Tuesday, January 19, 2016

La Poudrerie

So, dear readers, here we are well into the double-digits of January.  Considering that our true winter started unseasonably late, one would think my mental reserves are full.

January 7, 2016

Think again.

My car has been stuck three times already, and in our own driveway to add insult to injury.  Last year, I stranded my car so often that when I took it to the garage for an oil change, my mechanic asked me what river I drove it into.  He kept it on a lift for 2 days to thaw it out.  That's how much snow I had stuck to my undercarriage.  I think my car stopped dripping sometime in April.

Hopefully we'll have a mild spell so that my car can thaw out a bit, but there's nothing in the forecast.  We'll dip down to -24C later this week, so things aren't likely to improve.  We are, dear friends, in the thick of things.

On Sunday night it snowed.  Environment CaCanada (as we call them in this household) told us we'd get 2 to 4 cm, which is nothing to get worried about.  We consider that white drizzle.  Come Monday morning, our cars were nothing but white blobs.  So much for "two to four".  Later that day, a cold front pulled through and with it the winds, which brings me to our french lesson.

Poudrerie is blowing snow, and right now, the poudrerie is driving me all shades of wild.  The plow drives by regularly, depositing yet another strata on the glacier that clogs the end of our driveway.  When I'm alone at home, I'm not even driving down the length of our driveway and parking near the house anymore.  No, I'm parking within 20' of the road, so our snow removal cowboy can just give a quick trim around the edges.  This morning, he came at 7:15 and cleared the snow right up to my bumper.  By 8:30, there were already 2 feet of snow at the road.  I had to call him and have him clear it again.  I'm staking out driveways down the street where there is no blowing snow, just so I can park in peace and know that I can leave the house and get to where I'm going without military-like planning.

Those of you who aren't familiar with blowing snow might wonder why I just don't shovel the white crap myself.  Well, the fact the windchill was -22C this morning was one factor.   The fact we pay our snow removal cowboy handsomely is another.  I also need to qualify blowing snow as the most obscene molecule nature has ever created.  I'm thinking of killing it with fire, that's how precarious my mental state is.  I'm sure I can pick up a second-hand Zamboni (google it, fer chrissakes) and we can simply run over it again and again and again until we have a high-quality skating rink.  Or maybe a steamroller?  Or if we win the big prize, we can get a heated driveway!  We'd probably need to win a Powerball billion to be able to afford that.  I digress, but blowing snow is packed and heavy.  You need power tools to slice it, that's how dense it is.

At this point, I think I'm going to come up for air in April.  Or maybe build an igloo.  It was fun when we were kids, I'm sure it could be fun again.

January 19, 2016
The above photo was tonight's sunset.  You can see the blowing snow over the fields.  We'll see just how much gets deposited by tomorrow morning.

As as added bonus, here's a photo of Jeep, or Flip-Flop as Eric has dubbed him:

Opposable Thumbs
And as an added-bonus-to-the-added-bonus (call now, operators are standing by!), here is my ravioli mould.  I made ricotta spinach ravioli the other day.  It's quite the production, and I attempt it once a decade.  Served with a nice tomato sauce, this was a meal that needed to be followed up with copious amounts of Poire William.  So so good!

Ravioli-Schablone von Betti Bossi
Tomorrow I'll show you our new Wilfred, aka wood stove!  Promises are promises.

4 comments:

Stephen Andrew said...

I don't have the patience for ravioli, so I will come for yours next time. Blowing--blown? Snow is the worst. It's like icy croissant layers. I spent the weekend quite jealous of the East coast blizzard. I love a good snow.

Shim Farm said...

Hahaha, I'm so patient I make ravioli once a decade. It was worth it though. I keep threatening to make more, and maybe I will while it's still fresh in my memory.

Blowing snow sucks! I had SO MUCH SNOW behind my car the next day it was barely visible. But my snow-jockey came around the next morning and even called me before, suggesting I might want to back out my car so he could clear the rest of the driveway LOL.

I was so happy to watch that weather system just blow on by! It's white outside and that's good enough for me. A snow storm on a Friday is passable though, if you can spend the weekend at home.

Robin said...

Has the snow cleared out yet? That sounds rather miserable. We haven't had the pleasure of snow yet and I'm thinking we probably wont. I keep pestering Lee to drive us up to a snow park so Sidney can play in the white stuff. All those kid books we read really glamorize snow. Yesterday it was 65 and I'm getting excited for Spring. Maybe these thoughts of playing in the snow will soon pass. :)

Shim Farm said...

Well, we just had a serious freezing rain storm, and now it's 8F with a windchill of of -8F, so we're not out of the woods yet. We don't have that much accumulation though. Our plowed back field gets bare with a few days of sun, and the field right across the street from us could be used as a skating rink, there's so much ice on it!

But we're keeping warm and enjoying Wilf III! I always have a cat or two sitting on me when I knit, added bonus!

We always had SO MUCH fun as kids, playing in the snow. We actually used to go out, get soaking wet, come in for lunch and change into dry snowsuits and boots, and go out again and play until dinner. We build igloos and skied and skated, and made a luge run that our parents let us take the water-hose to one year, so we could get a good ice surface. It ended crossing three properties and ending up on the ice in front of the house (I grew up on the waterfront). I just remember being ***sooo*** excited by it all! Now we're all...ugh...snow...freezing rain...winter tires...cold...shit...make it GO AWAY LOL.

Still, I just LOVE the change in the seasons and I marvel at all of it. It just seems that some years, winter lasts 6 months, and springsummerfall are crammed into the other 6!

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