For the past several days we were warned that a huge storm was coming. This storm was to bring several inches of very heavy snow and rain. The days prior were mostly comfortably warm, including Friday, the day before the storm. I was very tempted to cut the grass, or have Kevin cut the grass, which would be the first time it was cut this spring, but I decided to hold off. It was right at that point where it’s just slightly overgrown, but since it hasn’t been cut the first time yet, it’s still filling in nicely. So I let it ride and skipped the mowing.

The Kenosha-Racine area was supposed to get the worst of it, 4-7 inches of snow was what the weather services warned we would get. After our last winter storm I had let the snowblower run once I finished clearing the sidewalk and driveway, since there wasn’t much gas left in it, until it ran out on it’s own and died, then I tucked it away, comfortably, in the back of the garage for next Winter.

Well, with all of the anticipation and warnings we got, yesterday morning I decided it would be better to be safe than sorry, so I dug it back out and had it ready to go again. We were totally out of gas in our container as well, so I went to the gas station and picked up two gallons of Regular. I didn’t fill the snowblower yet, I figured I’d wait until I was actually going to use it before taking that plunge, but I had the two gallons at the ready. If I didn’t use it for the snowblower, I can still use it for the lawnmower.

1:00 PM to 10:00 PM was the timeframe they specified, and right around 1:30 PM I noticed the first snow beginning to fall. Sandy and I went out for dinner at 5:00 PM at The Phoenix on Highway 50, just West of I-94 — a very nice family restaurant, and by that time it was coming down pretty heavy and starting to cover the grass. It was very heavy and slushy on the sidewalk and roads but not as bad as most of our Winter storms tend to be, and nowhere near as extreme as they warned it would be, in my opinion. But that’s a good thing–better to be ready for the worst. After supper I decided to wait until morning to snowblow, since there was only slush on the sidewalks and driveway.

I think this is a pretty rare occurence. I just took this photo out our front door. There were no plow noises overnight, no salt trucks out. The roads and sidewalks appear to be clear and dry, all by themselves. I’ll tuck the snowblower back in the back of the garage again today. I think I made the right call not pouring the gas into it yesterday. I don’t have the usual level of stress I do when everything is covered in snow and I know I have to get out there and clear it out–at least the end of the driveway that gets heavily plowed-in by morning–so it feels pretty nice to just relax and enjoy the view with a hot cup of coffee.

The puppies, on the other hand, don’t seem to like it so much:

They refused to leave the sidewalk slab and wouldn’t even step into the snow at all. After a few minutes, Shadow looked up at me with his puppy-dog eyes and his nose was white from sniffing the snow. Reminded me a little of Tony Montana in Scarface at that moment! LOL.

Then there’s the poor cars:

Kevin and Sandy will have to clean their cars off this morning before they go to work… Mine? I think I’ll let it melt and see if it’s all cleared off naturally by the time I need to go somewhere again.