Winter of 2015

I’ve ranted quite a bit about this winter, and posted a few shots here and there. Given that we’ve officially broken the record for total snowfall this year, I thought I would do a full post on it. What’s incredible as I look back at these first photos is remembering that until January 26 (David’s birthday!) we didn’t have any snow. There had been a coating here and there, but nothing else. And then… wham!

I also remember looking out at the front yard (pictured below) and thinking, “I should fill those feeders before it snows tonight.” I deeply regret that I didn’t do it, because now there’s no way to reach them and I feel really bad for the birds. Anyway, so this is looking out from the front of the house toward the street. Everything is just getting started. Remember the height of the trees, shrubs, and bird feeders for reference later!

Of course we took Linus out to see the snow for the first time. He was baffled.

This is our back deck, off of the family room. In the distance you can see our neighbors’ awful pool and the arbor vitae, which will soon be half covered with snow.

This is looking out of the garage door toward the driveway. Remember: this is all the very first snow, and it’s not over yet.

When Yen finally decided the snow had stopped enough, he began the process of clearing the driveway. You can see that it’s piled higher than the snowblower.

I brought Linus out for scale.

He thought, “Well, I’d better make the best of sitting here and play with my feet.”

Here’s the driveway after the first snow is cleared.

The mailbox is still clearing the top of the snow…

Our neighbor did a great job of clearing the fire hydrant out before we even had a chance to.

Now this is a few days later and more snow. The mailbox is getting into some trouble now.

And our poor little Japanese Maple is barely visible.

Remember the shot of the bird feeders in the beginning?

And then more snow came. Mailbox is drowning. Now the roof has a huge pile too, but there’s really no way to reach it. A lot of other houses in the area ended up with serious ice dams and leaks, but (knock on wood) we haven’t had any trouble.

Here’s the little side bird feeder. It’s still barely above snow level.

Snow pressed up against the door of our family room.

One afternoon the temperature climbed high enough that we decided to take a walk around the block.

The Tran men wore their Bruins gear.

Linus was so happy to be out of the house! He really misses his daily walks.

At some point, I began to panic about the snow on the deck. We had a little leak in our garage after we moved in (because we didn’t have gutters…), so Yen decided to clear it off.

Here’s a sunset look at our yard. Now the steps are disappearing.

Poor guy.

About this time we got a hand-written note in the mail from a firefighter, scolding us for not having more than one entrance cleared. So Yen tackled it.

That’s it! No more mail. Please hold off sending letters until Spring!

What’s this? Well, after all of that snow, we decided to take a field trip to the Lyman Greenhouses.

Warmth. Flowers. Humid air. It was just what we needed.

Uh oh. I was smiling and didn’t see him reaching! I hope he didn’t pull any leaves off.