Winter

Brrrr... glad we shopped last week!

Today we saw the first real winter storm for this year. Nova Scotia has a map showing where snow plows are at. Red roads mean plowed within 8 hours. Blue roads mean plowed within 12 hours. Yellow roads - that’s us down in Western Head - mean plowed within 24 hours. Maybe.

Still, we’ve got All Wheel Drive and studded Nokian snow tires, so if the road around the point gets plowed we can likely make it to town.

Here’s a view out of our window.

Our oil tank is full, and the house is relatively weatherproof. Nova Scotia Power claims that only about 1100 households are without power, and those are all Halifax and north into Cape Breton.

(The scaffolding in the picture is for our new roofing company, who managed to get one side of the roof done in a day on Thursday. Professional folks, and even treated their employees well.)

And true to his word, our neighbour Brian, aged 70, came down on his quad and plowed out our driveway. He does it for all of his neighbours “for fun.” Brian’s a former fisherman who still misses the boats, and loves moose hunting up in Newfoundland.

The thing about snow here isn’t how much of it falls. It’s the drifting that piles it up in whatever corner is located where it wants to blow. So if we want to run the clothes dryer I’ll need to go out and dig out the vent.

All of this reminds me of winters in Calgary and Kelowna as a kid. Real winters, not the dribbles of snow that you get in Vancouver. The kind of weather that you simultaneously love, and respect.

And where you feel completely forgiven for just stopping for the day and relaxing a little.