We had plenty of warning that this "Blizzard of Oz" (as so many people have been calling it) was coming. We made sure we had plenty of food on hand either in the freezer, the fridge or in the pantry long before the stores were rushed and ran out of milk and other necessities. I figured I went through the proper preparations and had things ready for several days of being snowed in, now the weathermen will be wrong and we won't get a drop of moisture. Well, I was wrong and the weathermen were right-for once! Sorry, it just seems they talk up all these storms then they are a disappointment.
Anyway, back to our "Blizzard of Oz" that is on the horizon. It started Wenesday, February 20th. The school district that I work in let out school at 1:00. I headed home in near white-out conditions at times and could typically see about a half mile ahead of me. I wasn't too worried about the drive-I've driven in worse conditions. I stopped by and picked up my daughter from preschool and we trekked home. The roads weren't bad at this point, but I knew they would get worse as the evening wore on.
My son finally arrived home and then followed by my husband a few hours later. We made sure all the chickens had plenty of food and water and shut all the cats up in the garage. The storm settled in Wednesday night and by the time we woke up Thursday morning, there was about 10 inches of snow covering everything. My husband thought he would be able to get to work, so he got out on the tractor and bladed the driveway open. Once he got out to the road, he thought better about trying to drive down the road. The township road grader hadn't gone down the road at that point, so it was pretty deep. The grader did get down the road about 7 a.m., but the road had either blown shut or more snow piled up and it was way too deep to drive down shortly after that.
We enjoyed the day at home and felt fairly lazy all day. There aren't many days we get to do that.. The kids and I ended up staying home on Friday as well due to school being cancelled. My husband did finally get to work Friday, but it was slow going. Friday wasn't as snowy as the day before, so we were able to get into town and get our son to a Tae Kwon Do test. We ended up with about 13-14 inches of snow. For our area, that is a lot.
Saturday came with news of another storm heading our way on Monday. This one was going to have substantial winds and snowfall. Great, that's all we need is more white-out conditions. School on Monday was called off due to blizzard warnings from weather stations. Monday morning came and went with not much snow. A few little flurries showed up before noon. After lunch the snow started coming down. It was heavy at times, then lightened up. My husband came home and it really let loose. The wind was blowing pretty bad and roads drifted shut pretty quick. Tuesday morning we dug ourselves out and decided it was day best spent inside by the warm fire. I did get out and take some pictures.
The crabapple was flocked with about 2 inches of snow.
Our back door was blasted with a layer of snow.
The back door of the garage. The cats weren't sure they liked this view.
All in all we recieved about 20 inches of snow. Like I said earlier, we haven't had this much snow on the ground at one time in a LONG time. A week later and we are finally about thawed out. There are still piles of snow here and there, but we are starting to see snippets of spring. My garden got some much needed moisture and there is talk of more on the way. Hopefully it is in the form of rain and not snow. I've had my fill of the white stuff for a while!
