Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hunk of Love

I just found out Hunk got adopted - woohoo!  Hunk was actually adopted by a neighbor of another volunteer at the rescue and is now named Charley. His new family has 3 older kids and a cat to keep him busy.  The cast came off and his leg healed up just fine.  Looks like he's enjoying the snow, too!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

It's a Blizzaster!

SNOWMG

Snowmaggedon

The Snowpocalypse

Snowprah Windfreeze says 
"You get a shovel!  And you get a shovel!  And you get a shovel!"

Snowapalooza

A Gigantic Clusterflake

Inglorious Blizzerds

Motherflakin' Flakes on the Motherflakin' Plain 


I've heard so many of these I don't even know who to give credit to for all of them (although my favorite is still Blizzaster).  We even had ThunderSnow!  I don't know if you've ever heard thunder during a crazy snowstorm (or any snowstorm) but it's pretty bizarre.


We'll start with some views from the street.


Someone on a snowmobile at the park across the street from us (usually reserved for little league and soccer games)


The street in front of our house (see the tip of the fire hydrant peeking out?)


Our driveway - it took Thomas over and hour of shoveling and at least 3 hours with a big snowblower to finally get the driveway and our sidewalk cleared.  The piles of snow have actually grown from this as a result of subsequent rounds from the plow trucks.


A car parked in front of our house while they helped some people down the street dig out their driveway



Now we'll move to some views of the yard.  Keep in mind that our fence is 5 feet high.


The backyard by the kitchen


The front of the house


The front of the screen room (I love the swoop of snow on the roof)


Our garage and driveway


The front of the fence


The front corner of the house


Inside of our front fence gate


The inside of front fence gate from different angle


I love this shot of the siding on the garage


Thomas' Miata was parked in the driveway for the storm - see the side view mirror?



I think the official count has us finishing up around 20" of snow, making it the area's third largest snowstorm in recorded history.  A storm in 1967 with 23" and one in 1999 with 21" eeking out ahead of this year's snow storm.

It's pretty fun to see all of the snow drifts.  Starting Tuesday afternoon you couldn't see much of anything.  Almost all of our windows were at least 80% covered in snow and aside from that there was almost zero visibility outside, so either way about all you could see could only be described as white.

Some snow made its way past our storm doors and stuck to our front and back doors.  If you opened almost any double hung window in our home you could make several respectably sized snowballs from the snow trapped between the screen and the glass.  There are drifts of snow in our backyard that are over 4 feet tall.  When Dash and Alice run around in the yard they sort of hop around like bunnies because I think they just sort of top out at their bellies in a lot of places and aren't actually standing on anything solid.

Thomas took a picture of his feet while standing in one of the drifts of snow


The dogs had a blast running around outside in the aftermath on Wednesday







On Tuesday night we kept wondering why whenever the dogs would come in from a quick potty break in the yard Alice would look fine and Dash looked like the Abominable Snowman.  Then on Wednesday we realized it was because Dash was spending his time doing this...




Alice is on the lookout while Dash searches for buried treasure in the snow




And of course they wrestled in the snow.  I assure you there are two dogs in these pictures, but I can't really tell where one begins and the other ends.



Dash pulling himself out of the deep end of the snow



This is one of my absolute favorite pictures from the Blizzaster - Alice leaping through the air like some kind of ninja puppy


Thomas couldn't resist jumping into the snow, and Dash couldn't resist trying to rescue him (from what I'm not sure, but he was bound and determined to rescue Thomas from something)















So we survived the snowstorm with no casualties.  We didn't even lose power.  And we both got a day off of work!

Also, Thomas gets credit for most of these pictures.  I came outside for a few minutes to admire his handiwork of clearing the snow and to check out the historic weather, but that was it.  I would have much preferred going sledding, but instead I spent almost ever other moment last week laid up in bed with the flu.  In case you've been considering getting the flu yourself, I do not recommend it.  At all.  Without a doubt one of the least pleasurable experiences of my life.  Get your flu shots, kids!  I put off getting mine this year and that is not a mistake I will soon be repeating.

Oh, and we got a few more inches of snow today!  With all the fuss of the snow last week I guess the weather people figured their jobs were done and as far as I can tell, completely forgot to inform us of this weekend's impending snow.  It's nothing compared to what we got on Tuesday and Wednesday, but we're kind of running out of places to put all this extra snow.  The roads don't even have all of the lanes cleared yet, which is a problem I doubt will be resolved anytime soon.  But at least everything looks like a lovely Winter Wonderland.