Snowmageddon 2015

To say we got murderized with an epic, record setting blizzard would be an understatement.  I have never, ever, EVER in my life seen that much snow.  I don't even remember the Blizzard of 78 being this bad.  Or the one we had in 2013 where we lost power for 4 days, or even all the storms we had last winter.  Fortunately our power stayed on except for a couple of flickers.  

The day it was to start, Monday the 26th, I had to bring Sagan to the vet and take a couple things to my mom.  I had urged the hubs to get home....or at least get back to MA to hunker down in a service plaza...as early as possible.  He crushed it to get home by 6:30.  I was burning nervous energy all day so I baked cookies, egg/veggie/cheese muffins, made kale soup in the crock pot and also some quinoa cheesy bread.  I vacuumed the whole house and prepared as best I could.  

The snow started falling lightly around 1 pm. I had intended to take pics of it as we went through the day but I was too keyed up.  The later it got, the harder it started to fall.  I kept my car cleaned off as best I could and was able to pick him up when he got in.  I was sooooo relieved that he was home with me and only then did I start to relax.

I finally shot a few pictures close to 9:00 pm on the 26th as the wind began to pick up.

It raged all night long.  He slept really well but I was constantly being awakened by the wind, stuff scraping against the windows and the plows going by.  At 1:30 I had to get up and shovel my way out the front door so that I could take Pepper out.  It's a good thing that I kept on top of that because when I finally threw in the towel and got up at 5:45, at least a foot more had fallen since 1:30.  It did look cool against the windows though.

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My poor car.

I had to shovel a path from the house to the shed in case we needed to access the generator.  I can understand why people have heart attacks after shoveling snow.  Luckily this was lighter and not heavy and wet.  Taken about 6:00 am on the 27th.

7:30 AM on the 27th the windows are coated with ice.

At 8:15, I had to shovel out of the house again to get both dogs out, which is challenging to say the least. I had to redo the path to the shed, and that is the only narrow strip that the dogs can use to potty in.  All I can do is wait for them to finish, then shovel the poop out of the way so that we don't step in it if we need to get to the shed.

Look at that drift!

I sure miss covered parking......Poor car!

Kitchen window from the outside.

My sad little path to the shed and dog potty area.  They have to be taken out one at a time and fortunately they seem to grasp the urgency and gravity of the situation, so they do their business quickly instead of the sniffing around to find the perfect spot.  

By 2:00 pm the wind died down quite a bit but it was still snowing heavily.  I was finally able to shoot some pics out of the front window.

All night the plows kept waking me up but today?  Not a one.  That black blob is my tipped over trash can.  lol

My car is even more buried than earlier.  I dreaded digging this out.  I don't even know where to put the damn snow.

The drift on the deck is piling up.  Can't even see the gazing ball in the corner.  I put the shovel there for scale.

At 6:15 pm, we heard someone outside so I went out to see who was there.  Two nice young men were outside with shovels, asking if there was anything they could do for us.  Like angels sent from heaven!  I said YES!  PLEASE do my car!!!!!  They did a great job and boy were we grateful.  It took them 20 minutes to do what would've taken us at least an hour, plus causing us to be out of breath and god forbid, chest pains.

They even realized that we needed that path to the shed kept clear.  Didn't even have to tell them.

That is A LOT of snow.  But finally it was falling much slower.

That drift on the deck got comically huge.  All I can do is laugh when I look at it.

It was a crazy 30 hours, but we got through it with power, cable and internet.  We were warm and safe, hubby was home with me which was my greatest wish of all.  

Poor Boo

I noticed one day that the tip of Sagan's right ear was starting to flop over.  Couldn't imagine why that would happen and I'd never heard of it happening as a shepherd got older.  It was the same day that I was taking him for a grooming appointment, so when I picked him up, I asked if they noticed anything about his ears.  She said that they were clean and didn't smell like he had an infection, but he did have a squishy bump that was making the one side flop over.  It looks really cute, but of course it had to be drained.

I took him to Shawme Animal Hospital in Sandwich on the 26th....the same day that our blizzard was supposed to hit....to have the bump drained.  The doctor said there were 3 routes we could take.  The most drastic would be to insert a drain for 3 weeks, but he felt that the hematoma wasn't big enough. The second would be minor surgery to drain and then stitch the front and back of the ear together to prevent further blood from accumulating.  The least invasive would be to drain it and give him a steroid shot to prevent itch and infection.  He wanted to go conservative for now and told me to bring him back in if the bump reformed.

Of course I was as nervous as Sagan during the procedure.  2 techs held him down, as he is 85 lbs now, and they put a muzzle on him which he just hated.  But it was quick and soon he was unmuzzled and we were on our way home.

I was concerned that his ear would be permanently flopped over, but by the next morning, it was already back up again.

Mama's sweet boy with his moo cow stuffie.

A huge thank you to Dr. Romeiser and the staff for making this a quick and easy appointment.  I highly recommend Shawme Animal Hospital.  Their rates are quite reasonable and the staff is friendly and truly love their patients.

