And it kept snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and...

This is what the front yard looked like this morning. That flagpole is about 7 feet off the ground, so that gives you some idea of how that snowbank is. Also if you look to the left of the flag you can see our shed. The storm circled around and hit us again later that morning.

6:46PM ~ It took us about 15 minutes to shovel the walkway and we were just relaxing when we both saw a flash of light that looked like lightning out the side window and then we heard something like thunder, but the thunder sounded distant. I opened the back door and could hear the snowplow on one of the nearby streets maybe it wasn’t thunder at all but the sound of the blade hitting the street. That just leaves the bright light to explain. I’d say it might have been a transformer but the lights didn’t go out. Maybe a squirrel got electrocuted. It just doesn’t seem likely that it was lightening. I don’t even know if it can lightning and thunder during a snow storm. Can it thunder and lightning during a snowstorm? I had to know so I Googled it and this is what I found out...

Thunder and lightning sometimes happen in a snowstorm, although it is somewhat rare, said Fred Gadomski, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University. In fact, he said, the biggest snowstorms are those marked by thunder and lightning, a phemomenon meteorologists call a “thunder snow.”

9:46PM ~ We just finished watching a movie and had to go dig out the pathway again, about 4-5 inches has fallen since 7:30. The snowplow just made a run and buried the front of our path so I had to dig it out again. While I was up there I noticed that he pushed some snow up against the side of Eric’s Jeep burying it too, we'll have to dig that out in the morning.

The Nightmare on President's Day Weekend

It rained most of the way here from Corona. I babysat the kids today. When I got to Hwy 38 there was nothin’ but taillights as far as I could see, the line was at least a mile long. The first thing I did was call Linda and tell her of my situation and ask her if she’d mind taking care of the dogs. She said we could stay at her mom’s if we couldn’t get up the hill tonight because the snow was really coming down. (It looked like they got maybe 5-inches in Mountain Home Village, which is below 3000 feet.) Someone came by going the other way on the highway, and said that they closed the road because there was a really bad accident involving multiple cars. I only had a ¼ tank of gas left (I wasn't expecting to run into this kind of snafu), so I went to the Thrifty gas station in Menton and filled up my gas tank at $1.15 a gallon, took about $28.00 but at least I had a full tank now. I used the restroom before heading back up and I thank God I did because it was a long wait. I called CalTrans as I was driving to the gas station and the recording said that the road was open but that they were requiring chains on all vehicles, no exceptions. I decided to stop at the ranger station and put chains on because at least it was dry there and well lighted. I didn’t know if it was still raining/snowing further up the hill. While there a man pulled in next to me and I asked him if they had closed the road and he said they hadn’t got that far and that he was told they were only letting residents up. There was a ray of hope because if they were letting residents up I could go home, however, I still had to wait in that long line of cars. As I approached the viewpoint I could see a yellow CalTrans light board and a bunch of lights, I thought that was where the accident was and that they were going to turn us all back but it was a chain stop with a CHP car there checking to make sure that people had chains on. The whole back up was due to the stupid people who thought they could blow past the chain stop. Since there was an officer there they had to pull over to chain up or turn around and go home. That is what caused all the back up. Stupid People!!!

After I got through the chain stop it was clear driving all the way up the mountain. There was only one time when I had to pull over and that was when a Highway Patrol 4X4 escorted a snowplow past everyone. The road wasn’t bad at all. I made it to our turn-off and ended up behind the snowplow going down our street. I was praying that he didn’t bury our walkway and that there was room for me to park. Thankfully, he didn’t bury the path too badly and he left plenty of room for Eric to park behind me across the street. As soon as I got home all I could do was laugh at how much snow had fallen. The berm is a good foot over the picket fence and its ten feet wide! Just like the last storm.

Snow Again!

27.5° feels like 19°

All in all a very cold and wet next few days are ahead of us. Speaking of snow we got hit with another snowstorm. It was big as the last one and it hit just about the time that most of the snow from the previous storm had melted from the last one too. So, we had snow above the three foot picket fence again and 5 1/2 foot berms. Eric is having a war with the snow plow guy. Yesterday just as he was loading up the Jeep the snow plow came by and buried our walkway to the street so he had to dig it out again. Now we have put stakes with blue flags on them on either side of the walkway and we are hoping that he won't bury us again. And now we are supposed to get hit with a storm at least as bad as the last one. That means we will have another foot or more on top of the snow we have now. I hope we don't get snowed in again. I can't afford to not be down the hill for Becca, so that means if it starts to snow heavily I'm going to have to stay at her place until the weather clears up and I can come back home. Unfortunately, both of us will be down the hill when this big storm hits so we won't know how bad it is until we try to come up. Thankfully, our neighbors will watch out for the dogs

Blue skies, smiling at me. Nothing but blue skies do I see...

