More snow!!

The view out my back door this morning...

I never thought I'd say this, but ENOUGH ALREADY! Holy cow...I can't get over the amounts of snow we are getting! We haven't seen the ground since last Sunday - over a week now.

The photo above was taken out my back door this morning. That little round black thing on the table is our mini-charcoal grill. On top of it is a frisbee that my H took out there to play with the dogs yesterday afternoon (since it would stay on top of the snow so they could find it!). Last night when we went to bed, it was clear of snow. I guess that when you mix the typical rainy PNW weather with below-freezing temps...you get this disaster. It's beautiful, but messy, dangerous and a pain in the butt!

This was the view across the street taken after one of the ice-rains we had last week.

I had to shovel out the chicken run this morning so that the chickens could 1) get out of the coop and 2) get water. Their waterer, which is suspended above the ground by a few inches and which is about a foot tall, was almost completely covered in snow. When I walk outside of the paths we've made, the snow is up to my knees.

Neither of the goats will leave their shed. I used to occasionally see them strolling around in between snow showers...but we had some freezing rain Saturday night and since then, neither of them are too sure of the crust of ice they have to step through. Even the dogs are not fans of it. In fact, I think that the snow is finally getting too deep for them, too!

Maggie out in the snow before the ice-crust formed. She loved it!

Luckily, our power and internet is holding out. With both of those, I am able to work from home and save my PTO for real needs. My H does the same thing on a regular basis, anyway. He is going to have to cancel a trip to visit a customer this week, but he can reschedule. Driving is treacherous. I grew up in northern states, so to me, driving on snow is no big deal. What I didn't take into consideration is that when you live in a place where snow is common, they have the insfrastructure in place to deal with it. Plows, sanders, people, etc. Here? Not so much. They local authorities are scrambling to take care of things and a lot of the plan to deal with it is just hoping for normal temps to return so that it melts!

We did buy chains last week, and I got to use them for the first time yesterday. Getting them on when the car was already sitting in a couple of inches of snow (some of it being well-packed) wasn't easy, but once they were on, they worked really well. We headed to the grocery store (about 8 miles from us) and got there safely enough. We also paid a visit to our local Ace hardware to pick up a few items for minor home repairs while we were out. While we were in the grocery store, the snow picked up. It was really, really coming down as we went to leave and getting home, even with chains and front-wheel drive was dicey. My poor southerner husband was terrified (I was driving, of course) but he hid it well for the most part.

We made it home with no issues...and we are happy that we don't have to go out again anytime soon.

Now, if UPS/FedEx and the USPS would get on the ball...we'd get the last of the Christmas presents we are waiting on!