his snowboard from the car after was decided not to attempt Liberty. Poor guy.
And the pile of snow at the corner of our yard, left by the town plow, looking toward our house.
And now for some wilds!
Lance is fully recovered, even though he is still finishing his course of meds and is in the process of being weaned back to his regular diet. He really didn't want any part of the blowing snow during the blizzard.
Back in from the yard, covered in snow.
Gwen sure enjoyed it, though! Bobby took this picture of her and captioned it: "A chip off the old block, just like her daddy this puppy loves the snow! I see avy rescue dog in her future...."
I have been calling her Tony Montana because every time she comes in, she has white powder on her nose.
But don't let this fool you into thinking she has been active for all or even most of this snowstorm!
She has spent a lot of time sleeping in her Bed of Lies.
And eating while relaxing on her Bed of Lies.
And while the storm was raging at its height yesterday afternoon, this is what she was doing.
And that's basically what she's doing right now, only she's facing the other direction.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/375086.html
Let's just settle for saying we got a lot of snow.
The snow started falling lightly Friday afternoon and, by Friday night, was coming down in earnest, along with a lot of wind. Bobby had a good fire going in the woodstove and we had plenty of food (including things we could cook on/in the woodstove, in case we lost power), so we were good to go.
This was Gwen's first major snowstorm, and she loved it! She has been quite annoying, asking to go outside and play every few minutes. Then, in a few minutes, she is cold and wants to come back in.
Yesterday, it was snowing hard and the wind was still fierce, but Bobby and I strapped on our snowshoes and took a turn around the neighborhood. Because we live in town limits [barely], the town clears our street, and since the town always does a better job than the county for the obvious reason of having far less to clear, then we are usually well taken care of. We saw the town plow immediately upon setting out but, otherwise, did not see any other vehicles besides the occasional guy getting a jump on his driveway with a snowblower. (No, I'm not being sexist ... it was all guys! My mom, my sister, and I always did most/all of the driveway, and Bobby and I work together to clear snow now, but I guess we are anomalies?) Despite the plow, there was a good several inches on the road. When we turned down Southwestern, we were walking into the wind-driven snow and going uphill most the way, which was rough.
When we returned, Bobby made us some delicious dark-chocolate hot chocolate to warm up. I am usually not a fan of posting pictures of food and drink on social media, but this was so pretty that I couldn't resist! (I also wanted to show off the mug that Erin got me for Christmas--Bobby has one too--that when I pulled it out of the box and saw Alex looking back at me, completely unmanned me and made me cry.
After sundown, the snow began to slow a bit. We descended into the basement to read Beowulf articles (me) and then watched the season premier of Black Sails and rewatched Wild with Reese Witherspoon (which I feel as strongly as ever was ROBBED last year at the Academy Awards and deserved a Best Picture nom). By the time we emerged again at around 1 AM, the snow had stopped, and the night was clear and calm with a nearly full moon that lit up the new-fallen snow and traced the shadows of the trees upon it. It was absolutely beautiful out, so we donned our snowshoes again and hiked up the gravel road to the highest point in the county, which looks west toward the mountains. Liberty was a spangled band of lights upon the mountain, and the moon was so bright that it was like daylight. Everything was so quiet. At one point, we heard a truck pass way down on Route 30 and both stopped walking and looked in the direction of the highway, offended at the intrusion. The departing storm clouds hung on the horizon, lit up pink by the lights from Westminster.
By this morning, the world was beginning to dig out. We actually ventured out, in hopes that Bobby might make it to Liberty, but we turned back in Westminster because, if the roads are iffy in Maryland, then they will straight up suck in Pennsylvania. The main roads were patchy but passable, but the side streets (outside of the town!) were pretty awful.
Looking down our street, toward the gravel road.
The massive snow pile at the end is the town-county line, where the town plow leaves the snow from our street. At least they didn't pile it up in front of the gravel road like last time! I felt really bad for the people on the county side then. That was a pretty cruddy thing to do.
The bright green is Bobby unloading his snowboard from the car after was decided not to attempt Liberty. Poor guy.
And the pile of snow at the corner of our yard, left by the town plow, looking toward our house.
And now for some wilds!
Lance is fully recovered, even though he is still finishing his course of meds and is in the process of being weaned back to his regular diet. He really didn't want any part of the blowing snow during the blizzard.
Back in from the yard, covered in snow.
Gwen sure enjoyed it, though! Bobby took this picture of her and captioned it: "A chip off the old block, just like her daddy this puppy loves the snow! I see avy rescue dog in her future...."
I have been calling her Tony Montana because every time she comes in, she has white powder on her nose.
But don't let this fool you into thinking she has been active for all or even most of this snowstorm!
She has spent a lot of time sleeping in her Bed of Lies.
And eating while relaxing on her Bed of Lies.
And while the storm was raging at its height yesterday afternoon, this is what she was doing.
And that's basically what she's doing right now, only she's facing the other direction.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/375086.html