Heavy Snow, Part Two

Mike Makes the Cover of the 11 February Blog
(and immediately emails the picture to everyone)

11 February

So I ended up shaking off the pitch pine three times yesterday. After the second time I tethered the top of the tree with twine to the blue spruce, forcing it upright. Or so I thought. At 10:30 p.m. I looked out the window and couldn't see the pine. Out I trudged again to find it bent over once more, this time towards the spruce. Too bad there aren't pitch pine Olympics; this little tree would get a gold in gymnastics. I shook it off again, stood it up, and tightened the noose. It's still standing.

Meanwhile, after focusing so much on the little pine, I realized that the arching bamboo might have squashed the tops of the four junior arbor vitae trees that were planted before we got here to hide the compost pile. So, I guess the first thing I'll have to do tomorrow morning is attempt to de-arch the bamboo, whose tops are now thoroughly buried in the snow. Notice I don't care about the bamboo. We didn't plant that either.

*****

For lack of anything better to do, and because his condo complex gets plowed out before our street does, Mike likes to show up unannounced and start shoveling our driveway.

With more than a foot of snow on the ground I wasn't about to let him do this solo, so I jumped into my boots before breakfast and grabbed the good shovel. This left Jack with the bad one so we traded off halfway. It took a while to get the job done.

A few hours later we rescued Cheryl from her stay-at-home job. It's been a long time since the four of us hung out at the diner.

In mid-afternoon Mike showed up again and the two of us went to the Pole Farm. The gate was closed. We ducked under, got about six feet in, and decided that snowshoes were in order. So I got to wear Theresa's snowshoes again. This time I didn't trip over myself.

If I buy my own pair it will guarantee we'll never get deep snow around here again. Some of you are about ready to make a donation, aren't you? Because there's more in the forecast next week.

Anyway, pictures.

Yesterday afternoon, while the snow was falling at a furious pace, I opened up the porch door on my way to rescuing the pitch pine for the second time. There was about a foot of snow piled against the door, which faces east.

The wet, blowing snow stuck to the screens, making it seem as if we were buried.

Even on the western side of the house the snow was smashed into the screen. Here is a wire moose dinner bell/chime/who-knows-what that somebody gave us in our early moose collecting days.

The bamboo continues to sag. The pitch pine (top center) stands.

The view through the southern screens:


Yet another wire gift moose.

Twilight, as the snow stopped falling:


Snow on the trees on our street this morning (that's my glove in the lens in the upper left):

The sidewalk, dug out. Snow makes suburbia look pretty.

The deck. The National Weather Service reported 18.7 inches of snow in Ewing, one town west of us.

The pitch pine survived the night:

The bamboos, however, seem to have given up, and taken the arbor vitae with them (one still stands, upper left):

Fence and rose bush:

Over at Cheryl's is the biggest residential snow pile ever:

The Pole Farm (known to the rest of the world as Mercer County Park Northwest) used to be AT&T's property, full of telephone poles. Only one remains, but we didn't see it today. From the main trail we took the side loop into the woods, around a meadow, which looked like a field of grass with a dusting of wind-blown snow:

It's not. It's the tops of a field of shrubs under a foot and a half of snow. The ski poles are for scale:

A comfy place to freeze your ass:

A field, a hedgerow, and our snowshoe tracks:

Random shots of snow on trees:


More trail. I couldn't decide on horizontal or vertical so I took it both ways. Horizontal makes a better desktop background. Vertical has the better composition. Whatever.


Understory archway:


Huh! I can shoot into the sun!

We reached the main trail again. Like everyone else, we turned back towards the gate. The main trail goes on towards Blackwell Road, but nobody had gone there today:

The way back:
Long afternoon shadows: