let it snow...

we still have some flurries going on here, but from what i understand, the bulk of what snow we are going to get has already fallen to the ground.

this is the first place i've ever lived where the snow simply falls and stays where it fell.

i grew up in south dakota, which is one of those glorious states notorious for wind.

which meant the christmas blizzard of 09 was a blizzard back in south dakota and a few other areas in the midwest, whereas we just had a dumping of snow in bemidji, minnesota since up north in the woods there is not as much wind.

these were taken last evening (it looks really late since it gets dark ridiculously early but it actually was just a little after 5). i love how much the branches are bowed because of the weight of the snow:

and this morning i ventured outside to take some measurements of the snow.

i walked out on my deck.

very far indeed.

and i took a ruler with me. after taking measurements, i realized that my selected ruler has an extra blank spot before the ruler starts. an inch of blank plastic, to be precise.

here are the pictures from my deck:

and i really like how the snow was able to hang over the actual edge. pretty much an awesome sight:

and so, there was still  about 7 inches on the railing

       

and there was variable amounts on the floor of the deck (minor drifts and some fell down through the cracks to the ground below) so it says about 9 inches, which is actually 10 due to the awesome extra inch on the end of the plastic (see above picture for proof of the extra):

and last but not least, the amount sitting on my little table (also 10 inches):

and so, due to my amazing reasoning skills, i estimate a minimum of 10 inches (and i'm willing to bet that it's more like a foot) that fell at my house. of course, a little bit more fell in the front lawn than on the deck on the back of my house since the back is a bit sheltered.

however, i cannot really measure exact amounts since the driveway was cleared off when there was roughly 4 inches when i cleared it off on christmas eve in the afternoon. but i can inform you that another 8 inches fell from shoveling on christmas eve through this afternoon.

and just so everyone knows, that is a lot of snow to shovel off.

oh, and i totally made a snow angel. and learned that it is difficult to move around 12 inches of snow in order to make a recognizable snow angel.