BRING THE BLIZZARD ON

You really know you're a prairie person when the weather forecasters predict a blizzard and you feel let down when it peters out before it gets here. Any sensible person would heave a sigh of relief, but I've been watching all day for signs of significant weather and ... there is no other way to describe my feelings except to say the word "disappointment". I realize that this is crazy behavior, but I know I'm not alone. We see ourselves as tough and resilient, and we revel in the chance to prove it.

It's not that we haven't gotten anything out of this storm system. Overnight Friday night a lot of heavy wet snow appeared in the yard. When I took some home made soup and her mail up to Glen's aunt on Saturday morning I chose not to drive into her yard for fear that I would get stuck. I had only just barely made it out of our yard and I knew that the dazzling whiteness gave no hint as to how deep the snow banks were. I warned her about the storm coming too - she probably thinks I was imagining things - and went home before things got any worse. They never did.

Next, I decided an impending blizzard called for a bunch of comfort foods. I spent the day making a huge pot of potato/bacon soup and a double batch of oatmeal/raisin cookies ... and checking the weather channel (which insisted we were really in for it) and the view out our picture window (which showed nothing of the sort).

Glen had gone to work early that morning for a rig move so I was on my own to do the chores. still believing what the TV was preaching I dressed for winter ... full one piece ski-doo suit, touque, gloves, Glen's heavy winter boots ... I near about died of heat stroke! By the time I had filled 16 pails of chop, carried them into the pen, fed the steers, and hauled the pails back to the bin to fill them again for the morning chores, I had my own little personal sauna going on inside my suit. I swear, when I undid the zipper on my way back to the house, steam rolled out!

Today wasn't much different, although the wind has picked up and we got a few more flakes of snow. Nothing from yesterday is blowing around because it came down warm enough that it was too wet and sticky to move. The Weather Channel still says that tonight will be the worst of it all for this area, but I still don't think that they should try to pretend it be called a blizzard. I guess I'll judge them on that as I drive to work tomorrow morning. Glen spent today cleaning out the yard; that's something that has to be kept up over the winter or a big dump of snow (should we ever actually get one) would paralyze every vehicle in the yard. We now have wonderful snow hills pushed up just waiting for little kids to come and dig tunnels in them ... pity our grandchildren all live in Australia!

But, that's the most exciting news of all to come out of last week! We have actually booked our flights to spent five weeks over there this spring. It's been talked about forever, but now it's actually down on paper ... mostly my VISA statement so far ... and we are really going. So, I guess I had better start getting my head around how hot the weather can get, not how cold, because they have a whole different idea on what it takes to tough out the weather over there.