Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Big Melt

Our snow outside is shrinking. The piles are turning to mush, and little rivulets of water are filling the gutters--now that they're visible under the huge mountains of snow. What a relief! There have been days in the last couple of weeks when my recurring thought every hour is, "When can I get to the beach?" January and February (so far) have been difficult months for Chicagoans. Normally the winter is not my favorite season, but not nearly as brutal as it's felt this year. The big blizzard of Feb. 2 and freezing temps that came after that didn't help. I actually don't remember the last day our temp got above freezing, so, I am extra thankful right now to be thawing out.

I keep thinking about doing two things as spring arrives in the next couple of months:

1. Buy a new bike. I'm leaning toward a cruiser or roadster bike, just because I'm not a super athlete and would just want a bike for short distances, or possibly riding on the occasional trail. Something like the image above is just about my speed.

2. Start letterboxing again. There is just too much snow in our area to even consider doing this now. But in time, after the snow melts and the soil dries up a bit, it'll be great to get back on the trail and find some letterboxes. If you don't know about this, take a look here or here.

In the meantime, I'm writing poetry, starting to teach a new class today, and working on some other various writing projects.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

SNOWPACALYPSE 2011

A red-tailed hawk sheltered in our tree yesterday during the worst of the snow/wind

Lucy loves the snow!

The wind was howling as the snow built up last night

Out my kitchen window this morning

The back door

The front door
Well, all the dire predictions actually had merit this time. I haven't seen an official tally of the snowfall in the Chicago area, but my guess is about 2 feet. We have several places in the yard where there are four- and five-foot drifts. Our dog, who is scared of many things, is fearless in the snow. She loves it. She rolls around, bounds through it like a rabbit, carves out a trail for herself with no problem. The teenage son will be heading out soon to try to uncover the driveway. The snow is heavy and wet--good snowman snow!--so he definitely has his work cut out for him.