My first winter expotition...

of the year. The first two times I went out to shovel snow today, it was coming down like there was no tomorrow. It didn't seem that cold, so I couldn't figure out why my fingers felt frozen so soon after being outside. Then.. my cheeks... Hmm.... Every now and then I would kneel down, curl up my fingers in the gloves and blow into them to warm up the icicles within. It helped... just a little. I was out there about an hour each time, and in that duration, it would appear that the rate of snow falling was perhaps 2 to 3 inches per hour. In the previous post I mentioned the beautiful, fluffy snowflakes... twirling and dancing... Well... as we all know, twirling and dancing snowflakes means that the wind is directionless and swirling... therefore, you try to shovel light fluffy snow and it comes flying back at you. Insult to injury, I was standing under the big fir tree and ploof... a pile of snow landed on my head, prompted by a gust of wind. Good thing it wasn't a branch. Anyways, I decided to check the weather online and found out that the reason my fingers felt frozen was because it was actually minus 8... with a windchill of minus 16... So, there you have it. Silly me.

So, in the early evening, sitting in the house, my body was starting to feel rather cold, and a tad ... achy... I'm surprised that I wasn't more sore from Saturday and Sunday's shovelling. I was thinking of not making the short trek to the obligatory twice-weekly sporting activity, but decided to go for it anyways. Thus I began my first winter expotition. Changed clothes, added clothes on top of clothes, socks on top of socks, jacket, toque, winterboots... bag, racquet... all set... Open the door... more snow... still snowing. Sigh. Although still light and fluffy, on the way there it was slippery underneath in some spots... Made it without incident, only to find ... no one else there and the door locked. Sigh. As I was heading back out the parking lot, another person showed up walking as well...  Heavy sigh. I had checked earlier in the day and knew that it wasn't a "snow day", but apparently the teachers and students left school earlier than usual. Oh well... Walked back home... still snowing... unpacked my gear and grabbed the shovel once again. Normally, after I was finished, I would have flooped down on that huge pile of snow and started making a couch out of it, but it just seemed too damn cold.

It stopped snowing for a bit, but started again, however as of right now, I cannot tell how much is coming down, as the lovely single pane glass windows I have are frosted over... nay... frozen over. I just actually scraped the icy coating on the inside of the window with my fingernail to see if I could clear a spot. Nice.