Thirty-three days and one hundred inches

The weather people predicted another 3-6 inches of snow last night.

I went out before dinner and shoveled out a path just so I could bring the trash & recycle bins back up to the house. I shoveled a good 4-6 inches of snow.

This morning I donned my winter garb and headed out.

There was easily ten inches of snow and that was on the part of the driveway that I shoveled yesterday.

We have hit the one hundred mark, that is 100" of snowfall for the season (officially 101.1"). I should be quick to point out: so far, winter isn't over.

From our local weatherman's blog, "The snow depth of 24" this Tues. AM in G.R. is an all-time February record and just 3" shy of the all-time snow depth record of 27" after the Blizzard of '78. We have now gone a record 14 days with more than 20" of snow on the ground."

I was cursing it this morning. Twenty inches of snow on the ground is doubled when you have to move it off the driveway. It quickly piles up. Bill has done a nice job, as he's used the snow blower, and thrown more snow out into the yard. Since I insist on shoveling, I can only throw it so far. Especially when I'm throwing it up over the snow banks.

Here are a couple of pictures from Feb. 2nd to give you an idea...

You can sort of see (since it's all white) the blanket of snow in our yard. A fairly even blanket. The piles at the edges are almost equal to the snow in the yard.

I tried to get a better perspective as Bill walked down the driveway.

I'm posing next to the pile so you can see the height. I'm standing on snow, and my hand isn't on the top of the pile because the peak is over another twelve inches and up another several. 

This is easily up to my shoulders.

And this was two weeks ago. It warmed up slightly on Saturday, and melted a little.

It has been getting close to ridiculous as we back out of our driveway. As indicated, the piles are high enough that in my car (a Ford Fusion for reference), I can just see over them to see if cars are coming down the street.

That was, until this morning.

The snow didn't melt enough and the new snow was enough that as I backed out I realized I couldn't see. No problem, it's been this high before, I'll just pull back up to the sidewalk where I can look out and see over the snow banks. Um, nope. Those are too high now too. Okay, pray to God that there are no cars coming.

I backed out very slowly until I could finally see, and then gunned it so I wouldn't get stuck. Since I had already helped two other people who got stuck this morning and it took me an hour and a half to shovel.

Did I mention it was thick, heavy, wet snow?

No?

It was heavy.

And, because the aforementioned piles have only gotten higher, as I shoveled ten inches of heavy, wet snow onto a snow bank that is easily forty inches high, the shovel would hit the top of the bank and cause an avalanche. Or the weight of the snow would cause an avalanche. Or the removal of the snow on the bottom would cause an avalanche. Whichever of these it was, for every one shovel-full of snow I removed, I had to shovel three more times.

I love snow, but with thirty-three days until spring, I am over it for this season.

If it's going to keep snowing, it needs to melt first. I am hoping God or Mother Nature gets the memo.

I was not thankful for the snow this morning. I mean, it's still beautiful, but I feel like half of that 101.1" is still in my yard. It's certainly still at the edges of the driveway.

I didn't take any pictures this morning because I knew I wouldn't be able to get perspective.

Now the bushes close to the porch in the first picture are no longer visible.

I am thankful for the snow because it will end and spring is getting closer.