I. Hate. Mercury Retrograde!!!!

So I had my new computer for 23 days when it decided to just die on me, losing about 2,000 pictures in the process.  Mercury retrograde had just started the day before, but things were going wonky for at least a week beforehand.  My phone kept turning off again.  Misunderstandings with people.  And I was seeing it all over my Facebook newsfeed about people's phones and computers acting up.  My friend Moriah's phone card somehow got wiped clean and she lost over 1,000 pictures too.  Another friend was trying to fly to California and the flights got all messed up resulting in a 24 hour delay. And yet I kept putting off getting my recent pics on the external hard drive and didn't it just bite me right in the ass.

I've never been one to believe in astrology.  I find it fascinating but I don't really think there's anything to it. Except for Mercury Retrograde.  For about 3 weeks, 3 times per year, the planet Mercury goes retrograde, which means that it looks like it's going backwards in the heavens.  It takes 21 or 22 days for it to go direct. Mercury is the messenger, and therefore rules communication of all kinds.

I first heard about it back in the 90s.  It always seemed like whenever my bosses had a major deadline, the computers and/or printers would just quit working, jam, refuse to reboot, etc.  My friend Sean, who was our receptionist, would point out that Mercury was retrograde again.  I started to track this phenomenon over the years and I firmly believe there is something to it.  Some retrogrades are worse than others.  This one that lasts from 1/21 to 2/11 has been a doozy so far, even in the days leading up to it.

My buddy Glenn at High Performance PCs of Cape Cod had me bring the new computer over so he could try to get it up and running but it was a goner.  But he went above and beyond the call of duty by ordering a replacement by overnight shipping, setting it all up for me and I picked it up just 3 days after my other new one died.  I am hoping that this one will last longer than 23 days.  It still has some of the same quirks as the other machine, like the sticky touchpad that drives me absolutely crazy.  I know you aren't really supposed to purchase technology during MR, but I was backed into a corner so I did.

As a side note, as I am writing this on Sunday the 25th, a major blizzard is going to wallop the east coast starting Monday night and lasting through Tuesday and into early Wednesday.  To say that I am stressed out would be an understatement.  The generator battery is dead but can be jumped....Russell showed me how before he left.  Please keep him, and all the truckers out there, in your thoughts (and if you are religious, your prayers), because I need my husband to be safe and he will be traveling north as the storm hits.  If you don't hear from me or see further postings for a few days, it means my power and cable are out.  I'm as ready as I can be under the circumstances, but I sure wish he was home.  Hopefully NStar will be prepared and out working.

Finally!!!!!!!

After two years and 9 months of nonstop road construction, neverending traffic delays due to one lane and noise that you could hear all the way at my house, the new bridge over the Cohasset Narrows has finally opened.  It was originally just one small bridge, one lane in either direction. They started building the new bridge on the left side in April, 2012.  Once it was finished, the lanes were shifted over to that side as the old bridge was demolished and rebuilt.  

The delays were really quite maddening at times as it would be down to one lane with a cop directing alternating traffic.  I would often take a longer detour around Buttermilk Bay to get to and from Wareham.

This project was supposed to have been completed by September, 2014 but there were multiple delays.  We had a horribly snowy winter last year, and at one point all work stopped because they had to redesign it to account for the tide changes.  You'd think they would have considered that at the beginning of the project.

 So now you can walk across it on both sides.  That's the little beach I often walk to from my house.

New lights too.

Another shot of Buttermilk Bay.

Crossed over to the other side.  Those are the railroad tracks and in the distance, the windmill at Mass Maritime Academy.

I think the most maddening part of this project, for me anyway, was in December after it was paved and appeared to be open at last, they kept tinkering with it for like 2 weeks, putting the traffic cones down to do god knows what.  You'd see the workers but it was hard to tell what exactly they were doing.  All I know is that I'd reached the end of my tether and patience with the nonstop delays and narrow lanes.  But finally all the cones were removed, the trucks left and it was open. I still see workers on it....like the day I shot these pictures there was a survey crew.

It was a really nice day though....not terribly cold, so I had to get out and take a nice long walk.  You don't get opportunities like that in winter very often!

Do click on this to make bigger so that the stars show up!

One last look at the new bridge from the beach before I headed home.

I'm so glad this project is finally done.  Now if they would just finish painting the Sagamore Bridge (another project started in what seems like the Clinton administration but was probably 2011), we'd really be in business.

Frozen Water, Frozen Water, Infant.

Ya like that?  See what I did there?  

In keeping with the bipolar weather (and I mean that literally since we are going from bitter cold to so mild you don't need a jacket), we had a small/minor icy rainstorm one night and we woke up to a thin but pretty layer of ice on everything.  Not enough to be destructive....well that is until it started falling off wires and bridges as the morning warmed up (we had a dicey drive to Sandwich and home, narrowly missing chunks that were crashing to the road in front and behind us), but enough to be very pretty.

Marsha took this stunning photo and you must click on it to appreciate it in larger form.  She got just the right angle where the ice is lit up in vivid rainbows by the sun.  It looks like the trees are covered with Christmas lights.  This was taken in Sandwich, near where we got married.

I was out in my yard too, shooting some snappies.  Ice is so pretty in the sun.  The crystals are beautiful.

About all I got on my trees were shining branches.

Ice droplets on lilac.  In just a few months, that will be covered in beautiful and intoxicating purple flowers.

That same night, we had a beautiful, freezing cold sunset.  But too cold for me to go down the beach to shoot it so I stayed in the yard and shot the clouds.

And the crows.