What a week it’s been! It started snowing late in the afternoon Wednesday last week and started to let up, 50 inches later, on Friday morning. 50 inches of snow in 36 hours!! It’s still unbelievable that happened.
We knew a big snowstorm was coming Wednesday afternoon. All of a sudden the forecast changed and the estimates went through the roof. Our area was forecast to get between 28-42 inches.
Thursday morning we woke up and there were 23 inches covering the ground. It was crazy!!
We briefly lost power Thursday morning but it was restored within an hour. Once we saw the forecast had changed we prepared our house for a power outage. Our water comes from a well and when the power goes out, we lose our water, too. We pulled out our emergency water supply from the storage room, filled up some 5-gallon buckets to use to flush toilets and made candles, flashlights and lanterns more accessible.
The snow kept coming and coming and coming. It was just dumping snow all day long.
We took the kids out to play on the deck for a bit during the day. The snow was very light and fluffy, which made it easier to shovel, but because of the sheer volume of it, it was a little scary with the kids. Walking on the top of the snowpack was impossible – you just sink!
All the snow!!
It took Brooks a little while to adjust to all the snow, but once he did he loved bounding through it and rolling his face in it.
We woke up to another foot or more of snow on Friday morning. The power went out in the middle of the night. Our driveway hadn’t been plowed. We lost cell service that morning, too. There was just *s0* much snow and no sign of it ending. Friday was a lottt less fun – especially since our kids were up for the day at 3:30 when the power went out.
Finally, mid-morning, Kelly, our neighbor, showed up in his tractor to plow us out {we’ve hired him to regularly plow for us}! We whooped and cheered upon seeing the lights of his tractor and hearing the jangle of the chains on his wheels. He blasted through the deep snowpack like it was nothing!
Our driveway was so deeply covered in snow we couldn’t walk down it until it had gotten plowed. We didn’t have enough gas for the snowblower to keep up with it to clear our driveway. Alex strapped on his fat backcountry skis and was able to get around to go check on neighbors. It was exhausting and took him forever!
Once the driveway was clear, we took the kids out to survey the aftermath. And dig out the mailbox!
We’ve been very careful to avoid the areas where our roof will slide, shedding about 6 feet of snow. It’s almost all off now, thankfully!
The power was out on Friday for about 16 hours. We managed fine, but are hopeful a generator will be in our future!
We’re five days {and three school snow days!} into this and we’re still digging out. Alex managed to dig out the hot tub on Saturday and spent five hours clearing out the ice rink on Sunday. Oofta!
{this is our hot tub, buried under the snow}
{this is after the roof shed its snowpack – it’s like an avalanche!}
Normally I’m the one doing my snow dances all winter long, but I’m going to pause on them for a bit! We’re out of places to put the snow!!
