Starting To Turn Cold

Well - the long, hot summer is DEFINITELY over! We've enjoyed highs in the 50's, lows in the 30's and NO SNOW for far too long (apparently). We managed to get a couple inches of rain over the past few weeks, but - for the most part - escaped the snow.

Then, last week, the National Weather Service predicted "4 to 7 inches" of snow, and high winds. We were kinda stuck in the middle - the county we live in was under a "Winter Storm Warning", while the county to the north of us has a "Blizzard Warning" issued for it.

We live just 2 miles from the county line.....

So, there we were, expecting the worse. After most of the day, and 3/4 of the night of raining (or drizzle, or showers, or.....), it FINALLY switched over to snow about 4:45 am. It's hard to tell just how much snow we got - the wind was blowing like a banshee - but I do know that it didn't APPEAR to be over a couple inches.

I was all set, too. I got the vehicles turned around, tail to the winds, got the blade on the tractor, tarped it's open station, and parked it in the driveway.

All to no avail - I didn't even get to "play" in the snow.......

Most of it blew off the driveway so I didn't need to.

There was one SMALL drift near the gate to the barnyard, but even it was only about 8" deep. In the end, I just decided it would be a waste of fuel to blade anything. About all I had to do was sweep the steps. Ho Hum...maybe next time....

Now, 5 miles away (as the crow flies), at Deb's parent's house, it was a different story. I don't know how much snow they got either - probably not a whole lot more than we did - but they got the DRIFTS I am glad we didn't get! They HAD to get the tractor out and shove snow out of their drive.

A couple of roads between our place and theirs were also drifted pretty good. After the roads were plowed, the snow that was left was hard packed to the point of being ice. I saw an Amish carriage slide sideways in the wind when the horse lost footing and nearly went down.

I was talking to a neighbor the other day - Levi - and his dad. Levi was telling me how cold he has been lately, and he will be glad to move to Kentucky where it is a little warmer. His dad - who lives in Minnesota - scoffed, and told us he'd better leave, because he "couldn't stand us talking about how cold it was in MISSOURI..."

Now, the Weather Service is calling for highs in the 20's, with lows in the mid teens, with wind chills near ZERO. I don't mind cold, but I can't stand WIND.

I'm just glad it's only a little over 2 1/2 more months until spring.