I'm dreaming of a . . .

White Christmas, just like the one . . . It was great at first, but now it's a pain in the neck. Turn the clock back to 2 weeks before Christmas. We have been getting waves of snow storms and as we hardly ever get snow, I put on my photographer hat and was looking forward to capturing a few snow scenes.



Now I want to let that BIG guy upstairs know that I've gotting more than my share of snow pictures. Our weather forecaster told us that Saturday was going to be the last of the snow and our warm weather was going to return (to melt it all away). This was good news for me as my car (and my bike & scoot too) have all been sitting idle for the past 3 weeks just waiting to be free. I have been hitching a ride with a co-worker in the morning, but have to take public transit home.


(Skytrain station platform, waiting for the train)

We also have an AWD Subaru which my wife uses and 3 of us have been sharing it during these periods of snow. My wife takes it to her work but our son leaves early and takes the car home. I leave work in Coquitlam and take public transit home, taking nearly 1-1/2 hours, wait a bit, then take the Subaru downtown to pickup my wife so I have been double commuting the past 3 weeks which has been eating into my Blog time. I cannot get my car out . . .


(our impassable Lane)

It is impossible to drive down our lane. While all the main roads are bare and clear, I have to drive down this lane to the end, make a left turn and exit another 1/2 block further down. Today, after work I had a friend try to do me a favour by driving his 4x4 down our lane to make "tracks" for me to get my car out. We almost got stuck in his 4x4. Yesterday our lane was hard packed. We went up and down our lane in our WRX around seven times to clear the way and I think we could have gotten the car out, but then a surprise snow storm came unexpectedly and dumped another 10cm or more. Monday morning all the roads in Vancouver were in bad shape and all the news reports said not to drive if at all possible, so I took public transit to work again. It took 2 hours to get to work and I was an hour late. The warm air has finally arrived which has made our snow "slushy" . It is now very slippery and it doesn't matter what kind of tires you have, your wheels will just spin and do nothing.



How I long for the weather of KW as Conchscooter maintains that the only sensible mode of transport for residents of his paradise would use something like this, but up here in the northern region we require snow tires and chains, and perhaps a shovel or two to dig out a path to follow.



and even if you managed to get to your destination you would not be able to use the bike rack without digging out your shovel.

When we built our carport a few years ago (actually around 20 years ago), I ran the power through the trees on one side of our property. I had always planned to bury the power line underground but never got around to it. Now the trees are more mature (read "weak") and the snow load was just too much for the aged branches to hold all that weight. The branches are usually 40-50 feet in the air, but loaded down with all the wet snow the branches were drooping down to the point where we could nearly reach them. I noticed that the branches were "tugging" at the power line and we only had another inch or too slack before they were going to rip out the wiring. I knew that my chain saw needed a carb rebuild as it had not been used for many years and all I had was my circular saw. So I just kept hacking it while on my ladder until I managed to cut a few large branches off the tree to take some weight off the trunk. In the spring I know what I will have to rewire the carport and get rid of the tree. Too bad it will cut into my riding time



Hopefully the rain will come and wash all this white stuff away.