The Longest Winter Ever!

We had quite a surprise last September 17 when we had SNOWFLAKES falling from the sky!  I wish now I had taken pictures.  Of  course it melted right away - after all, harvest was late and still going on.  If we had only known seven months ago what we were in for....  Our next snow was in the latter part of October, which also melted, but it was here to stay before Thanksgiving.  By Christmas we had a lot more snow than normal.  We also had a lot of beautiful frost.  This photo of the pasture fence along the driveway was taken on Christmas Eve .  We were happy to have snow for a White Christmas, instead of brown ground like we sometimes do....

December 6, 2010  Most years we have wind with our snows, making the hill tops bare, and coulees and ditches full.  This year the early snows came without wind, and it was a winter wonderland.

And then January rolled around..... 

And it started not being so pretty and and not so nice.....

Warren & Tony spent many, many hours clearing the yard and roads of snow.
January 22, 2011

 Warren using the snow blower

You can see how deep the latest snowfall was... 

Tony built a bucket for the Bobcat to move snow.

getting some weight off the garage roof

By the end of Jauary, we had broken our all time snowfall record. Several years ago we set a record for just over 70 inches of snow in a season.  Normal snowfall is about 30 inches.  Glasgow recorded 73 inches by January 30.  (All totals I'm sharing are from the National Weather Service in Glasgow, about 50 miles from here.  We think we had higher snowfall levels than there, but nobody has official totals.)

By March 22 we(Glasgow)  had 90 inches and counting.  For the first time in the history of Schmeckfest, it was postponed - twice!  It was finally held almost a week late, on a Thursday night.  It was scheduled for then as opposed to the weekend because another storm was in the forecast for the weekend.  March 22 the record snowfall was 90 inches.  By the 23rd, the new record was 105.6.  And it kept coming....

By this time, there was nowhere for the snow to go when the roads were plowed, so the piles along the roadsides just grew bigger and bigger.  A few places on our road were down to one lane of traffic.

Often this winter the sky and land were the same color and it was hard to see where you were driving.  Hopefully you can see the snowpiles against the sky here. 

Here you can see the snow out the window of our big pickup.

Church was canceled twice in March due to unpassable roads.  At this point we are over 110 inches for the season.  We aren't thinking we are finished yet!  Around here we know there can be some big snows in May.  Watch for some comparison photos in the next post.  This one is getting as long as the winter!