Sweet deal

Yesterday I got home to a bonanza of riches! Our front sidewalk had been snow-blown!
It doesn't seem like a such a big deal until you know the history. It's been snowing around here about every two days. At the moment, looking out the window of the shop, the parking lot across the street has piles of snow that are, literally, over my head. (I know, that's not as impressive when you know I'm only five feet tall, but it's the principle.) You get the idea - there's a lot of snow on the ground.
Several years ago, being younger and brighter than I am now, I bought a snow-thrower. I did my research and got a really, really good snow-thrower. It has an electric start, it has separate tanks for oil and gas so I didn't have to mix them, and it's too wide to get from the garage to the front of the house. Never even thought about measuring between the fence and the house. I can hear you giggling. Stop it.
So the snow thrower sat in the unattached garage. And developed an impressive array of spiderwebs and dust. Until the other day, when our wonderful neighbor Ron was caught in the act of being an angel and clearing our front walk. So I went out to talk to Ron, who said he was happy to do our walk. And that he was thinking about getting a snow thrower, so he could do his yard, ours, and an elderly neighbor's.
In an astonishing burst of brilliance - I offered the abandoned snow thrower in the garage! I can't believe I thought of it right then and there. He could have it! Forever and always! At this point I wasn't even sure it would run, but what the heck, worth a try!
Ron came and got it the next day (walked it all the way around the block). Lo and behold! He told me last night it only took about a half hour of tinkering to get it going. Yeah, Ron!
Everybody wins! Ron gets a snow thrower, we get space in the garage and clean front walks. And cookies from Ron's wife, Kitty!

It's No Wonder We're Grumpy!

Walk into any public place around here and you'll be faced with snarls. Yes, from the people. Just try to strike up a pleasant conversation and you'll get an argument. And the dogs are no better. Last night at Agility Class there were a couple of minor spats. My Ceilidh will generally snarl at other dogs if she's being held and the dogs get too close but last night she almost started in on other dogs when she was on the ground, and the other dogs just looked at her!

This morning I heard an interesting statistic that may explain things. Here in Chicagoland, during the month of February (granted, today's only the 8th, but still...) we've seen a total of 11 minutes of sunshine. Combine that with the 40+ inches of snow we've gotten this season so far and we've got massive cases of cabin fever! No relief from the snow in sight, but - wait - is that a break in the clouds I see?

A good thing about winter

So the weather gods very unkindly dumped about six inches of snow on us last night. It was actually a really pretty snowfall - no wind and big, fat flakes gently falling to the ground. This is what the side street by our shop looked like this morning. The best thing about it? I got to wear my brand-spanking new boots. It's actually not easy to take a picture of your own feet on purpose. I've done it loads of times unintentionally, but that's another story. So - what do you think?
Are these cute, or what?

Skating on Thick Ice

The main topics of conversation around here have been centering on the weather. Last weekend we had another fun bout of rain, sleet, ice, and snow to top it all off. Yesterday was just snow and a lot of wind. (Yes, we live outside of Chicago and they tell me it's not called the "Windy City" because of the wind, but you can't prove it by me.) Even though we got only an inch or so of snow, the wind drifted all of it on the sidewalks. So, I shovelled about 8 inches of snow today in a couple of spots! What snow remained on the grassy areas is covering ice. Lots of ice. Poor Ceilidh. She walks on her tiptoes when it's cold out and just slides around on the ice. It's very difficult to get down to business when your legs are coming out from under you. So she has to find a little snow to get some footing. And Ceilidh's the only one of our bunch that will tolerate her coat when it's above 20 degrees. The picture of Ceilidh above was taken in the fall, in her new coat.

Back in the Deep Freeze

Man, it's cold out there! I know it's still winter, and it's supposed to be cold and snowy, but this is ridiculous. The "normal" temperature for this time of year is supposed to be the mid-30's (fahrenheit). According to the little weather.com desktop icon on my screen it's 17 degrees right now, 3:30 pm. I don't think it's going into the 20s like they said. Poor dogs. It's bad enough for us. I have three or four layers on (I lose count) and put on another layer plus boots, gloves and hat when I venture outside. I think we've mentioned before that the dogs don't like getting dressed. But it's too cold for them not to wear their coats, so we torture them by putting coats on and then throw them out into the cold!

And since the snow the other day there are limited open spaces in the back yard. (I'm sure you know for what purpose.) We did clear spots, and the wind drifted the snow away from other spots, but the dogs look at us accusingly when they can't go in their favored spots. (It goes without saying that the drifts were on the front walk, the back walk, in front of the garage door... Areas that had to be shoveled, of course.)

Only a few more weeks until Spring officially begins! And Spring Training is beginning! A sure sign that winter's almost over.

Stormy weather

It's not much fun driving in the Chicago area today.
The wind is blowing so hard that the drifts start piling up against the door as soon as we finish shovelling.

We cancelled training classes for tonight. This is why. Believe it or not, the snowplows have already been by a couple of times and this is a major road. It's just not a nice day.