digging out

The first few storms were disappointing, leaving only 2-4 inches each. The final storm was more respectable. We awoke Thursday morning to a foot of new snow. I think my new indicator of "heavy" snowfall is when the driveway heating gets overwhelmed. The system comes on when it senses precipitation combined with low temperature. When the snowfall is heavy enough, it covers the sensor (despite the heater on the sensor to prevent this) and the system no longer detects the precip. This happened Wednesday night, so we had to get the snowblower out to clean up the driveway on Thursday. Of course we cleaned out the sensor and turned on the driveway, too! We probably have the only dry pavement around! The snowplow came and made one pass down our street yesterday afternoon, and today they came back and cleaned it up wall to wall.

We (Tim) actually thought to cut down our Christmas tree before the biggest storm, so that we didn't make it harder than it needed to be. This tree was picked out due to its location. It blocked the view of the lake from our guest room.
Knitting update:
I have finished the two Christmas projects that I had been working on and will reveal them after gifting. I finished Jamison's 3rd mitten (the match for the size that fit properly) and realized that it was bigger than the first, so I frogged it and started over. I think I must have knit the first rather tightly, because of concern that it would be too big. I'll knit the next one more tightly this time -and keep the other around as a reference so that I can keep on track. This is a risk, because it becomes something that Jack can steal, if not locked up safe in my workroom (where I don't really work that much).

I also joined Ravelry, an online knitting community, which is pretty great. If you are a member, you can see the secret projects there.

Winter has come to the Sierra Nevada!!

After a dismal winter last year, we have been hoping for a big snow year and some good skiing this winter. We had several coatings of snow early (September-October) and it got our hopes up. But then there was nothing. The area was totally dry and ski resorts were having to make snow. Below is a picture of Homewood a few days after Thanksgiving:
Pretty depressing. The patches of snow are man-made. Finally, the winter storms have begun. Our first real winter storm came in on the 6th. It wasn't huge, but was enough to cover the ground and with a good thick coating and begin our base. It also brought the beloved sound of snowplows scraping the roads (indicating significant amounts of snowfall). Here is the bottom of Homewood after that storm:
Now we have a series of storms coming at us. We are currently in the midst of the second storm in a series of 5. The first only gave us a few inches, but today's system is supposed to give us around 10". The winter storm warning for the area says that the storms behind this one may drop an additional 1-2 feet by late Thursday, but that may be at higher elevations. Hopefully we will get a bunch here at lake level! Here's a glimpse of the current conditions:
In light of the power outages in the East, you may think I'm crazy for wanting so much snow, or you may wonder if we don't have a problem with losing power out here. Actually, we lose power a lot in the winter. While that is a part of life here, we have a backup generator, so it won't be too big of a deal. In fact, the electrician installed the transfer switch just yesterday. Our generator can't run the whole house, so we only have selected circuits connected to the backup power. We will not have power for the oven and dishwasher, some of the outlets, some of the lights. We will have the heater, partial lights, internet (and wi-fi), TV and more. We won't be roughing it in an outage.