Living in a freezer - Part two!

 As with many places in the country, and the world, this winter season has been as record-setting as the summers have become almost every year now. 

I remember as a kid in southern California how winters used to be way more than a few weeks of rain and cold weather. While almost always the sunny California of old, it wasn't as it became, all year long is now fire season. 

Even here, since we've lived in North Idaho since the spring of 2006, winters were different than they are now. 

Over the years here, we've had winters with almost no snow, winters with snow followed the next day by rain for most of the winter.  A few with quite a bit of snow, like the 'snowpocolipse' of February 2009, with almost four feet of snow (1.21 M) in one night, but things are definitely changing. 

This winter has been the overall coldest in many years. For almost three full weeks spread from December till now, we've had at or below temps. This morning was 2 below zero (-18.88 C) at least it wasn't as windy as it has been the last few days. Northeast winds from 20 to 40 miles per hour (32.18 to 64.3 Km/h) in the area. 

It was two above zero yesterday morning, but with about 20 mph winds, it was like 16 below zero! So cold! Made colder by having to go out into it to dig out part of the driveway near the street since, with all the winds, it made for drifting snow from the about four inches we had gotten last week, followed by the temps dropping from the upper 30s to these single digit temps at night. 

So, the entry to our driveway from the street was level with about 8 inches of dry drifting snow, which provides NO traction for snow tires or all-wheel drive.  Stacy was leaving for work and called me to say the Rav4 was stuck and wouldn't move forward or backward. 

Above: the afternoon before, and while you can see the drifting snow, by the next morning, it was mostly flat across the driveway with built-up snow. 

Below: after getting the Rav4 freed and Stacy off to work, I knew I'd need to finish the clearing, and later that morning, I got the snow thrower out. 

I found out that even the snow thrower would get stuck in the fine soft snow. It took about an hour and a half to get the snow cleared. The super cold caused all kinds of problems with the snow thrower. It was hard to start, and it never really warmed up enough to work well. I hope I didn't damage the transmission by having to force gear changing. I was fighting it all the way, but I got it done. 

Below: Taken Tuesday, the snow was blowing but wasn't as windy as it soon would be for three days.

Above: Taken this morning, Friday, you can see how the howling winds have blown off all kinds of tree bits and blown them down the driveway. 

Above: Also taken on Tuesday, the winds blowing the snow all on the wind facing trees.  The really strong winds also cleaned this snow off the trees!

Stacy can not wait to be a snowbird! She's over all the cold and snow.