This is Now a Weather Blog

Because that is all there is in Wisconsin these days – Weather! Enough weather to even make Crazy Aunt Purl jealous.

We surrender! The entire state is waving white flags – but mother nature can’t see them against the insane amount of snow piling up around here.

Saturday it was finally warm enough to send the kids out to play.

Little Miss had to blaze a trail for her brother as the snow is several feet deep out in the yard.

They played in the mountains of snow surrounding the yard

The largest advantage of having more than one child and living in the sticks is you can send them out to play together and stay inside where it is cozy and warm. As long as you peek out to check once in a while, it’s all good.

Saturday night we went to a friend’s annual winter party. The kind of friends that have a porch like this:

Good People!
There was a large bonfire, lots of food, sledding, and several local musicians playing together – guitars, banjos, fiddles, buckets, drums, scraps of wood – you name it.

Then came Sunday…..the day of Snowstorm Issabella.

It became very clear at 8am when we opened the door to have a look outside and saw rain falling and freezing instantly that it was not going to be a very good day for getting out. The TV was telling everyone to stay inside. So that is what we did. Hunkered down. Our great entertainment for the day was peeking out every hour to measure the snowfall so far.

Here is the view out the front door at 10am.

You see how high that snow-pile already is? There is barely any room left to plow snow out of the driveway. We were supposed to get up to 12 inches.

Of course we were out of bread and no one was going to the store. This is a problem when your children exist solely on peanut butter sandwiches. So, we hunted for the bread-maker we haven’t used in 4 years or more and got to work. (Don’t even ask why I actually had yeast that was still good – I have no idea myself!)

The view at noon -

The view at 1pm -

See – we aren’t kidding when we tell you it’s GREY here!

And what is better for lunch on a snowy day in Wisconsin that Grilled Cheese on homemade bread?

…apparently peanut butter sandwiches if you ask the kids – but I sure loved MINE!

At 4pm it was still snowing but starting to let up a little. I looked out at the cars to see how stacked with snow they were.

And let us compare the snow on the kids picnic table:

Saturday – bench is all cleared off

Sunday – What picnic table?

And then it got dark.

 All in all we got about 10 inches of the fluffy stuff. I stayed in my PJ’s all day and turned the heel on my socks. The Little Miss and I watched lots of great shows like Smash Lab, How’s That Made, and best of all Dirty Jobs. I figured they were quite educational shows

I awoke this morning to find school was not canceled – but merely delayed for 2 hours. This was good – they canceled on Valentine’s day and there was no school Friday so Little Miss was DYING to find out if they will reschedule the Valentine party.

I did not want to go down and wait for the bus with Little Miss, so I decided to take her to school on my way to work.

The snow was driven up to the tops of the tires of the car and the ice was nearly a quarter inch thick. I literally had to SHOVEL off the car – It took me an hour to dig out and de-ice and then I still got stuck in the driveway.

Sure would be nice if someone could find room in that 30 x 40 garage for my car, don’t you think?

So, what is it like driving in Wisconsin these days? I know those of you in sunny locations like Florida and Texas are dying to know!

Well – it isn’t very scenic and the roads are a tad slippery (remember the freezing rain hiding under that snow?)

This is what it looks like when you try to pull out of a parking lot like the school’s and check for oncoming traffic.

Can we say pray and go?

The snow blows across the fields and drifts pretty high – this one along side the road is taller than me.

And you see one of these every 3 cars – a truck with a plow. You wonder if you could get your own plow on the front of you little Kia…

Even the Christmas Trees are ready to give up – do you see how sad their branches look?

It is still snowing – until tomorrow, and then again this weekend.

Who wants to take bets on when the snow piles in the parking lots melt finally? (Keep in mind it has been known to dump snow in May here) – I say May 25th at the earliest!

ETA – And this just in – Mr. CH has called me to inform me that 2 of our goats are indeed trapped in their secondary housing. (The primary housing collapsed last week with a previous snow fall.) We thought it odd that the 3rd goat would not go into shelter at all yesterday – but I figured that since he is the low goat on the totem pole the other 2 were just being mean and he had had his fill. Then when I was trying to chissel the ice of the car this morning I noted that the missing 2 did not make their appearance to stare at me and loudly and go “BAHHHHH” repeatedly –  so I told him to look into it before I left for work. Now I get to spend my afternoon digging into the goat pen through feets of snow to help free the trapped goats and try to fix the primary housing back up. Sure wish I owned some boots! (yes, I live here and get snow like this and don’t have boots – shush up!)