Yes, it's another blizzard

Spring flowers will be waiting a while longer. We had 6" of new snow this morning when I poked my head out. We had a brief lull, but it's settled back in with a vengeance at this point.

I ran out to take care of the ponies before noon, not wanting to risk additional accumulation and drifting - with just the light wind we had last night there were 8-10' runners across the oil road in long stretches. The county plows hadn't been out yet, so cleared road other than a few brief wind-scoured sections ended at the city limits. All the local churches canceled services, so even at 10 a.m. I had pristine snow to plow through once I turned on to the gravel. Which, since I took the dually, wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Depth perception was a shade iffy though, since the whole world was white, so I was pleased to not hit any 2' deep monsters.

I'd fed heavily yesterday knowing this was moving in, and distributed even more to the various feeders today just in case the roads are bad enough we don't make it out to the farm tomorrow. We're supposed to have at least another 6", which actually isn't terrible - it's the what the wind will do.


That's what SafeTravelUSA is showing for SD at present - isn't it all that red just purdy?

The only good news is that with the wind having switched around to howl down out of Canada, the horses will have the treebelt for shelter - well, that and the fact that President's day means I don't have to try to make the trek north until later in the afternoon tomorrow!

Snow for the New Year

The cats and I are doing the couch thing again today. I hemmed and hawed this morning before daylight, debating risking the roads to fill the hay feeders again since the forecast is inching up toward 12" - history says the plows won't hit the gravel roads Sunday or Monday.

We had a brief window of clear before the blizzard kicked in again, and I was tempted, but it's really hard to judge how badly things have drifted in - town weather is rarely the same as conditions outside the city limits. Often it's better, sometimes it's a lot worse.

If nothing else, I figured calling to check and let them know I was on my way wouldn't hurt. I'm glad I did, as J said she'd feed for me this afternoon and tomorrow if necessary. Which makes me feel a lot better. If I was going to go, it would have had to have been then - at this point, the wind is holding at about 25mph at the moment, but I can barely see across the street it's snowing so hard, so I think the window has closed.

Tortilla soup is bubbling away in the crock pot, bread's baking, and I have pears that need to be made into... muffins, maybe? Or possibly pie - haven't decided yet. Something to make the house smell good, though.

Angels with snowy faces...

Or abominable snow beasties, perhaps? It's hard to tell the difference sometimes!

From mid-30's Tuesday and Wednesday - I took advantage of the nice weather to get the five of them wormed.

It's just plain nasty.
I was supposed to give blood at the 4-H drive this afternoon, but when the called to say the drive was ending early due to inclement weather, I stopped in there before chores. Lighter by a pint, but newly outside of two chocolate chip cookies, I headed out to feed. (T says forking hay isn't heavy lifting, although I suspect the blood-drive personnel might disagree.)

Thankful for 4-wheel drive doesn't begin to cover it. We had freezing rain before the snow started, but the plows either hadn't run yet or the wind was just covering up all traces too fast to tell.

I left the truck running while I distributed enough hay that they should be fine through Saturday if I can't make it out tomorrow. They should still be able to reach the bale once they've cleaned out the feeders.

They seemed to be warm and snug behind the tree grove, despite their snowy overcoats. They were all enjoying an afternoon snooze when I arrived.


I'm crossing my fingers it stops before we get the 8" they're predicting for tomorrow. Until then, the cats and I are enjoying the couch!

Faces of Winter

Last week...

Today...

That roaring noise? That's the wind.

And finally,
just because this one reminds me of Yoda...

And this one reminds me of somebody...

I just can't think of who.

Driveway update

Whew! The driveway is now clear, at least behind the Blazer. The plows did a number on the driveway, but after some more shoveling, and thanks in part to a kind neighbor and his snowblower, I can get out if I need to. (And thanks to him, the drive wasn't blocked with a lot more snow. He was outside when the plows went by and he knows the guy driving the final snowplow - there were three of them lined up one behind the other - thanks to D, the driver didn't make the last swath across our two drives, just the first two, which was MORE than plenty - LOL.)

I had about half the distance shoveled when D finished his driveway and came over to give me a hand. We didn't clear behind the red truck, but I should have help with that tomorrow, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Blazer clear, after I'd shoveled out a walking strip to the garbage cans I tackled the icy pile covering the front walk and managed to get a path chopped through it. Ugh. Hopefully it will stay clear, but my guess is the plows'll be back to "clean up" the intersections and it'll be packed back full of ice & crap in the morning.

Snow yesterday, snow today...

