aftermath

A huge wave of snow in my back yard.  My full-size trellis is under there somewhere.

It's the morning after the two days before.  The wind has finally stopped, the sky is blue, and it has warmed up to -10C.  Everyone has been told to stay off the roads and let the plows do their work,so we all have the day off.  again.

With my front door and my garage door completely blocked with snow, there was just one way to get out.  Go down the steps of the deck and strap on the skiis.

I needed to dump the kitchen scraps accumulating in the house, so I skiied out to where I knew my bins were.  The area was flat, so I was totally disoriented.  Then I saw the black edge of the bin sticking out of the snow.  And tracks from some hungry animal, or one looking for shelter.





   
The driveway has been plowed, but my work has just begun.

Now I had to liberate the car.  I need to go to work tomorrow morning, and this will take a while.


Here is the reason I couldn't get out the garage door.
The drift is way over my head, and it is really hard to fling the snow up high enough so that it won't come tumbling back down into the clearing.



A shovel-wide path took a lot of elbow grease.
But it means I can get in and out of the house without skiis!
Now back in the house for some hot tea and a soak for my aching muscles.

snowed in

There are actually 3 cars in my driveway.  If you look closely on the right side in front of the car, you will see a car ariel sticking out.  That's my red car, to be seen again sometime in spring.

From January 31 to February 6, five feet of show fell on us.  And in the past 24 hours, we have seen an additional 84 cm of snow. Combined with gusts up to 100 km and minus 15 celsius, the whole province of PEI is stopped in its tracks.  Snow plows have been pulled off the road until visibility improves and the wind stops, because any snow they clear blows right back in again.  It's Islander Day - a provincial holiday, and we will all be spending it inside looking out.

The snow view outside the french doors on to the deck.  I have never seen snow sticking to the entire window right to the top.  When I opened the door, a cascade of snow fell in.  The level is past the bottom of the window, and getting higher.  I've put a newly stocked bird feeder under the feeder table to offer a bit of shelter.  The other feeders are covered up.

At the front door, the snow is a third of the way up, and there are enormous drifts outside.  We are supposed to clear an alternative way out of the house, but I can't even clear one way out of the house.

It seemed kinda funny till I checked out the garage door exit.  The snow is up to the bottom of the door's window, and the drifts close by are way above my head.  The door opens outwards, and I can't budge it.  If I needed to get out of the house fast, I would have to get on my cross-country skiis and go out through the deck door.  I need to start shovelling the deck.










This is the back yard.
Under there somewhere is a 7-foot tall trellis.

A fluffed up bluejay surveys the scene.