Winter Wonderland

Winter arrived bringing temperatures as low as -20, and a couple feet of snow. The scenery is rather romantic, but cold. Perfect weather for listening to Christmas music, while cuddling on the couch by a warm fire. Oh, but I am alone...and whining about it...

Duane stuck around for Thanksgiving week, helping me keep an eye on Steve and Lesley's house while they were away. I got the privileged of living in this nice house, while Duane got to come over for breakfast, put more wood in the fire, and give me a ride to the office. No wonder he went back to Colorado...

I tried biking to work one day. That was...interesting. While the snow falls constantly, the town of Cascade only plows from 2am to 6am. During the day it is the responsibility of commuters to keep a path cleared by driving on the roads. Once a few inches of snow accumulate, it's not so safe to bike, but it is kind of fun...like peddling through peanut-butter and then suddenly breaking free from it and sliding around the corner on 2 wheels...but bikes only have two wheels, further increasing the likelihood of falling over...a nice old guy asked if I had chains for my tires...no, but that might help...

Another thing to watch out for is icesickles. They can be deadly...check out the ones behind our local grocery store:

A couple days ago, I was sitting inside minding my own business and suddenly there was thunder (is that possible in 0 degree weather?), as an avalanche of ice and snow slid off the roof. I looked out the window as the wall of whiteness passed by on its way to landing on my freshly shoveled walkway...this seems to happen every few days depending on the amount of snow we receive, so maybe there is no point to shoveling? I guess I should just be sure to NOT be standing there waiting to get impaled by icesickles sliding off the roof...

We got 6+ inches of snow last night, so I went out to shovel (again). Thanks to the 2am-6am snow plow, there is quiet the mountain of snow at the end of the driveway. I just happened to be struggling with that, as a guy drove past in his little snow-plow cat, and plowed the mountain out of the way. People in small towns are so nice and helpful...

In other news, there was no food distribution today because the Semi delivering the food slid off the road...that gave me more time to sit at the office and print 1600 1/2 page inserts for in our base newsletter. The printer only prints at a rate of 200 (double-sided) pages per hour. I cut and fold twice as fast, leaving plenty of time for me to go to the bank, make phone calls, check facebook, chat with some hot guy on skype, all while waiting for the printer...until it ran out of ink, so I'm done with that for now...