Not a wordless Wednesday, but maybe a speechless Saturday? Nah.

I haven't been able to get out of the driveway since Thursday afternoon, but the report from the farm is that the horses are weathering the storm just fine.

I've been occupying myself cleaning, cooking, reading, and putting up with velcro-cats (they seem to have decided that since I'm here, I must be sat upon by one of them at all times).

A few storm pics:

This was the view down the back steps yesterday
I'd shoveled the whole walk clear the evening before.

The steps this morning.

The drift behind the cars was as high

as the top of the tailgate on the red truck.

But the UPS guy's footprints from last Wednesday
are still perfectly visible on
the one strip of pavement the wind kept clear.

The house sits on a corner - in front of us is one of the city's emergency routes, which means it's been plowed constantly. They just now finally got around to plowing the north-south street that the driveway opens onto, however.

Which means that they've left a car-width deep, waist-high ridge of frozen snow chunks for me to remove before I can get the Blazer out onto the street. And they also just plowed a huge mound onto the sidewalk at the corner. Said sidewalk was previously cleared. And as the homeowners we can be fined by the city for not providing a walkable sidewalk. Grrrr! This is just one of the reasons I HATE living in town.

T and the kids are on their way back from Kansas where they've been sitting through their portion of the blizzard. They were supposed to be back Christmas eve, but best laid plans... I suspect they'll end up staying south of the SD border tonight, as the roads are still reportedly impassable. But hopefully they'll be here in the morning, we'll get to have Christmas, and the cats can attach themselves to someone else - LOL!

All I want for Christmas?

Well, it sure wasn't a blizzard!

It doesn't look like much here, and I made it home this afternoon without too much trouble in spite of the freezing drizzle, but the rest of the family is stuck in Kansas until the weather clears up. I was crossing my fingers all the way home that the farm owners would decide to postpone their travel plans, as we were to be feeding everything this weekend. Thankfully, they did.

Since the current prediction is between 18" and 2' - yes, that's two FEET - of snow by Saturday a.m. (along with winds to 40 mph, it should be just fun, fun, fun!), I was contemplating just staying out there rather than trying to navigate the drifts between here and there. Glad to know they'll be home and I don't have to worry about sheep stuck in snow banks!

A momentary pause here to be extremely grateful
the horses' waterer is available and working!

Not too sure what tomorrow is going to bring drivability-wise, I filled hay bunks and rolled in a couple additional ones and filled them, too, as well as making sure that the bale feeder itself was full. If I can make it out tomorrow morning I'll make the rounds and restock the low ones. Otherwise they'll have to make do with feeding from the bale.

Then was down to shmooze a bit with the four feets. The wind this afternoon was out of the northeast - not a direction we ordinarily see. And it was blowing along a lovely ice mist that stopped just shy of being drizzle. Tucked away out of the wind behind the north tree grove the horses were remarkably dry and seemed toasty warm in their winter coats. And they were quite prepared to socialize. After hanging out for a while making the rounds rubbing bellies and wishing them Merry Christmas, they trailed me back up and dug in to their hay.

What a week...

We had a blizzard on Monday night (12") and everything ground to a halt until Wednesday. J fed for me, so I didn't have to brave the 4' drifts that had blown in across the country roads (and the driveway), which was nice. First day I've missed feeding all winter.

Friday was my interview, and I think it went well. Today we have another blizzard. I-90 is closed from Mitchell to Chamberlain. The horses were sheltering in behind the upper lot by the grain bin out of the wind and snow. The lot is fetlock deep in mud at best, worse in places. With the wind out of the northeast at about 30 mph, it was awful down by the hay feeder. They aren't going to stand down there - where it's at least drier - even with the lure of food until the wind dies down a bit.

So I grained them all up along the fence - it was cold and nasty enough, and they were happy enough to get grain that they didn't fuss at one another at all.

In other news - the Friday book review will be a weekend book review this week. Stay tuned.

Scenes from Saturday

And Saturday's word was.... SNOW!

Yesterday was.... a tad wintery.
And more than a tad chilly.

New bale or not, the horses were not eager to leave the shelter of the tree grove. It took them about 5 minutes to decide that coming up the hill into the wind was worth it.

They circled the pasture like a wave, rushing a way up the hill and then eddying back down with much snorting and head tossing.

Finally, they decided to take the plunge....

Note the snowy noses

Once they were through into the shelter of the lot, they swirled around pretending to be spooked by whatever caught their attention.

The sheep weren't much excited by the storm.