Frozen

Okay, as winters go, this one hasn’t been too bad. One dump of snow (pretty much dissolved by rain the next day) in early December and that was it – until yesterday.

Bloody hubris. It’s a bugger. I knew there was supposed to be a very big dump of snow, but I was smugly confident that I was immune from the worst it was likely to bring. When there’s a heavy snowfall it is almost inevitable that a tree will fall on a power line somewhere, but (ha, ha!) I have a brand new generator, so bring it on. More fool me.

When I was having my shower last night the flow reduced to a trickle. When I started doing the dishes afterwards, no water came out of the taps at all. What the hell? Hmm, I thought. It’s been freezing cold all week. Has the well pump pipe frozen? Checked the electrical panel and sure enough the well pump switch had tripped. Flipped it back on, then put my wellies on, grabbed a torch and headed down to the crawl space to switch the water supply from the well to the cistern. The snow was just starting then. Came back up, tried the kitchen tap again. A trickle. Hmm. Is it possible the water in the cistern has frozen? Perhaps. Pretty annoying. Filled the kettle with drinking water (good thing I picked up a new bottle in the village yesterday) and got the dishes done. Watched Bill Maher, who had Steve Schmidt on as a guest. (Why the hell didn’t he challenge him to apologise for Sarah Palin?) Went to bed.

This morning the snow is still falling and it’s a winter wonderland.

The view out the window as I sit and type.

There are two ways to access my house: the official driveway, which leads to the front of the house, and the longer, bendy “unofficial” driveway (actually my neighbour’s, used with his permission), which leads to the back. Normally I use the second, but, knowing there was snow in the forecast, yesterday, after hauling the water bottle inside, I drove down to the front of the house to park.

Yes, I could brush the snow off the car and shovel the drive if I was so inclined, but I’m not. I was supposed to be going for a coffee and a catch up with Dave and Jan this afternoon. This evening I was supposed to be going for dinner with another friend at our wonderful local restaurant. Neither of those things is going to happen now, even if the snowplough comes through. Prior to Boxing Day 2016 I probably would have given it a go, but totalling a car (thanks to a couple of dickheads) in a blizzard has turned driving in snow a white-knuckle ordeal. Even in daylight. Under no circumstances would I try it after dark. I’m going nowhere.

Meanwhile… Glad there’s food in the bird feeder – although not as glad as the birds.

The flamingos can take care of themselves. Not easy to make out in the photo, but there’s a lilac inside the chicken wire tube. It was showing signs of spring growth before the deep freeze and snow. Irises (which deer will eat) were coming up inside the tube and daffs were coming up outside. Fingers crossed they haven’t all frozen to death.

It’s supposed to warm up and start raining on Monday. Good thing I have some buckets of rainwater outside to thaw out and warm up on the woodstove. God knows when the taps will be flowing again.

Well, I guess it’s time to go outside, shake the snow off the rhododendrons and start clearing a path to the woodshed.