Today it was clear, and we started the day by digging a path out to the street the berm had now grown to 5 ft high. The snow was too deep to dig out the gate so we dug out the path that Derran (our neighbor) left when he came over to visit yesterday. He found the narrowest part of the berm he could find, which was on the parking pad, and crawled over the snow bank and then walked across the pad, and down the planter to the front door. We needed to get Eric's Jeep dug out from across the street; it looked like a giant snowball. He has more than two feet of snow on the roof. Derran, and Linda came over, and helped us dig the Jeep out for a while even with their help it still took us 3 hours to dig it out! We got it out just in time for the snowplow to come by again. It was a guy in a grader, and when he saw our street he apologized, and said he had no idea our road was so bad. He went a got a guy with a front loader, and the two of them cleared the road down to the pavement. The guy in the front loader took all the snow, and pushed it off into the vacant lot on the other side of Steve’s place. This guy was really nice, and really knew his stuff. He dug my jeep out, and then cleared the whole street so that we could actually park on the road. This morning it was a nightmare. Before he showed up the street was buried in 20-inches of snow, and cars were stranded all over the place. People couldn't get down it so they just abandoned their vehicles wherever they stoppedLinda was in touch will CalTrans, and she said that they aren't letting anyone up even residents. You can go down the mountain but they won't let you back up. As of 1:30pm they shut down Hwy 38 completely because there's an avalanche above us, so no traffic can come down our way from Big Bear or Arrowhead. Eric had to cancel several students this week because of the storm but he is determined to go down to his gig Friday night. I'm worried for him, there's alot of ice on the road. I asked him to stay down the hill if he can get down, and not to come back up or to worry about me. I have plenty of food, wood for the fire, and we just bought a Coleman stove if the power goes out again.As of 4:09 pm (which is when I'm typing this letter) the skies are still blue over us but there are menacing clouds coming over the ridge.The weather man predicted sun with scattered clouds for the next few days but we have another storm coming in from the Gulf of Alaska that's supposed to hit on Christmas Eve: just what we need more snow. If it does hit I don't think we will be having the kids up here for Christmas. It would just be too dangerous so, we'll have to reschedule it for another day.

Enough Snow, I mean it!

Still snowing, hit the 15-inch mark. At 4:15 in the morning the power came back on, which was a blessing because it meant that the blower on our fireplace insert worked, and it didn't take long to heat the cabin up. We spent most of the day playing games, and watching the snow come down. The snowplow driver that came by that night broke down our picket fence when he plowed the street. To give you an idea of how wide the berm is in front of the house, our picket fence sits 10 ft back on the property, and the snow drift is about 4 ½ ft high. When we looked out the door last night before we went to bed you couldn't see the fence or the gate any more, and the foot prints I had left earlier in the day, when I went to the trash can, had been all filled in. There was almost 2 ft of snow on the roof, and at least that much by the door. The snowplow came back, and made a run around 4am. It snowed steadily all last night.

Diggin' In

It snowed all night, and at some point we hit the 12-inch mark. It’s snowing still. This the morning around 4am the power went out. Great! Around noon there was a temporary lull in the storm so I suggested that we should go down the hill to Wal-Mart, and buy some supplies, and get a Coleman stove, some propane gas for it, some lamp oil, wicks, and candles. We stocked up on canned goods, and simple meals like Macaroni and Cheese. By the time we got home it was starting to get dark, and we still had to take all the food down the embankment, which was now about 24 inches high. Eric started a fire, and I started taking all of the food in the fridge out to the backyard, and burying it in a snow bank. We roasted hot dogs in the fireplace, and ate them by lantern light. We already had a Colman propane lantern in the emergency kit I kept in the shed, also without power the blower on our fireplace insert didn't work, and it got a little nippy in the house. Needless to say it was an exhausting day, and we bundled up in warm clothes, and went to bed around 9:30. It snowed steadily all night.