January and early February were a blend of snow, extreme cold day after day after day, furnace problems and the most challenging: insurance problems that held up George's medicine he has to have. A very stressful few weeks.
The amount of drifted snow that gets pushed of the roads in the Laurel Highlands of PA is impressive! This is a mile or so past our son's farm, in one of the areas they call "the flats", where the winds continuously blow the snow across large fields This is several weeks' worth of pushed back snow. The plow drivers are very skilled at pushing the first snows way back from the road, ensuring there will be room for more snow to come.
As beautiful as the snow was, it was very difficult to get around in. I called it lasagna snow, because it ended up as layers of snow, ice, snow, ice. This is our field below the house beside the river. We tried a couple walks there, but each step was a struggle of breaking through the ice. You would be on top of the snow for a couple seconds, then bam, break through. Pull your foot out, take another step, break though again. It was exhausting!
It finally started a nice slow melt, and the frozen river thawed nicely, without any ice jams that we could see from our house.
Then it rained. Hard. Thunder. Lightning. The whole shebang.
Just minor flooding, but enough to block our access to the field. This is where we normally drive across.
Not walking across the pond on the walking bridge either!
By this morning, the flood was gone, and the pond and the river in the distance were no longer one body of water.
And in a few places, the grass was turning quite green (for February)!
It was soooo nice to be able to get outside for a couple of days and enjoy the warmer temps and even some sunshine. There were actually a couple more nice days that we didn't get to enjoy because we both picked up a nasty stomach bug earlier in the week. No fun. No fun at all.
Anyway, back to the weather. I stayed out today until I couldn't see any more in the darkness. Why?
Because we under a winter storm warning starting at 1:00 AM. Noooo!!!!!!!
Predictions are everywhere from 2 inches to 10 inches. Here's hoping for the lower amounts!
(Although the last few snows were too cold and icy for sled riding. Maybe this one will be just right!)
