Winter

On New Year's morning before dawn, the ice storm began.  On January 2nd, we had an unexpected 6" of snow. Since then the mercury has rarely risen above freezing, and the sun has hardly shone.  (Thankfully the temps have hovered between 25*F and 35*F, and not -25*F with windchill -35*F!)

The yards in our village are littered with tree limbs and branches. Every day in carline, I watch a boy on a bicycle going to or leaving school on the snow-packed sidewalk.  He detours w-a-y into the park to bicycle around a fallen limb. Often he ends up on the ground, but picks himself & his bicycle up, and continues on his way, around the rest of the limb and back to the sidewalk.  

Unlike many large cities, our village does not come around and pick up yard waste, piles of raked leaves, etc. from the curb. But for the first time I have known, they asked people to leave their broken limbs by the curb and Public Works will pick them up (although it will take weeks).  

We are very thankful that we never lost power, though many (even in our village) did.  The power outage map online looked like a roller coaster.  As soon as they would restore power to one line, a fallen icy limb would take out power to another line. 

Some of our now-bowed-down evergreens still have snow that looks like marshmallows on it, and our yard is still covered with snow (except for where playing children's boots tramped around), and it is snowing again this morning.  

At least we had a mild fall.  And, inspired by a friend's actions & the book, "There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather," I made a Black Friday purchase of insulated winter snow pants.  We are ready for outdoor play!