Putting the "wary" in January

The January blahs continue, with record-breaking low temperatures (at least for this area), and general wintery mayhem. The kitchen sinks have frozen twice, likely more to do with the greywater outlets in the yard outside rather than the house pipes themselves.

Several nasty winter storms have blown through in the past two weeks, bringing crazy winds, drifting and whiteouts, closing major roads including the 401 on several recent occasions. Jane got caught in Tilbury the other night, a mere fifteen minutes from home, yet unable to go any further. The OPP closed the 401 in both directions. The municipality pulled the plows off the roads, leaving the north/south passages like Wheatley Road (Kent Road 1) particularly treacherous. Local police were too busy getting themselves out of ditches and drifts to be much assistance getting others out of ditches and drifts, and were particularly challenged by stranded motorists leaving their vehicles to wander off into the whiteout.

She spent the night sleeping in the Juke in the Tilbury Tim Horton's parking lot, with a host of other stranded travellers, including the plow drivers and the police. Well, they were in their OWN vehicles, or so I was told.

Pennywise was similarly drifted in, with only a small channel along his fence-line that didn't even reach the gate/door to the enclosure. As usual though, nothing seems to dampen his spirits, and in spite of it all he is consistently the happiest cat we have ever seen. Made it hard to shovel him out, even once I had managed to  get the door open and shovel my way INSIDE his cage.....he kept rolling around on the shovel!

Beautiful though, in it's own way. You be the judge.

Snow Day for Pennywise

Winter Wonderland

...on the catwalk....do your little turn on the catwalk....

How the indoor cats cope with the cold

The Return of Winter

The snows returned on New Year's Eve day, and by the dawning of 2014 we were once again white. Well, somewhat. As is typical down here, the fluffy stuff gets unevenly deposited amidst the raging winds.....and then re-distributed every few hours thereafter. We end up with bare grass in some places, and waist-high drifts in others.

I know, stop complaining.....say our friends who suffer through waist-high or worse snow EVERYWHERE. Not complaining, merely reporting the facts.   :)

Shovelled out Pennywise, whose pen was not only fully drifted but whose house was also somewhat affected. We decided to heap snow over one end and totally block off that exit, all the better to keep prying winds out and body heat in.

Very pretty, especially with today's sunshine. Reminds me of rippling seas or undulating sand dunes when you watch the drifts literally move over the span of a few minutes. A better photographer than I might attempt to capture some form of time lapse magic.    

Windswept winter wheat

X-Files: Shadowy Men from the Lowest Levels of Government

If you get my drift....

Juke can't park here!

New Game - generally played from the kitchen window - Where's Pennywise?