Blizzard!

We woke this morning to a new down comforter of snow.  Beautiful.  Then, about 7:00 the wind kicked up.  Then, it kicked up another notch.  Noel went out to assess the conditions and came back with his report:  "I think you should cancel your day.  It's bad and getting worse."  So, I settled in for my own little blizzard party.  Oh my goodness...what should I do with an unexpected day?  Well, I did a bit of this and a bit of that all morning and it felt good to not have a strict agenda, especially after the hustle and bustle of the holidays. 

But, this afternoon was devoted to snow removal.  We bundled up and trudged out into the still howling wind and horizontally blowing snow to assess the damage.  Drifts everywhere...across the driveway, in front of the garage, about three feet on our walkway, no county road to be seen.  So, it was back into the house to get even warmer clothes on and to grab the implements of winter: 

snow shovels, bigger snow shovels, brooms and bigger brooms. 








After a couple of hours we got our four-wheel drive Rodeo dug out and a pathway to the garage.  Then we tackled the drifts by the garage doors.  We both looked at the three-foot high and 10-foot wide drift across the road (and that's just what we could see through the blowing snow).  Our measly shovels weren't a match, but we would NOT be defeated! So, we got the Rodeo out, put it in four-wheel drive and gunned it over the drift.  Okay, so we did that.  We had nowhere to go.  Wait!  We could always go to the post office!  So, out to the highway, down the hill and over the river and through the woods...no, I'm geting carried away.  But, we did make it to the post office (nothing but junk mail, wouldn't you know). 

So, I guess the afternoon has pretty much gone like this:  shovel a drift or two of snow, come back into the house to warm up with a hot buttered rum, go back out to dig a while and then back into the house for a wee bit of brandy to warm the toes, and then back out....      Do you get the alternating pattern here? 

At least I embrace living in Montana.

Cheers!