I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Snow Fun
Here in the North, we’ve had snowstorms and lake effect snow. It’s been snowing constantly for days–meteorologists say that we’ve gotten 1-4 inches of snow per hour at times. I’m not sure exactly how many inches of snow we’ve gotten. In the unshoveled areas near the house, the snow is at my knees. I told EJ that I would like to make a post to measure the snow. Our property is full of hills and valleys so I think the depth of the snow would depend on where we stand but at least it would give us some idea, more or less.
With the heavy snow, low visibility, and slippery roads, driving conditions have been quite bad and there have been numerous accidents in the area. JJ’s college classes were actually cancelled today because of the weather. He wasn’t scheduled to work today so he got to stay home. EJ had to go to work, but he’s experienced at driving in bad weather.
EJ used the snowblower for the first time on Friday. While he was clearing the driveway, I made four snowmen along the driveway. Three were standing, but I made the fourth one lying down with x’s for his eyes as if he was dead. Hey, I always loved the imaginative snowmen in the Calvin & Hobbes comics. I had wanted to go out every day to build more snowmen until they were all up and down the driveway, but the snow hasn’t been the right consistency for snowman building since Friday. I’m waiting….
It snowed so much that EJ had to clear the driveway again today. Not long after he finished clearing the driveway, the snow began to accumulate again. It would be nice to have a plow or riding snowblower to make the job go faster, but this is what we have and we don’t have the money to buy something else right now. Besides, EJ says that it’s actually rather fun to use the snowblower.
We have been frequently sledding down our driveway. When EJ clears the driveway, the sleds speed down it like a luge. Sometimes Danny chases after me. A few times, EJ and I have gone sledding at night. That is really an exciting adventure because we can’t exactly see where we are going.
I haven’t been able to upload videos to YouTube for at least a month, but today I suddenly could so I uploaded quite a few. My Facebook friends have seen most of my videos because although I couldn’t upload them to YouTube, I was able to upload them to Facebook. I will share a few of them here, though, for those of you who are not friends with me at Facebook. Hopefully you aren’t groaning, “Oh, no, not another video!” If you’d like to see even more, I think you can see others at my YouTube channel by clicking here. If that doesn’t work, I suppose you could just subscribe to my channel or something. I’m not sure how that works.
This first video was taken on January 12th. It shows how heavy it snows here at times. It’s really quite amazing. I know a lot of people hate the snow, but we really enjoy it. As EJ said the other day, “We live in a Christmas card!” Or a snow globe.
My first time sledding down the hill I used a round saucer which spun me around and around. That is really fun in a crazy sort of way. We also had a longer sled which EJ used the first time he went down the hill. He prefers a long sled. We have since bought two more longer sleds so we can all have one if we choose. The long sleds don’t spin out of control like the saucer does. With more experience, I’ve learned how to steer the long sleds even when I’m holding the camera. In this next video, which I recorded today, Danny chased me down the hill which made me laugh. EJ had just cleared the driveway so I went down fast. In fact, he was still working on clearing the driveway when I sledded down. He was around the curve past where I stopped.
I go sledding at least once each day when I go get the mail. EJ joins me whenever he can, and JJ has sledded a couple of times. He’s not into outdoor stuff much and he’s busy with work, school, and the girlfriend. He did go sledding with us today, however. We all three went together. I let EJ and JJ go first because I wanted to film them going down the hill as I sledded after them. However, they went into snow drifts and I quickly passed them. I really was hoping that I wouldn’t because I wanted to video them, but I yelled, “I win!” anyway. Shortly afterwards, EJ had to go to work and JJ went back into the house. I ended up sledding down the hill about 7 times today. I would have liked to go down even more times but it’s really tiring walking back up the hill. For some reason, it’s actually less tiring to walk down and up the driveway than it is to sled down and walk back up. But…I figure it’s good exercise.
EJ has several pairs of snowshoes, so as soon as he gets them ready, we will go snow-shoeing in our forest. I think that would be awesome. EJ has wanted to ski on our property, but I’m not sure we’d be able to keep upright–and I wouldn’t want EJ to further injure his already injured back.
The next video I’m sharing was taken on January 4th. It shows one of several Pileated Woodpeckers who live in our forest. Pileated Woodpeckers are one of the biggest types of woodpeckers (if not the biggest). They are about the size of crows. They are awesome. We only caught glimpses of them during the summer, but after we put out the suet, they began to visit it frequently so we get to enjoy watching them. We also have seen many Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, and Hairy Woodpeckers at our feeders in addition to the chickadees, finches, cardinals, and other birds. The chickadees now let me get quite close to them before flying away when I go refill the feeders each day.
We are expecting even more snow through the evening. We live in one of the snowier areas of Michigan. I really, really love living in Northern Michigan.
I Love To Go A Gardening 
It looks so beautiful and I love the sledging it looks like so much fun…. You live in a wonderful place. ❤
LikeLike