Winter Storm Linus

Winter Storm Linus rolled in early yesterday morning. The weather report put us under a winter storm warning until 2:00 p.m. when “the wind will pick up” and we would move on to a blizzard warning. Let me tell you that the wind was blowing plenty at 7:00 a.m., leaving us to wonder how bad it would get.

The view from the kitchen window during the storm

The drift building on the patio in the afternoon

The good news was that it was Sunday, and we could just hunker down and ride it out. Terry went out late in the morning to try snowblowing. He gave it up as a bad job. The wind was blowing the snow in as fast as he could remove it. More good news was that the northeast wind blew large areas of the driveway clear.

The snow had let up by 9:00 last night when the Super Bowl was over.  I was pretty sure I’d have to go to work today. I went to bed wondering how many days it would take for me to forget who won the game. I know for a fact that it won’t be long before I can’t even remember which teams played. In one sense, it was four hours of my life that I’ll never have back. In another sense, I like the excuse to eat Cheetos.

I woke up at 2:00. The sky was perfectly clear, and the moon shone brightly on the snow drifts. I was certain I’d have to go to work today. So certain that I hopped out of bed promptly when the alarm went off at 5:00, fully prepared to rush around so I could leave 15 minutes early in anticipation of bad roads. For a lark, I checked my cell phone.  There was a voice mail! The College was closed! If I’d stayed up one hour and 11 minutes later, I would have known the night before. No matter. I went back to bed and slept until 7:00. Seven o’clock! I didn’t know I had that much sleep in me.

The drift north of the garage, as tall as the base of the green house

Hoo-boy, it was cold this morning, 2°F when we got up. I waited until 10:00 before I bundled up to shovel snow. My fingertips were cold until I got going, but after that I was comfortable and almost too warm. I started by clearing the drift that was in front of the coop door so we could let the chickens out when it got warmer. Terry fired up the snowblower and started on the drifts in the driveway. I went down to the road to shovel the clumpy snow and salt mix that the plow had deposited there and look for the newspaper. I cleared all the snow and shoveled out the mailbox, but no paper was to be found.

Terry snow blowing this morning

I tidied up the front steps and the garage door where Terry couldn’t get the snow blower. After that I tackled the 3-foot drift on the patio. Now that was a lot of snow. No, I can’t explain why we never put the patio furniture away. I suspect it was some combination of Terry not thinking there was room in any one of our numerous outbuildings and the end-of-harvest frenzy before winter. (Old joke: What’s Irish and sits on the deck? Paddy O’Furniture.)

The patio first thing this morning. Note that the drift is as high as the table.

Immediately after I shoveled

An hour after I shoveled

Although there was more shoveling to do, I’d been at it two hours and feared that if I continued I’d hurt myself (if I hadn’t already). I ate lunch and had a shower. An hour after I’d come in, the patio was melting nicely in the sun even though the temperature was only 18°F. The wonderful thing about physically doing something like shoveling snow or mowing the grass is that you can see what you’ve done. So not like teaching.

In other news, the Holy Family Potato has sprouted. I think that I will plant it in a pot soon. I don’t think I will be able to wait until I can plant it in the ground. I hate to say it, but it looks a little like the Holy Family is sprouting devil horns.

Sprouts on the Holy Family Potato