Spooky Snowstorm

Mr. Farmer (of the Farmer's Almanac) predicted a snowy season for New England this year with the first snow starting at the early date of the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, he got that wrong. Perhaps we'll have a snowy season and we definitely had an early start, but his holiday approximation was wrong. We got our first snowstorm before Halloween!

It broke all kinds of snow fall records for this time of year (since we normally have no snow) and also other records - for power outages in the region. Wet, heavy snow mixed with trees that are still full of leaves is apparently not a great mix. Branches were breaking everywhere, trees were falling and many of them were hitting power lines. A lot of this region was in the dark (and many still) and we weren't spared.

Saturday, we were out running errands as we seem to do every Saturday. By mid afternoon, the rain was turning to snow and by the time we stopped to pick up some dinner, slush was covering all of the pavement. Sometime around midnight, the power went out at our house. Given that we were sleeping, not having lights was not that big of a deal. However, the freezing temperatures outside supporting the snowfall did not make the loss of heat all that desirable. Our previous home's heat and hot water wasn't dependent on electricity plus we never seemed to lose power in storms, so this was a turn of events for our new locale. No worries though. We could survive without power for a while!

Thankfully, we have do have a gas fireplace and that worked without any electrical nudging. We kept that burning and it managed to keep the house from getting too frigid. We reported our outage (which somehow seemed unnecessary since the whole neighborhood looked to be out) and decided to enjoy the snow. Dylan was itching to get outside from the moment he woke up and saw the snow outside. So, after Mike ran down to the bagel shop to grab us some breakfast (they had power!), we bundled up in our snow gear (well, I bundled up in Mike's snow gear since nothing I have will fit my current girth) and headed out to play.

First, Dylan had to experiment with stomping in the snow. I guess he liked the sound and feel of it and also liked seeing the footprints he made. Then, he spent some time using his water proof gloves to "chop chop" the snow on the stairs and retaining wall. Good fun.

Then we headed to the back yard. We thought we might have some limbs down and, upon closer inspection, we had a pretty big chunk of a tree downed by the edge of the yard. One more thing to add to our "to get" list - a chainsaw!

Our front yard has a pretty nice slope and we suspected it could be a good place for a little sledding. Mike grabbed our sledding discs and made us a path.

Then he tried to convince Dylan to take a turn with him. Dylan was pretty happy just playing in the snow and didn't have much interest but we forced him to do it anyway.


Wee!



Making Snowballs



Heading Back Up the Hill



Then I convinced him to take a turn with me!



Shoving Both of Us on That Disc Was No Easy Feat

He was a good sport and went down with us a few times but he seemed pretty neutral about the whole experience so happily went back to making snowballs and putting them on the sleds. Hey, whatever floats his boat, I guess. Mike and I took several turns and had a great time sledding!

Then it was time for some clean up. The lovely birch trees in our yard just looked sad. They were completely bent over from the weight of the snow. Mike got the wet heavy snow off of them so that they could slowly return to their standing position.

Then it was time to shovel. It being so early in the season, our snow blower hasn't been prepped so we just went at it the old fashion way. Mike, obviously, didn't expect me to to anything but I figured this would likely be the only storm I could help with in any way. So, grabbed a shovel and pushed some snow around.

All of that sledding and shoveling pooped us all out. After a couple of hours playing in the snow, we headed in, got out of our snow gear and we all had a nice afternoon nap. When we got up, we decided to take a little trip to the mall. There was power there and we needed to make a return. We grabbed lunch at the food court, did our shopping and went home. Still no power.

Sometime around 7, when the house was pitch black and finding things to do was getting difficult, the novelty of not having power started to wear off. Looking at the status of outages from our electric company, we were preparing to be without power for at least another day or so. Dylan was put to bed in his warmest jammies with an extra blanket. Mike and I assembled some of the pieces we'd bought at Ikea on Saturday by lantern\candlelight. That was interesting. Sometime around 10, I decided to call it a day. I grabbed a lantern and was on the stairs to go up to bed when VOILA the lights came back on! As the days have ticked by and still many are without power, we are definitely fared better than some from the storm.