I am a snow-lover from way, way back. Was there ever a feeling as joyous as laying in bed, lazing about, as your mother informed you that today was a snow day? Or drawing back the curtain to gaze happily at the pristine, sparkling, new-fallen snow with the knowledge that you'd very soon be making snow angels and snowmen and having snowball fights? I have a theory that those who are born in the winter, such as myself, prefer the cold snowy weather just as those July and August babies love the summertime heat.
Some background information: our current living situation arose from a combination of conscious decisions, luck (both good and bad), brain tumors, lead poisoning and circumstances beyond our control.
We live in a tiny (480 square feet) cabin in a lake community in Watertown, Connecticut. Our Association's beach is about 70' from our house as the crow flies, and it is a wonderful, shallow, fish-stocked lake of around 62 acres, dotted here and there with islands bearing mystical names like "Turtle Island", "Snake Island" and "That Island That Those Teenagers Boat Out To Camp On and Drink Beer". The purchase price of the cabin combined with living near the water was an irresistible lure to us; our mortgage payment was less than half of the rent we'd been paying in Black Rock. And it sure beat another apartment, or a cardboard box under the highway.
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| Be it ever so humble - or snow covered! There's no place like home. |
Our cabin has no central heat; we use a woodstove and have for 14 winters now. It serves us well. On the sub-zero nights, we supplement with an electric unit and that, too, serves us well. Steve cuts and splits our wood; it keeps him fit and the saying that heating with wood warms twice (or three or four times!) is very true.
But nothing could have prepared any New Englander, no matter how hale and hardy, for the winter of 2010-2011.
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| Lake Winnemaug Beach after a light dusting. December 2010. |
It started off innocently enough with a much-anticipated snowstorm on December 27th. As the kids were already on their school breaks it was embraced as the beloved first "real snowfall" of the winter. Little did we know...
Although the storms are starting to blur together in my memory, we got around a foot or slightly more that weekend. It was a beautiful, light, fluffy snow until it got compacted by the sun.
New Year's weekend was unusually warm; we celebrated as has been our tradition for the past 20 years by gathering with the Control Group* members at a hunting lodge in Saunderstown, RI. The driveway in to Pausacaco Lodge wasn't plowed (few dirt paths are) but with a 4WD Subaru Baja, the snow was no problem for us. Not so for Cal's Honda, or Jamie & Kim's Toyota, or Justin and Ellen's mini-van. But only the van got stuck and that, upon leaving, so the group good-naturedly piled into the Subaru to go push him out, laughing all the way.
We got a freshener-upper on January 3rd; a couple of inches to fit to cover the grime but not inconvenience folks. That would occur on the following Thursday into Friday. Around six to seven inches of the still-novel, still somewhat beautiful precipitation graced my birthday and I reveled in being able to stay home, cook on the woodstove, make my own birthday cakes and just generally loll about indolently.
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| January 7th, 2010 - Enforcing the Cardinal rule; keep your feeders filled during storms and afterwards! |
January 11th had a couple of inches, bringing the snowfall totals in Hartford to a nice, even two feet since December 26th's storm. January 12th doubled that number to 48" in an epic storm which was referred to by our elderly meteorologist Dr. Mel, giddily, as "a perfect storm". A perfect pain in the buttocks, and the novelty of a snowy winter was beginning to wear off rapidly. It was around this time that anybody over the age of thirty started hearkening back to the snow of their childhood winters. We got around 28" during this particular dumping.
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| January 12-13, 2011. Our neighbor Dave with the gold standard in personal snow removal. Yes, the snow really is piled up to John's neck. |
January 17th gave us around 2". January 18th and 19th also featured snow in fits and starts. Ditto January 21st, 24th, 25th, 26th, and 28th. Storms small and large, combining to make drifts in our yard well over four feet in places, and corners of our neighborhood piled with eight to ten foot concretions of grimy, solid snow.
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| January 27, 2011. The path - or lack thereof - to the bird feeders. |
According to the National Weather Service, records at Bradley Airport just northeast of us show 43" for the month of January by 1/23, and 57" since December 26th. On Tuesday, January 25th, we were granted the dubious distinction of having broken the record set in 1945 of the snowiest January in the 105 years such records have been kept. By Friday, January 27th, we overachieved by having just experienced the snowiest month on record, ever. Yesterday totals were astonishing; for the month of January 2011, snowfall amounts totaled 57" just for the month past, and a whopping, astounding 71.2" since we welcomed that first snowfall shortly after Christmas. Close to six feet of snow in 36 days.
Is it any wonder that we're complaining, and making plans for trips to warm, tropical places? I think not! The scariest part? We're still 47 days from Spring, tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, and this winter has more in store for us.
I am planning a trip back to Florida:
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| Key West, Florida January 2007 |
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| Key West, Florida January 2007 Quite a few pounds ago. *The Control Group is comprised primarily of Steve's cousins and assorted friends. Our motto, which we have now outlived, was "Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Beautiful Corpse". That ship has sailed. The philosophy originally was: with society at large being so obsessed with living forever, and eating healthy foods, not drinking to excess, quitting smoking, etc., we would function as the group against which they could compare themselves. We do this as a public service. So far, so good! :) |
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