Snowbound

Two things this winter we've had in abundance.....Snow & The Aurora.  Some outstanding photos of this winter's Aurora can be seen here (from Anchorage Daily News Reader submissions) since I don't have a camera that will capture them.

http://www.adn.com/2012/01/24/2280672/reader-submitted-2012-aurora-borealis.html#id=2300983&view=large_view

This is the first winter in Alaska when we were actually snowed in...unable to get out of our driveway for 3 days until the snowplows made it back to our more remote location.  In an emergency, I could have made it but fortunately - no emergencies.  Have had the big tractor with a huge bucket come shove our snow storage piles back to make room for more three times already.

The clutch went out of our snowplow jeep a couple of weeks back.  One of his work buddies came over and helped put in a new clutch and it's running fine again.  Neighbors came by when it was noticed the driveway hadn't been spruced up like Neil usually has it and plowed for us.   Our neighbors are the greatest!

Winds whipped up at one point and left the deck snow drifted halfway up the sliding glass doors.  Woke up one morning to find Neil  shoveling out an emergency exit thru the drift.  Took Heather & I another week to get the deck clear.  It was claustrophobic having the view blocked.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=290235311036493

The snow piles also buried our house numbers....which could be important in an emergency...which required digging them out and relocating them to the front of the shop where they were again visible from the road.

Not sure exactly how much is on the ground.  But back in December, the paper said Anchorage's normal winter snowfall was 6 ft and they had already had 8 ft....probably twice that by now and ours is that much or more.  Make's for good trails  for the Iditarod sled dogs.  On last night's news, one church auditorium had collapsed from snowload.  The only one of our buildings that we need to watch is the shop with that 40 ft. unsupported open expanse...and it looks OK so far.  It could be worse...on the other side of the mountain range in Valdez, 20 - 30 ft are a normal winter's snow accumulation.

I don't mind the white stuff nearly so much as Spring Breakup....which is going to be a really muddy mess with this much to melt off.