Endless Winter

So it's been snowing on and off for the last two days and I'm getting mighty tired of it.  I know it's much too early to start whining, because we'll most likely have a snowstorm in June, so I should hold off for at least another six weeks.  The one good thing about today's storm is that it warmed up afterwards, so I didn't have to snowblow the driveway; the sun took care of it for me.  This is the time of year when I wish we still lived in Salt Lake City, because it does actually feel like spring there.  My sister says she already has a few crocus in bloom.  I planted some crocus bulbs last fall but they are still under 4 feet or more of snow!  

We had a storm last Saturday night and Justin did have to go out to snowblow the driveway the next morning and he took this picture of our house.  The wind was whipping the snow horizontally and it caught in the board and batten siding of our house.   I thought it looked pretty cool.  Be sure to notice how high the snow bank is on our driveway.  It has melted down a ton from it's former height, but as I mentioned earlier we've still got a long way to go.   Of course once the snow melts it'll be mud season which means every time the dog comes in I'll have to spend 5-10 minutes cleaning the clay and pebbles out of her paws.  But at least I should have some crocus to look at then.  (By the way I just learned that if you click on a photo you can see it enlarged.  I thought I'd pass this helpful hint along to anyone who might be more of a blog novice than myself.)

This photo is of Ruby's tracks in the snow.  You can see that she ran across our yard and immediately jumped the fence into our neighbor's yard.  Last fall we put in an invisible fence to keep her in our yard after deciding we at least ought to try to be responsible pet owners. However,  we didn't have the wire run along the existing fence so that she would still be able to interact with her doggy friend Kaya.  We didn't even think ahead to winter and to the possibility that the snow could be as high as the fence.  So being the smart dog that she is it didn't take her long to figure out that she could just jump the fence and then jump it again on the other side of the yard and she reaches FREEDOM.  Our only saving grace has been that so far the snow has been too deep for her wander very far from home.  

This has been my only sign that spring is on the way.  

We had a small avalanche in which the snow and ice came 

crashing off the small roof over the bump out for our dining nook.  

Unfortunately, it did some damage to our deck railing, 

but luckily no one was on the deck when it happened.

Here's a better shot of the broken slat of our deck railing.

My parents have a much larger avalanche that comes off their roof every spring and lands right on the walkway to their front door.  So for a few weeks every year we try remember to enter their house through the garage because anyone who happened to be standing there when all that ice comes off the roof would most certainly be killed.  They've had 17 years with no injuries so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that we luck out again this year.