Note to Mother Nature - ENOUGH ALREADY!

This is part of my front yard this afternoon.  There's a sidewalk going out to the road and I had shoveled once before this photo was taken, but it filled right back in.  The drifts on either side are about 4 feet high.  We were lucky that a neighbor came down and plowed out Jim's parking place across the road later. (His truck won't fit in the garage.)

We are having one of the worst winters in history here in central Iowa. In December we had about 2 feet of snow, which is a lot for us. Yesterday we got another 6” of light, fluffy snow and today the wind is blowing about 25 mph with gusts up to 40 or 45 mph and the snow is drifting high. The decision to cancel our schools was made last night and travel isn’t advised today because of drifting and poor visibility. Of course, that didn’t mean people didn’t go to work, including my hubby…no work, no pay.

Jim drives a 4-wheel-drive pickup but that doesn’t guarantee he’ll get where he’s going. He spun out coming down the river hill on the way home last night and barely kept it out of the ditch. Luckily, on-coming traffic was able to get out of his way and the guy behind him dropped back. It scared him badly and he was pretty upset when he did finally get home. He said the road was so snow covered, you couldn’t tell if you were on it or off.

Added to the snow and wind are very cold temperatures. Tonight’s windchills are going to be about –40°. Tomorrow night it’s supposed to get about –20° actual temperature. We’ve had it that low already this winter here on the river bottom so it will probably be colder here. The cold water at the kitchen sink has frozen up every night for about a week. The kitchen was added on and only has a crawl space under it. Winter is just a pain in the butt!