Brrr...

We missed the actual snowstorm on President's Day.  We would not miss this one.  It was forecasted to begin Wednesday, March 4th, at 11am.  It came a few hours later but come it did.

At first it was a layer of sleet on the deck.  This was followed by snow coming in masses of flakes that just splat on everything they hit.  They were in size from a quarter to a silver dollar and were just gorgeous.  By then it was beginning to be night time.  We would go to the door to the deck from the living room, turn on the deck light and check on the progress.  About 11pm we heard the snow plow clearing the road for the first time.  Yep this was going to be a big storm.  

I posted on Facebook that, when I turned the light on the deck on and looked out at the snow that had accumulated on the deck, it looked to me like Ivory Snow laundry detergent.  This is an old detergent they may not even make today.  Just not sure.  But it was cut in the shape of little diamonds and was very light. 

Thursday morning we woke up to the snow still coming down.  Staying inside I took some pictures from the living room door to the deck, from the front porch, and downstairs door to the patio of our winter wonderland.

My feet are in the center bottom front of this picture.  I just opened the door from our bedroom and this wall of snow was there.  So I sat down and put my feet up next to it for perspective in the picture.

This little table on our deck looked like a snow volcano to me.

After the snow stopped, I decided to take some pictures before I started shoveling.  I knew I enjoyed the snow from the windows inside my home.  I was pretty sure that my shoveling experience might cloud that happy feeling about the snow.  Therefore, pictures needed to be taken before the shoveling began. These are some of the pictures of our property and down the street of our neighborhood.

This picture was taken on our deck.  I had to walk out on it to get the pictures of the trees and creek.  That is my hand in the purple glove touching the top of the snow on the deck.  In the hole made by my foot and leg is another of my gloves.  This helps show the depth of the snow on the deck. When I stepped in the snow, it came up past my knee.  Considering there is a thick layer of snow under the glove in the hole, it is apparent that we had lots of snow on the deck.

Then I shoveled, and shoveled and shoveled.  Claude was on a conference call and due to complete that call and come help.  However, that call just kept on going.  At one point Claude left his office and came to the front door to talk with me.  He told me then that Sadieville's snow removal service truck was broken. The man was fixing it and anticipated being out at the end of the day.  My neighbors did their driveway and then went to do Nancy's driveway.  She is a widow and has very bad knees.  I was very happy they were getting her drive way clear.  My plan for our driveway was to be sure I could get Claude from the garage to the street.  Then, with his 4-wheel drive, he could get down the street.  The next phase would be to clean and angled area behind my car so I could get my car into the lane shoveled for the Jeep.  Claude made it out as I neared the end of the lane for the Jeep.  Dan, our next door neighbor came over and helped me finish the end while Claude shoveled out an angled area for my car to get into the driveway.  Then Claude and I cleared the front porch.  

This is  my hand after I got back inside.  There is a red spot below my middle finger.  I think this might be a bit of frostbite starting to happen.  Just a touch.  I have no other explanation for its being red.  

This picture was posted on Facebook by a friend who lives in Sadieville.  It was taken and used in the Georgetown NewsGraphic.  It is Davis Road outside of Sadieville.    

All that shoveling wore me out.  This was a wet snow.  The bottom layer was the sleet.  When you shoveled and filled the snow shovel, it was heavy.  Then you would try to toss the snow onto the pile on the grass.  Half of it would come off and half was stuck to the shovel.  I would put the shovel down on the concrete and that would jar the wet snow free.  Then I would pick that same snow up with the next swipe of the snow on the driveway.  The end result was that for every shovelful of snow you got, you had to actually do two shovelfuls to get it cleared.  So the work was heavy and took twice as long to get done.  But I really needed to be able to get at least the Jeep to the street in case we needed to get to Papa.

A friend was in Florence, Kentucky for meetings. He spent the night and came home on Thursday.  This was the traffic on I-75 just north of Sadieville.  On I-65 in Kentucky near Elizabethtown, there was traffic jammed up all night long.  

The snow plow for Sadieville made it to Eagle Bend about 11pm last night.  He did Eagle Bend last after doing the older streets in Sadieville.  It was good to hear him but we both knew that meant we would have the ridge of snow at the end of the driveway into the street to be cleared on Friday.  Claude said he was going to do that.

Today Claude cleared the end of the drive into the street.  Then he went down to Nancy's and cleared the end of her driveway into the street.  Then he cleared a path on our upper deck.

This picture made me think of our family doctor in Maryland.  Delightful Jewish fellow with a special fascination with keeping people thin.  He also stuttered.  Claude once when for a check-up with Dr. Anchors.  He had to lay on the examining table.  Claude has a huge rib cage.  Even when he has been his thinnest, when he lays down he still had a big chest because of this big rib cage.  So, Claude laid on the examining table and Dr. Anchors goes to check him.  Dr. Anchors stops and looks at Claude and says, "My God, you are some great Viking!!"  We have always enjoyed that story.  I look at this picture and see my great Viking getting things back to normal in our snowed in home.

I happened to hear a story on NPR (National Public Radio) about the latest movement to make tiny homes.  They are only 200 - 300 square feet and only one room.  There are also tiny apartments that are the same size.  The NPR story said the plan would be to have these built in an area where people would walk to work, there would be parks and shopping close by so someone would walk to that as well.  Some people would even not own a car and just use community transportation or walk everywhere.  These are tiny homes and I've seen lots of them on television or in the news magazines.  I enjoyed listening to the NPR report.  Today, I read on Facebook several people needing to get out of there home because they were going stir crazy with the snow restricting their movement.  I thought of that NPR report on tiny homes and wondered if one could live in such a little environment for a long time.  It seemed that most of the people in the stories were single.  I don't think I could live in one.  I do see myself moving to a much smaller home at some point in the future.  Our home is not the hugest home but it has lots of room for two people to move around.  I just don't think I could do the tiny home movement.

So, the end result for our snowstorm.  Its name was Thor.  I covered a lot of the United States.  It officially dropped 17.1 inches of snow in 17 hours at Lexington Bluegrass Airport.  That is an inch and hour as the storm officially lasted for 17 hours.  This makes it the biggest snowstorm for Lexington in a two day period ever.  The records go back to 1880.  Scott County where we live officially had from 15 to 20 inches.  I'm sure we got the 20 inches out here.  Papa is sure he got that at his apartment.  This means that in a two week period, Lexington has had 30 inches of snow.  Unheard of.  And truly amazing.

Now we are set to get out of the neighborhood.  We are going to wait until tomorrow to do that.  Then we'll go work on Papa's driveway.  It is a beautiful, history making snow.  I am grateful for a warm home and plenty to keep us going until we really have to get out.