Sunday 15 February 2015

Blizzard

Well, I guess the timing couldn't be better: post Valentine's Day, post Saturday night, with a Sunday and a national holiday tomorrow, we finally got a snowstorm worth writing about.

It started early this morning and built quickly.
You can barely see the street beyond our ash tree sentinel, the hedge almost buried.

Wally had to  work this morning though it seemed preposterous for anyone to be out.

He called me from work to let me know he was leaving. I pointed the camera toward the entrance of our driveway to capture his arrival as my anxiety built around the treacherousness of his trip.

Beautiful Muji came to keep me company on the stairs, our best vantage point.

With my camera poised, what to my astonishment appeared but ...

not one surprise visitor

But Four! Four very tired ducks, blown well off course from any waterway

They seemed to make themselves comfortable and I became alarmed that Wally might run right into them. So I called him. He was on the road, worried that he wouldn't make it up the incline of our street.  Hoping he would make it, I warned him about the ducks.

When I returned to my post by the window, they were gone so I called Wally once more to assure him that the coast was clear. About 5 minutes later he came in, stuck halfway out into the street.

So glad to see him home, safe and sound. He came for the shovel.

Opening the door, I couldn't believe how high the snow had drifted, making a perfect mould of our door, reflecting it's lilac colour.

As Wally began to dig the car out, stuck so bad that the wheels spun, I ran to dress for shoveling, throwing on Wally's snow pants as well as his mitts, along with my jacket zipped past my chin and extra socks in my boots.

When Wally freed the car, he moved it onto the street and went to fetch our new snow blower while I stood behind the car waving my red shovel in the air to help make our illegally parked car more visible.  Once Wally carved a space to pull the car back into the driveway, he sent me into the house.

My meager attempt at helping to shovel was pre-empted by ...

Wally's quick work of the ramp.  Now we're even more committed to keeping it.

Back in the house I kept taking pictures, this one of our dear Japaneses Maple buried almost completely with the Christmas lights still wrapped around the tepee of poles that surround it.

On the other side of the house, the arc of snow from our neighbour's snow blower as he makes a path around his almost completely buried car.

After soup, a nap and ripping out the old carpet in the soon-to-be new studio, as well as vacuuming the floor and moving boxes, Wally had a bowl of fruit and kefir and was off again for another hour and a half of snow blowing.

By now the snow had almost completely cover the lower half of the kitchen window.

Wally went to pose by his handiwork...

To give it scale.

It is after 11 at night as I write this. Wally was quite unnerved by the lack of visibility and traction of his morning drive home, but came to enjoy the drama of this quintessential winter storm as much as I.
Apparently we will be getting a week of snow, but nothing like today's.  There's nothing quite like the sense of hunkering down when the world has gone quiet and enchanted.

Let us find this kind of peace and wonder within the magic of our own existence.



2 comments:

Jess said...

Oh my goodness the imprint of your door!!! What an incredible thing, I've never seen anything like it! I hope you're keeping nice and warm inside your house, it looks very cold under all that snow. Stay safe and warm!
Jess xx

Enchanted Blue Planet said...

Jess, how kind of you to write. Thank you. We are doing so well. It's actually kind of exhilarating as we are, indeed, safe and warm.

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