reveling in proper winter weather

[kareina]

Winter has been flirting with us for a while. Late October saw two different occasions wherein we got a light dusting of snow overnight that left a couple of millimeters coating on the colder surfaces for the better part of a day or so before melting again. Not much, but a promise that, soon, the dismal darkness of autumn would be replaced by the shining beauty of winter. But then it warmed up, and we had rain, and I begun to fear that, like the last couple of years, winter might be late in arriving (we didn't see proper snow till well into December last year!). Therefore I was a bit skeptical when Monday's rain started to be mixed with snow. I could read the thermometer and see that it was +4 C, so I didn't expect the snow to last. But it did! Tuesday morning the snow, which was rather wet and heavy, was ankle deep, and all of the trees were coated in a thick, lovely white layer. So beautiful!

Thanks to the snow I really enjoyed my walk in to school that morning, though I am glad I had the sense to wear my large, plastic bottomed, winter boots, since it turns out that if one cuts off of the road and over to where they are part way through the process of installing a bike path next to the road at the point I choose to do so one will step in wet, swampy, spots on the way. The down side of temps that are hovering just at (and often just above) freezing at this time of the year, is that under the snow there is often a layer of still very wet water.

Tuesday evening after choir I was sleepy, so all I did was yoga and go to bed early. Like 21:30 early. I don't remember the last time I went to sleep that early. I must have needed it, since I woke up at 05:30 full of energy and raring to go Wednesday morning. A quick glance out the window revealed that not only was there still snow, we'd gotten a few more centimeters, so as I was doing my situps I considered going out for a quick ski before settling into my home office to work for the day.

However, once I was up and dressed and stepping outside, I decided that perhaps I should shovel the walk way first--if it did warm up again it would be good not to have slush on the walk way. Then I started working a bit on the drive way, and then realized that we never had moved that pile of sand that has been sitting upon a tarp next to the house for much of the summer. I had found the sand under the old walk way when I moved it, and thought it would be useful for the new walk way as well, so I saved most of it by putting it on the tarp. However, since the new walk way is a combination of cobblestones and cement bricks I have been filling the area between the cobblestones with gravel and then packing sand on top of it. Therefore, even thought I managed to finish nearly half of the walk way before the yard work season ended I was still left with more than half of the sand available. We had mentioned a number of times lately that it would be smart to move it before winter, as it was not in a good spot with respect to having the drive way plowed by the neighbour. Even if the snow plow didn't spread out and destroy the pile, the extra thick pile of snow that would have wound up on top of it would have meant that it would be the last spot to melt in the spring, and so there would be a delay before the sand was available.

Therefore I decided that there is no time like the present, and I went and fetched the large plastic tub from the shed and transferred as much of the sand pile as would fit into the tub. The bit that remained on the tarp was then small enough that I could set it on the snow shovel and drag it to the shed. Then I tried to move the now full plastic tub. Sand is heavy! It turns out that if one wedges the snow shovel under the tub of sand it is *just* possible for me to budge it, a few centimeters at a time, across the snow. I managed to slowly, carefully, drag it right up to the door of the shed, but no further could I manage it. While I can drag something that heavy across snow by myself, I cannot do so over gravel. So I was obliged to leave it sit there and wait till lord_kjar woke up and got ready for work. Then he helped me get it into the shed far enough we can shut the door. I am hoping that by spring all of the moisture in the sand from an autumn's worth of rain and a bit of snow will have evaporated and I will be able to make progress on finishing up the walk way early in the season.

Needless to say, I opted not to go skiing that morning, and instead sat down at the computer to work. Then, in late afternoon, as the setting sun was making the snow covered trees glow in that amazing way that only happens this close to the poles, I took a break and went out for a ski. I had thought to do a small loop that I took on many occasions last winter, but discovered that it is a bad idea to try to cross that particular field this early in the winter, unless one happens to enjoy suddenly standing in ankle-deep slushy water attempting to extricate one's skis out from where they are caught under a tangled mat of snow covered grass before the wet manages to soak through one's nice leather winter boots. Oops. After that misadventure I turned back to the trail, where I discovered that skis that have gone through water collect rather more snow upon the bottom than skis which have not, and it becomes bothersome to try to slide on them. My there-and-back again trip that day took 45 minutes. The same distance walking is normally about 20, and skiing *should* be faster... Needless to say, my exercise log for the day looked pretty good between the shoveling and the skiing. No wonder my arms are a bit stiff today.

Today I worked from the office again, and was amused to note that I am the only person to be walking on most of that bike trail in progress. I could, just, see my tracks from Monday showing through yesterday's additional snow. However, once I got quite close to uni, on the other side of the nature reserve, where there is another residential area, there were enough tracks on the path to actually count as a trail.