Day Two

What a difference a day makes!

Yesterday there was very little snow on the way to the meadow.  Most of it had melted to leave just a paste of brown flattened leaves.  In the colder parts here and there were patches of snowy ice and in the field, large stretches over which the white-tailed deer were loud in their getaway. 

Today we have a few inches of snow, with blizzard conditions for this evening and an expected 18 inches (46cm, almost half a meter) here on the coast by morning! 

In our house we have probably the same number of suffixes for the word snow as the Inuit, although many of our suffixes are laced with expletives.

We live on a HILL, a very steep HILL, the driveway up which curves at the top with such an extreme gradient that when you get to that point in your car, you actually can't see what is coming, it is as though you are flying, for a short while there is just sky in your windscreen's view.  In our family this part of the driveway is known as the Landing Strip.

During snowstorms we are cut off from the outside world until the storm ends and Tim or one of the boys (if they are home from college) has gone up and down numerous times with the snowblower, and the other members of the Bouwer household have shovelled and spread sand and salt, clearing a path for the cars to make their way gingerly down the slippery slope.  This takes about 2 hours or more if there has been a serious amount of snow.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is very good aerobic exercise.  "You gotta love the hill!" is also a common ironic expression used by our family while working on snow removal. 

So the man-made object for today, to accompany the snow theme, as I sit here next to the glowing wood-stove while the wind howls outside and the snow swirls through the -16C dark night,  is the common snow shovel.  I was interested to learn that there have been more than 100 patents for these lowly but invaluable tools, and that one of the first patents in the late 1800's was given to a woman designer named Lydia Fairweather, which is a rather beautiful name, especially for a designer of snow shovels.  We have four shovels, all of varying materials and sizes.  And we each have our favourites, depending on the type of snow which has fallen. 

So here is a drawing of an imagined Lydia Fairweather contemplating snow shovels!  As I contemplate all the snow I will shovel tomorrow, hoping for fair weather after noon!