The Winter of 2006/2007

It has been almost 5 weeks since the blizzard of December. It started on Wednesday December 20th. Around 5 in the morning I was taking Snowball and Dodger out for their early morning "stress relief" walk. I always take them out early in the morning so that they won't bug Nancy to take them out after I leave for work at 6.

As I took them out into the field just to the south of the house I noticed that the predicted snow was just starting. I decided not to go into work that day because C-DOT always seems to close I-70 at the drop of a snowflake - and when they close it going east they usually close it from Aurora to Kansas. The last time I got stuck in Denver during a snowstorm and tried to drive back home using the back roads - it took me seven hours and two trips into the ditches. Not doing that again.

The snow just kept coming - it snowed from that first moment on Wednesday morning until Friday. Here are some photos from outside the ol' homestead from that period - the "breaking wave" from the south side of the barn was spectacular. It is kind of hard to judge the depth of some of the drifts but they were deep!





It was kind of funny the way the snow drifted between the barn and the horse shelter - I say "funny" when I mean "peculiar" because there was nothing funny about dragging the cart with the hay through the drifts. It was hard, tiring work. One of the things that Nancy has taught me is that horses need hay and water to stay warm so we had to haul a lot...

And, of course, there is getting the water up to the trough. By Thursday morning the hose line from the well to the trough was buried under 4 feet of snow (and frozen solid of course) so we had to bucket the water up to the trough. Now THAT is an aerobic workout. Try slipping and sliding through the drifts carrying two ten gallon buckets

And with all the snow everything just takes longer.

Remarkably, Sean has been extremely tolerant of the conditions. The depth of the snow and the ice make it very dangerous to try and take him out for a walk - his footing is precarious at times and we have to provide a guiding arm. If he were to slip and fall it would be very upsetting for him and the chances are good that trying to prevent it or trying to lift him up would be physically tough on Nancy and myself - and I am not sure we would be able to do it.

So Sean has been restricted to the house for those days where it has been impossible for his care worker - 'Doc' - to make it out here and he has done very well on those days.

The blizzard and the cold temperatures meant that Christmas 2006 was a picture perfect one - loads of snow on the ground - we even had snow showers on Christmas Eve. I'll write about the actual Christmas day in a separate post - it was just great, a day for the memory books.

After Christmas we got smacked with snow, again, on the Friday. It wasn't as bad as the blizzard just before Christmas but it was substantial. Then the temperature plunged and we went into the deep freeze. The next Friday - it snowed again.

And that brings us up to this weekend - it didn't snow on Friday - it snowed a little on Saturday and then a lot on Sunday, we had blizzard conditions in the late morning and - drifts. Drifts again..

Funnily enough Nancy has been able to do some sterling work with Moon - I hope she is going to update the blog with the great stories.

I will be updating the blog with the dog and cat stories.