snow is receeding

It's April 13, and the car is slowly emerging from a giant snow pile.  We have a long way to go before we can back out of the driveway.

These two little guys are part of a flock that has never visited our feeders before.  They are song sparrows.  I have been noticing a lot of new very melodic calls, but didn't know these were the callers.

repotting

This meyer lemon tree is beginning to leaf out, after spending the winter looking like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree - down to sticks.  I'm thinking it needs a boost, so I am going to transplant it and give it new soil.  I popped it out of the pot to check the roots, which are not very extensive, so I will not move it to a larger pot.  I'm just going to change the soil.  I'm using purchased potting soil, not the stuff from the garden, which is too heavy and full of disease and weed seeds.  One time I didn't follow my own advice and dug soil from my vegetable garden to use in pots, and I ended up with a whole pot full of tiny tomato seedlings that had been hiding in the garden!

I'm going to mix the soil with worm castings (worm poop) which is rich in nutrients.
I'm hoping the tree rewards my efforts with another nice crop of Meyer lemons.  Last year, it produced 5 beautiful, delicious fruit!

more snow complaints

PEI is now labouring under about 15 feet of snow, which is being packed down and getting heavier and heavier to move.  The oil company is refusing to deliver oil because our tank pipe is on the far, inaccessible side of the house.  We have had to pump our own oil at the gas station and take it home ourselves.  It takes a lot of trips.  The bright side is that pumping your own oil is 17 cents cheaper than having it delivered.  Yea - I know it's worth it.

This is the long and winding road to the front door.

It is getting too hard to fling the snow over the bank.

planting in the winter

The snow is high as an elephant's eye, but it's March 23, eleven weeks before the last frost (although this year may be an exception) so I'm going to plant some seeds that need a long time to grow:  petunias, peppers, and dianthus.  To work out when to plant, check the directions on the back of the seed envelope, which will tell you how many weeks before the last frost to plant your seeds.  The last frost date on PEI is about June 10, or after the new moon in June (really).

pepper seeds should be planted 3 months before the last frost.

Choosing the right planting medium is really important when starting seeds.  Don't use regular soil from outside - it's full of pathogens and weed seeds, and it is too heavy.  A purchased soil-less mix is light, sterile, and perfectly supports young seedlings.

Because this planting medium has had all the water taken out, it needs to be pre-moistened, which takes a lot more water than you might expect.  Then pack it into seed cells.  That also takes more time and more soil than you think.

After the seeds are planted (check directions to see if the seeds should be placed on top of the soil or covered) pack them down with a dibber or just use a plain old pen, like I do.

Cover the seed tray with a plastic dome, place in a bright window sill, and check every day to make sure the soil does not dry out.  For seeds that germinate slowly like these, I place a heating pad under the tray, turned very low, to keep the soil warm.  That will help them sprout faster.
Now just stand back and watch them grow!

7.3 feet

222.8 cm.  That's 7.3 feet.  That's how much snow fell on Charlottetown from February 1 to 25.
Our average yearly snowfall is 290.4 cm.

Needless to say, we are weary.  But things are looking up.  This is a before shot, but we have finally cleared the front door, and liberated the garbage bins.

Wayne did a lot of shoveling.

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.