Snow!

First off, mucho thanks to Agie for the lovely snow icon. ^_^

Second, I had to take some pics to rival Dark's snow pics... even though Dark and I are in the same county, there tends to be a difference with how much snow we get. She had some pics recently of a soda can on a table that looked like a cheese wheel... if I'd have tried that on our picnic table, I'd not have found the soda can until spring! lol

Dark is more 'inland' Milwaukee (about a hundred blocks from the lake), and I'm 'lakeside' Milwaukee (about ten blocks from the lake). Because of this, I get 'lake effect' snow... means sloppy and wet and usually more. She gets to take nice pictures of her doggy in the snow; if we had a dog, we'd lose him in the snow. (On the other hand, the lake tends to keep it warmer here than inland during the winter by a few degrees, which of course helps the snow because once it drops to a certain point it stops snowing, and in the summer the lake keeps it cooler, so I never quite get to experience the extremes in temperature she does... NOT that I'm complaining....)

So here we go... Milwaukee proper reported 11.5 inches as of 7pm; it's still snowing, and we got well over a foot and a half easily on this side of town.

Mark at the House February 6 2008 Here is Mark, standing on the path up to the door behind the snow that's piled up. There is a slope from the door and about four steps, so that puts things into perspective a little. The snow was waist deep in most places, but the drifts were up to his chest and my neck in other spots. We lost at least two trees so far -- you can see them down to the left.

Trees on February 6 2008 This is a little further down by another of the apartment buildings. Mark and I spent about a half hour walking around and shaking off the bent over trees that were still alive. We managed to save ten and give another two a fighting chance before it was just too cold to stay out. These trees are between twenty-five and forty feet tall, so to see them bowed over was really kinda scary. I upset one bat and a half dozen birds shaking trees off, ended up with snow in my hood and pockets and, well, everywhere, to be quite honest.

Car in front of house February 6 2008 This isn't our car, but Mark wanted me to take a picture to show what we had dealt with. The wagon had a little trouble starting through, but once I had her going she made it through the drifts. I knew the baby car wouldn't, so I made a Y turn to get back into the lot. Mark still had to push the baby car while I had the pedal down to the floor in order to move it the fifty or so feet it needed to go. The snow in the lot is piled up over my head on all sides, and they still need to plow again tomorrow.

Arlene on February 6 2008 Our neighbor, Arlene, came out while I was taking pictures and said if I was taking pics, she wanted to pose. She was up on the balcony, and it was right after this pic that Mark and I embarked on the tree saving mission, with Arlene telling us from a bird's eye view which ones had major snow on top, because as we shook them, we ended up more buried in snow as it came down on us. At one point, I was totally up to my chest in snow, arms resting on it. When I was a kid, that wouldn't have seemed quite so impressive. Just to give an idea how tough we Wisconsinites are, Arlene was out with just a sweatshirt and pants on, and she was barefoot. Mark didn't have socks on, but at least he had boots.

Mark after shoveling February 6 2008 As we were getting ready to come in, Mark saw his reflection in the door and laughed at the snow in his beard. Some of it melted, but some still stuck by the time I got the camera again. He remarked he looks a bit Gimli-ish in it.