SnowDay

After getting through the month of October with an unusual lack of snow it finally hit Saturday. Our friends Porter and Gena were over Friday night for pizza, Coronas and to play music. Porter is a great guitar player and after years of promising to get together we finally did. It was fantastic. 'When they left at 9:00 it had just started, huge wet flakes, already 2 inches deep. In the morning it was a full 8 inches of wonder, that quiet sound with an eerie cleanness it gives everything and me and MP had our weekend set....a snow day as they called it when we were kids.

So we plan our day out over a Chili Cheese Omelet at the King Salmon restaurant. We get the mail and then a trip to Safeway for 3 movies on DVD and get home to settle in for the day.
Well, as usually happens here at Mile 14 nothing goes as planned, I'm not complaining because often the plans change for the better, but not today. The power is out, and it stays out. Mmmmmm....we keep a pretty cool temp in the house to begin with, seems for reasons we need not go into MP has a different view of the ambient temperature than me. She just seems to be warmer than me I guess. So, the temp in the house drops to 65, then to 6o, then, well on and on until finally when power is returned 5 hours later its a pretty cool 45 degrees in the house. And of course without power theres no movies so MP reads and I change oil in the snow blower and the 4-wheeler.

The power outage phenomena which we're kind of used to is right here in our own back yard. MP walks Jet-dog down to the river and on return tells me that our old tired Birch tree by the garden is creaking and crackling. Sure enough it is, the wet snow has its limbs bent towards earth and after just a few minutes the old tree gives up and down comes one of its Major branches. Right in front of our eyes. So between this and all the beetle killed spruce trees I've seen blow over I can tell you for sure...yes, if nobody is around to witness it I'm about 100% or so sure that trees do make a sound when they fall. But then again, I don't really know. Maybe. Could be.

But with the power back on and the snow still falling we rally the weekend. A good hot sauna by the river, a silly Denzel Washington Movie, with popcorn (no fat) and I got to run my favorite machine, the snow blower. That is until it locked up with a rock or something stuck in the 2-stage. Its in the garage now making a puddle and I'll sort it out tomorrow.

So I'll leave you with this little pic of the river, by now you've all seen this pic in many forms and seasons. I don't get tired of it . I really liked the way the snow stuck to the rope we have to help keep people from vaulting down the bank. If you enlarge you'll see a pretty good passel of Mallards on the water. The lakes are freezing and the river is the last open water around. Soon, it'll freeze too and they'll be gone. Like most Alaskans I figure lets have all the seasons, its winter now, give me some snow.