The "I Hate Winter" edition

Oh my gosh, has it really been that long since I blogged?! Good grief. I may have to re-introduce myself:

(A-hem.) I am Heidi, the lady of the house that was a granary. Welcome to my humble blog!

... Since I've been away from the blog so long, this is going to be a catch-up picture post that in large part is meant to keep the relatives longing for updates on the children happy.

... It is still winter here. (I remember once, when we were living in North Carolina, being so thrilled that we could drive around with the windows down in February. That would not be a pleasant experience in South Dakota.) And it's been a hard one, though I gather it's been a tough winter all over. Though I have to say dealing with winter out here is on a different level than it is elsewhere, even in Aberdeen.

Let me explain: We are just half a mile from the nearest blacktop highway, which most of the time we consider fairly convenient, but this winter that half-mile might as well be a hundred for how much trouble we have with it. There is almost nothing you could call a hill around here, but one of the few such places is in the last 200 yards or so between us and the highway. The land is higher than that spot on the road to the north and the east, meaning that when the wind blows from those directions, it blows it over the top of the hills and then drops it -- right on the road. The ditches filled in during the Christmas blizzard, and since then the drift over the road just keeps getting deeper every time the wind blows. Dave clears it out with the tractor, but after a day of wind, the drift fills in again completely -- you can only guess where the road is by seeing the top six inches or so of the fence posts sticking out of the snow.

This road is in theory supposed to be cleared by the township, but they only allot a certain amount of money for snow removal each year, and they are already beyond flat broke because of dealing with flooded roads last summer. So basically, that means we rural people are on our own if we want the road cleared. That has not been as much of a problem the other two winters we were here, but this is a snowier, colder, more blizzardy winter than we've had in a long time. (In fact, my aunt Lillian says this is what it used to be like in pioneer days.) And this is also the first winter my dad hasn't been able to help with the snow clearing at all -- he fell in mid-January and has since been recuperating in the hospital and nursing home; we hope he can come home within a week or so.

Our tractor is also part of the problem -- snow-blowing with it involves driving backward while scraping the window every few seconds because there is no defroster, and it cannot be done in the dark, because the loader bucket is mounted in front of the lights. ... And did I mention that when the wind blows the drift shut you have no idea where exactly the road is?

So, basically, if the wind blows at night, Dave can either stay home from work to clear snow (once it's daylight) or he can gun through the drift with the truck (taking care to stop before he flies onto the highway) and we are then stuck at home for the day until Dave comes home (gunning the truck up the hill) to quickly clear snow before it's dark again.

It's not a wonder, then, that under those conditions Dave got the tractor stuck on Presidents Day evening. He was trying to clear the road a little wider so it wouldn't fill in again so quickly (the wind was still blowing) and guessed wrong about where the edge of the road was. He walked back to get me to help (he'd forgotten to take his cell phone), and I went with him in the truck.

I don't remember ever being outside in anything quite like that. The sun was shining but the wind was still howling, and the snow was weaving across the crusted drifts of snow as you may have seen in nature specials of sand blowing across the Sahara -- I think there was some depiction of the phenomenon in "March of the Penguins" too. It had snowed in addition to the wind blowing, so the the drifts were unmarked by anything except the carving force of the wind. It really felt like we were out on the tundra somewhere.

Dave had started clearing the road before the tractor got stuck, and it was a good thing, as otherwise the truck would have had no chance of getting through -- when I got out, the wall of snow was about waist high. We made some effort to get the tractor moving with the pickup -- no traction, so no luck there. Eventually, several neighbors gathered around to get us unstuck. Gotta love good neighbors!

... So anyway, we are always on edge when the wind blows. Will we be able to get out? Not that being snowbound is such a hardship nowadays -- we still have our phone, heat and Internet, so I try to think of it as a gift of time and not a prison sentence.

... The drifts to the north and east are really getting tall. The metal building in the photo above is where our wood is stored; the slight marks you see in the drift behind the fence is where the path was that Dave had cut in the drift so he could fetch wood. Every time the wind blows, it fills in completely and he has to shovel the path out again.

The drift behind this house is also getting quite high; the kids' cousins came over on Sunday, and they and Sofi used it as a sledding hill. (They said they were pretending they were in the Olympics.)

The dogs love that drift, too -- they use it as a lookout point. (I took these photos from the upstairs skylight, so the quality isn't that great.)

They use it to watch for rabbits and to warn off coyotes, I think.

I'm so bummed this photo is a little blurry -- a howling dog makes a nice photo!

The sun shown after all that snow during the Presidents Day storm, leaving a good deal of ice on the car ...

... and on the roof of the studio on the old farmhouse. And I'm embarrassed to say I took this photo and then didn't think any more about it. The next day, Mom came to get in a rush, saying that the roof of the studio was creaking -- it may not have been in danger of imminent collapse, but there was no point in taking chances. We got a ladder, and I climbed up and shoveled off all I could reach from the ladder; I didn't dare climb up on to the roof, both because I'm clumsy and the roof was icy under the snow, and because I didn't want to put any more weight on it. When Dave got home later that day, he climbed up and finished the job.

...And now, finally, to the kids pictures!

I was busy taking pictures of Mom's rugs when Erik found Mom's flour barrel! Luckily he didn't tip it, just reached in and dusted himself with it.

... I had told Sofia (and Erik, but wasn't expecting much from an 18-month-old) that it was time to clean up, and a few minutes later this is how I found them. It was tough to be upset when they were playing so peacefully!


... Sofia said she wanted to go get the mail by herself the other day, so I gave her a bag and sent her off. Such a big girl already!

... Let me say, first, that the dog is NOT allowed in the living room. She can sleep in the addition, if she doesn't bark. But if we leave the gate between the main house and the addition down for more than a second (which I do fairly frequently when I'm doing laundry) -- well, she sneaks through to find a spot in the sun. As the kids did, too, apparently.

We are all longing for spring!