Slight Detour: Some Serious Snow

Thanks to some freezing weather, "Liam-licking" holes have begun to appear around the place.

When he can't chew on pieces of firewood stolen from Bill's wood pile, Liam loves licking.

With this morning's snow, he may have to do some pawing before licking. It's for sure, however, that Liam's licking season has only just begun.

Family friend and horse lover Desiree Jachetta is now working at Wood's Hay and Grain.

It went from a light dusting to a wet dump.

As I write, white stuff is still falling.

Shovels have replaced the rake next to the garage door.

And, two shovels has already gotten some use early this morning.

Winter has announced its presence and its determination to hang around for a while.

Looks like about four inches of snow so far.

Fortunately, yesterday I finished one last winterizing project after picking up a bale of straw from Wood's Hay and Grain.

I enjoyed a pleasant surprise after opening the door to the farm store just off HWY 95.

"Do I know you?" I asked the lady at the counter. Her expression gave me a direct hint that, of course, I knew her.

I blamed my "undersight" on not wearing my glasses AND the fact that she was pretty bundled up for her outside loading responsibilities.

Twas Desiree, whom I've known since about the time she was born and whom I had seen at the fair back in August for the first time in many years.

She has started working at Wood's after doing seasonal work for the county 4-H extension program.

Desiree helped load my straw and some bags of shavings, and then home I went to comfy up the shelter in our dog run.

If it doesn't snow too much, we may be able to use the run occasionally during the winter. Thanks to the extra straw, the dogs will have a cozy and cushy place to get out of the elements.

The snow began shortly after I had finished that project and later filled several garbage sacks to take to the Colburn transfer station.

This morning, unfortunately, the brush hog is still hooked to the tractor so, as yet, we have no means to plow.

I'm told the snow will keep falling until about 10 this morning and that we're supposed to have a dry weekend.

That would be nice.

In the meantime, it wasn't too hard doing chores this morning, but this is the first day of many similar days to come.

Getting old on a farm is not easy, but I still wouldn't trade the lifestyle for anything else.

This morning I'm anxious to see the overall outcome of a well-attended meeting last night where citizens lined up to express their firm wishes that the Planning and Zoning Commission not allow rural pieces of land to be broken up into much tinier pieces of land.

I listened to portions of the meeting, which included and endless array of strong opinions to please respect the work of citizen committees who spent years coming up with a consensus for maintaining the rural lifestyle in our county.

More information on "the great divide" between current landowners and developers here in the county appears in the link below. The story was written prior to last night's meeting.

https://sandpointreader.com/the-great-divide/

It will be interesting to see what crazy or sane direction this county is headed. Based on what we've seen of late, it could be the former.