When All Else Fails Talk about the Weather

 It has been just over a year since I last posted my thoughts on this blog but even before I was posting only intermittently.  A lot went on in 2020 and it seems to be carrying over into 2021.  It was not my plan to rehash that dumpster fire when I sat down to type.  

So maybe I will talk about the weather.  The weather throughout the country has been horrible.  Here inn Minnesota the winter of 20-21 followed a cold spring and weird summer.  The fall had a couple of bigger snowstorms which melted.  Much of the year seemed to be more windy than normal.  In rural areas the wind can be a significant factor.  It contributes to wind chill dangers and it moves stuff around.  This winter one of our snowstorms created snirt (snow + dirt)  The wind picked up topsoil from the surrounding fields, mixed it with the blowing snow and packed it into hard drifts.  The snow was so dirty it completely changed the texture of the snow causing it to be sand-like.  Eventually we got another snow that covered it up with a new white layer but for awhile it was pretty ugly.  

And then there has been the cold.  I think it has been cold everywhere.  Minnesota is one of the upper Midwestern states known for the cold winters and this year we made it through January with only an occasional night that got a little below zero.  It seemed on a whole to be a pretty mild winter.  That changed a few days ago.  Yesterday after five days where the temperatures did not get above zero degrees and three nights in a row where it was -24 it was finally again above zero.  Today it is already a balmy 9 degrees and may get as high as 15.  Next week it may even get above freezing.   I will finish up with some pictures of snirt.

This is what many windows in the house looked like.  This was taken from the inside.  I needed to open the door and look out in order to see what was happening during the blizzard.

This is the side of a path.  The snow here is about 15 inches deep and the bottom half is snirt.  The entire yard was like this.

Some of it was darker, dirtier.

Another photo that I took while shoveling.  There were places in the yard where the drifts were so hard the snowblower would ride over them rather than through them.  This is the path I shoveled to the greenhouse.

This photo is taken from the same path looking through the fence to the pasture. 

This was in January.  We have had a few small snows since then so this has been covered with new pristine white snow.  Keeping all who are struggling with the ice, snow and cold in my thoughts and prayers.    

Stay safe,

Lorri