winter returns

As I walked to the barn through the 6 or so inches of snow that had accumulated overnight I thought about how this wouldn’t have been considered anything special when I was young.  No school cancelations, I would have been walking the mile to my Junior High or the 2 miles to my high school without a thought.  Everyone would be on their way to work and they would leave early enough to get there on time.  It was winter- you expected snow.  Six inches of snow might be a little inconvenient but it wasn’t worthy of emergency status.

Now inside the news was crowing about it being the storm of the season, winter storm warnings scrolling across the bottom of the screen along with school closings.  When did we get to be such wimps?    People its winter in Michigan, get over it.  Now I know that in some areas there was more snow than here.  But still, this shouldn’t rank as a winter emergency.  It came in overnight, the roads were mostly plowed by the am rush, our back road was even plowed.

I’m glad I no longer have to drive in it though.  No getting up early and cleaning the car off before leaving early for work.  We went to the store yesterday to stock up on essential groceries and we are set for a few days.   I’ll just stay home and wait for the rain that’s coming to wash it away.    Since it’s only going to be a day or two before it gets warmer I am not even going to worry about shoveling our drive and risking my health.  I have a path started to the barn already and a day or two of walking that will be just fine.

This is a heavy, wet clingy snow.  Pretty to look at although with the wind coming up I worry a bit about it breaking some of the evergreens.  And I worry about our tarp roof on the chicken run collapsing too.

The wild birds are happy.  I filled the feeders this morning and a little chickadee got so eager he landed on my head.  The cats were out a bit but they aren’t so likely to lay around in the snow waiting to pounce on little birds.  And the chickens don’t like to wade through snow to pick at the spilled seed under the feeder so the doves will get that today.  There were tons of birds at the feeder today, lots of little housefinches with their red bellies, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, goldfinches, cardinals, doves, titmice, song sparrows, grosbeaks, you name it.

The snowmobilers were happy too.  That’s one thing I don’t like about it snowing, the people who think that because there is snow on the ground they don’t have to think about whose land they are trespassing on and the damage they are doing to small trees and shrubs and crops.  Around here you have them popping up at the roadside and barreling across it in front of you or traveling 4 a breast down the road and expecting you to go in the ditch to avoid them.  Not me kiddo, move or get squished.  You have them racing around at night with their bobbing headlights keeping you awake, scaring the farm animals.  Snowmobilers just make me grouchy.  Too bad it’s illegal to shoot them.

I just need to remember that snow is good for replenishing the pond, the ground water and protecting the plants.  I can sit home and look at it.  And a warm up is coming – oh crap that means mud!