Blizzard Warnings and Polar Vortexes

I hear there are places in the country where the snow is gone. Here, we have this going on:

The ditch that runs along the side of the road– a pretty deep ditch, I might add– is filled with snow, and that means the wind is whipping large quantities of snow across the driveway all the time. Which means snow removal, and sometimes car and truck dislodging, is a regular, daily activity. I can’t complain because womenfolk around here don’t drive heavy machinery, which means no snow-blowing for me. I do help dislodge vehicles when called upon to do so.

We knew another polar vortex was on the way for the end of the week. But at least there was no snow in the forecast. There is still no snow in the forecast, but there is a blizzard warning beginning, oh, an hour from now, because the fierce winds are blowing so much snow around that there will be no visibility on some roads.

I’m thinking our driveway is one of those roads. And Route 2 out to Cold Spring which we would have taken to see the accountant, and parts of Hwy 75 into St. Cloud which I would have taken to the board meeting for the nonprofit I volunteer with… instead, I’m staying put.

A friend in Idaho said her landscape is bleak after recent rains and she has almost forgotten what it looked like with snow. It is true that the snow is gorgeous. All winter I’ve been thinking of the word “snowscape.” If ever there was a word meant to go with “scape” it is “snow.” It’s been so consistently cold that the snow has shape-shifted into all these lovely forms. At the retreat center, the snow has drifted up over the Adirondack chairs and pooled in the corners by the Oratory door.

The other day I passed a statue of the Virgin Mary in a small grotto in front of a church, up to her neck in snow (where is my camera when I need it?).

The sun is shining through the blowing snow making it look like the air is filled with glitter. Some sunny afternoons there have been beautiful, long, slanting icicles.

The downside of this bitter cold winter is that pipes are starting to freeze. The snow cover has protected most of the pipes, but the ground is now frozen even below the four foot mark and where pipes run under driveways and parking lots, they’re starting to freeze up. At work we have a steady stream of water going in the kitchen because when we checked the temp on Monday, it was 34 degrees. The coldest temps of the week are due in tomorrow through the weekend.

When my friend said she hardly remembered what it looked like in the snow, I told her this: “It looks like the moon. Exactly like the moon.”