A relative snow storm

No papers this Sunday morning. So, I'm in to a different routine. A while back the weather pictures showed just plain cold days through this week. No real mention of snow until yesterday, and when they mentioned, we listened. Cold, blowing and drifting snow possibilities through 4 p.m. tomorrow, Randy Mann told us on last night's weather forecast.

Within minutes, his forecast was coming true. Overnight, we received another four or five inches of very powdery but noticeable snow, which did drift. But it's all relative. Compared to what we dealt with over on Great Northern Road, where the wind came whooping through like a hurricane any time it felt like it, this snowstorm was nothing. In fact, we had to step outside to see that it was snowing, blowing and drifting. We couldn't hear a thing.

At our old house, where the wind often whistled and roared ferociously day and night, we sometimes thought for sure a re-enactment of the famed Winter of '68-'69 was surely getting in gear---and we thought that several times, only to trudge to the end of the driveway and wonder about the fuss. That piece of real estate where we lived for 30 years had absolutely nothing to stop the winds from the north, just wide open fields extending about a mile beyond our place.

The long east-west driveway was always a sight to behold after a good blow---even a tourist stop one winter when people would come by just to see our drifts. One winter we had to walk over the drifts---which came even with the tops of fenceposts---for two weeks to get to our vehicles parked just off the road.

I also vividly remember the day, when a storm closed schools early, going home, parking in the railroad driveway and having to get down and roll over the drifts to the house. That mode of travel became a necessity since every step taken through the snow meant sinking to my hips. Fortunately, nobody was driving by to witness the lunatic rolling down her driveway.

Yup, last night's storm was nothing compared to those we endured at the old place. Here, at the Lovestead, we have big trees to the north which shelter us from the extreme winds. Besides that, our house is a lot warmer also. We had a nice Blaze King stove in the old house, but it was encased in a brick shrine in the hallway. It did a great job of heating the bricks, but we froze during the really cold times. We had electric heat and paid a fortune for it, while the stove sat looking pretty in its shrine.

At this house, we've got one of those Vermont stoves. It has no shrine. It simply sits on a brick pallet between the living room and the dining room. The bricks extend a bit far, boding sure disaster should any enebriated soul go walking and tripping through the living room in the darkness. So far, we've kept folks from sipping too much sauce and have avoided life-threatening injuries. And, on its ample perch, that stove is wondrous.

I've commented to Bill that this is the first winter in years where I've actually felt toasty warm and comfortable in the house. There's something wonderful and homey about a good wood stove sitting in the center of activity and doing its job well. We rarely turn on the electric thermostats cuz that little stove heats the entire house.

And, so the winter of 2007-2008 continues to test us, a bit relentlessly. Yesterday while getting out of the house, I went to Wal Mart, and the talk among most folks I met there centered around this winter and how much more snow we're going to get. In one case, a friend told me they have no more places to push their piles; in another, they simply said they're tired of it all.

It's definitely that two-thirds-through-January trying time here in North Idaho. If we can just muster up a positive attitude over the next 11 days, we'll have another of the worst months of the year licked. Then, we can move on through February and hope for an early spring. That's the eternal hope among most of us here in North Idaho.

Then, again, it's all relative. We'll have to remember these times next July when the Global Warming saps us of every ounce of energy---and we're wishing for a good snowstorm.