IMMERSED | THE DAILY POST

I was going to go outside and take pictures. Then, I looked. Garry had just come inside after cleaning off the front of the house so the dogs can get out, the parking area by the garage. Which means we can at least get the doors open. Then he manfully shoveled the back deck. As he approaches 75, this is no mean feat. What can I do but be incredibly, wildly impressed.

But I still didn’t go outside. Remember our last snow? I said “fluffy, soft flakes” and that when you see them, you know you aren’t going to get that mean, ugly, serious hard snow. The January nasty weather that moves in house and settles down. “Long relationship” snow that wants to be part of your life until the leaves finally pop open on the trees.

It’s here. Today. I haven’t seen a storm of this intensity in several years,. Between two and four inches falling per hour and no matter how you look at it, that is a great deal of snow. In fact, as Harvey Leonard said last night on Channel 5, “More snow than we’ve seen for a very long time.” The good news? It doesn’t look like it will become a nor’easter. It’ll come, blast us with winter … and with a little luck be gone before midnight.

We didn’t drive down to visit Tom and Ellin. They’ll be doing their own digging out and if we have an ugly driveway, they have a driveway that’s far, far worse. And much longer. More like a road than a driveway.

We had planned to go visit two weeks ago, but it snowed. Immediately thereafter, we got two weeks of glorious sunny weather. Tee-shirt and grab-you-fishing-rod weather. And then, literally the day we were to go and visit … snow. Nothing small. A big snow. Major full-scale snow.

Nasty evil white stuff.

I was up at five to discuss going out with the dogs. There wasn’t much on the ground, maybe an inch or two. I had a brief, shining hope we weren’t going get the rest. Maybe we were on the edge and it wasn’t going to be such a big deal. An hour later, I heard the dogs bark. They had taken themselves out, which was good. When I tossed them outside earlier, they’d done the “out and in” game where they go out, count to five, and come back with cookies on their breath.

“See mom? We went out! Cookie?” I cookied them. Back to bed, but not to sleep. I read for a while, drifted off, then when they barked, I saw that they had really gone out. Garry was up a little while later, did the same, and he too went back to sleep.

While we slept, the big snow arrived.

No “edge of the storm” stuff.

No “Oh, it could be worse,” stuff either.

The real deal now. Heavy, hard, icy flakes. Our windows are covered with water and the wind is blowing to beat the band. Huge oaks are swaying overhead. And it won’t last long.

It can’t. Sure we’ve gotten snow as late as May. I think once in June, too. We’ve had snow as early as September which is terrible for the autumn leaves. It means there won’t be any autumn leaves. They just fall off after that making a muck on the ground. This is winter’s last blow, the final fury of a season being driven out by another season on its way in. A mess for a week or two, but by April, it will be gone.

I’d like to say that this strange weather is all part of the weird weather of the changing weather pattern, but that would be untrue. Our weather has always been unique. While I was glorying in summer weather in the middle of February, Garry had one eyebrow cocked.

“Don’t trust it,” he said, carefully keeping his boots where he could easily find them. He has lived here long enough to know. Winter ain’t over till it’s over.

Now, it is almost over. Really. This time for sure.

Categories: #Photography, snow, Weather, Winter

Tags: #Photography, Daily Post, immersion, snow, Weather, winter