Round Two with a Punch

 

The snow was just beginning to melt from our last snowstorm three days ago, when the weather reports began calling for more snowstorms several times this week.

This just in:

The National Weather Service in Albuquerque, NM has issued a Blizzard Warning... which is in effect from midnight tonight to 8 PM MST Tuesday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.
Moderate to occasionally heavy snow will develop tonight across the Sandia and Manzano Mountains through the Central Highlands. (This is where we live)
Snow will increase in coverage and intensity early Tuesday morning along and behind a cold front. Very strong and possibly damaging winds are expected to develop across this area. Total snow accumulations of 2 to 6 inches are expected... however... the combination of the strong winds and snowfall will create treacherous driving conditions.

Wind speeds of 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph will reduce visibilities less than one quarter mile in blowing and drifting snow. The snow and strong winds will start to diminish Tuesday evening.
Precautionary/preparedness actions...
Remember... a Blizzard Warning means severe winter weather conditions are imminent or highly likely.
Make sure you have adequate food and medicine at home for the duration of the storm. Check furnace and fuel levels.

Before I even read the above report, I woke up this morning and felt an urgency to drive to the grocery store and feed store to stock up on the essentials and some comfort items. Call it intuition or gut instinct, I’m glad I did because not long after I arrived home, the snowflakes began falling.

(Our driveway leading to our home. Photo taken early evening.)

So far it’s not as nice of a snowfall as our last storm. Our weather warmed up into 30’s and 40’s and I was enjoying the fact that our water buckets without heaters had thawed out. But of course that meant that any snow we received would be wet, icy and heavy. I’ve already had to go out to the chicken coop and shake off the wet snow and ice from the hawk netting, so it doesn’t end up weighted down.

And Jax has been volunteering to keep going up on the roof to clear the ice off of the satellite dish so we can still get clear reception.

This is as far outside as I could get Dobbie to go. Out the side door and beside the chicken coop. Normally she loves going to the barn with me, but with the snow as wet and cold as it is, she flatly refused, but she did pose for a photo.

But on a positive note, I finally finished putting up our Christmas lights and my kidlets helped me to decorate the Christmas tree. It feels kind of lonely and lacking without Truck Driver John here, but I must admit I did enjoy how helpful my kidlets are when given the opportunity. They worked together and assembled the tree and did a perfect job, too. And then as I sat and unwrapped the ornaments, they placed them all on the tree. It was relaxing allowing them to do that. In the past, I’ve always insisted on placing most of the ornaments on the tree for fear that the kidlets would place them all on one branch. Instead I gave the kidlets their own mini-Christmas Tree to decorate on their own.

But this year I let go of my inner control freak and just sat back, sipping a Samuel Adams Winter Brew (yummo), and enjoyed seeing my kidlets happy and proud to have such an important job. And I didn’t even go back over and adjust or move any ornaments afterwards and have no plans to do so, even if some of the ornaments are a little heavy on certain branches. I am letting go and feeling the joy, peace, and simpleness of the season. I am. And it feels good.

I walked outside to take a few photos of our house after I finished putting up the lights. Nothing too fancy, but in my mind, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without colorful, cheerful lights. And there is just something so ‘Norman Rockwell’ about sparkling lights when the snow is falling, which is one reason I keep our lights up well into January and sometimes into February as well. The colorful lights lift my spirits when our skies are grey, and the weather is cold, windy and snowy.

 

When it was time to feed the critters, I was hoping that Baby Doll wouldn’t walk down to greet me because of how wet the snow was, and I wanted my chubby girl to be dry so I could put her blanket on. But once she heard me open the gate, she mosied on down the hill.

When the snow is this wet and cold, she isn’t as happy being out in it as she is when the snow is dry. “Hey Mom, didn’t it just snow a couple days ago? Who ordered this slop and can we send it back?”

I had to dry her off with a towel for quite a while before I could put her blanket on and she actually seemed to enjoy the attention and was very cooperative and calm about me putting her blanket on afterwards. 

While I was up at the barn, my twinling Jax surprised me by joining me to help feed all the critters. He also likes to take photos and it’s interesting to me to see how others’ photos turn out when they use my camera. He did a pretty good job even with the lens getting wet and smudged by the snowflakes.

At one point, while he was taking the above photo, Baby Doll totally caught me off guard and walked up behind me when I wasn’t expecting her to. I had just fed her a thin flake of alfalfa hay and her hay net was full. I never let it get empty and Baby Doll is a much slower eater now, so two 3-string bale size flakes of hay will last her all day or night, and when I come to feed her, I always find some hay left over. I love that she is so relaxed about food now and seems to know that she will always have food available to eat, and not just twice a day, like I used to feed her.

Anyway, what I was trying to say, but making a short story, way too long, is that Baby Doll had a hay net full of hay, and a feed bucket semi-full of alfalfa, but still chose to come outside, in the snow to hang out with me. And she stood beside me patiently as Jax practiced his photo-taking skills for about 10 minutes, before she finally walked back into the barn to get caught up on her dinner. That wouldn’t have happened before I started using the hay net. And I just think that’s so cool.

           

 

While I don’t want the weather to get too bad, I’ve got all our provisions and comfort food and drink at the ready, for both human and critter to ride out the storm.

I just need to know: “How many more days till summer?”

(Oh. And this is my 4th snow post of the season. And counting.)