Snow, Snow and More Snow

The first day of Winter is a mere date on the calendar in Idaho.  Winter, can, will and loves to start whenever she damn well feels like in Idaho.  She can start the Tuesday after Labor Day and go to well past Memorial Day.  She can decide to start in mid-January just when you think that it’s going to be a mild winter and let your guard down.  In some years, Winter has decided it was going to go south and take a vacation and never does show up.  You just never know what you are going to get.  All you know is that Idaho has 9 months of winter and 3 months of not-winter.  Those are your choices of seasons in Idaho.

Well, this year winter fooled us and fooled us good here in Idaho.  I, who has seen just about every combo Winter can throw at us, was even caught off guard this year.  I’m one of those rotten people who love to scare out-of-staters with Idaho Winter Horror stories; tornados in February 1999, snow drifts so high the snowblows can’t even begin to bust through them, winds that classify as Hurricane 1 levels, 18 inches of snow on Tax Day 2002, 6 inches of snow in June (pick a year of your choice).  Nope, this year I was fooled.  October and November were unseasonably warm for Idaho.  50+ on Thanksgiving Day which usually hails the day that snow will usually stick.  I was convinced it was going to be a mild winter if at all.

In case you live in some wonderful warm part of the United State and the rest of the world, you’d probably be hard pressed to not here about all the winter storms nailing the Pacific Northwest.  Winter is barely a week old according to the calendar and all ready I’ve seen more winter in the last 2 weeks than I’ve sometimes seen all year.  Two+ feet of snow, 10 inches in one day alone, all ready a snow day from work (Thank goodness, it saved my butt with the Christmas knitting).  I was going to take pictures to show you the snowpile that is my lawn but then it warmed up and rained on top of the said 2 feet of snow but now it’s turned cold again and more snow is on the way.  

I guess I better go dig out the hot chocolate, snuggle up with the baby sweater I’m knitting for family friends that are adopting a baby girl from China and dance for joy that my much delayed Socks That Rock order finally made it through hell and high snow to get to me.  If Idaho has gotten nailed, Oregon and Washington are been the bulleyes of this storm system.