Whew!!! The weekend has come and gone but it has definitely left a mark on the twin cities area...or should I say dumped a bunch of snow on us!! It started snowing at the house about 10 p.m. on Friday night and snowed for a solid 22 hours before moving east towards the east coast where they are now suffering their own winter wonderland. I'm not sure exactly how much snow we had at the house as the blowing and drifting snow made it impossible to get an accurate reading but we easily got a foot of snow and probably more with places in the south metro getting close to two feet of snow.
It's been many years since I saw a storm like this and it brought back memories of the '66 blizzard that roared for three days before letting up. We had to remove the storm window from the screen door and climb up and out over the snow drifts to get outside at the farm.
I was only 6 1/2 at the time but remember trudging through the snowdrifts to the barn with my dad and brothers as we set out to check on the livestock. My oldest brother was raising sheep at the time and we found sheep buried in drifts alive.
Staples were brought in to us by snowmobile as the driveway was completely blocked with drifts and I was fascinated as I don't think I'd seen a snowmobile before that. It was one of the few times I remember that dad needed help doing snow removal. A rotary snow plow had to take on the 15+ feet high snow drifts that started north of the house and ran south through the farmyard blocking the garage completely and onward towards the barn.
These massive snow drifts were a boon in ways for kids living on the plains of North Dakota as we just had to go out our front door and sledding hills were right there...that is until one brother decided to step over the high line wires that were buried in the massive snow drift and slide down. Needless to say mom had a fit and our sledding times were greatly reduced to nothing due to that one issue!! But living next to a river we had river banks that supplied us with sledding opportunities all the time.
Fortunately we did not need to have rotary plows come in for snow removal this past weekend as the 26 inch snow blower we have was able to handle the drifts in the driveway and I actually was amazed how well it did tackle the drifts that were higher than the auger in places. Thankfully we didn't wait until the storm was over or I'd probably still be snow blowing. As it was we had to do the driveways three times.
You're probably wondering 'driveways?' We have an elderly lady living next door who, at 86, will get out and tackle anything but we do her driveway to keep her from going out and buying another snow blower. Her spryness puts us to shame and I can but only hope I am able to keep doing the lawn mowing, etc. when I am her age and we did the neighbor to the north of us as he was out of town and since he doesn't have a snow blower and relies on shoveling I know he'd still be shoveling today. He's only 25 and could probably easily do it but it took only 20 minutes or so with the snow blower so it was a no brainer.
I even had to get the snow blower into the backyard this time and snow blow pathways for the dogs to get around. I have a Jack Russell and she is a gamer when it comes to winter time, snow and cold but this storm got the best of her. Now when she's running down one of the paths in back you just barely see her head bobbing.
But, all in all, everyone seems to have survived the storm and in true Minnesota fashion humorous names for the event have popped up: Minnesnowta, Snowmageddon and Snowpalooza to name a few. Probably the most memorable part of this storm will be the collapse of the Metrodome where the Minnesota Vikings football team plays. The event made international news all over and the building was probably referred to as the Mall of America Field but I'm old school and still call it the Metrodome.
...and so it goes
