Eerie Drifts

I don't have any pictures to go with this post, and it will be for the past two days. I had to run the snowblower twice in 12 hours so that Om could get out and in to do the paper route.

We just let the storm do its thing after he got in Sunday morning. But then I went out at 1:30 am today to open the driveway. It was amazing and eerie. I should have gone in to get the camera, but it was so cold, and I really just wanted to concentrate on the job at hand.

For almost the entire length of the driveway (400 feet) the snow was deeper than the scoop of our very large, 10 HP blower. It was sculpted into waves in places that don't usually drift, so I know that the wind was a little different from usual. But it's a great blower, and soon I was plowing a straight-sided ditch through the rolling blue landscape. The shadows in the harsh headlight were deceiving. In two places, for no apparent reason, there were sculpted holes with embossed lines pocked into the snow. It was as if some elephant on a flying magic sled had crashed into the drift and then caromed off again into the night.

Most bizarre of all, just below the shed a sharply peaked drift had piled up to a height of over 4 feet across the drive. I took a couple of passes at it and cut my "ditch" through. But each time I went by that location the squared-off end of that ridge loomed at me, bouncing the light back in my face.

The newscast tonight stated that we have 30" of snow on the ground, with over 70 inches falling so far just in December. Another storm is supposed to hit on Christmas Eve with another 4-7 inches!

Maggie and I went for a short snowshoe walk this afternoon. But it took 30 minutes just to do the shortest of my trail loops. The snow is so soft and fluffy that I sunk deeply even with the shoes. No sun all day.