Snowmageddon 2014

 

It all sounded ominous: heavy snow accumulations for central Indiana, strong winds, possible blizzard conditions, travel advisories. By Saturday night, we’d gotten word that church services were cancelled. With weather maps like this, we were bracing ourselves for the worst.

And then, we woke up Sunday morning and were greeted with absolutely beautiful snowfall. Huge snowflakes that stuck to everything! Practically balmy temperatures (around 30) and very calm.

It was like that for hours. And then things changed. The wind picked up and the snow blew sideways; the temperature started dropping quickly.

What? Don’t all kids swing during blizzards?

And then it got dark … and really windy.

Around 8:30, the power went out, and the kids got really excited and lit the oil lamp and candles.

LOTS of candles.

And then, before we knew it, everybody gathered up pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, books, booklights and a HUGE down comforter and staked out their spots in the living room, close to the fireplace. They were all so excited. Isn’t it great how kids just live in the moment? Mick and I had unspoken concerns about how long we might be without power, especially considering how cold it was supposed to be for the next two days. I knew there was absolutely no way we could get either car from the garage out to the road, or even down the road, for that matter. And that wind and all that snow … it was just unbelievable. I was 8 years old when the blizzard of ‘78 hit. Strangely, I don’t really remember it, but I’ll bet I was just the same as our kids: excited about the novelty of it all and not worried at all about safety or warmth. Just the way our childhoods should be.

(Guess who was really, really excited?)

Rachel ended up reading a couple of chapters of Little House in the Big Woods out loud while I dozed (guess I wasn’t too concerned, after all. ;-). When I woke up around 10:00 pm, Mick had gone out in the frigid temperatures with sideways-blowing snow and hauled a small generator into the garage from the pole barn. In near pitch black, he wired it up to our furnace, making several trips between the garage and basement. At this point, it was still fairly warm in the house, so even though he got it all hooked up, he didn’t start it then. We woke up around 2:30 am, when the power came back on (Mick said later he was just getting ready to turn on the generator). The temperature in the house was just 58! The kids were still cozy and sleeping; in fact, Grant had taken his shirt off because he was so warm under that comforter!

We woke up the next morning to frigid temperatures (-11), frosty windows and a surreal, snowy landscape that looked like a scene from a science fiction film.

 

 

 

Obviously, Jack didn’t mind the cold.

Today, Mick decided to tackle the “driveway”. Driveway is in quotes, because he couldn’t actually blow out the driveway – that’s where the biggest drift on the whole property is. I haven’t taken a measuring stick out, but I would guess the drift to be between 4 and 5 feet high! So, Mick actually just plowed a direct path from the garage to a “low” spot in the driveway.

After a couple of days of little outside movement, the dogs were highly entertained by his work.

Unfortunately, the snow blower wasn’t enough for this deep, hard snow. Through the years, Mick has developed a system of chopping the snow up with a shovel, then blowing it away with the blower.

It’s long, slow, hard work that took about 4 hours. I checked the temperature around this time and it was 7 degrees. When Mick finally came in, he was exhausted, sore … and sweaty!

Here’s a look at the finished product. Our driveway is actually to the left of this shoveled out path.

Somewhere under this mountain.

The dogs were less than impressed.

And what was going on inside the house? Not much. With the timing of this storm hitting at the end of our Christmas break, it just felt like an extension of the break. We spent a lot of time reading, surfing, eating, relaxing. and looking out the windows.