Juneau is officially into its second snowiest season ever. The weather forcasts are predicting enough snow to top the old record, but it hasn't happened yet. We need two more inches. Oddly, almost everybody seems to want the old record to fall. Not me [Michael]. I know that the rains will come soon, because it is almost the spring equinox and the snow cannot continue, and with the rain will come melting, and with the melting will come flooding. It's going to be a big mess.
There was a forecast out that said we should have seen the snowfall record fall on Saturday night or Sunday (today). Instead, the clouds went away, the sun came out, and we all went outside to enjoy the fresh snow. The driveway had an inch of fresh snow on top of a smooth layer of ice (which covers the gravel very nicely), which was a great surface for Becky and Michael to play around on their skiis. They haven't spent much time on the skiis this winter, mostly because I'm cautious and don't want them getting into something that I think will frustrate them. They did get frustrated before too long too, but I was pleased that they gave it as long of a try as they did.
I continued work on my sled run, and finally learned that if I sit on the very front of the sled I can actually turn the thing, an important skill considering the sled run makes a gradual right turn on its way from the top of our snow hill down to the driveway.
I've been making trails through the snow too, and lots of them. Both of the kids like them tremendously, and little Michael especially. In the open areas away from the trees there are places where the snow gets incredibly deep, and even where it isn't so deep the effort of blazing trail is more than either of the kids are willing to do for any length of time. If they've got a path to follow they can spend hours outside and still squawk about going back in. Michael likes to fall into step right behind me when I'm making a trail. He'll listen to the plodding of my feet as I make short steps to mash down the snow, and I'll hear him making a "ch-ch-ch" sound followed by a "Choo-Chooooo!" (he loves trains). It's very endearing to listen to.
Today we went on a much longer plod through the yard, cutting along the east side of the property to the back (north) edge before working down towards the pond and creek in our back yard. The snow is so deep that it rides over the creek and obscures it completely, and I never found a place where my feet could break through to the water below. Where I knew of pools of water, it was apparent that these bodies still were well frozen and the most vigorous jumping on my part couldn't induce the slightest sound of cracking from the ice below the snow. Even so, the snow was too much for the kids to blaze their own trails (and they got cranky really quickly if I didn't make a proper trail for them to follow), so we didn't have to worry about the kids going off on their own and getting into trouble with thin ice, even if there was any in the back yard.
And then there were the chores to tend to. I have located the well and done some preliminary clearing to gain access to it. There was an ice jam on the roof that was threatening to bring down part of our rain gutter, a problem that was remedied in about five minutes with a shovel. Our Scamp also needed to be shoveled off because the snow load was causing the ceiling inside to sag (a problem that I believe we saw before, as the deformation of the roof combined with the cold temperatures causes adhesive failure where it holds the insulation and carpeting against the underside of the ceiling: I had to repair this once before two years ago after a similar snow load rested on top of the Scamp). Lastly, our mailbox post was damaged the last time the snow plow came by and I had to patch it together (the whole assembly is rotten and coming apart, but replacement will have to wait until the snow is gone.
So I got to play and do some work.
