Our thoughts are with you ...

Yep, our thoughts are with you, but kinda glad I'm not shoveling snow again!

My sister from northern Ohio sent me a text that they have 13" of snow right now and will probably be getting more today or tonight.  DeWine has his lockdown, and God has His own version.  

My neighbors from Anna sent some pictures of the snow and their roads and drives.  I can really recall doing this.  The only saving grace was that they had a big snow blower with a cap and heated handles. It was kinda like the neighborhood snow blower.  We could use it to do our drive and walks, and everyone helped doing each other's drives.

This may not look like much snow, but I'm guessing that the banks of their drive are at least 18"-20" and pretty solidly packed.  The wind blows so hard that the snow develops a very hard crust on the top and makes it hard for the snow blower to get through.  It tries to climb the snow.  Also, anyone who has lived in the country knows that somehow, immediately after you get the end of the drive cleared out, the county snow plow comes down the road and deposits another foot of slush, ice and gravelly snow right where you just cleaned !!!!

This picture looks out their back door toward the back yard of our former house and the cemetery back there.  I remember this area when the wind would blow (which was always) there would be areas in the back yard that were clean down to the grass, and other areas where the snow  was 2'-3' deep from drifting. Part of the bad memories was how I would just get the driveway and sidewalk cleaned and it would already have started to drift back over.  Sometimes by evening you couldn't even tell we had cleaned it in the first place.

These are the medals that go to my friends and family back in Ohio for all your hard work today and last week.  You are champs. 

 

 And I know I always say that nobody likes a smarta_ _, but just wanted you to see what our reward is today for having just gone through 5 straight days of heavy rain here in Youngsville. My weather station says we have had 4.40" of rain just this month.  We had over 6" of rain last month.

Normally I wouldn't do this to my friends, but all that rain has pretty much drowned out a couple of trees we planted in our back yard and we'll be doing a lot of yard work back there this spring.  The saving grace is that all of the water is outside, and we don't have to worry about the sump pumps any more.  Supposed to be 60 degrees today ------- but Thursday's weather shows 100% chance of sleet and ice, and Friday calls for a return to rain..Oh well, I see some upper 50s pretty much all of next week.  Pollen clouds are on the way!!

"O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" (Percy Byssche Shelley)

Hooah  

P.s.  Funny. While I was outside taking this picture of our house, a guy and his son from California drove down our street and stopped right next to me.  He said he noticed that I was taking a picture of our house and wanted to know if it was for sale! He was moving here from California and was looking for a house to buy.  Housing around here is booming!! Can't build them fast enough.