It's a Snowshoeing Day

Yep, started snowing late last night, and sometime during the night it warmed up to +26F (-3C), where it has hung for most of the day. When I got up this morning it was still snowing and by the time it got dark again this evening, there was a total of a foot of new snow. But what to do before the sun went down. Dishes? Groan - yeah those need to be done up too. But, it was such a nice day out there, and I do like walking in the snow, so as soon as my computer's battery abandoned me, I went out and dug up my snowshoes.

At first I was only going to walk my assorted paths around here around the house, but I just couldn't resist; I headed on down the trail. I tried to resist though. This was my first time on snowshoes this year, and it is a quarter mile or so one way down to the river. Sigh - Knowing full well I would be plowing a new trail both ways on purpose since I wanted to make it wide enough for the snowmachine.

Walking with snowshoes is a study in patience, and walking in foot-deep snow is like walking up stairs every step you take only you don't go up. Walking uphill or downhill, you need to be extra cautious. Going up there's the chance that your foot might slip back, taking away part of your stride. Going down there's the chance your snowshoes might try to turn into some clunky skis. Fortunately, nowhere along my trail are the ups and downs so drastic, but care still needs to be taken. Up or down, shorter steps are mandatory.

When I finally made it back to the house. Yeah, I was really tired. I discovered my husband working to get our snowmachines broken loose and moved over in front of the house. Groan - I had 0 energy left in me. Long before the house came in sight I was anticipating waffles, but no, snowmachines first.

He'd already brushed them off and was getting one of them started. I pulled at the skis, getting one loose easily enough but I couldn't move the other one until I gave it a good kick. Shoulda turned the machine on it's side and scraped the frozen grass and mud off but he took off anyway, scarcely able to turn and getting stuck once, which meant I, now snowshoe free, had to go up there and try to give it a pull and ended up stomping a bit of a trail in front of it.

Lesson learned, we scraped the skis before moving the second machine. While Don did a few laps around the house, I carried the assorted tools, snowshoes, tarps and covers up to the house. Walking in a freshly snowshoed trail isn't easy. That snow might be compressed to more than half its depth, but it is by no means packed. That takes time. Did I say I was pooped? Ah but a fat hash-brown patty later and a little time to recover, I'm rearing to go tomorrow. hahaha (not really) I doubt I'll be sore, but I don't think I'll be so venturesome.

Oh, river news: I did not venture out onto the river down there, but I didn't see any signs of overflow. That's a good thing. However, here at the house it is not the same. There was a foot of new snow on the pond out there and it is soaked with overflow. Ice that was flowing over the low spot we have has filled the gap to the point of just looking like a flat river has run through there - all frozen of course, and down in the little creek beyond, all manner of icy waterfalls now covered with snow. No water that I can determine is running past here, but that doesn't mean much. Last I could hear there was still some water flowing under the ice, and there has always been an underground trickle, no matter the time of year. However, I think the -11F temps we had for like three days in a row sure made a lot of ice and froze the ground down a good space. I don't think a foot of snow is going to get us down onto the river with the snowmachine, but it's a start.