Snow! And thoughts while shoveling

Country Lane with Snow

Living in the mountains I always watch the weather sites. I say sites because nobody ever gets it right so I monitor three or more and draw my own conclusions. For weeks now it has been sliding snowflakes. This is that weather forecast where a slight chance for snow drifts across the week always beginning tomorrow but never quite showing up.

Friday they dared drop the slight and go with chance for snow - up to 1" over night. Pardon me NOAA but living in the mountains of New Mexico let me say one inch is not snow. It is flurries. We did get the one inch, perhaps a bit more so I paid a bit more attention to the forecast for Saturday day. Three to five which we didn't get but overnight Saturday into Sunday the prediction went up to five or eight. Yeah, we'll see, I thought as I checked outside before heading to bed Saturday night with just a hint of a flake here and there in the dark skies.

The Corolla Entombed 

Sometime in the middle of the night it must have decided to snow. We had eight inches before dawn and a good foot by the time it grew light enough to seriously check on all my snow gauges -- buried cars, picnic tables, garden fence, etc.

Picnic Table at Dawn

It snowed past noon (NOAA said it would be out of our area by 11) and dropped another 5 to 8 inches. Total at my house was close to 18". The weight of snow makes measurement of total fall difficult because it begins to collapse in on itself. Wading through it to get to the wood shed it was up to my knees and that is 18".

That is the point when you can no longer look at it through your windows. It must be brushed off cars and raked off the edges of roofs. I had a van that suffered a shattered windshield due to the weight of snow on the car. So you dawn the winter ware and get out in it. A few quick notes here: 1) Always know where the snow shovel and push broom are after October 31st, 2) wise also to unstore the snow shoes, 3) nothing uses as many muscle groups as wading through 18" of snow, 4) you cannot shovel snow and take pictures of it at the same time. My tip on the camera is to take pictures first and shovel second. And store your camera in the seat of the vehicle you are shoveling out of the snow.

Camera case?

The minute I saw all the snow after the sun dimly lit the scene I knew I wanted Big Blue ready to roll. Hey, I confess, I bought my 4 x 4 GMC pickup as the ultimate photographic accessory. Yeah, I know I gave some far more practical reasons for it not the least of which it lets me get to all my pet sit gigs in all sorts of weather. And yesterday it proved it does not even have to wait for the county plow or the driveway cleared.

Ducks in Open Water

 Oh, I know, there was a lot more snow to shovel at home, firewood to bring in from the shed, walkways to brush off, the Corolla to dig out. BUT there was also pictures to take.

Snowy Country Lane

Check out my artists page on Fine Arts America for other photographs. The snow is going to stick around for a while so there were be more photographs no doubt.