The first storm in early April provided nearly a foot of snow on spring election day in Wisconsin. Scott was in China on work travel, so I had to figure out how to operate the snowblower to clear the driveway. Usually my job for snow removal is the touch up shoveling for the walkway and back deck so Teddy can get out while Scott does the snowblowing, so it was my first time doing everything by myself at the new house. I cleared the driveway and part of the back deck (for Teddy) twice, and even made it to the polling place to vote despite the rough ride home from work (yes, we always have work regardless of the weather).
About 10 days later, right around the time the election day snow had melted, we had another storm in the mix. Weather reports kept upping the totals without using the word "blizzard," but it seemed pretty imminent and would include high snow totals and high winds. It started snowing hard overnight on Friday into Saturday morning. Warnings went out to stay off the roads since it was snowy so heavily. Most businesses closed for the weekend, and schools were closed on Monday after the storm. The duration of snow required a number of driveway clearings (at least my snow removal counterpart was back!), and the high winds resulted in some serious blowing and drifting, which didn't help the road situation either. The one good thing about this storm, dubbed Blizzard Evelyn (I guess we don't do the "Blizzard of 2018" vernacular anymore) was that it ran from Friday through Sunday night, so at least it was over a weekend and was less disruptive than it could have been. That said, a number of other spring events had to be cancelled over the next several weeks- an Earth Day clean up we were supposed to participate in, trail runs, and even the Suamico community rummage (garage) sales.
We ended up getting 2 feet of snow over the course of two days- about a foot a day! Apparently this was the second largest snowstorm on record for Green Bay- the biggest snowstorm was 29 inches back in 1888!! I realized later that I have been in 2 ft. snowstorms before in all the other places that I have lived (even VA- remember that one, guys?), but it was still neat to witness history in the making (or at least I told myself while I was shoveling). We are on the western side of the Great Lakes and don't get the lake effect snow that a lot of other areas see, such as in western PA and NY. So we make fun, but this storm was really crippling. We even broke daily snowfall records for the 3 days of the storm as well. There was no way to keep the roads clear and nowhere to put all that snow. The days after the storm resulted in a lot of heavy equipment movement of snow off roads and parking lots. Hard to believe it is April!
We didn't leave the house for the weekend until Sunday night when we ventured out to get groceries. It had stopped snowing but a lot of roads were still not plowed. Teddy got a few blizzard walks, and aside from clearing snow, it was a relaxing weekend reading, watching the birds at the feeder, and drinking lots of hot chocolate since there was nowhere to go. I enjoyed watching the frenzy at my bird feeders and kept running out to fill them, but felt bad for some of the birds that have been struggling to find food, especially ground feeders like robins. I had one robin toughing it out at my feeder all weekend long, but unfortunately I found him dead on Sunday night. It's a hard life for wildlife sometimes, especially during storms at the wrong time of the year. A lot of news stations have been running stories on how to help the birds.
Thankfully, temperatures started to warm up a few days after the storm and we have snow melting every day such that we can see grass in spots again! Robins are doing much better. I like snow, but I hope that was the last one of the year- I've got lots of yardwork to do this year!
Clearing the driveway at intermission
St. Francis is buried!
After the storm...
...and one week later!
The cleared area is my shoveling job so the prince can use the facilities.
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